Biden takes a knee in first non-virtual campaign event since March
OF HIS BUNKER
Annie Linskey, The Washington Post Published 7:15 am PDT, Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Photo: Andrew Harnik, AP
IMAGE 1 OF 3
Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden visits Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Del., Monday, June 1, 2020,
Joe Biden, holding his first non-virtual campaign event in months, listened Monday as activists sharply criticized his record on crime legislation. He took notes as they questioned the Obama-Biden record on race.
And posing for a photo with the activists, the 77-year-old presumptive Democratic nominee took a knee - a highly symbolic act that's come to signal support for the demonstrators protesting police violence across the country.
The event - and a virtual discussion with mayors struggling to manage the protests - showcased Biden's effort to demonstrate leadership on the crisis and create a contrast with President Trump, whose uneven response drew condemnation Monday from within his own party.
In coming weeks, Biden said, he will make "very serious national speeches about where I think we have to go, what we have to do." He also said he plans to release a new economic proposal next week focused heavily on housing, education and access to capital.
Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., who was among those meeting with Biden, said she appreciated his "showing up," taking issue with those who may feel Biden's response has been insufficient. "For those who are out there complaining, we've got a president that ain't even showing up, that doesn't even care," she said. "Come on."
Biden himself tweeted "Leaders listen" after the event, along with a photo of himself seated in a folding chair at the church as a woman addressed him.
Trump's day included a conference call with governors during which he called them "weak" and urged them to "dominate" those who've come out to protest police brutality and racism in the country.
Trump on Monday criticized the demonstrators for violent actions. "These are acts of domestic terror," he said, calling them a "crime against God" and threatening to deploy the military. Trump has also issued a series of hard-hitting tweets referring to people in the streets as "thugs" and threatening them with "vicious dogs" if they breach the White House fence.
Some Trump supporters have urged him to deliver a formal address on the crisis, but he has so far demurred. Biden also has yet to make a major speech on the events, though he has now promised he will, and he met with protesters on Sunday.
At a news conference Monday, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, criticized Trump's response, saying, "He is simply nowhere to be found."
During Biden's visit with activists at the Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware, he largely listened to the activists at his first formal in-person campaign event since the coronavirus caused his operation and much of the country to shut down in March.
Biden has left the area around his immediate home only a handful of times since then, laying a wreath on his son's grave on Memorial Day and touring some of the protests in Wilmington on Sunday.
At the church, the Rev. Shanika Perry, Bethel's youth pastor, pressed Biden on the 1994 crime bill he championed, which many African American leaders blame for the mass incarceration of young black men in the ensuing years.
Biden has since disavowed portions of the bill, but Perry said it continues to hurt Biden's cause among young African Americans. "It's been difficult to serve as a surrogate to them, because they have great issues with the participation in that," Perry said. "And so they want to know how do you plan to undo the impact of the mass incarceration and the things that have resulted from that particular crime bill."
Saying that "representation matters," Perry also offered Biden advice for picking a running mate: "Let me go on record and say, we want a black woman."
Biden has promised to select a woman as his running mate, and a growing number of civil right leaders are pressing him to pick an African American or Latina, given the way the pandemic and the recent killings of black men have laid starkly bare the issues faced by communities of color.
Others at the church suggested that former president Barack Obama, and Biden when he served as Obama's vice president, could have done more to help those communities.
"Over the eight years you were vice president there were lots of successes, but the African American community did not experience the same economic opportunity and upward mobility that they did in the 90s," said state Sen. Darius Brown, D-Del.
"The people in this room, we love you," Brown added. "But we're here not only to love you but to push you, because if we can publicly support every other Democratic base, then we should publicly support the African American Democratic base."
Brown also brought up the idea of paying reparations to black Americans, an issue that was debated heavily during the Democratic primary. Biden has said he would study the idea.
"It shouldn't be a study of reparations. It should be funding reparations," Brown said as Biden listened, occasionally taking notes.
Biden said the multiple crises wracking the nation provide a painful window into long-standing inequalities, echoing a message sent by many civil rights leaders.
