Facing rising frustration in his party, the president brushed it off in an energetic speech in Michigan. Inside the room, at least, the Democratic mood was defiant, with cheers of “Don’t go, Joe.”
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“I’m the nominee of the Democratic Party, the only Democrat or Republican who has beaten Donald Trump ever,” President Biden said at a high school in Detroit on Friday evening.
President Biden on Friday strove to turn the nation’s attention back to former President Donald J. Trump, delivering a fiery and energetic speech in battleground Michigan that painted his Republican rival as a convict, a rapist and a cheater while simultaneously attacking the news media for an insufficient focus on such misdeeds.
Even as Mr. Biden faces mounting pressure from congressional Democrats and major donors, he largely ignored the brewing Democratic revolt over his refusal to drop out of the race, beyond an emphatic statement that “I am running, and we’re going to win.”
The president’s defiance, and the crowd’s enthusiastic response, helped give the Biden event at a Detroit high school gym the flavor of a Trump rally at times. When Mr. Biden referred to his political opponent, there were chants of “Lock him up” — which the president did not discourage. When he criticized news media coverage, big cheers followed, with his supporters turning to boo and point fingers at reporters.
Mr. Biden thundered that his rival was a “convicted criminal” and a “business fraud,” and said that he had “raped” the writer E. Jean Carroll, whom Mr. Trump was found liable of sexually abusing by a civil court.
In all, the 35-minute speech was a version of Mr. Biden that has been absent since he began his re-election campaign — and maybe one not seen since he was on a presidential ticket with Barack Obama. After two weeks of Democratic panic since his distressing debate performance, plummeting donations and polls that show him falling further behind Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden acted as if he was in the presidential race to stay.
“I’m the nominee of the Democratic Party, the only Democrat or Republican who has beaten Donald Trump ever,” said Mr. Biden, whose remarks were greeted by loud chants of “Don’t go, Joe” and “Don’t you quit.”
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