PITTSBURGH _ Speaking before 600 people at Chatham University, Vice President Joe Biden said he didn't want to devote much attention to the Republican presidential nominee.
"I'm so tired, and so disturbed, quite frankly, because of ... all the attention has been drawn to this ridiculousness," he said.
Yet Biden's 40-minute speech did launch several salvos at Donald Trump, while also offering an optimistic vision of the country under Hillary Clinton _ and weighing in on a key Pennsylvania Senate race as well.
"I love the Senate," said Biden, who served in that body for 36 years before becoming vice president. "But it has been rendered almost nonfunctioning of late. And so we need ... a Democratic Senate."
Biden praised Democratic Senate challenger Katie McGinty, whom he hailed for her working-class roots and having "a backbone like a ramrod."
By contrast, he said, incumbent Republican Pat Toomey "is a decent guy," but one who hadn't taken a position on Trump's candidacy. "(H)is refusing to disavow Donald Trump, that's consent," Biden said. "Silence is consent.
"Can you imagine Katie doing that in reverse? I can't."
Trump is "already damaging us right now, doing harm to the United States of America," Biden said. He noted that Trump declined to accept U.S. intelligence assessments that the Russians had hacked Democratic Party emails.
"That plays directly into the hands of (Russian leader Vladimir) Putin, who is using the propaganda at home to suggest that we are weak, we are fallen, we are not together."
He said Trump was "thoroughly unqualified" for the presidency, based on his conduct and lack of expertise. "Can you imagine any president getting up at 3:30 in the morning and tweeting vitriol about a former Miss Universe?" asked Biden, referring to Trump's social media attack on Alicia Machado. "What does that say to the rest of the world?"
The Trump camp fired back, with a statement that "Hillary Clinton just can't close the deal with Pennsylvania voters," and that Biden is "nothing but a liability for Hillary on the campaign trail." Citing Biden's recent assertion that he would like to take Trump "behind the gym," the Trump campaign said "voters have had enough of Biden's negative rhetoric, and want a president with a positive message who will reform Washington."
But Biden also took issue with Trump's refrain that the United States risks forfeiting a position of global leadership.
"The idea that the United States of America is not going to lead the 21st century the way it did the 20th is absolutely ridiculous," Biden said.
Biden did acknowledge that Americans of modest means were hurting. "The middle class has got the living hell kicked out of them the past 15 years," he said. And Biden, a Scranton native, noted that in his home state, "I walked by so many padlocked factories, where they were unbolting machinery from the floor ... to put on ships and be sent overseas. They called it outsourcing, and people where I came from got battered by it."
And challenges remain, he said, including child care costs that often keep one parent at home: "Child care in Pennsylvania, average cost $14,700 for a family with two kids. That's why women aren't in the workforce."
But he cited a number of advantages the United States has, including strong research universities, low energy costs and worker productivity. And he predicted that if Clinton is elected, "We are on the cusp of being able to do some things that we haven't been able to do since World War II. ... You'll see a renaissance in America like you haven't seen in five decades. So go vote. Go vote."