"The Band-Aid has been ripped off by this pandemic and this president," Biden said. "Nobody can pretend any longer what this is all about. Nobody can pretend who has been carrying us on their back. It's been minorities. It's been blacks. It's been Hispanics."
As the meeting wound down, Biden asked for a moment of prayer. Afterward, he posed for group photos, at one point taking a knee in front of the group.
Even as Biden took a small step toward in-person campaigning, signs persisted of covid-19's impact. No microphones were used in the church, to avoid spreading the virus. Biden wore a medical mask, and others in the church used face coverings and sat far from one another.
Later, during the virtual round table with mayors from Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and St. Louis, Biden pressed the city leaders for ideas on changing police practices.
"There is systemic racism, white supremacy - it's real. You see it," Biden said. "I think we all see it, but if you're African American, you see it more clearly, in almost every aspect of your life."
Read More
Biden to go after Trump in November in Republican states like Arizona, Texas and Georgia, campaign says
Black Trump voters 'ain't black,' Biden says, later apologizing
As Biden veep search ramps up, Harris and Klobuchar get a close look
BIDEN CAME OUT OF HIS BUNKER AND SPOKE THIS MORNING,
Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) · Twitter
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden
The President held up a bible at St. John’s church yesterday. If he opened it instead of brandishing it, he could have learned something: That we are all called to love one another as we love ourselves. That’s hard work. But it’s the work of America.
Twitter · 31 secs ago
A country is crying out for leadership. Leadership that can unite us, leadership that brings us together, leadership that can recognize the pain and deep grief of communities that have had a knee on their neck for a long time.
Twitter · 15 mins ago
Let us vow to make this, at last, an era of action to reverse systemic racism with long overdue and concrete changes. This morning I'm speaking in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on where we are and where we need to go. Tune in: www.pscp.tv/w/caUCzDFvU
Photo: Andrew Harnik, AP
IMAGE 1 OF 3
Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden visits Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Del., Monday, June 1, 2020,
Joe Biden, holding his first non-virtual campaign event in months, listened Monday as activists sharply criticized his record on crime legislation. He took notes as they questioned the Obama-Biden record on race.
And posing for a photo with the activists, the 77-year-old presumptive Democratic nominee took a knee - a highly symbolic act that's come to signal support for the demonstrators protesting police violence across the country.
The event - and a virtual discussion with mayors struggling to manage the protests - showcased Biden's effort to demonstrate leadership on the crisis and create a contrast with President Trump, whose uneven response drew condemnation Monday from within his own party.
In coming weeks, Biden said, he will make "very serious national speeches about where I think we have to go, what we have to do." He also said he plans to release a new economic proposal next week focused heavily on housing, education and access to capital.
Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., who was among those meeting with Biden, said she appreciated his "showing up," taking issue with those who may feel Biden's response has been insufficient. "For those who are out there complaining, we've got a president that ain't even showing up, that doesn't even care," she said. "Come on."
Biden himself tweeted "Leaders listen" after the event, along with a photo of himself seated in a folding chair at the church as a woman addressed him.
Trump's day included a conference call with governors during which he called them "weak" and urged them to "dominate" those who've come out to protest police brutality and racism in the country.
Trump on Monday criticized the demonstrators for violent actions. "These are acts of domestic terror," he said, calling them a "crime against God" and threatening to deploy the military. Trump has also issued a series of hard-hitting tweets referring to people in the streets as "thugs" and threatening them with "vicious dogs" if they breach the White House fence.
Some Trump supporters have urged him to deliver a formal address on the crisis, but he has so far demurred. Biden also has yet to make a major speech on the events, though he has now promised he will, and he met with protesters on Sunday.
At a news conference Monday, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, criticized Trump's response, saying, "He is simply nowhere to be found."
During Biden's visit with activists at the Bethel AME Church in Wilmington, Delaware, he largely listened to the activists at his first formal in-person campaign event since the coronavirus caused his operation and much of the country to shut down in March.
Biden has left the area around his immediate home only a handful of times since then, laying a wreath on his son's grave on Memorial Day and touring some of the protests in Wilmington on Sunday.
