Joe Biden: Trump is 'thoroughly unqualified' for presidency

Vice President Joe Biden assailed Donald Trump's ability to lead America at home and abroad today, branding him as indifferent to the needs of Americans in his first campaign appearance with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Biden, who decided not to make a third presidential bid last year, said in his native city of Scranton that Trump was "totally, thoroughly unqualified" to be president, calling him a dangerous voice on national security and foreign policy.

On the economy, he said, Trump's reveling in his TV reality show tag-line, "You're fired," showed his true colors. "He's trying to tell us he cares about the middle class? Give me a break. It's such a bunch of malarkey," Biden told a crowd of about 3,000 at Riverfront Sports, adding: "He doesn't have a clue."

Pennsylvania has not supported a Republican in a presidential election since 1988, but is among the most-contested battleground states between Clinton and Trump, who are both vying for white working-class voters here.

Even as polls show her leading Trump, Clinton has faced lingering questions about her trustworthiness in the fallout of her use of a private email server as secretary of state and over her family's sprawling foundation.

She has tried to make the case that working-class voters would fare better under her economic policies than Trump's and that her opponent would inject danger into an already unstable world.

Offering himself as a powerful character witness for Clinton, Biden portrayed the former secretary of state as the most qualified person to lead the country, singling out her foreign policy experience and passion for improving people's lives.

He cited his long history with Clinton, saying he's known her for three decades, since before she was first lady in the 1990s.

"Hillary has forgotten more about American foreign policy then Trump and his entire team will ever understand," he said. And he cited Clinton's gender as a powerful asset, saying electing the first female president would change the lives of American women and girls.

"Hillary Clinton is going to write the next chapter in American history," he said.

Introducing Biden, Clinton sought to sow doubts about Trump's ability to bring jobs back to blue-collar communities like Scranton, where Biden lived for the first decade of his life before moving to Delaware.