The US Secret Service has increased its protective bubble around Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as his chances to be the next US President have increased, the Washington Post reported on Friday.
The Secret Service sent an extra squad of agents to Biden’s campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, as expectations rose that he would be able to declare victory over President Donald Trump, the Post reported.
It had already deployed some agents to protect Biden around early July after he triumphed in the Democratic Party’s presidential primaries.
If Biden becomes president-elect, Secret Service protection is expected to ramp up to a higher level.
Meanwhile, an increasingly confident Biden campaign sent out a stern message on Friday, without naming US President Donald Trump, saying the “United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House”.
“As we said on July 19th, the American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House,” Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.
The Biden campaign’s remarks came on a day when Donald Trump has rage tweeted since 2 am, claiming (wrongly) that he has won the election based on “legal” votes, and that “these late ballots past Election Day are illegal”.
Trump is fuming and showing it on Twitter and elsewhere. His public posture remains combative although White House insiders have been saying, in conversations with reporters, that they feel deflated, especially now that Pennsylvania is slipping away to Biden.
The President’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNBC that Trump seems ready to fight, a remark he repeated later in the day to White House pool reporters.
Meanwhile, key Republicans have begun breaking away from Trump’s stand, saying they see no evidence to support Trump’s baseless claim that Democrats are trying to “steal” the elections.
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