At the church, the Rev. Shanika Perry, Bethel's youth pastor, pressed Biden on the 1994 crime bill he championed, which many African American leaders blame for the mass incarceration of young black men in the ensuing years.
Biden has since disavowed portions of the bill, but Perry said it continues to hurt Biden's cause among young African Americans. "It's been difficult to serve as a surrogate to them, because they have great issues with the participation in that," Perry said. "And so they want to know how do you plan to undo the impact of the mass incarceration and the things that have resulted from that particular crime bill."
Saying that "representation matters," Perry also offered Biden advice for picking a running mate: "Let me go on record and say, we want a black woman."
Biden has promised to select a woman as his running mate, and a growing number of civil right leaders are pressing him to pick an African American or Latina, given the way the pandemic and the recent killings of black men have laid starkly bare the issues faced by communities of color.
Others at the church suggested that former president Barack Obama, and Biden when he served as Obama's vice president, could have done more to help those communities.
"Over the eight years you were vice president there were lots of successes, but the African American community did not experience the same economic opportunity and upward mobility that they did in the 90s," said state Sen. Darius Brown, D-Del.
"The people in this room, we love you," Brown added. "But we're here not only to love you but to push you, because if we can publicly support every other Democratic base, then we should publicly support the African American Democratic base."
Brown also brought up the idea of paying reparations to black Americans, an issue that was debated heavily during the Democratic primary. Biden has said he would study the idea.
"It shouldn't be a study of reparations. It should be funding reparations," Brown said as Biden listened, occasionally taking notes.
Biden said the multiple crises wracking the nation provide a painful window into long-standing inequalities, echoing a message sent by many civil rights leaders.
"The Band-Aid has been ripped off by this pandemic and this president," Biden said. "Nobody can pretend any longer what this is all about. Nobody can pretend who has been carrying us on their back. It's been minorities. It's been blacks. It's been Hispanics."
As the meeting wound down, Biden asked for a moment of prayer. Afterward, he posed for group photos, at one point taking a knee in front of the group.
Even as Biden took a small step toward in-person campaigning, signs persisted of covid-19's impact. No microphones were used in the church, to avoid spreading the virus. Biden wore a medical mask, and others in the church used face coverings and sat far from one another.
Later, during the virtual round table with mayors from Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and St. Louis, Biden pressed the city leaders for ideas on changing police practices.
"There is systemic racism, white supremacy - it's real. You see it," Biden said. "I think we all see it, but if you're African American, you see it more clearly, in almost every aspect of your life."
Read More
Biden to go after Trump in November in Republican states like Arizona, Texas and Georgia, campaign says
Black Trump voters 'ain't black,' Biden says, later apologizing
As Biden veep search ramps up, Harris and Klobuchar get a close look
BIDEN CAME OUT OF HIS BUNKER AND SPOKE THIS MORNING,
Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) · Twitter
https://twitter.com/JoeBiden
The President held up a bible at St. John’s church yesterday. If he opened it instead of brandishing it, he could have learned something: That we are all called to love one another as we love ourselves. That’s hard work. But it’s the work of America.
Twitter · 31 secs ago
A country is crying out for leadership. Leadership that can unite us, leadership that brings us together, leadership that can recognize the pain and deep grief of communities that have had a knee on their neck for a long time.
Twitter · 15 mins ago
Let us vow to make this, at last, an era of action to reverse systemic racism with long overdue and concrete changes. This morning I'm speaking in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on where we are and where we need to go. Tune in: www.pscp.tv/w/caUCzDFvU
Twitter · 52 mins ago
HE CAME OUT OF HIS BUNKER AND SAW HIS SHADOW
Biden visited a Black Lives Matter protest site in Delaware as Trump rages on Twitter against demonstrators
Leaving his home for the second time in a week, Biden recognized the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed in Minneapolis police custody last week.
"The original sin of the country still stains our nation today," Biden said in a video released Friday. "We need justice for George Floyd."
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump repeatedly attacked protesters and threatened violence against them on Twitter.
