Donald Trump whips up crowd by calling Biden 'an enemy of the state'

'Joe Biden came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to give the most vicious, hateful and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president,' Donald Trump told a crowd of supporters

Donald Trump has fired back with both barrels at the FBI for its raid on his house in Florida and at President Biden for his speech earlier in the week. In another high octane and extraordinary Trump rally - this time in Pennsylvania - the former President accused his successor of “being an enemy of the state.”

Even by Trump’s incendiary and provocative standards that is quite a claim. Trump said that Biden’s speech in Philadelphia on Wednesday night - delivered symbolically outside Independence Hall - was an insult to all 74 million Americans who had voted Republican. President Biden had accused Trump and his MAGA supporters - the acronym for ‘Make American Great Again’ - of undermining US democracy and of being a threat to America’s very soul.

It was the most confrontational and divisive comment Biden has made since he entered the White House.

This has now become a deeply personal re-run of their 2020 presidential battle, and comes just weeks before the midterm congressional elections. Ironically, neither Trump nor Biden are on the ballot in November - but the midterms have very clearly become a proxy war for the next presidential election in 2024. The most vitriolic attack by Trump was aimed at the FBI, which he said the Biden administration had weaponised against him.

He accused the Bureau’s agents - who raided Mar-a-Lago on August 8 - of "one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history.” It didn’t seem possible that American politics could become more polarised. But the duelling speeches by Biden and Trump this week in Pennsylvania have shown that the great divide has become the great chasm.

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