Former US Vice President Joe Biden has slammed President Donald Trump as a "charlatan", arguing that he takes advantage of frustrated middle class voters who have become his "targets".
"These people aren't prejudiced. They're realistic. And they become targets to charlatans," Biden said in Chicago on Wednesday, referring to middle class voters who supported Trump.
"And look what happens -- like most charlatans throughout time, who seek to aggrandise themselves and consolidate their power, by always blaming the other."
Speaking at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Biden also critiqued the Trump administration's "America First" approach, the Hill magazine reported.
"This administration... casts... global affairs to dog-eat-dog competition, a Hobbesian world in which for Americans to succeed others must lose or fail," he said.
Biden also slammed the Trump administration's foreign policy, including the President's decision to de-certify the Iran nuclear agreement reached under former President Barack Obama.
"President Trump's America First slogan isolates us in the world at a moment when few if any of the threats, of today's threats, can be met without broad international effort and consensus, grounded in mutual interests and mutual respect, shared values."
The former Vice President called Trump "childish" for using Twitter to communicate parts of his foreign policy and said the administration's red lines on North Korea send "signals that are dangerous".
"You know, big nations can't bluff and what the President doesn't realise, drawing all of these red lines with regard to North Korea and then not following up diminishes our power around the world, sends out signals that are dangerous."
"And so we've got to stop this tweeting. We've got to stop this sort of -- it is so -- I've tried to stay out of the mosh pit, the President and I, Obama and I have, but it's childish.
"It's time to grow up. It's time to grow up and act like a real leader," Biden added, receiving a round of applause from the crowd.
--IANS
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