Biden: Pennsylvania is key to defeating Trump

PITTSBURGH — With a Pittsburgh union hall as a backdrop, Joe Biden made his first official speech as a 2020 presidential candidate Monday.

From the event’s atmospherics to the substance of his remarks, the address was carefully calibrated to send a message: while his rivals
are pursuing the Democratic nomination, the former vice president plans to run a general election campaign focused on Donald Trump.

“If I’m going to be able to beat Donald Trump in 2020, it’s going to happen here,” Biden told a packed crowd at the Teamsters Local 249 banquet hall here.

Biden stuck to an economic message tailored for Pittsburgh, where he praised organized labor and denigrated Wall Street CEOs and companies that used the Trump tax cuts to buy back stocks while laying off workers.

While other Democratic contenders criticize the president to varying degree, few have been so explicit in focusing their attention squarely on him. Biden announced his candidacy last week via an unorthodox video announcement that directly aimed at Trump’s response to violent demonstrations in Charlottesville in 2017. And his decision to headquarter his campaign in Philadelphia — and kick it off with a rally at the other end of the state in Pittsburgh — underscore his connection to Pennsylvania, a key industrial swing state Trump unexpectedly captured in 2016.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-tears-into-trump-at-pittsburgh-campaign-kickoff/ar-AAAIh9F