Never mind the slaveholders: Joe Biden asserted that President Trump is the first racist to be elected president.
At a virtual event for the Service Employees International Union on Wednesday, Biden received a question from a California-based SEIU member, a South Korean immigrant, who said that she no longer says hello to strangers due to the coronavirus, citing racist reactions that she believed Trump’s “China virus” comments and attitudes contributed to.
“What President Trump has done in going his — his spreading of racism, the way he deals with people based on the color of their skin, their national origin, where they’re from, is absolutely sickening,” Biden said.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee then went further, suggesting that no other president has been racist.
“No sitting president has ever done this. Never, never, never. No Republican president has done this. No Democratic president. We’ve had racists, and they’ve existed, they’ve tried to get elected president. He’s the first one that has,” Biden said.
Biden’s suggestion that Trump is the first racist president contradicts numerous activists who have called for removals of names and statues of past presidents because of their racist views.
Last month, Princeton University announced that it would remove President Woodrow Wilson’s name from the campus public policy school building because “Wilson’s racist views and policies make him an inappropriate namesake.” Days before, Monmouth University announced the same.
In Portland, Oregon, protesters toppled a statue of George Washington during protests against racism. A statue of President Andrew Jackson in front of the White House was targeted by statue-toppling protesters for similar reasons, prompting arrests for those who attempted to destroy it, which were supported by Trump.
Many early presidents owned slaves, and racist beliefs from former presidents are well-documented. Critics of Biden’s comment point to the displacement of Native Americans and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II as clear racist policies promoted by then-presidents.
The comment marks a stark change from Biden’s tone about Trump last year when Biden would say that Trump is promoting “racist policies” but preferred not to call him personally a racist.
Later, Biden refused to follow his Democratic primary competitors in calling Trump a white supremacist, saying only that the president “encourages white supremacy.”
