Biden’s response to voters concerned about socialism: ‘I beat the socialist.’

Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Monday offered a blunt response to voters concerned about socialism: Look at who won the Democratic primary.

On a campaign trip to Wisconsin, Mr. Biden was asked in an interview with a local television station, WLUK, to address voters “worried about socialism.”

“I beat the socialist,” Mr. Biden said. “That’s how I got elected. That’s how I got the nomination. Do I look like a socialist? Look at my career — my whole career. I am not a socialist.”

Mr. Biden was referring to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described democratic socialist whom he defeated to capture the Democratic presidential nomination.

Mr. Sanders has endorsed Mr. Biden and the two teamed up to form a series of “unity task forces,” which offered policy recommendations in July.

Mr. Biden struggled to excite young voters in the primary, and winning over Mr. Sanders’s supporters — including young progressives — has been an important task for him.

President Trump and his campaign have tried to tie Mr. Biden to the left wing of the Democratic Party, arguing he is a tool for the far left who would advance their goals, despite his long career as a politician in the mainstream of the party.

They pushed that message again in response to a speech Mr. Biden gave in Wisconsin on Monday, with a Trump campaign spokesman, Hogan Gidley, describing the Democratic nominee as “a prisoner of the radical, extreme, socialist left.”

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