Biden attacks Trump at a rally in Detroit over his Project 2025 and tries to reorient his election campaign

President Joe Biden traveled to Michigan on Friday, a crucial state for the 2024 presidential election, to sharply criticize Donald Trump over his Project 2025. He sought to link the controversial conservative plan for his transition to office with that of his rival and contrast it with his own plans for his second term in office if he wins, his campaign team said.

Biden is pursuing this line of attack to recover from his disastrous debate performance by shifting the focus to Trump – as he did during his press conference on Thursday night.

“Do you think democracy is under threat because of Project 2025? Do you think he’s serious when he says he’s going to abolish the civil service, dismantle the Department of Education and make sure – I mean, we – we’ve never been here before,” he said ahead of his rally in Detroit, where his performance would be under renewed scrutiny.

The 900-page Project 2025, initiated by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, is intended to lay the foundation for the incoming Republican administration. The document complains that when presidents take office, they “find a sprawling federal bureaucracy that too often carries out its own political agendas and preferences.”

A successful “conservative president” must “have the courage to subjugate or break down the bureaucracy to the will of the president and the self-denial to use the bureaucratic machinery to shift power away from Washington and back to American families, faith communities, local governments and states,” the document says.

In recent days, the Biden team has redoubled its efforts to raise awareness about Project 2025, including by airing a new commercial about it, in an attempt to distract from the fallout from the debate and Democratic calls for the president to drop out of the race.

In a social media video on Wednesday, Biden said, “Project 2025 will destroy America.” The post directed his followers to a page on his campaign website that analyzes the plan.

Vice President Kamala Harris also addressed this issue during her election campaign.

“Some of you have heard, of course, that Trump’s advisers have put together a 900-page plan for their second-term agenda, if they even have one,” Harris said Thursday at a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina. “They call it Project 2025 and it includes, look at this, it includes a plan to cut Social Security; it includes a plan to repeal our $35 cap on insulin…”

“If enacted, Project 2025 would be the latest attack in Donald Trump’s comprehensive assault on reproductive freedom,” Harris later added, turning attention to an issue that has electrified Democrats in recent years and on which the November campaign is leaning. She pointed to Trump’s appointment of three Supreme Court justices to help overturn Roe v. Wade.

“Let us be clear,” she told a crowd in Dallas on Wednesday, “that this is an outright attack on our children, our families and our future.”

The Trump team has long sought to distance itself from policy proposals put forward by outside groups. Trump himself has in recent days denied involvement in Project 2025 or even knowledge of it. However, the project’s architects and advisers include some of his own former high-ranking officials as well as people involved in the Republican Party’s program.

“Team Biden and the DNC are LYING and stoking panic because they have NOTHING else to offer the American people. Remember, this is the same group that lied to the American people and covered up Joe Biden’s cognitive decline all these years,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez.

Meanwhile, Biden tried to allay fears about his age at a barbecue in Detroit before his rally with his supporters.

“I was too young for a long time because I was the second youngest man ever elected to the U.S. Senate. I’m also too old now, but I know that with age comes hopefully some wisdom,” he said.

He continued to contrast himself with Trump: “And I hope that at this moment there is no great alternative. And I think ethics are important. I think decency is important.”

Finally, he assured the crowd: “I promise you, I’m fine. Thank you.”

Also before the rally, supporters ABC News spoke to said he should continue campaigning.

Regarding calls for Biden to drop out, 74-year-old Hamid Alghali said: “I disagree… He has done so much for minorities, for women’s rights and all the good things for the country, so I don’t think he should drop out. He has to stay in office. That is much better than his opponent… We have to go out, we have to call our own supporters to stop all this nonsense they are talking about him getting out. We voters want him to stay in office.”