"Had Distinct Misfortune Of Watching Trump's Speech": Biden

US President Joe Biden hit out at Donald Trump on Saturday for his "dark vision" for the country and said he will resume campaign next week to expose his Republican rival's Project 2025 agenda amidst Democrats' calls for him to quit the race.

In a thread of 13 posts on X, Biden, 81, said he had the “distinct misfortune of watching” Trump's speech, which he fact-checked and tore down the latter's claims one by one, at times, supporting it by what his government did on that issue late on Friday night local time.

Biden, who tested positive for COVID-19 a few days ago, is in isolation at his home in Delaware. After this week's rest, he is expected to hit the campaign trail next week as he aims to seek re-election.

“I'm stuck at home with COVID, so I had the distinct misfortune of watching Donald Trump's speech to the RNC. What the hell was he talking about?” Biden started with this post on X while poking fun at the keynote speech of the opposition party's presidential nominee for the November 5 election at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Thursday.

Biden then added 11 other posts each fact-checking issues, including what Trump, 78, did with COVID-19, his claim about Social Security and Medical, tax cuts, inflation, and Project 2025 agenda where Trump wants “to throw immigrants into mass detention camps.” The post which said, “He praised Hannibal Lecter. Donald, Hannibal Lecter is not real. And he is a cannibal,” almost went viral garnering the most retweets and likes among other posts in the thread.

The thread ended with: “And if you're with me, pitch in to our campaign” and had a poster showing Trump and his running mate J D Vance and a caption: ‘Protect Democracy. Defeat Trump-Vance.' Meanwhile, in a statement issued by his campaign, Biden said: “Donald Trump's dark vision for the future is not who we are as Americans. Together, as a party and as a country, we can and will defeat him at the ballot box.” “I look forward to getting back on the campaign trail next week to continue exposing the threat of Donald Trump's Project 2025 agenda while making the case for my own record and the vision that I have for America: one where we save our democracy, protect our rights and freedoms and create opportunity for everyone,” he said.

“For over 90 minutes, he focused on his own grievances, with no plan to unite us and no plan to make life better for working people,” said the president referring to Trump's speech.

“He avoided mentioning his Project 2025 agenda, but still proudly flaunted the worst of MAGA (Make America Great Again) extremism," Biden said, referring to Trump's mention of immigrants. “Americans know exactly where he wants to take this country.” One of the priorities of Project 2025, published by the Heritage Foundation, is to create a roadmap for the first 180 days of the new Trump administration to quickly reorient every federal agency around its conservative vision. It also aims to recruit and train thousands of people loyal to the conservative movement to fill federal government positions, according to CNN.

The Biden-Harris campaign alleged: “Trump is still the same twice-impeached, 34-time convicted felon consumed by revenge and hell-bent on seeking retribution in a second term.” Days after Biden's disastrous performance against Trump in the first presidential debate, Democrats remained split on whether he can beat the former president in November and as of Friday at least 10 Democrats had joined the chorus calling on him to step back. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)