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Joe Biden uses clip of Boris Johnson ‘laughing’ at Trump in 2020 election advert

Democratic frontrunner says world leaders see president as 'dangerously incompetent'

Conrad Duncan
Thursday 05 December 2019 12:08 GMT
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Joe Biden uses clip of Boris Johnson laughing at Donald Trump in attack advert

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Joe Biden has used footage of Boris Johnson and other world leaders apparently laughing at Donald Trump in a new campaign advert.

Mr Johnson was filmed with Canada’s Justin Trudeau and France’s Emmanuel Macron appearing to mockingly discuss Mr Trump’s behaviour at the Nato summit on Tuesday.

Although he wasn’t mentioned by name, the president reacted angrily to the video and called Mr Trudeau “two-faced” when asked about the clip.

In the campaign video, Mr Biden said world leaders are laughing at Mr Trump and claimed he is damaging America’s standing in the world.

“The world sees Trump for what he is – insincere, ill-informed, corrupt, dangerously incompetent and incapable, in my view, of world leadership,” Mr Trump said.

“If we give Donald Trump four more years, we’ll have a great deal of difficulty of ever being able to recover America’s standing in the world, and our capacity to bring nations together,” he added.

Mr Biden is the frontrunner to become the Democratic candidate to take on Mr Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

After his comments about Mr Trudeau, Mr Trump abruptly cancelled a planned press conference and left the Nato summit.

The Canadian president was filmed telling world leaders that Mr Macron was late following a press conference with Mr Trump, because, his comments appear to indicate, the US president "takes a 40-minute press conference off the top.”

“You just watched his team’s jaws drop to the floor,” he added.

Mr Johnson has come under pressure to distance himself from Mr Trump after accusations that he will allow US companies to have access to the NHS in a post-Brexit trade deal.

But he said on Wednesday that it was "nonsense" he didn't take Mr Trump seriously, and said he didn't know where the idea had come from.

The UK prime minister has insisted that the NHS is "not for sale" but the Labour Party claims it has documents which show the health service is on the table in trade talks with the US.

Mr Biden has been a consistent target for Mr Trump’s criticism over the past year and the former vice president is a key figure in the ongoing impeachment inquiry into Mr Trump.

The president is accused of withholding military aid to Ukraine to force its leader into announcing an investigation into Mr Biden and his son Hunter.

There is no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr Biden in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, three constitutional scholars told Congress that Mr Trump’s actions had met the legal standard for impeachment and his behaviour amounted to high crimes and misdemeanours.

“I just want to stress that if what we’re talking about is not impeachable, then nothing is impeachable,” Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, said.

“If Congress fails to impeach here, then the impeachment process has lost all meaning.”

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