White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany brought up former Vice President Joe Biden’s history with segregationists in response to a question about retired Gen. David Petraeus’s call for the names of Confederates to be stricken from U.S. military bases.
“Where do you draw the line here?” McEnany said. “I’m told that no longer can you find, on HBO, Gone with the Wind, because somehow that is now offensive. Where do you draw the line?” She pointed not just to slave-holding Founding Fathers but also to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s internment camps and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s documented racist statements.
“What about people that are alleged by the media to be segregationists? NBC tells us Joe Biden didn’t just compromise with segregationists, he fought for their causes in schools, experts say. CNN tells us letters from Joe Biden reveal how he sought support of segregationists in the fight against busing. … There are several more where that came from. So, I’ll leave you with the question, ‘Should we then rename the Biden welcome center?'”
Last year, the Washington Examiner reported that while a Delaware senator, Biden embraced segregationist policies in 1975, claiming it violated concepts of “black pride.”
“I think the concept of busing … that we are going to integrate people so that they all have the same access and they learn to grow up with one another and all the rest, is a rejection of the whole movement of black pride,” Biden said. He said that integration could be “a rejection of the entire black awareness concept, where black is beautiful, black culture should be studied, and the cultural awareness of the importance of their own identity, their own individuality.”
During the 2020 Democratic primaries, California Sen. Kamala Harris repeatedly criticized Biden for working with Sens. James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia and other segregationists during his time in the Senate.
In a heated exchange during a Democratic debate last year, Harris invoked Biden’s record of opposing federally mandated school busing. “There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. That little girl was me,” Harris said.
Biden has since said that he did not oppose busing but busing mandated by the Department of Education. However, records show Biden did oppose mandated busing broadly, regardless of which agency of government enforced the policy.
On Wednesday, Trump promised not to consider retired Petraeus’s idea of renaming military bases named after Confederate figures, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, and Fort Benning in Georgia.
“These Monumental and very Powerful Bases have become part of a Great American Heritage, and a history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom. The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars,” Trump said.
…history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom. The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2020
