LAS VEGAS (AP) — President Joe Biden returned to the campaign trail Tuesday for the first time since the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, continuing his call to calm the divisive rhetoric on both sides, but also arguing that doing so “doesn’t mean we should stop telling the truth” as he tore into his Republican rival.
Addressing the NAACP convention in Las Vegas, Biden said addressing political violence in the country should mean curbing all kinds of bloodshed — including better combating police brutality and banning weapons like the AR-style rifle used in the weekend attack on Trump.
“It’s time for an important conversation in this country. Our politics have become too heated,” Biden said.
That didn’t stop him from listing why Trump’s administration was “hell” for Black Americans, including the former president’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, skyrocketing unemployment amid early lockdowns and attempts to, as Biden put it, erase Black history.
“Just because we must lower the temperature in our politics as it relates to violence doesn’t mean we should stop telling the truth,” Biden told the crowd that often broke into chants of “Four more years!”
The president is aiming to showcase his administration’s support for Black voters who are a tentpole of the Democratic coalition and of his personal political support. As part of his swing in Nevada, he’ll also participate in an interview with BET and address the Hispanic advocacy group UnidosUS, another crucial Democratic-leaning bloc.
For the NAACP crowd, Biden seized on Trump recently referencing “Black jobs,” drawing big applause by joking, “I love the phrase.”
“I know what a Black job is. It’s the vice president of the United States,” Biden said of Vice President Kamala Harris, who he added “could be president.” He also referenced Barack Obama as the nation’s first Black president, and his own appointment to the Supreme Court of its first Black and female justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Biden’s trip comes as Democrats have been engaged in a weeks-long crisis of confidence over his candidacy after his devastating debate with Trump last month. The president’s shaky performance inflamed voter concerns about his age, fitness for office and capacity to defeat Trump once again.
Republicans, for their part, are demonstrating that they are more coalesced than ever around Trump amid their national convention in Milwaukee.
The 81-year-old Biden has rejected a flurry of calls from within his party to step aside, restating his belief that he is the best-positioned Democrat to beat Trump. He has relied heavily on his support among Black and Latino elected officials, and was set to appear with many of them in Nevada.
The president made indirect reference to unrest in his own party on Tuesday, recalling President Harry S. Truman famously saying, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”
“After the last couple of weeks, I know what he means,” Biden said. He said later, “hopefully, with age, comes a little bit of wisdom.”
Biden also promised that in the first 100 days of a second term he would oversee congressional approval of a dramatic expansion of voting rights — something he’s been unable to do as president so far. He also renewed earlier promises to “end medical debt,” saying he was working with states to settle outstanding bills for care for “pennies on the dollar.”
“I know the good Lord hasn’t brought us this far to leave us now,” Biden told the convention, offering overtly religious tones.
Trump has tried to appeal to both Black and Latino voters, hoping to capitalize on Biden’s sagging favorability. While it’s not clear that the loss of enthusiasm for Biden has helped Trump’s approval with those groups, any marginal loss of support for Biden could prove pivotal in a close race.
The president and his campaign hit pause on their criticisms of Trump in the immediate aftermath of the shooting Saturday at Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania, where the Republican candidate was injured in the ear, a rallygoer was killed and two others seriously injured.
In an Oval Office address on Sunday night, Biden called on Americans to reject political violence and for political leaders to “cool it down.” In a Monday interview with NBC News he allowed that he made a “ mistake ” when he told campaign donors that he wanted to put a “bull’s-eye” on Trump, but argued that the rhetoric from his opponent was more incendiary.
“Look, how do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says?” Biden said. “Do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody?”
NAACP President Derrick Johnson, in an interview with the AP, sidestepped questions about whether Biden should step aside as the Democratic nominee and whether the president, who often credits his place in the Oval Office to Black voters, could still inspire people to turn out for his candidacy.
Johnson instead focused on the need for Black voters to hear “solutions” on issues like inflation, education and attacks on civil rights, which are among the top concerns for Black communities in this election.
“We want to focus on the policy goals of whoever occupies the White House in the next term,” Johnson said. He added that Black voters would dismiss candidates “concerned with personality and sound bites.”
At an economic summit hosted by Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Steven Horsford later Tuesday, Biden was also set to unveil policy actions to tame rising housing costs, a critical issue in the battleground state.
Biden is to announce a proposal to cap rent increases at 5% for tenants whose landlords own over 50 units. If landlords hiked rents by more than that, they would lose access to tax write-offs tied to the depreciation of their buildings. The Bureau of Land Management is also opening up public comments to sell 20 acres of public land in Clark County, Nevada, for home construction.
But the president’s proposal would require congressional approval that he’s unlikely to receive with a House Republican majority — a sign that his proposal is more about political messaging at a critical juncture.
Trump has also used Nevada to float new economic policies. He said he would end taxes on the tips received by workers in the service-industry focused state, a concept that has since been endorsed by Nevada’s Democratic senators, Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto.
Miller reported from Washington. AP writers Matt Brown and Will Weissert and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.
