Biden condemns violence in speech to NAACP but resumes attacks on Trump | Joe Biden News

US President Joe Biden has returned to the campaign trail for the first time since his Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, narrowly escaped an assassination attempt over the weekend.

In a speech on Tuesday in Las Vegas, Nevada, Biden directly addressed the shooting that left one bystander dead and at least two others, as well as Trump himself, injured.

“Our politics have become too heated,” Biden said as he took the podium. “As I have made clear throughout my presidency, we all have a responsibility to lower the temperature and condemn violence in all forms. We must remember that in America, we are not enemies. We are friends. We are neighbors. We are fellow Americans.”

But while condemning political violence and polarization, Biden nevertheless criticized Trump both implicitly and explicitly, criticizing the Republican for his record on economic issues, reproductive rights, gun violence and other issues.

“Just because our politics are very divided doesn’t mean we should stop telling the truth. Who you are, what you have done, what you are going to do – that is allowed,” Biden said.

Raising awareness of political violence

Biden delivered his speech on the fourth day of the national convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a major civil rights organization in the United States.

The appearance came just three days after a 20-year-old gunman positioned himself on a rooftop in Butler, Pennsylvania, and fired an AR-15 rifle at Trump as he spoke at a rally.

The shooting has heightened tensions ahead of a hotly contested US presidential election that will culminate in Election Day on November 5.

Biden, a Democrat, is seeking to retain the presidency in a rematch of his 2020 race against Trump. But after the shooting, Biden temporarily suspended television ads attacking the Republican leader as both candidates called for unity.

The Democratic incumbent picked up on this theme again in his speech to the NAACP convention, albeit with some caustic remarks toward his Republican rival.

“We must stand together and say that violence is not the solution. That is what we should stand for as a nation. That is the unity I am talking about,” Biden said.

After Biden reiterated his offer to pray for the Trump family, he quickly pivoted to the issue of violence against the black community – an issue on which he believed Trump was weak.

Biden drew a sharp contrast between the wave of support following Trump’s shooting and the vitriol faced by black election workers after the 2020 election and black police officers during the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

He also sharply criticized Trump for his response to the murder of George Floyd, a black man in Minnesota who died after a police officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.

“You understand, when you talk about standing up against violence, you have to stand up against all kinds of violence. You have to stand up against the violence against presidential candidates in Pennsylvania,” Biden said.

“The violence against George Floyd in Minnesota. Against black veterans and police officers like Eugene Goodman on January 6th. And against black poll workers like Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss in Atlanta. We must stand up against the violence and intimidation of white supremacy.”

Biden particularly highlighted Trump’s response to Floyd’s murder. At the NAACP rally, he said: “When you were peacefully protesting the murder of George Floyd, Donald Trump called for the National Guard to come after you. What the hell is wrong with this man?”

A critical voting bloc

Black voters represent an important voting bloc for the Democratic president. In 2020, South Carolina’s black residents were credited with revitalizing Biden’s campaign in the Democratic primaries and ultimately giving him the boost he needed to win his party’s nomination.

And in the general election this year, 92 percent of black voters overwhelmingly voted for Biden.

But in this year’s election campaign, Trump is trying to undermine this voter base, and critics are calling on the Democrats to do more to ensure that the concerns of black communities are prioritized in the party’s manifesto.

In his speech on Tuesday, Biden emphasized that his administration has allocated $16 billion to historically African-American colleges and universities (HBCUs). He also spoke of a decline in unemployment among blacks and warned that Trump’s economic policies could undo those gains.

The Democrat also repeated a much-derided statement made by Trump during the June 27 presidential debate, when the Republican spoke of immigrants taking “black jobs.” Critics, including from the NAACP, condemned the statement as racist.

“Folks, I know what a black job is. It’s the vice president of the United States. I know what a black job is. It’s the first black president in American history, Barack Obama,” Biden said at the NAACP convention, using the opportunity to highlight the diversity of his administration.

He also hinted that his Vice President Kamala Harris would play a bigger role in the future. “She’s not just a great Vice President. She could be President of the United States.”

Efforts to recover after the debate

Biden, 81, has been repeatedly called on to drop out of the 2024 presidential campaign following his shaky and stuttering performance at the June 27 debate. Harris was mentioned during the campaign as one of several possible successors to him.

Biden, however, has stressed that he will stay in the race, using the slogan of this year’s NAACP convention – “All in” – to underscore this: “Are you all in? Because I’m all in.”

Still, he acknowledged the resistance he has faced on Capitol Hill and suggested that criticism from within his own party has isolated him.

“(President Harry) Truman said, ‘You want a friend in Washington? Then get a dog.’ Well, you know what? After the last couple of weeks, I know what he means,” Biden told the audience, which responded with chuckles. “So many of you have had my back, and I think I’ve had your back, too, and I’ll never forget that.”

Al Jazeera correspondent Rob Reynolds reported from Las Vegas that Biden received a “very, very warm and friendly welcome” from spectators at the convention center, who broke out into chants of “Four more years! Four more years!”

“It’s clear that this is the electorate that Joe Biden needs,” Reynolds said of the speech.

“This is an appeal to that crucial demographic, that crucial voting bloc, that has by and large stood behind Biden during this crisis phase of his campaign. Very few, if any, black citizens or elected officials have called on Biden to resign, even as others called on him to resign and abandon his candidacy after his rather disastrous performance at the June 27 debate against Donald Trump.”

Ahead of the president’s remarks on Tuesday, NAACP President Derrick Johnson also emphasized the importance of the black community in the upcoming election.

However, he stressed that his group – which is considered the oldest civil rights organization in the United States – is fundamentally non-partisan.

“This election is not about Candidate A versus Candidate B, or Party A versus Party B. We are non-partisan, but we are damned political and we know this is a fight we have to take on,” Johnson said in his speech.

“Let’s focus not on the people, but on the policy priorities they represent, and elect those who are committed to the good of our communities. And I can assure you, when you do that, it is in America’s best interest.”