Biden Says ‘White Supremacy’ Drove Trump’s Jan. 6 Rioters

(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden said Thursday that white supremacy motivated supporters of Donald Trump who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, and accused the former president of appealing to racists.

“The violent, deadly insurrection on the Capitol nine months ago, it was about white supremacy, in my opinion,” Biden said of the Jan. 6 riot, during a speech acknowledging the 10-year anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington. 

He placed the incident in the context of other racist episodes in U.S. history, including a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 in which one counter-protester was killed.

“The through-line is that hate never goes away,” he said.

He added later that “we had a president who appealed to the prejudice,” but that “the good news is, we ripped the Band-Aid off.” 

It’s unusual for Biden to mention Trump by name in speeches. He lamented that to about half of U.S. Republicans, “I am not your president. Donald Trump is still your president.”

“As we Catholics say, ‘Oh my God,”’ he said, crossing himself to laughter from his audience.

Earlier in the speech, he acknowledged frustration that Congress has been unable to agree to an overhaul of U.S. policing following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man, while in police custody in Minneapolis. 

“I remember many times, meeting his little daughter, and she’d say to me, my daddy’s changing history, he is going to change history,” he said. “We haven’t fulfilled that yet. I understand, you got to keep fighting, let me be clear though, we’re going to continue to fight for real police reform legislation.”

He also scolded Senate Republicans for blocking measures to ease voting in the U.S. -- a response to laws passed in Republican-controlled states to restrict voting after Trump’s false claims that Biden’s election was illegitimate. 

“They are following my predecessor, the last president, into a deep deep black hole of a mess,” Biden said. “Jim Crow in the 21st century is now a sinister combination of voter suppression and election subversion.”

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