Washington [US], September 30. Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden on Tuesday criticized US President Donald Trump for failing to confront Russia over several issues including Moscow offering the Taliban bounties to kill US troops and termed Trump as a "puppy" of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden makes the case for why the American people should vote for him instead of President Donald Trump, saying "under the president (Trump) we have become sicker poor, more divided, more violent".
"Under this president, we become weaker, sicker, poor, more divided, and more violent. When I was Vice President, we inherited a recession. I was asked to fix it. I did," he said
"We left him a booming economy, and he caused the recession with regard to be weaker. The fact is that I've gone head to head with Putin and made it clear to him we're not going to take any of his stuff. He's Putin's puppy. He still refuses to even say anything to Putin about the bounty on the heads of American soldiers," he added.
Trump interrupted Biden multiple times during his answer and moderator Chris Wallace had to intervene.
Biden was referring to June reports that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghstan.
Trump administration faced criticism after it was revealed that Trump and the White House's National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March but did not take any actions.
Today's presidential debate turned chaotic as Trump was intent on interrupting Biden on nearly every question. The former vice president wasn't above name-calling, calling the President a "clown" and telling him to "shut up."
Biden also called Trump a "racist" during a heated exchange over issues of race and protests against law enforcement.
"This is a President who has used everything as a dog whistle to try to generate racist hatred, racist division," Biden said during the first presidential debate. He argued that Trump "pours gasoline on the fire" to stoke his base over racial issues.
Biden said there's "systemic injustice" in law enforcement, but also said the blame lies simply on individual "bad apples" in the system.
During the debate, Trump refused to explicitly call out white supremacists for inciting violence at anti-police brutality demonstrations across the country, saying during the debate that the violence wasn't an issue caused by the right and telling one far-right group to "stand back and stand by."
"Sure, I'm willing to (tell them to stand down), but I would say almost everything I see is from the left-wing, not from the right-wing. I'm willing to do anything. I want to see peace," Trump said.
"Who would you like me to condemn?" Trump asked moderator Chris Wallace. "Proud Boys -- stand back and stand by. But I'll tell you what. ... Somebody's got to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem."
In the end, Wallace asked Trump and Biden as to how can they reassure Americans that the next president is the legitimate winner of the election.
Biden urged people to vote. Trump sought to incite fear about the legitimacy of the election.
Biden pushed Americans to vote either by mail or in person. "You have it in your control to determine what the country is going to look like these next four years," he said. "He cannot stop you from being able to determine the outcome of this election."
Biden said he will accept the outcome of the election whether he wins or loses.
Trump used his response to complain about a "coup" he says was waged against him ever since he began running for president.
( With inputs from ANI )
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