Joseph R. Biden Jr on Monday issued a forceful rebuttal to President Trump’s claim that the former vice- president would preside over a nation overwhelmed by disorder and lawlessness, asserting that it was Trump who had made the country unsafe through his erratic and incendiary governing style.

Biden condemned the violence that has occasionally erupted amid largely peaceful protests over racial injustice, and noted that the chaos was occurring on the President’s watch. He said Trump had made things worse by stoking division amid a national outcry over racism and police brutality.

“Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is re-elected?” he said. “We need justice in America. We need safety in America. We’re facing multiple crises — crises that, under Donald Trump, have kept multiplying.”

Biden, the Democratic nominee for President, also pressed a broader argument that the President was endangering Americans with his response to the public health and economic challenges the country confronts.

The address was Biden’s most prominent effort yet to deflect the criticism that Trump and Republicans levelled against him at their convention last week, when they distorted his record on crime and policing. And in a fusillade of tweets over the last 48 hours the President suggested Biden was tolerant of “Anarchists, Thugs & Agitators”.

Speaking at the site of a converted steel mill in Pittsburgh with no audience, in a rare campaign appearance outside eastern Pennsylvania or his home state of Delaware, Biden rejected the suggestion that lawlessness would go unchecked under his leadership. “Ask yourself: Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters?” Biden, 77, said. “Really? I want a safe America. Safe from Covid, safe from crime and looting, safe from racially motivated violence, safe from bad cops. Let me be crystal clear: safe from four more years of Donald Trump.”