Biden Says Trump’s Words Not So Different From El Paso Shooter’s

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump has encouraged white supremacy to come out of the shadows, Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden said Wednesday, 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 attack in El Paso, Texas.

“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 said during a campaign stop in Iowa.

“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. “In both clear language and in code, this president has fanned the flames of white supremacy in this nation.”

Biden’s focus on connecting Trump’s rhetoric to racial violence came the same day the president visited 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 hours later in an unrelated attack. Some leaders in both cities had asked Trump not to come.

“It’s a shame Joe Biden is sowing more division today, a day that should be about unity and support for Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas,” the Trump campaign said in a statement issued in response to Biden’s remarks.

Trump tweeted during Biden’s speech: “Sooo BORING!”

“I thought he was very strong,” said Doug Froman, 73, a retiree from Warsaw, IL. “I thought the speech was going to be about agriculture, but he spoke about the way it is. We need to beat Trump.”

Biden has made contrasting Trump’s rhetoric with what he considers presidential a hallmark of his campaign. He rarely delves deeply into his own policy proposals.

While Biden’s words are some of his strongest to date on the subject, they are milder in comparison to criticisms leveled at the president from some others in the Democratic field.

Beto O’Rourke, who is from El Paso, said Trump is a “racist, driven by fear,” and that the president’s suggestion to link gun legislation with proposals to restrict U.S. immigration shows Trump was siding “with a mass murderer’s call to make our country more white.” Trump faced a cool reception from some politicians in both cities.

Trump condemned racism and white supremacy in remarks at the White House on Monday, but he hasn’t directly addressed the overlap between his own anti-immigrant rhetoric and that of the El Paso shooting suspect. In a Twitter post Tuesday, Trump added he’s the “least racist person.”

The former vice president’s event in Burlington, in southeastern Iowa, kicks off a four-day trip across the state that will also include a Thursday afternoon stop at the Iowa State Fair. Nearly two dozen other Democratic hopefuls will also flock to the state in the coming days to take part in the retail politics tradition, as well as in a major fundraising dinner in Clear Lake -- the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding.

The Iowa caucuses next February officially begin the nomination race. Iowa also is a swing state in presidential elections.

Biden also offered an indictment of Trump’s leadership in a time of crisis and argued that the president’s failure to “fight for what is best of the American character” makes it even more critical for the president to be defeated in 2020. At a fundraiser on Sunday in San Diego, Biden called Trump a “significant contributor” to the rise of hate.

“We have a president who has aligned himself with the darkest forces in this nation. And that makes winning the battle for the soul of this nation that much harder,” Biden said in Iowa, drawing on a core theme of his presidential campaign. “It’s up to us” to fight against hate and for American values, he said.

--With assistance from Emma Kinery.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Washington at jepstein32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo

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