White House hopeful Joe Biden asked voters "are you safe in Donald Trump's America" at a speech in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
The stakes for Mr Biden could not be higher as he delivered an address in Pittsburgh, in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
Emerging from months of COVID-19 travel restrictions, Mr Biden finds himself suddenly on the defensive, mocked by President Trump as weak in the face of chaotic unrest combining leftist anti-racism protests, riots, deadly shootings and right-wing vigilante actions in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon.
With the President exalting in the shift of debate from his widely panned handling of the coronavirus pandemic to his favoured theme of what he calls "law and order," Mr Biden risks losing the momentum that has put him ahead in the polls for the November 3 election.
But the 77-year-old Democrat punched back, branding Mr Trump "a toxic presence in our nation" since his inauguration.
"Fires are burning and we have a president who fans the flames rather than fighting the flames," Mr Biden offered in a stinging rebuke.
"The incumbent president is incapable of telling us the truth, incapable of facing the facts and incapable of healing."
While Mr Trump has spent much of the past week warning voters they "won't be safe" in Mr Biden's America, the Democrat sought to turn tables on the Republican in his 22-minute speech, delivered in a mostly empty hall due to coronavirus concerns, with the question: "Do you really feel safer under Donald Trump?"
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden arrives at the Allegheny County Airport in Pennsylvania Source: AP
Mr Trump "can't stop the violence, because for years he has fomented it," Mr Biden said.
The President "may believe mouthing the words 'law and order' makes him strong, but his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows you how weak he is."
Kenosha flashpoint
Mr Trump, who for months has been trying to downplay the coronavirus crisis and talk up apocalyptic claims of anarchy under Democratic rule, will offer his own perspective when he visits the flashpoint of Kenosha.
The city in one of the most significant states of the electoral map has been in turmoil since the shooting by a white police officer of an African American man in front of his children during an arrest this month.
Mr Biden today offered his strongest yet denunciation of the violence.
"Looting is not protesting, setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. It's lawlessness, plain and simple, and those who do it should be prosecuted," he said.
A microcosm of the racial and ideological tensions of the Trump era, Kenosha has seen Black Lives Matter protests, riots, and the arrival of armed, white vigilantes, culminating in an incident where a 17-year-old militia enthusiast allegedly shot dead two people at the protest and badly injured another.
President Trump's visit to Kenosha will focus on his message that police are under siege in Democratic-led cities, putting what he calls "suburban housewives" and the "American Dream" in danger.
A protester takes cover during clashes outside the Kenosha County Courthouse. Source: AAP
"He will meet with law enforcement and survey damage from recent riots," White House spokesman Judd Deere said.
