US election: Trump slams Biden, vows win over coronavirus

President Donald Trump blasted Joe Biden as a hapless career politician who will endanger Americans' safety as he accepted his party's renomination on the South Lawn of the White House. While the coronavirus kills 1,000 Americans each day, Trump defied his own administration's pandemic guidelines to speak for more than an hour to a tightly packed, largely maskless crowd.
Facing a moment fraught with racial turmoil, economic collapse and a national health emergency, Trump delivered a triumphant, optimistic vision of America's future on Thursday. But he said that brighter horizon could only be secured if he defeated his Democratic foe, who currently has an advantage in most national and battleground state polls.
"We have spent the last four years reversing the damage Joe Biden inflicted over the last 47 years," Trump said, referring to the former senator and vice-president's career in Washington.
When Trump finished, a massive fireworks display went off by the Washington Monument, complete with explosions that spelled out "Trump 2020."
His acceptance speech kicked off the final stretch of the campaign, a race now fully joined and, despite the pandemic, soon to begin crisscrossing the country. Trump's pace of travel will pick up to a near daily pace while Biden, who has largely weathered the pandemic from his Delaware home, announced on Thursday that he will soon resume campaign travel.

Teasing once more that a vaccine could arrive soon, the president promised victory over the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 180,000 people in the US, left millions unemployed and rewritten the rules of society. And, in the setting for his speech, Trump sought to project a sense of normalcy by throwing caution about the coronavirus aside.

All week long, Republicans at the convention tried to create the illusion that the pandemic is largely a thing of the past.