WASHINGTON (BLOOMBERG) - Joe Biden will castigate President Donald Trump on Tuesday (June 2) for fanning "the flames of hate" as he seeks to reassure a nation on edge from days of protests around the country that have led the president to call for military intervention.
In a speech at Philadelphia City Hall, Biden will decry Trump's leadership, specifically his photo op outside the historic St John's Church across the street from the White House. Police cleared peaceful protesters from Lafayette Park with force before he walked there.
"When peaceful protesters are dispersed by the order of the president from the doorstep of the people's house, the White House - using tear gas and flash grenades - in order to stage a photo op at a noble church, we can be forgiven for believing that the president is more interested in power than in principle," Biden will say, according to excerpts of his remarks released by the campaign.
Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, will tell the nation in his first public address in months that if elected he will "seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued this country - not use them for political gain".
"I'll do my job and take responsibility," he will say. "I won't blame others. I'll never forget that the job isn't about me."
Biden's speech comes after days of unrest following the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, while in police custody. Protests, at times violent, have broken out across the country as Americans express their rage at police brutality, many wearing masks to protect against the coronavirus pandemic that has disrupted American life.
Floyd, whose death was captured on video, was telling police he couldn't breathe as an officer knelt on his neck. Biden will say the words "I can't breathe" are "echoing across the nation".
"They speak to a nation where too often just the colour of your skin puts your life at risk," he will say. "They speak to a nation where more than 100,000 people have lost their lives to a virus and 40 million Americans have filed for unemployment - with a disproportionate number of these deaths and job losses concentrated in the black and minority communities."
Trump has threatened to send in the military to quell the protests, criticising the nation's governors on a call on Monday (June 1) for not responding with enough force.
Biden, meanwhile, spent Monday morning at a black church in Wilmington, listening to community leaders speak about racial inequalities and injustices. The leaders, while supportive of his campaign, pressed him to deliver for black Americans if he is elected. In the afternoon, he hosted a virtual roundtable with mayors to discuss how the protests and the pandemic are playing out in their cities.
