Biden Says Veterans 'Deserve Better Than Trump' in Tampa

Joe Biden tore into President Donald Trump for his reported remarks referring to fallen soldiers as “suckers” during a Tuesday campaign visit to the key battleground state of Florida. It marked Biden’s latest reaction on remarks, sourced anonymously and first reported in The Atlantic, describing offensive comments by the president toward fallen and captured U.S. service members, including calling World War I dead at an American military cemetery in France “losers” and “suckers” in 2018. Trump has denied the remarks. But the reported comments, many of which were confirmed independently by The Associated Press, have given Biden an opportunity to press what Democrats believe may be an opening among veteran voters and military families, who broadly supported Trump in 2016. During the Tuesday event in Tampa, Biden spoke about his son Beau, who served in the Delaware National Guard and died of a brain tumor in 2015. Biden spoke about his experience as vice president escorting military caskets home and working on military issues, and about his own commitments to strengthen the VA and tackle veterans' mental health crisis. And he attacked Trump for what he said were failed promises to veterans. “President Trump likes to say he passed VA Choice, but just like everything else he seems to say, it’s a figment of his imagination or a flat-out lie,” he said, referencing a program passed under the Obama administration that steers more patients to the private sector. The event kicked off Biden's first trip to Florida as the Democratic presidential nominee on Tuesday. Later in the day, Biden will hold a Hispanic Heritage Month kickoff event in Kissimmee, near Orlando, as part of an urgent mission to build support among Latinos who could decide the election in one of the nation's fiercest battleground states. A win for Biden in Florida would dramatically narrow President Donald Trump's path to reelection. But in a state where elections are often decided by a percentage point, there are mounting concerns that Biden may be slipping, particularly with the state's influential Latino voters. An NBC-Marist poll released last week found Latinos in the state about evenly divided between Biden and Trump. Democrat Hillary Clinton led Trump by a 59% to 36% margin among Latinos in the same poll in 2016 - and Trump won Florida by about 1 percentage point. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2TwO8Gm QUICKTAKE ON SOCIAL: Follow QuickTake on Twitter: twitter.com/quicktake Like QuickTake on Facebook: facebook.com/quicktake Follow QuickTake on Instagram: instagram.com/quicktake Subscribe to our newsletter: https://bit.ly/2FJ0oQZ Email us at [email protected] QuickTake by Bloomberg is a global news network delivering up-to-the-minute analysis on the biggest news, trends and ideas for a new generation of leaders.