Democratic presidential candidate and former US Vice President Joe Biden has slammed terrorism carried out by white supremacists, following the mass shootings over the weekend in El Paso, Texas. RNA - In an interview aired early Tuesday Biden said, "The white supremacists are winning the battle."
"This is domestic terrorism,” he added.
White supremacists are winning the battle for the soul of the nation, Joe Biden tells @andersoncooper.
"...This is white nationalism, this is terrorism of a different sort," he added, calling the mass shootings over the weekend a "defining moment." https://t.co/SyqCbB0TkLpic.twitter.com/zs25j38Kfm
— New Day (@NewDay) August 6, 2019
Biden's comments come after last weekend's mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, which left more than 30 people dead.
El Paso police said the 21-year-old suspect published a "manifesto" before his shooting that had anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric. Saturday’s massacre was one of three mass shootings in the United States within a span of a week, unleashing fresh alarm at the national crisis of gun violence.
The gunman, who was arrested, is white and linked to a "manifesto" posted online that described an attack in response to a “Hispanic invasion.”
On Sunday, a 24-year-old gunman killed nine people in a rampage in Dayton, Ohio. That shooting came seven days after a teenager killed three people with an assault rifle at a food festival in California before taking his own life.
While President Donald Trump on Monday called on the country to "condemn bigotry, hatred and white supremacy" after the shooting, his critics have said his rhetoric has contributed to the rise in hate crimes. Trump declared that “hate has no place in our country.”
"This is a president who continues to speak in ways that just are contrary to everything we are," Biden told CNN. "I mean, referring to immigrants...Mexicans are rapists, talking about the rats in Baltimore."
"His rhetoric continues to this notion. It almost legitimizes these people coming out from under the rocks. This is white nationalism. This is terrorism of a different sort, but it's still terrorism," he continued.
He added that the "American public, unfortunately, is getting exposed to just how deeply and badly this nation has been divided by this president and the...attack on the character of the country that's going on."
"They are feeling it and...seeing it, and it's a different place," he added.
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