Joe Biden, the US Presidential candidate has described the President Donald Trump as the country’s “first” racist president, saying the way he deals with people based on the the colour of their skin is “absolutely sickening”.
Biden passed the comments about Trump during a virtual town hall organised by the Service Employees International Union.
A questioner complained of racism linked to the Coronavirus outbreak during the event, saying Trump refered to the virus as the “China virus”.
Biden blasted Trump, saying he helped in the ”spread of racism”.
“The way he deals with people based on the colour of their skin, their national origin, where they’re from, is absolutely sickening,” the former vice president said. “No sitting president has ever done this. Never, never, never. No Republican president has done this. No Democratic president. We’ve had racists, and they’ve existed. They’ve tried to get elected president. He’s the first one that has.”
Biden’s comments aren’t true as some ex-presidents like George Washington owned slaves while President Woodrow Wilson, the US’ 28th president, supported segregation and imposed it on several federal agencies.
Trump has responded to Biden’s comments, reminding Americans of his administration’s efforts at passing criminal justice reform legislation and expanding opportunity zones, as well as the low unemployment numbers for minority groups early this year.
“I’ve done more for Black Americans than anybody with the possible of exception of Abraham Lincoln,” the president said.
“Nobody has even been close.”
Katrina Pierson, a senior adviser for Trump’s re-election campaign, also responded saying “no one should take lectures on racial justice from Joe Biden.”
It is not the first time Biden has suggested Trump’s actions were racist.
When Trump said last year that four Democratic congresswomen of colour should “go back” to their countries, Biden called it a “flat, racist attack.”