Trump Campaign Press Release - Joe Biden Preaches Unity in Gettysburg Despite Decades of Trafficking in Hate

His own running-mate has called him out for 47 years of racial bigotry.

Joe Biden gave a speech in Gettysburg today lecturing Americans on "unity" and joining together to overcome challenges. The whole episode was a farce, as there are few people who've fanned the flames of hatred and division more viciously than Joe Biden during his 47 years in the D.C. swamp.

Biden's speech today and his entire campaign were built on the lie that President Trump hasn't condemned white supremacy outright. That's an ugly lie meant to cause fear and division so that Biden can get votes. Trafficking in hate and division is not a new tactic for Biden. His record speaks for itself.

• Biden praised former Ku Klux Klan "Exalted Cyclops" Robert Byrd, calling him a "friend," "mentor," and "guide." Byrd once recruited and led a 150-member chapter of the KKK.
  
• Biden previously called another segregationist, Senator Strom Thurmond, "one of my closest friends" and thanked him for helping him pass laws to incarcerate Black Americans for crack cocaine offenses.
  
• While advocating for legislation that disproportionately incarcerated Black Americans, Biden called young Black men "predators." "They are beyond the pale, many of those people," he said.
  
• At a private fundraiser in 2019, Joe Biden bragged about his relationships with segregationists. One of the segregationists, Democrat Senator James Eastland, was a self-proclaimed white supremacist who opposed the Civil Rigts Act. "He didn't call me son, he always called me young man," Biden recalled.

Those appalling statements are just a small part of Biden's long history of fanning the flames of hatred and division. It's no wonder that at the end of Biden's five decades in Washington, 69% of Americans – an all-time high – said that race relations were mostly bad.

• In 2012, Biden told a Black audience that Republicans would "put y'all back in chains."
  
• In 2018, Biden claimed Republicans were responsible for "Jim Crow sneaking back in."
  
• Multiple times in this campaign, Biden compared President Trump to Bull Connor, the Alabama Democrat known for his opposition to the Civil Rights Movement.
  
• In May, Biden told Black Americans that if they did not automatically support him, "then you ain't black."
  
• In an August interview, Biden asserted that Black Americans have no diversity of thought, and asked a Black reporter if he is a "junkie," rather than answer a basic question about his own cognitive ability.
  
• Last month, Biden likened President Trump to Nazi propogandist and murderer Joseph Goebbels.

Trafficking in hatred and division to get votes is the only political tactic Joe Biden knows how to employ. His own running-mate, Kamala Harris, once agreed that no one should be taking lectures on racial justice from Joe Biden. Now that she is on the ticket, she's abandoned all of her past criticisms of Biden's decades-long support for racist policies and segregationists.

• Kamala Harris confronted Biden for his warm relationships with segregationist senators, saying, "It was personal and it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States Senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country."
  
• Harris said of Biden: "To coddle the reputations of segregationists – of people who, if they had their way I would literally not be standing here as a member of the United States Senate... is misinformed and it's wrong."
  
• Harris blasted Biden for "praising and coddling individuals who made it their life work and built their reputation off of segregation of the races in the United States... That's a problem."
  
• Harris said Biden's 1994 crime bill "did contribute to mass incarceration in our country."
• When asked to apologize for his praise of segregationists, Biden refused to do so.

The notion that Joe Biden is some sort of racial healer is a total joke. He spent decades building the systems of mass incarceration that disproportionately hurt Black Americans, then failed to make any meaningful changes during his eight years as vice president. Now, President Trump is fixing the mess that Joe Biden created.