Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is making an appeal to a crucial voting bloc in an important battleground state, and he's enlisting some help to do it – his old boss, former President Barack Obama.
8:30 p.m. EDT
Joe Biden is letting loose against President Trump in the final days of the presidential campaign.
At a drive-in rally in Detroit on Saturday night, Biden made fun of Trump for everything from his hairdo to his cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin to Trump’s description of himself as a “perfect physical specimen.”
Biden noted the president “likes to portray himself as a tough guy,” but noted Trump was laughed at by United Nations leaders. “Tough guy, my — my word,” Biden said, pausing just short of finishing the quip with a vulgar word.
Noting Trump has called himself a “perfect physical specimen,” Biden, a devout Catholic, jokingly made the sign of the cross.
And referencing a New York Times report that Trump took $70,000 in tax deductions for hair care, Biden quipped, “I hardly have any hair, but I’ll tell you what man, I’d rather have what I have!”
While the Democratic presidential candidate often takes jabs at Trump, on Saturday night, campaigning alongside former President Barack Obama — who also roundly mocked Trump — Biden seemed to be having more fun than usual with his attacks.
6:00 p.m. EDT
Former vice president Joe Biden and former president Barack Obama stopped to thank a group of young canvassers in Michigan and encouraged them to stay involved in politics after the election.
The Democrats made a surprise stop Saturday at a canvass kickoff in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, as they drove from a campaign event in Flint to a later one in Detroit. About three dozen volunteers, most of them young people, had gathered in socially distanced lines in a church parking lot, ready to pick up canvassing materials.
The former president and vice president thanked the group for their work. Obama told the volunteers that “change is possible, but it’s not guaranteed.”
Biden told the crowd their work makes a difference in an election where they are “literally fighting for our democracy.” He suggested the young volunteers run for office.
3:45 p.m. EDT
Former President Barack Obama called Joe Biden his “brother,” and the Democratic presidential campaign returned the appreciation at their Flint, Michigan, rally.
"Went through 8 years without one single trace of scandal," Biden said, heaping praise on his former boss. "Not one single trace of scandal. It's going to be nice to return to that."
Like Obama, Biden hammered President Trump on his administration's COVID-19 response, as well as his recent unfounded claim about doctors profiting off of coronavirus deaths, which the former vice president called "perverted."
"He suggested, falsely, that they're inflating the number of COVID deaths to make more money" Biden said. "What in the hell is wrong with his man? Excuse my language, but think about it. It's perverted."
Biden urged people to get out and vote and make their voices heard: "When America is heard I believe that it's going to be loud and it's going to be clear: It's time for Donald Trump to pack his bags and go home."
"We're done with the chaos, the tweets, the anger, the hate, the failure, the refusal to take any responsibility. We've got a lot of work to do," Biden said.
As the pair headed to Detroit for a rally that includes a performance from music legend Stevie Wonder, Biden's campaign announced that the Democratic presidential candidate tested negative for COVID-19.
"Vice President Biden underwent PCR testing for COVID-19 today and COVID-19 was not detected," his campaign announced.
It is his 18th negative test since Trump tested positive for coronavirus.
2:40 p.m. EDT
In a fiery speech introducing Biden, Former President Barack Obama had plenty to say about his predecessor, President Donald Trump.
Obama slammed Trump's unfounded theory he espoused at rallies Friday, accusing doctors of profiting off of the coronavirus pandemic.
"He cannot fathom, he does not understand," Obama said, "the notion that somebody would risk their life to save others without trying to make a buck."
Obama criticized what he called Trump's "obsession" with crowd size.
"You notice that? This is the one measure he has of success. He's still worrying about his inauguration crowd being smaller than mine. It really bugs him. He's still talking about that."
Obama asked: "Does he have nothing better to worry about? Did no one come to his birthday party when he was a kid? Was he traumatized? What's with crowds?"
He was highly critical of the Trump administration's response to the pandemic: "His chief of staff says we're not gonna control the pandemic. That's a quote. Said it last week. We are not going to control the pandemic. We noticed, Mr. Chief of Staff. We understand you're not going control the pandemic."
"But you know who will?" Obama asked. "Joe Biden will."
"Joe's not going to screw up testing," the former president said. "Joe's not going to call scientists idiots. He's not going to host superspreader events around the country."
"Trump cares about feeding his ego," Obama said. "Joe cares about keeping you and your family safe. And he's less interested in feeding his ego with having big crowds than making sure he's not going around making more and more people sick. That's what you should expect from a president."
