Joe Biden will condemn President Trump’s response to recent mass shootings, connecting his rhetoric to the violence committed by white supremacists.
“How far is it from Trump’s saying this ‘is an invasion’ to the shooter in El Paso declaring ‘his attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas?’ Not far at all,” Biden will say Wednesday in Burlington, Iowa, according to speech excerpts.
“How far is it from the white supremacists and Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville — Trump’s ‘very fine people’ — chanting ‘You will not replace us’ — to the shooter at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh saying Jews ‘were committing genocide to his people?’ Not far at all. In both clear language and in code, this president has fanned the flames of white supremacy in this nation.”
Biden is scheduled to give the remarks while Trump is visiting victims of the massacres in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. At least 31 victims were killed in the shootings over the weekend. The suspect in El Paso shared a racist, anti-immigrant screed online before the shooting.
“Trump offers no moral leadership; no interest in unifying the nation, no evidence the presidency has awakened his conscience in the least,” Biden will say. “Instead we have a president with a toxic tongue who has publicly and unapologetically embraced a political strategy of hate, racism, and division.”
Biden kicked off his 2020 presidential campaign citing Trump’s reaction to white supremacists’ August 2017 march in Charlottesville and the killing of a counterprotester as one of the reasons he was running to defeat Trump.
The first words he uttered in a video announcing his candidacy were “Charlottesville, Virginia,” framing his campaign as a battle to save the soul of the nation.
