Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden once again condemned violence and looting while blaming President Donald Trump for stoking division amid protests against police racism, The New York Times reports.
Biden has repeatedly condemned violence and looting despite Trump’s claim that he has not.
“Rioting is not protesting,” Biden said Monday. “Looting is not protesting. Setting fires is not protesting. None of this is protesting. It’s lawlessness, plain and simple. And those who do it should be prosecuted.”
Biden vowed to “lower the temperature in this country” if he is elected.
Trump, he said, “can’t stop the violence because for years he’s fomented it.”
While Biden condemned the violence, Trump defended a supporter charged with killing two people at a protest in Kenosha.
Biden scoffs at Trump’s attacks:
Trump and the Republican Party have warned that America would look under Biden very much like what it looks like under Trump: rampant protests and violence.
“Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is re-elected?” Biden said on Monday. “We need justice in America. We need safety in America. We’re facing multiple crises — crises that, under Donald Trump, have kept multiplying.”
He mocked Trump for trying to cast him as a radical.
“Ask yourself: Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters?” Biden said. “Really? I want a safe America. Safe from Covid, safe from crime and looting, safe from racially motivated violence, safe from bad cops. Let me be crystal clear: safe from four more years of Donald Trump.”
“He keeps telling us if he was president you’d feel safe,” he added. “Well, he is president, whether he knows it or not.”
Moderate Dems praise speech:
“That’s what a lot of working-class people from these swing states absolutely needed to hear very clearly,” Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan told the Times. “Those of us who are down-ballot, those of us who represent areas like I do, we needed this speech to happen.”
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a close Biden ally, said he urged the former veep to make the speech over concerns about Trump’s smear attempts.
“I’m worried because I think Donald Trump cannot win the election based on what he has done as president,” he said. “So therefore he has to find some way to make his opposition the issue.”
