Biden blasts Trump for saying he 'deserted' Pennsylvania: 'I was 10'

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Joe Biden blasted President Trump for telling a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this week that the former vice president, who was born in Scranton, Pa., “deserted” the Keystone State.

Biden’s family moved to Delaware when he was in elementary school.

“My family did have to leave Pennsylvania when I was 10,” Biden wrote in a fundraising email Tuesday. “We moved to Delaware where my dad found a job that could provide for our family.

President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. (Photos: Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images, Michelle Gustafson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. (Photos: Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images, Michelle Gustafson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“This is proof that Donald Trump doesn’t understand the struggles working folks go through,” Biden continued. “He doesn’t understand what it’s like to worry you will lose the roof over your head. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to wonder if you’re able to put food on the table. And he doesn’t understand that the longest walk a parent can make is up a short flight of stairs to their child’s bedroom to sit on the end of the bed and say, ‘Honey, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. We have to move. You can’t go back to your school. You won’t see your friends. You can’t play on that team. You can’t be in the choir because Daddy lost his job or Mommy lost her job.’

“My dad had to make that walk in Scranton, Pennsylvania,” he added.

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At his rally in Montoursville, Pa., on Monday night, Trump took aim at Biden, who has emerged as the frontrunner in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

“Don’t forget, Biden deserted you,” the president said. “He’s not from Pennsylvania. I guess he was born here, but he left you folks. He left you for another state. Remember that please.”

Trump reportedly considers Biden the biggest threat to his reelection, in part because of his popularity among working class voters in key swing states like Pennsylvania.

According to a Quinnipiac poll released last week, Biden leads Trump 53 percent to 42 percent in a theoretical general election matchup among voters in the Keystone State.

In 2016, Trump won Pennsylvania, upsetting Hillary Clinton by 1.2 percentage points.

Biden held the first rally of his 2020 presidential run in Pittsburgh and located his campaign headquarters in Philadelphia.

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