Bloomberg
President Donald Trump has encouraged white supremacy to come out of the shadows, Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden was expected to say, adding that there’s very little that distances Trump’s rhetoric from the anti-immigrant screeds of mass shooters like the suspect in the recent El Paso, Texas, attack.
“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 planned to say during a campaign stop in Iowa, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks provided by his campaign.
“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,†Biden plans to say.
Biden’s focus on connecting Trump’s rhetoric to racial violence comes the same day the president was expected to visit El Paso, where 22 people died in a mass shooting that the gunman said was motivated by a desire to kill Mexicans, and Dayton, Ohio, where nine people died in another unrelated mass shooting. Some local leaders in both cities have asked Trump not to come.
While Biden’s words are some of his strongest to date on the subject, they pale in comparison to criticisms leveled at the president from some others in the Democratic field.
In remarks at the White House, he condemned racism and white supremacy, though has not directly addressed overlap between his own anti-immigrant rhetoric and that of the El Paso shooting suspect. In a Twitter post Trump added he’s the “least racist person.â€
Trump faces cool reception during El Paso, Dayton visit
Bloomberg
Donald Trump was expected to seek to console the grief-stricken residents of El Paso and Dayton — a presidential duty he’s never quite mastered and that is made harder by local reluctance about
his visit.
The president and first lady Melania Trump were expected to pay tribute to emergency responders in both cities after a pair of shootings left at least 31 people dead and dozens injured. But the visits are complicated both by Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric — blamed by Democrats for helping to incite the El Paso attack — and his resistance to gun-control measures demanded by local politicians in the aftermath of the shootings.
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who is from El Paso, said Trump shouldn’t visit, and the city’s Republican mayor has acknowledged local opposition to the president.