Biden Goes After Trump Over His Felonies, Says He Has ‘Morals Of An Alley Cat’
President Joe Biden accused Donald Trump of having “the morals of an alley cat” because of his parade of criminal felonies and a scandal involving an adult film actress.
The exchange on Thursday night was a heated one at the first presidential debate of the 2024 general election season, a debate hosted by CNN in Atlanta.
“The only person on this stage who is a convicted felon is the man I’m looking at right now,” Biden said about 45 minutes into the debate during a segment devoted to a question about the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The remark, a reference to Trump’s conviction in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records for which he is awaiting sentencing, drew Trump’s ire, as he responded by referencing Biden’s son Hunter also being a felon, having been convicted of illegally owning a gun after lying on a federal firearms form.
“Joe could be a convicted felon with all the horrible things that he’s done. He’s done horrible things,” Trump said.
Biden called Trump’s statement “outrageous” and said no president had ever talked about retribution against their political enemies like Trump had.
“Number three, the crimes that you are still charged with — think of all the civil penalties you owe,” Biden said.
“How many billions of dollars do you owe in civil penalties, for molesting a woman in public, for doing a whole range of things, for having sex with a porn star on the night, while your wife was pregnant? What are you talking about? You have the morals of an alley cat.”
Trump lost two defamation cases to a writer named E. Jean Carroll, who said he had sexually assaulted her in a New York department store some time in the 1990s. Carroll was awarded $5 million in the first case and then $83.3 million in the second one. Trump is appealing both verdicts.
Biden’s comment about having sex with a porn star was a reference to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who was at the center of the New York fraud trial as hush money payments to her were disguised as legal expenses.
“I didn’t have sex with a porn star,” Trump said Thursday, even though Daniels gave a detailed recollection while under oath of what she said was a sexual encounter between the two at a golf resort in 2006.
Trump again said the New York trial was a politically motivated one and said the public understood that. “The public knows it’s a scam,” he said.