Vice President Joe Biden denounced presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump’s foreign policy in a speech at the Center for a New American Security’s National Security Inheritance conference Monday as “anti-American.”
Although Biden did not mention Trump by name, he alluded to the real estate mogul’s proposed ban on Muslims and anti-immigration policy, among other controversial positions held by the candidate.
“Adopting the tactics of our enemies — using torture, threatening to kill innocent family members, indiscriminately bombing civilian populations — not only violates our values, it’s deeply damaging to our security,” Biden said. “Wielding the politics of fear and intolerance—like proposals to ban Muslims from entering the United States or slandering entire religious communities as complicit in terrorism—calls into question America’s status as the greatest democracy in the history of the world.”
This will be Biden’s strongest attack on the candidate yet, and comes as part of his and President Barack Obama’s first direct campaigning for Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton after both endorsed her last week.
“Our leadership does not spring from some inherent American magic — it never has. We earn it — over and over — through hard work and discipline,” Biden said.
Biden also criticized Trump’s praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Embracing Putin at a time of renewed Russian aggression could call into question America’s longstanding commitment to a Europe whole, free and at peace,” Biden said.
His criticism of Trump as un-American comes with his comments regarding the candidate’s proposed border wall against Mexico, which he said will cause “a return of anti-Americanism and a corrosive rift throughout our hemisphere.”
“[Trump’s platform] will only make the problem worse… [and] plays into the narrative of extremists,” Biden said. “We shouldn’t give them what they want- we are so much better than that.”