President Donald Trump is the first racist president in US history, according to former Vice President Joe Biden.
Biden made this reaction after Suk Kim, a South Korean immigrant, shared an experience she had being racially tagged at a supermarket and mentioned her worry about Trump’s coronavirus rhetoric, particularly labeling Covid-19 as the “China virus.”
Biden criticized Trump for “his spreading of racism" during a virtual town hall held by the Service Employees International Union.
“The way he deals with people based on the color of their skin, their national origin, where they’re from, is absolutely sickening,” said the the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee. “No sitting president has ever done this, never, never, never.”
“No Republican president has done this, this no Democratic president,” he noted. “We’ve had racists and they’ve existed, they’ve tried to get elected president but he’s the first one that has. And the way he pits people against one another is all designed to divide the country, divide people, not pull them together."
Meanwhile, Trump was asked about the statements during a press conference Wednesday. He mentioned the passage of the The First Step Act and the employment rate of Black and Hispanic Americans during his term “prior to the China plague coming in.”
“I’ve done more for black Americans than anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln,” Trump stressed. “No one else has even been close.”
Trump has been accused of triggering anti-Asian sentiment by calling the novel coronavirus as the “China virus,” “Kung Flu,” and “China pandemic.”
In a statement, Biden's campaign team cited past racist presidents but pointed out that Trump stands out.
“There have been a number of racist American presidents, but Trump stands out — especially in modern history — because he made running on racism and division his calling card and won,” Biden campaign senior adviser Symone Sanders said. “He deliberately foments both, intentionally causing indescribable pain because he thinks it advantages him politically.”
Trump said before that Biden tagged him as “racist” and “xenophobic” for not allowing travel from China earlier this year.
Katrina Pierson, a Trump campaign senior adviser, said in a statement that Trump “loves all people, works hard to empower all Americans, and is supported by more Black voters than any Republican presidential candidate in modern history.”
“No one should take lectures on racial justice from Joe Biden,” she noted.
Muslim ban
Biden also vows to end Trump’s ‘Muslim ban’ on his first day in office.
“I will end the Muslim ban on day one. Day one. And I will work with Congress to pass hate crimes legislation like the Jabara-Heyer No Hate Act and the End Racial and Religious Profiling Act,” Biden told the participants of the Million Muslim Votes Summit, an online conference led by Emgage Action, the nation’s largest Muslim-American political group.
Biden, discussing the Muslim ban on Monday, pointed out that Muslim communities “were the first to feel Donald Trump’s assault on black and brown people with his vile Muslim ban. That fight was the opening barrage in what has been nearly four years of constant pressure, insults and attacks” by Trump against minorities.