Obama said that he and his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, discussed that "you’re not going to have to think about" a Biden administration every day.
"You'll be able to get on with your lives knowing that the president won't suggest we inject bleach as a possible cure of COVID," Obama said. "You won't wake up in the morning, kind of open your phone and – news flash – the president retweeted conspiracy theories."
When he took the stage, Biden said of Obama's speech: "Kind of reminds you of how good it can be, listening to him, doesn't it?"
Earlier
Biden enters the final weekend of the presidential campaign with an intense focus on appealing to Black voters whose support will be critical in his bid to defeat President Trump.
Biden and Obama will be making a swing through the Wolverine State on Saturday, holding drive-in rallies in Flint and Detroit, predominantly Black cities where strong turnout will be essential to return this longtime Democratic state to Biden’s column after Trump narrowly won the state in 2016.
But the former president won't be the only special guest – music icon Stevie Wonder will perform in Detroit on Saturday after Biden and Obama speak.
The memories of Trump’s upset win in Michigan and the rest of the upper Midwest are still searing in the minds of many Democrats during this closing stretch. That leaves Biden in the position of holding a consistent lead in the national polls and an advantage in most battlegrounds, including Michigan, yet still facing anxiety that it could all slip away.
Rep. Dan Kildee, a Democrat who represents the Flint area, told the Associated Press he had been pressing for a couple of months for Biden or Obama to visit Flint, a city bedeviled by a water crisis that began in 2014 and sickened the city’s residents, exposing stark racial inequities.
“Showing up matters,” Kildee said. “The message is important, no question about it. But there’s a message implicit in showing up, especially in Flint. This is a community that has felt left behind many, many times and overlooked many, many times.”
“It’s a message to the people here that they matter, their vote matters,” Kildee said. “I think that helps.”
The press for Michigan’s Black voters comes after voting was down roughly 15% in Flint and Detroit four years ago — a combined 48,000-plus votes in a state Trump carried by about 10,700 votes. Overall, the Black voter turnout rate declined for the first time in 20 years in a presidential election, falling to 59.6% in 2016 after reaching a record-high 66.6% four years earlier, according to the Pew Research Center.
Some Democrats say the dynamic is different this year. Jonathan Kinloch leads the 13th Congressional District Democratic Party, which includes parts of Detroit, and expressed confidence that Black voters will turn out for Biden.
“This is not 2016,” said Kinloch, who is Black. “People are motivated. People are energized and ready to right the wrong of 2016.”
Trump isn’t ceding Michigan to Biden. He visited Waterford Township, near Detroit, on Friday and held a rally in the state capital of Lansing earlier in the week.
While Biden is expected to win the vast majority of Black voters in next week’s election, Trump has also courted them and hopes to shave into Democrats’ historic advantage in the community.
In his Michigan visits, Trump argued that he’s been a better steward of their interests, while pillorying the state’s Democratic governor over restrictions in the state she’s implemented to try to stem the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 229,000 Americans nationally and infected more than 9 million.
Trump argued that he had followed through on promoting trade policies that have benefited Michigan’s auto industry over the last four years. And although Obama steered about $80 billion to bail out General Motors and Chrysler, Trump argued that he and Biden didn’t do enough to help manufacturing workers when the Great Recession jolted the auto industry a decade ago.
“At every turn Biden twisted the knife into the back of Michigan workers and workers all over the country,” Trump said at his rally in Waterford on Friday. “In 2016, Michigan voted to fire this corrupt political establishment, and you elected an outsider as president.”
With the election down to the final days, Trump’s closing sprint includes four stops in Pennsylvania on Saturday and nearly a dozen events in the final 48 hours across states he carried in 2016.
Biden will close out his campaign on Monday in Pennsylvania, the state where he was born and the one he’s visited more than any other in his campaign. The Biden team announced that Biden, his wife, Jill, his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, and her husband, Doug Emhoff, plan to “fan out across all four corners of the state.”
The former vice president campaigned in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin on Friday. Trump also visited Minnesota and Wisconsin in addition to his stop in Michigan on Friday.
Biden campaigned in Iowa for the first time since the state’s Democratic caucuses more than eight months ago. Trump easily won the state in 2016, but polls show a competitive race with days to go.
Biden noted as he spoke at a drive-in rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds that, for the first time since World War II, the iconic state fair had to be canceled because of the pandemic.
He pledged to enact a plan to halt the spread of the virus and told the crowd, to honks from the cars gathered, “unlike Donald Trump, we will not surrender to the virus.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.