Biden rips Trump for claiming former VP ‘deserted’ Pennsylvania

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joe Biden blasted President Trump for shaming him for abandoning Pennsylvania — an attack line the president deployed at his Montoursville, Pennsylvania rally Monday night.

“My family did have to leave Pennsylvania when I was 10,” Biden wrote in a fundraising plea Tuesday, reminding his supporters about the circumstances that brought his family to Delaware — that his dad had lost his job.

“We moved to Delaware where my dad found a job that could provide for our family,” Biden said.

“This is proof that Donald Trump doesn’t understand the struggles working folks go through. 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.”

Biden continued, “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,” the ex-veep recalled.

Pennsylvania is a key battleground state, Biden, a Scranton native, opened up his campaign headquarters in Philadelphia.

Trump was the first Republican to win Pa. in two decades when he bested Democratic Hillary Clinton.

No wonder that Trump’s No. 1 Democratic focus at his rally in the Keystone State was Biden, who was leading him by 11 points in a Quinnipiac poll of Pennsylvania voters conducted earlier this month.

Both the president and his son Donald Trump Jr., who was the crowd’s warm-up act, talked about their ties to the state.

The elder Trump attended the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Trump Jr. went to The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania — a boarding school — before attending his dad’s alma mater.

“I know ‘em well, I know ‘em well,” the president said of Pennsylvanians. “And don’t forget, Biden deserted you. 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. I meant to say that. This guy talks about, ‘I know Scranton.’ Well, I know the places better.”

The president then made a slight policy pivot adding, “He left you for another state and he didn’t take care of you, because he didn’t take care of your jobs.”

“He let other countries come in and rip off America,” Trump said. “That doesn’t happen anymore.”

Part of Biden’s — and the Democrats’ message more broadly — is that the Trump economy has left working people behind. But Pennsylvanians attending Monday night’s rally told The Post they felt good about the economy and have noticed gains.

“The wages are going up, there’s more competition for jobs and there’s more jobs right now than there are people,” said Daniel Hayes, a 43-year-old rally attendee in Mount Pleasant Mills, Pennsylvania, who does factory work.

Hayes said he saw an 11 percent increase in pay from the year before. “It would take a lot,” he said, in order for him to vote for somebody besides Trump.

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