Buy American: Joe Biden unveils US-centered economic plan to counter Trump

Democratic Party candidate accuses President Trump of ignoring the coronavirus pandemic and the climate crisis.

Democrat Joe Biden turned his campaign against President Donald Trump toward the economy Thursday, introducing a New Deal-like economic agenda while drawing a sharp contrast with a billionaire incumbent he said has abandoned working-class Americans amid cascading crises.

The former vice president presented details of a comprehensive agenda that he touted as the most aggressive government investment in the U.S. economy since World War II.

He also accused Trump of ignoring the coronavirus pandemic and the climate crisis while encouraging division amid a national reckoning with systemic racism.

His failures come with a terrible human cost and a deep economic toll, Biden said during a 30-minute address at a metal works firm near his boyhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Time and again, working families are paying the price for this administration's incompetence.

Biden's shift to the economy meets Trump on turf the Republican president had seen as his strength before the pandemic severely curtailed consumer activity and drove unemployment to near-Great Depression levels.

Now, Biden and his aides believe the issue is an all-encompassing opening that gives Democrats avenues to attack Trump on multiple fronts while explaining their own governing vision for the country.

The former vice president began Thursday with proposals intended to reinvigorate the U.S. manufacturing and technology sectors.

China, Iran-based hackers targeted Trump, Biden campaigns: Google

A Chinese group known as Hurricane Panda targeted Trump campaign staffers while an Iranian outfit known as Charming Kitten had attempted to breach accounts of Biden campaign workers.

Google said state-based hackers have targeted the campaigns of both President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, although it saw no evidence that the phishing attempts were successful.

The company confirmed the findings after the director of its Threat Analysis Group, Shane Huntley, disclosed the attempts Thursday on Twitter.

Huntley said a Chinese group known as Hurricane Panda targeted Trump campaign staffers while an Iranian outfit known as Charming Kitten had attempted to breach accounts of Biden campaign workers.

Such phishing attempts typically involve forged emails with links designed to harvest passwords or infect devices with malware.

The effort targeted personal email accounts of staffers in both campaigns, according to the company statement. A Google spokesman added that "the timeline is recent and that a couple of people were targeted on both campaigns. He would not say how many.

Google said it sent targeted users our standard government-backed attack warning and referred the incidents to federal law enforcement.

Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, called the announcement a major disclosure of potential cyber-enabled influence operations, just as we saw in 2016.

Biden snaps at man, calls him liar for questioning son's Ukraine link

The 77-year-old Biden also responded forcefully to a suggestion by the questioner that he was "too old" to be running for president.

Business Standard : Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden snapped at a questioner during a campaign event in Iowa on Thursday after the man asked about his son's business dealings in Ukraine.

"You're a damn liar, man," the former vice president said in a rare flash of anger at the town hall in New Hampton, Iowa.

After first saying that President Donald Trump is "messing around in Ukraine," the man told Biden "you on the other hand sent your son over there, to get him a job and work for a gas company.

"He had no experience," the man said. "You're selling access to the president."

"That's not true and no one has ever said that," Biden responded after calling the man a liar.

Biden's son Hunter served on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma from 2014 to 2019 and was reportedly paid $50,000 a month.

Hunter Biden has not been accused of any wrongdoing but questions have been raised about the propriety of him taking the position while his father was vice president and dealing with Ukraine issues.

Trump is facing impeachment in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives after asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens.

The 77-year-old Biden also responded forcefully to a suggestion by the questioner that he was "too old" to be running for president.

"I'm not sedentary," Biden said. "The reason I'm running is because I've been around a long time and I know more than most people know and I can get things done.

"You want to check my shape on it, let's do pushups together, man," he said. "Let's run. Let's do whatever you want to do. Let's take an IQ test."

At another point, he appeared to say "Look, fat, look, here's the deal" -- but this was strongly disputed by Biden aide Symone Sanders, who tweeted that he had said: "Look, facts."

Biden is the current frontrunner in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, according to an average of national polls by RealClearPolitics.com.