Former Vice President Joe Biden linked President Donald Trump to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in a sermon on Sunday in a black church in South Carolina on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“We can defeat this moment of hate. … This president and his — the Ku Klux Klans and the rest of them, they think they’ve beaten us again. But they have no idea — we’re just coming back. God love you all,” Biden told the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina.
In a halting speech, Biden also repeated the false claim that President Donald Trump had referred to white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville as “very fine people” in August 2017.
“They asked the president what he thought, and he said, ‘There are very fine people on both sides’,” Biden claimed.
In fact, Trump specifically condemned those groups, as the transcript of his remarks reveals.
Trump blasts Biden admin for releasing illegal immigrant now charged in fatal hammer attack on Florida mother
Iran peace talks give JD Vance an opening in 2028 race
Mahmoud Khalil loses appeal to dismiss deportation case
Coast Guard seizes over 4,500 pounds of cocaine worth $34M from suspected narco-terrorist vessel on Easter
ICE says more criminal migrants arrested on 1-year anniversary of program to support victims of migrant crime
Supreme Court blocks candidate after alleged GOP infiltration scheme exposed
Child among 4 dead as accused arsonist allegedly drank beer during chaos
Melania Trump’s forceful Epstein denial draws bipartisan support from lawmakers
Fellow Democrats Are Now Calling Out Eric Swalwell Over ‘Very Troubling’ Accusations
Michael Moore Defends Iran, Slams US for Bombing Japan in WWII in Deranged Rant: ‘We’re the Bad Guys!’
Iran Conflict Reveals the Left Opposes War, Rejects Peace, and Lives Only to Oppose Trump
The Velvet Hammer – Melania Nails Liars Accusing Her of Epstein Relationship, but She Does It in the Classiest Way You’ve Ever Seen
CNN Forced to Issue Humiliating Correction After Declaring Michael J. Fox Dead
Senate Dem accuses Trump of being ‘unfit for office,’ joins growing call to impeach, oust president
Department of Justice Launches Investigation Into the NFL: Report
Trump had praised non-violent protesters on either side of the removal of a Confederate statue as “very fine people,” contrasting them with violent rioters, and saying neo-Nazis and white nationalists should be “condemned totally.”
Breitbart News specifically confronted Biden directly at the Iowa State Fair last summer with the fact that he was misquoting the president. He and his campaign continue to claim otherwise, and to spread the “Charlottesville hoax.”
Trump blasts Biden admin for releasing illegal immigrant now charged in fatal hammer attack on Florida mother
Iran peace talks give JD Vance an opening in 2028 race
Mahmoud Khalil loses appeal to dismiss deportation case
Coast Guard seizes over 4,500 pounds of cocaine worth $34M from suspected narco-terrorist vessel on Easter
ICE says more criminal migrants arrested on 1-year anniversary of program to support victims of migrant crime
Supreme Court blocks candidate after alleged GOP infiltration scheme exposed
Child among 4 dead as accused arsonist allegedly drank beer during chaos
Melania Trump’s forceful Epstein denial draws bipartisan support from lawmakers
Fellow Democrats Are Now Calling Out Eric Swalwell Over ‘Very Troubling’ Accusations
Michael Moore Defends Iran, Slams US for Bombing Japan in WWII in Deranged Rant: ‘We’re the Bad Guys!’
Iran Conflict Reveals the Left Opposes War, Rejects Peace, and Lives Only to Oppose Trump
The Velvet Hammer – Melania Nails Liars Accusing Her of Epstein Relationship, but She Does It in the Classiest Way You’ve Ever Seen
CNN Forced to Issue Humiliating Correction After Declaring Michael J. Fox Dead
Senate Dem accuses Trump of being ‘unfit for office,’ joins growing call to impeach, oust president
Department of Justice Launches Investigation Into the NFL: Report
Biden has made the false claim throughout his campaign, citing it as his very reason for running in his launch video. His sermon Sunday repeated what he has said previously in South Carolina — but with an explicit link to the KKK.
Biden was introduced by Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL), who endorsed Biden and said that there was “no bigger threat to [Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s] legacy than the person who is in the White House now.”
The former vice president said that he had been involved in the civil rights movement “for real” as a teenager, and said “I got my education — for real — in the black church. And that’s not hyperbole, that’s a fact.”
Biden repeatedly referred to former President Barack Obama, who has not yet endorsed anyone in the 2020 primary.
Sunday’s sermon was not the first time Biden has linked a political opponent to the worst of white racism, in an effort to appeal to an African-American audience. During his 2012 re-election campaign, Biden told a predominantly black group of voters in Virginia that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would “put y’all back in chains.”
The New York Times reported that Biden is expected to join other Democratic hopefuls in a rally at the state capitol in Columbia for an annual march in King’s memory. Biden’s support among black voters in the state is seen as a “firewall” against possible victories by his rivals in other early primary states, who poll poorly thus far among black voters.
Story cited here.
