Former Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that President Donald Trump “encourages white supremacists.”
Asked at the Iowa State Fair whether the president is a white supremacist himself, Biden, who is challenging Trump in the 2020 election, said: “I believe everything the president has done encourages white supremacists and I don’t know there’s much of a distinction. And as a matter of fact, it may be even worse.”
“So whether he is or is not a white supremacist, he encourages them in everything he does,” Biden went on. “He speaks to them.”
Biden’s remarks echo those of some of his fellow 2020 contenders. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told a reporter for The New York Times in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Wednesday night that she believes Trump is a white supremacist.
“He has given aid and comfort to white supremacists,” Warren said. “He’s done the wink and a nod. He has talked about white supremacists as fine people. He’s done everything he can to stir up racial conflict and hatred in this country.”
Earlier on Wednesday, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), another Democratic presidential hopeful, responded in kind to the same question from MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff.
O’Rourke said that Trump has “made that very clear” that he is a white supremacist. “He’s dehumanized or sought to dehumanize those who do not look like or pray like the majority here in this country,” he said.