As President Donald Trump travels Wednesday to El Paso, Texas, former Vice President Joe Biden will draw a direct link between his inflammatory rhetoric on immigration and Saturday’s mass shooting in the border city, saying the president has “aligned himself with the darkest forces in the nation.”
“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, who leads the 2020 Democratic presidential field, will say at a campaign event in eastern Iowa this afternoon, according to excerpts of his remarks provided by the campaign. “In both clear language and in code, the president has fanned the flames of white supremacy in this nation.”
Biden has long framed the 2020 election as a battle for the “soul of the nation,” a point he will underscore again Wednesday as he kicks off a four-day visit to the nation’s leadoff caucus state. Trump, Biden will argue, “has more in common with George Wallace than George Washington.”
Biden will note how past presidents have “stepped up” in moments that tested the nation, including George W. Bush visiting a mosque shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks and Barack Obama’s singing “Amazing Grace” at a memorial service for victims of the Mother Emanuel AME shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. But “we don’t have that today,” Biden will say.
“Trump offers no moral leadership; no interest in unifying the nation, no evidence the presidency has awakened his conscience in the least,” the former vice president 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’s remarks at an event in Burlington, Iowa, will come as Trump visits El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, where a second mass shooting occurred on Sunday. Twenty-two were killed in Saturday’s massacre at an El Paso Wal-Mart and nearby shopping area by a gunman who allegedly drove across Texas to the commit the shootings and posted a diatribe against immigrants in the state, a senior law enforcement official told NBC News.
The FBI also said it was investigating whether the Dayton shooter was “exploring violent ideologies” before he allegedly murdered nine people at a downtown entertainment district.
Trump condemned “racism, bigotry and white supremacy” in a televised address to the nation Monday after the shootings, saying, “These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America.”
The president did not specifically condemn anti-immigrant rhetoric on Monday, instead blaming violent video games and mental illness for the scourge of mass shootings that have been a steady drumbeat throughout his presidency. Trump also voiced support for stronger death penalty legislation for those who commit mass shootings, putting additional resources and new tools toward helping to identify early warning signs before shooters act, and reforming mental health laws.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham tweeted Tuesday night that Trump’s visits on Wednesday would be “about honoring victims, comforting communities, and thanking first responders & medical professionals for their heroic actions.”
Speaking at a fundraiser in Colorado Tuesday night, Biden said he never expected Trump would be a good president, but “I had no idea that he would be as banal, mean and bad as he is,” adding that white nationalism and bigotry were dividing the country under his leadership.
“It’s about hate, hate, hate,” he said. “We have to rip it out. We have to rip it up. Because if we don’t, it will fundamentally change who we are. Who we are. The president is the face of America. Our children are listening.”
The Biden campaign has long believed the former vice president’s candidacy is strongest in moments when the stakes of defeating Trump are highest. A Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday again showed that nearly half of Democrats believe Biden is the strongest candidate to face off with Trump in the general election, with a plurality of Democratic and Democratic-leaning independent voters saying they preferred a candidate who was electable to one that shares their views.
Biden is also expected in his remarks to touch on steps the country can take to combat gun violence. The former vice president and longtime senator has often cast himself as one of the few Democrats who has taken on the National Rifle Association and succeeded, primarily in securing a ban on the sale of certain types of assault weapons as part of the 1994 crime bill.