Joe Biden was wrapping up his annual State of the Union speech to Congress on Thursday night when he decided to take his final dig of the evening at Donald Trump.
“My lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy . . . to respect everyone,” Biden said. “Some other people my age,” he added, in a thinly veiled reference to the former president only four years his junior, “see a different story — an American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution”.
The US president and his top aides believe that by November 5, general election day in America, voters across the country will see that same contrast and hand him, and not his predecessor, a second term in the White House.