President Joe Biden thanked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell at the signing of the bipartisan COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act as he prepares to clash with congressional Republicans over his infrastructure and social welfare spending packages.
Biden singled out McConnell, who is married to Asian American former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, during the packed, mostly maskless White House East Room event for “letting” the bill “go forward.” But the bipartisan tenor of Biden’s remarks was broken by subtle digs at former President Donald Trump, suggesting the legislation’s passage marked a Republican “break” from his predecessor.
“I looked at this law that you all passed. It may be the first break, first significant break in a moment in our history that has to be turned around, not Democratic, Republican, has to be turned around,” he said.
BIDEN PLAN TO EXPAND WELFARE AS WE KNOW IT HAMPERED BY REPUBLICAN RESISTANCE
Democrats blame Trump for stoking violence toward the Asian American community with his anti-Asian COVID-19 rhetoric during the pandemic. Trump, for instance, called the respiratory illness the “Kung Flu.” But despite its partisan origins, the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act cleared both chambers of Congress with bipartisan vote tallies.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins joined McConnell at the White House ceremony Thursday, as did the mother of Heather Heyer. Heyer, 32, died during the 2017 unrest in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a man who had expressed white supremacist views drove his car through a crowd of counterprotesters. Biden contends Trump’s response to the tragedy was why he ran for president.
Biden described hate and racism as an “ugly poison” that “has long haunted and plagued our nation.”
“I’m proud today of our political system, the United States Congress. I’m proud today that Democrats and Republicans have stood up together to say something,” he said.
“Every time we’re silent, every time we let hate flourish, we make a lie of who we are as a nation,” he added. “We cannot let the very foundation of this country continue to be eaten away as it has been in other moments in our history.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor of Indian descent, echoed Biden. She told the 50-odd people assembled racism, xenophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, and transphobia all exist in America.
“I have seen how hate can pervade our communities,” she said before citing examples of reported anti-Asian attacks. “I’m talking about incidents where businesses are being vandalized in our biggest cities and in our smallest towns. I’m talking about a 61-year-old man getting kicked in the head to elderly women being stabbed while waiting for the bus.”
The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, found anti-Asian crime reported in 16 of the country’s largest cities and counties rose 164% in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the same time period the year before, from 36 incidents to 95.
Harris quoted other data. She said that when she introduced a Senate resolution condemning anti-Asian sentiment last year, “more than 1,100 anti-Asian hate incidents” had been reported “since the start of the pandemic.”
“Today, that number is more than 6,600,” she went on.
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Biden is hoping for a similar bipartisan effort to the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act on the traditional infrastructure component of his $2.25 trillion plan. Republicans, led by West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, have so far counteroffered with a $568 billion compromise. McConnell has indicated he is prepared to go as high as $800 billion.
