Joe Biden to Trump: ‘I’m Not Going Anywhere’

Former Vice President Joe Biden compiled what was said to be his response Wednesday evening in Reno, Nevada to President Donald Trump’s allegations of corruption, declaring in his prepared text: “I’m not going anywhere!”

The tagline — with its unfortunate double-meaning — was reported by the Washington Post, which obtained excerpts of the speech in advance, merely hours after several new polls suggested that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) had surged past Biden into first place in the race for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination.

A Monmouth Poll of early primary states released Wednesday found Warren (28%) ahead of Biden (25%) by 3% — barely within the poll’s 3.1% margin of error. A new YouGov/Economist poll found Warren (28%) ahead of Biden (22%) by 6%.

Moreover, the breaking news that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), 78, had been admitted to hospital for emergency heart surgery also drew attention to Biden’s age (76) and his own history of health problems.

Still, Biden wanted Trump — and Democrats — to know that he would fight on, in response to Trump’s charges that he and his son, Hunter, were “stone-cold crooked.” The Washington Post reported from his remarks, as prepared for delivery:

“Let me make something clear to Trump and his hatchet men and the special interests funding his attacks against me — I’m not going anywhere,” Biden will say. “You’re not going to destroy me. And you’re not going to destroy my family. I don’t care how much money you spend or how dirty the attacks get.”

…

Biden said Trump sought to discredit him and his family because, “like every bully in history—he’s afraid. He’s afraid of just how badly I would beat him next November.”

The Post concluded its story by quoting Biden: “Nobody has ever asserted that I did anything wrong except he and what’s that fellow’s name? Rudy Udi? Giuliani?”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.