President Donald Trump has told a group of supporters that his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, is "against God." Speaking to a crowd at Cleveland airport in the US state of Ohio, the President argued that Biden would "hurt the Bible" and "hurt God" if he was elected to the White House.
"He's against God, he's against guns," Trump added. Mr Trump also insisted that under a Biden presidency, there would be "no religion, no anything" and that he would follow a "radical left agenda".
Biden, the former Vice President to Barack Obama, is a practising Roman Catholic. He called Trump's comments "shameful".
"Like so many people, my faith has been the bedrock foundation of my life: it's provided me comfort in moments of loss and tragedy, it's kept me grounded and humbled in times of triumph and joy," he told CNN. "And in this moment of darkness for our country — of pain, of division, and of sickness for so many Americans — my faith has been a guiding light for me and a constant reminder of the fundamental dignity and humanity that God has bestowed upon all of us.
"For President Trump to attack my faith is shameful. It's beneath the office he holds and it's beneath the dignity the American people so rightly expect and deserve from their leaders."
Biden's campaign spokesman, Andrew Bates, criticised Trump for making the comments in light of his recent actions to clear protesters from outside the White House so he could pose with a Bible outside the famous St. John's Episcopal Church in Lafayette Square.
"Donald Trump is the only president in our history to have tear-gassed peaceful Americans and thrown a priest out of her church just so he could profane it --- and a Bible -- for his own cynical optics as he sought to tear our nation apart at a moment of crisis and pain," Bates said.
"And this comes just one day after Trump's campaign abused a photo of Joe Biden praying in church to demean him, in one of the starkest expressions of weakness throughout this whole campaign." Bates was referring to a new ad launched by the Trump campaign this week, which features a series of doctored photos of Biden - one of which depicts him praying alone. In reality, Biden was attending a church gathering at the time it was taken.
