Biden votes early, calls Trump's NYC rally 'simply embarrassing'
President Joe Biden voted early in the 2024 general election on Monday, casting his last ballot as president, and lashed at Donald Trump over his Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden.
Biden waited in line to make his choice official at the Department of Elections office near his home in Wilmington, Delaware. The president chatted up the people standing in line as he waited his turn.
After casting his vote, he shook hands with few voters and posed for a photo. When asked if the experience had been bittersweet, he said it was “just sweet.”
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Biden said he was dismayed at former President Donald Trump’s Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. The event was marked by racist comments and vitriol by multiple speakers.
Comedian Tony Hinchliffe, one of the featured speakers, called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage and talked about carving watermelons with a Black friend. Trump called Vice President Kamala Harris, his opponent and the Democratic presidential nominee, a "very low IQ individual."
“It was simply embarrassing, beneath any president, but that's what we're getting used to,” Biden said. “That's why the election is so important.”
Presidential scholars often point to a president’s “character” as the “single most consequential thing,” he said.
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Before casting his vote, Biden had an almost two-hour long breakfast with Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester in New Castle.
Rochester became the first woman and first African American to represent Delaware in Congress when she was elected in 2016.
With just eight days to go until Election Day on Nov. 5, Biden said he planned to campaign for Harris in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the coming days.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for Paste BN. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal.