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Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden. | Joshua Roberts/Getty Images
Joe Biden is centering racial justice in his Fourth of July message, deepening the contrast with President Donald Trump.
“We have a chance to rip the roots of systemic racism out of this country,” Biden says in the Independence Day video shared with POLITICO, which features images of protests though the years and includes references to Bull Connor, Martin Luther King, George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. “We have a chance to live up to the words that founded this nation.”
While Biden does not mention Trump, his focus on marginalized and oppressed communities extends the strikingly different tones on race from both men since the death of Floyd in police custody sparked global outrage and galvanized a moment.
It also marks another holiday where their disparate approaches were laid bare: In May, when they honored Memorial Day, Biden wore a mask and Trump didn’t.
Trump, in a late Friday speech at Mount Rushmore, denounced cancel culture and the “angry mobs” that have taken to the streets to protest police violence and racism.
The president spoke of preserving American culture and traditions against “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children.”
On Saturday, Trump hosts a salute to America event in Washington while Biden will appear later Saturday at the Essence Festival of Culture to answer questions from black women. The segment was taped earlier this week and airs online.
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]]>The post Trump Focuses On White House Protests—Warns Of ‘Ominous Weapons,’ Promises ‘MAGA NIGHT’—After Night Of Chaos appeared first on Virus Reports.
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In a Twitter rant Saturday morning—his only reaction so far to a night of rioting in various U.S. cities—President Trump thanked Secret Service agents for responding to protesters outside the White House on Friday and warned demonstrators they would have been met with “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons” had they breached a protective fence.
WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 29: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks about U.S. relations with China at the … [+] White House May 29, 2020 in Washington, DC as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L) looks on. President Trump did not take questions regarding the current situation in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd and todays arrest of Derek Chauvin the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck for an extended time causing him to die. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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KEY FACTS
The Guard was ordered to remain on standby in Washington, D.C. Friday night, after protesters hopped barriers erected by Secret Service agents near the White House and hurled bottles at police officers who responded with pepper spray.
For more than five hours, the protesters attempted to break through multiple barriers standing between them and the White House, as officers used riot shields and pepper spray to repel the demonstrators.
Trump wrote that if the protesters had breached the White House fence, they would have been “greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen.”
He also attacked D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser, claiming she “wouldn’t let the D.C. Police get involved.”
The president also suggested Saturday would be “MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE,” though it’s not clear what he meant.
In a separate tweet on Saturday in which he used the wrong version of “there” and then corrected the mistake in a separate tweet, Trump said the White House protesters had “little to do with the memory of George Floyd.”
Key background
Trump has taken a more aggressive posture towards protesters in recent days. On Friday, Trump appeared to threaten opening fire against looters, declaring in a tweet that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”; the tweet was later flagged by Twitter for promoting violence. On Saturday, the Pentagon, at President Trump’s request, ordered the military police on alert in preparation for more protests over the weekend.
Tangent
The conservative news outlet the Daily Caller released a video appearing to show a Fox News reporter outside the White House being chased by protesters. In the background, a man can be heard yelling, “F**k that fake-ass news!”
Further reading
Trump Requests Military Help As Protests Escalate. Here’s What Happened Friday Night (Forbes)
Pentagon puts military police on alert to go to Minneapolis (Associated Press)
National Guard summoned to aid cities amid police clashes (Associated Press)
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]]>The post Joe Biden Focuses On George Floyd Protests At Fundraiser appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Sheryl Crow, Rufus Wainwright, Jimmy Buffett, Joe Walsh and David Crosby performed for Joe Biden at a virtual fundraiser on Thursday, but the presumptive Democratic nominee turned his focus to the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis.
“We can’t ignore that we are in a country with an open wound right now,” Biden said, according to a pool report. “A wound far older and deeper than George Floyd’s—George Floyd’s killing—and his brutal, brutal death captured on film. His final words, pleading for breathe. ‘Let me breathe, I can’t breathe.’ It’s ripped open anew this—this ugly underbelly of our society.”
Biden said that the officers in Floyd case “must be held accountable,” including with the FBI investigation and independent Department of Justice civil rights investigation.
“You know, if we’re not committed as a nation, with every ounce of purpose in our beings–not just to binding up this wound in hope that somehow the scab once again will cover things over–but to treat the underlying injury, we’re never going to eventually heal,” he told the 1,200 or so who were connected to the virtual event.
Whoopi Goldberg and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) served as hosts of the fundraiser, which was billed as “Rock Out On a Night In With Vice President Joe Biden,” with donors from across the country connected to Biden at his home in Wilmington, DE.
Goldberg, co-host of The View, said of Biden, “He is not perfect. He and I share several really great things in our life. We share the ability to get ourselves in trouble. We don’t mean to, we just do. Sometimes you make a step and you’re in it. This happens. But what I do know is he is the best man to get us in a better place.”
Walsh played Help Me Through the Night, a song selection he said was motivated by the memory of his four-year old daughter who died in a car accident in 1974, while Crow sang A Change Will Do You Good. She said that her two boys were asking her questions “about what is happening Minneapolis and I’m saying, ‘Yes, we need a leader that speaks to this and demands justice.”
Wainwright sang Going To A Town, while Crosby sang What Are Their Names.
This is going to be a really hard fight,” Crosby said. “I think it’s going to be the dirtiest fight since the Civil War and I’m really glad that you are willing to take up your sword and shield, Joe, and step into the fray.”
The evening finished with Buffett singing Come Monday, a song he said Biden had on his cell phone.
Biden has a series of fundraising events lined up through next month, all of them virtual. They include one headlined by Barbra Streisand and John Legend, scheduled for June 11.
Biden addressed criticism that he’s been at a disadvantage because of his inability to hit the campaign trail during the coronavirus crisis.
Biden said, “You know all of this stuff, you know that ‘Biden has run a virtual campaign’ well you know the other side of that is that Trump’s been running his mouth and his campaign. And the more he talks the more we go up, I mean, literally,”
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