Biden calls Trump's administration "hell for Black America" in remarks to NAACP
President Joe Biden, in remarks to the NAACP National Convention, expressed relief that former President Donald Trump emerged safely from Saturday’s assassination attempt, while calling Trump’s administration “hell for Black America.”
“Just a few days after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, I’m grateful he was not seriously injured. We continue to pray for him and his family,” Biden said Tuesday at the convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. “It’s time for an important conversation in this country. Our politics has gotten too heated.”
He drew a direct correlation between political violence and violence of any kind, invoking the NAACP’s history during the Civil Rights era while calling out violence and threats of violence against Black Americans to this day.
“You know the pain and the price of violence, you understand if you’re going to talk about standing against violence, you must stand against all violence — you must stand against violence perpetrated against presidential candidates in Pennsylvania, you must stand against all violence,” he said. “Violence against George Floyd in Minnesota, against Black veterans like police officer Eugene Goodman on January 6, like Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss in Atlanta. You have to stand against the violence and intimidation of White supremacy.”
Still, despite his well-wishes to Trump following this weekend’s assassination attempt, Biden did not hold back from criticizing his Republican rival, telling the crowd: “Now, just because we must lower the temperature of our politics related to violence, it doesn’t mean we should stop telling the truth.”
“Here’s the truth about why Donald Trump’s presidency was hell for Black America,” Biden said, listing a litany of policies he said unduly harmed communities of color under Trump, including efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a sweeping tax cuts package Biden said only helped wealthy Americans and a catastrophic pandemic response.
He also took special care to hit Trump for comments during last month’s debate claiming immigrants were taking “Black jobs,” using the opportunity to highlight Black members of his administration and cabinet.
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