Former Vice President Joe Biden wrote Sunday that Americans are “living through a battle” for country’s soul in the wake of the Charlottesville violence and President Trump’s response to the deadly unrest.
“If it wasn’t clear before, it’s clear now: We are living through a battle for the soul of this nation,” Biden wrote in a piece published Sunday by The Atlantic. “The giant forward steps we have taken in recent years on civil liberties and civil rights and human rights are being met by a ferocious pushback from the oldest and darkest forces in America.”
Biden, who recounted President Obama’s inauguration as the country’s first African-America president, used the opportunity to lambast Trump for his series of statements in the aftermath of the violence that killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer as she protested the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville earlier in August.
“Today we have an American president who has publicly proclaimed a moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and Klansmen and those who would oppose their venom and hate,” Biden added, referring to Trump’s remarks about how “many sides” could be blamed for the violence.
“We have an American president who has emboldened white supremacists with messages of comfort and support.”
Biden, who is rumored to be considering a 2020 bid for president, also slammed Trump for his recent pardoning of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert specifically responded to Biden’s criticism regarding Arpaio on ABC’s “This Week,” saying Biden was known for his “hyperbole.”
“Vice President Biden is both loved and known for his hyperbole,” Bossert said Sunday. “I think that’s another example of it.”
