Joe Biden condemned violence taking place in cities across the country.
“Protesting such brutality is right and necessary. It’s an utterly American response. But burning down communities and needless destruction is not. Violence that endangers lives is not. Violence that guts and shutters businesses that serve the community is not,” the former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said in a statement just after midnight Eastern Time on Sunday morning.
The remarks are Biden’s most forceful condemnation of violence during the demonstrations across the country yet.
Protests have given way to violence, looting, and arson in major cities across the country after 46-year-old George Floyd died in the custody of Minneapolis police on Monday.
In a special address to the nation about the Floyd killing on Friday, a mention of the violence was conspicuously absent. Biden previously said in a fundraiser, “I urge the protesters to exercise their rights peacefully and safely,” and later noted in a CNN interview that “more violence hurting more people isn’t going to answer the question.”
President Trump has urged state and local officials to “get MUCH tougher or the Federal Government will step in and do what has to be done, and that includes using the unlimited power of our Military and many arrests.”
At least 12 cities were under a curfew Saturday evening, and the National Guard has been deployed in multiple states.
“The act of protesting should never be allowed to overshadow the reason we protest,” Biden said in the Sunday statement. “It should not drive people away from the just cause that protest is meant to advance.”
Biden’s full statement is below:
Protesting such brutality is right and necessary. It’s an utterly American response. But burning down communities and needless destruction is not. Violence that endangers lives is not. Violence that guts and shutters businesses that serve the community is not.
The act of protesting should never be allowed to overshadow the reason we protest. It should not drive people away from the just cause that protest is meant to advance.
I know that there are people all across this country who are suffering tonight. Suffering the loss of a loved one to intolerable circumstances, like the Floyd family, or to the virus that is still gripping our nation. Suffering economic hardships, whether due to COVID-19 or entrenched inequalities in our system. And I know that a grief that dark and deep may at times feel too heavy to bear.
I know.
And I also know that the only way to bear it is to turn all that anguish to purpose. So tonight, I ask all of America to join me — not in denying our pain or covering it over — but using it to compel our nation across this turbulent threshold into the next phase of progress, inclusion, and opportunity for our great democracy.
We are a nation in pain, but we must not allow this pain to destroy us. We are a nation enraged, but we cannot allow our rage to consume us. We are a nation exhausted, but we will not allow our exhaustion to defeat us.
As President, I will help lead this conversation — and more importantly, I will listen. I will keep the commitment I made to George’s brother, Philonise, that George will not just be a hashtag. We must and will get to a place where everyone, regardless of race, believes that ‘to protect and serve’ means to protect and serve them. Only by standing together will we rise stronger than before. More equal, more just, more hopeful — and that much closer to our more perfect union.
Please stay safe. Please take care of each other.
