Biden says 'hate just hides under rocks' and 'when people come along and breathe oxygen into it, it comes roaring back out'
Biden spoke about his views on civil rights and democracy in a rare sit-down interview published Friday.
He said he "used to think that you could defeat hate" but has learned "all hate does is hide."
He also tied his struggle to unify the country to geopolitical crises like the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
President Joe Biden said he "used to think that you could defeat hate," but has changed his mind over time and now believes "all hate does is hide" until demagogues exploit it for their own purposes.
Biden participated in a rare sit-down interview with Heather Cox Richardson, a historian and professor of American history at Boston College. The pair sat down in the White House on February 25, the day Biden nominated DC Court of Appeals Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, and Richardson published the interview on her widely-read "Letters from An American" Substack page on Friday.
During the interview, Richardson asked Biden why Americans should be confident in the survival of American democracy, prompting a long-winded answer from the president.
"I still believe that the vast majority of Americans believe that — they don't think of the founding principles — they think that the United States is all about, at its root, being decent and honorable," Biden said. "They think that there isn't anything we can't do if we work together ... if we're united we can do anything."
Biden argued that hate and divisive politics often win out during periods of rapid change.
Biden first launched his campaign in 2019 with a message emphasizing a "battle for the soul of the nation," with his first campaign video focusing heavily on former President Donald Trump's equivocating response to a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. However, he also came under fire during the 2020 Democratic primary over his civil rights record, particularly his role in authoring the 1994 crime bill, which critics say contributed to mass incarceration.
The president focused primarily on hate as a political force.
"I used to think that you could defeat hate. But all you can do is — all hate does is hide," said Biden. "What I realized is hate just hides under rocks, and what happens is when people come along and breathe oxygen into it, it comes roaring back out."
"One of the ways to gain power is to pit people against one another, based on things having nothing to do other than race, ethnicity, background, white supremacy," he added. "America began to lose its way a little bit."
Biden also tied his efforts to unify the country to geopolitical crises abroad, including the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"The same thing occurred internationally," said Biden, adding that the Trump administration focused on things that were "only good for America" and was putting forward a "sort of phony populism."
Biden said that he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin felt emboldened to invade Ukraine because "we have been so divided as European democracies and other democracies."
"I've spent all my time just trying to bring them back together again so we're on the same page," he added.
"The point is bringing nations and people together," said Biden. "And that's why in my administration — I think it's fair to say, I know it's accurate numerically — we have the most diverse administration in American history."
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