Joe Biden launched one of his most scathing attacks yet donald trumphistory of racism, suggesting that the former US president would have acted differently than January 6, 2021 the insurrection was led by blacks.
The comments, at a dinner hosted by a civil rights organization in a critical swing state, pointed to an increasingly intense battle between Biden and Trump for African-American voters ahead of November’s presidential election.
“Let me ask you,” Biden said during a speech at an NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) dinner in Detroit. “What do you think he would have done on January 6th if black Americans had stormed the Capitol?”
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There was a collective sigh and murmur in the cavernous convention center, where some 5,000 guests were gathered. The president insisted: “No, I’m serious. What do you think? I imagine.”
The vast majority of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6 in an attempt to overturn his election defeat were white. One was photographed carrying the flag of the Confederacy, which fought the 1861-65 Civil War in a failed effort to preserve slavery in the South.
But, as a Congressional panel investigating the attack reported, Trump remained at the White House and took no action for hours, even as the mob threatened to hang his vice president, Mike Pence. He eventually released a video urging protesters to leave and return home.
More than 1,265 defendants were charged and hundreds of prisoners for his role on January 6th. But Trump described them as “patriots” and “hostages” and, as Biden noted in his remarks, he suggested he would pardon them if they were re-elected.
Biden spoke while campaigning in Georgia and Michigan, two battlegrounds where the Black vote will be crucial. Opinion polls suggest that a small but significant percentage are switching from Biden to Trump.
The president told the audience in Detroit: “You are the reason Donald Trump was defeated for president. You are the reason Donald Trump will be a loser again.”
Biden praised his own record but kept returning to Trump and the threat he poses to democracy. He highlighted his own nomination of the first black Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“Let me ask you, who do you think he will put on the Supreme Court?” he asked. “Do you think he’ll choose someone with brains?”
Biden also accused Republicans of banning books and undermining African-American history. “Extremists close doors to opportunity, tear down affirmative action, attack the values of diversity, equality and inclusion,” he said.
“They don’t see you in the future of America, but they are wrong. We know that black history is American history.”
The president also warned: “The threat that Trump poses in a second term is greater than that in the first.” He said “something clicked in Trump” after his 2020 election defeat and “he is clearly distraught.”
The president received one of the biggest cheers of the night when he declared himself a “unionist,” adding: “I picketed union workers here in Michigan. At the same time, Trump held a non-union walkout to show his disrespect for union workers.”
Other speakers included Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, who has been tipped as a potential 2028 presidential candidate.
