Trump ripped Biden’s climate plan released earlier in the day, claiming that Biden’s call for reaching net-zero carbon emissions for all new buildings by 2030 “basically means no windows, no nothing.” The president also accused his opponent of seeking to abolish prisons — Biden has only called for ending federal use of private prisons — and railed against other parts of Biden’s criminal justice and immigration platform.
The president only briefly touched on the coronavirus pandemic except to blame China for it, but did not substantively address a new surge in cases roiling parts of the Sun Belt and driving record-breaking numbers of new infections.
The disjointed, stream-of-consciousness remarks, though initially billed to reporters as a news conference on Hong Kong, could have been mistaken for the lengthy speeches Trump typically delivers at campaign rallies. (One such event, planned for last Saturday in New Hampshire, was canceled at the last minute.)
At one point Trump jumped back and forth between bashing the World Health Organization, from which his administration has moved to withdraw over criticism that the international health body was too deferential to China, and boasting that his administration had “fully rebuilt” the military.
Later, while accusing Biden of being soft on China and reading out complimentary comments from the former vice president about Beijing, Trump briefly pivoted to reprise his attacks on Biden’s son Hunter and his international work in China and Ukraine before returning to tout the strength of the pre-pandemic economy.
But for all the heat thrown Biden’s way, Trump insisted that he didn’t believe myriad polls showing him trailing the former vice president in key swing states and even some traditionally red states.
“We have really good poll numbers — they are not suppression polls, they are real polls,” Trump asserted. He then pointed to his support among boaters and bikers, and claimed that, like in 2016, Trump voters were afraid to express their support to pollsters.
“You look at the intercoastal in Florida, if you look at the lakes and you see thousands of boats with Trump signs and America signs, and you have the Trump-Pence signs all over, you look at what’s going on and you look up bikers for miles and miles riding up highways proudly with their signs,” Trump said. “It was the same thing in 2016,” he added.
Biden’s campaign lapped up the president’s speech, with the Democratic candidate’s rapid-response director exclaiming that “we’ll help foot the bill for the taxpayers” if Trump held more winding speeches like the one delivered Tuesday.
After taking questions from just four reporters and promising that “we’re going to be having these conferences again,” Trump repeated a vague promise that he would soon be signing an “immigration act” to address the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, though Congress has passed no such bill.
The president then turned and walked back to the Oval Office, ignoring shouted questions from the media.