Former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday made an unannounced visit to a site in Wilmington, Delaware where protests against police brutality and racism took place the night before.
Leaving his home for the second time in a week, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee recognized the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed in Minneapolis police custody last week. His campaign posted a photo of Biden kneeling on the ground facing a black man also kneeling with his young son.
Biden has attempted to strike a unifying tone in his public statements as demonstrations continued in at least 75 US cities over the weekend.
—Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 31, 2020
In a five-minute video released on Friday, Biden urged the country to come together and address the "national crisis" of police brutality against black people.
"The original sin of the country still stains our nation today," he said. "We need justice for George Floyd."
"We are a country with an open wound. None of us can turn away. None of us can be silent," Biden wrote in an accompanying tweet. "None of us any longer can hear those words — 'I can't breathe' — and do nothing. We must commit, as a nation, to pursue justice with every ounce of our being."
The Biden campaign announced in a Sunday email to reporters that the candidate will meet with community leaders in Wilmington on Monday morning and will hold a virtual roundtable with mayors afterwards.
Biden's response to Floyd's death and the ensuing protests has been markedly different than the president's. Over the past few days, Trump tweeted out a slew of attacks on the protesters, including one message quoting a white police officer who sparked a race riot in the 1960s.
"When the looting starts, the shooting starts," Trump declared in a message that was later flagged by Twitter for violating the platform's policy against content that "glorifies violence."
In a series of tweets on Saturday, Trump warned that the Secret Service was "just waiting for action," and would use "vicious dogs" and "ominous weapons" against protesters who breached the White House security boundary outside his residence.
HE CAME OUT OF HIS BUNKER AND SAW HIS SHADOW
Biden visited a Black Lives Matter protest site in Delaware as Trump rages on Twitter against demonstrators
Eliza Relman BUSINESS INSIDER May 31, 2020
Democratic U.S. presidential candidate and former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visits a site of the protest over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, in Wilmington. Reuters Images via Biden campaign
Former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday made an unannounced visit to a site in Wilmington, Delaware where protests against police brutality and racism took place the night before.
Former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday made an unannounced visit to a site in Wilmington, Delaware where protests against police brutality and racism took place the night before.
Leaving his home for the second time in a week, Biden recognized the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed in Minneapolis police custody last week.
"The original sin of the country still stains our nation today," Biden said in a video released Friday. "We need justice for George Floyd."
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump repeatedly attacked protesters and threatened violence against them on Twitter.
Former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday made an unannounced visit to a site in Wilmington, Delaware where protests against police brutality and racism took place the night before.
Leaving his home for the second time in a week, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee recognized the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed in Minneapolis police custody last week. His campaign posted a photo of Biden kneeling on the ground facing a black man also kneeling with his young son.
Biden has attempted to strike a unifying tone in his public statements as demonstrations continued in at least 75 US cities over the weekend.
—Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 31, 2020
In a five-minute video released on Friday, Biden urged the country to come together and address the "national crisis" of police brutality against black people.
"The original sin of the country still stains our nation today," he said. "We need justice for George Floyd."
"We are a country with an open wound. None of us can turn away. None of us can be silent," Biden wrote in an accompanying tweet. "None of us any longer can hear those words — 'I can't breathe' — and do nothing. We must commit, as a nation, to pursue justice with every ounce of our being."
The Biden campaign announced in a Sunday email to reporters that the candidate will meet with community leaders in Wilmington on Monday morning and will hold a virtual roundtable with mayors afterwards.
Biden's response to Floyd's death and the ensuing protests has been markedly different than the president's. Over the past few days, Trump tweeted out a slew of attacks on the protesters, including one message quoting a white police officer who sparked a race riot in the 1960s.
"When the looting starts, the shooting starts," Trump declared in a message that was later flagged by Twitter for violating the platform's policy against content that "glorifies violence."
In a series of tweets on Saturday, Trump warned that the Secret Service was "just waiting for action," and would use "vicious dogs" and "ominous weapons" against protesters who breached the White House security boundary outside his residence.
