Joe Biden Rebukes Donald Trump in Burlington, Iowa

Former vice president Joe Biden delivered an important speech today in Burlington, Iowa. Biden began by stating what too many Republicans, embarrassed by this president but shamefully still backing him, refuse to admit: “The words of a president matter,” Biden said. “They can move markets. They can send our brave men and women to war. They can bring peace. They can calm a nation in turmoil. They can console and confront and comfort in times of tragedy ... They can appeal to the better angels of our nature. But they can also unleash the deepest, darkest forces in this nation.” His tone varied from defiant to sorrowful, he emphatically blasted out each phrase. The language was plain and direct, but the call to recall our founding principles was profound and stirring. Biden reminded us that at a rally in Florida after Trump asked the crowd how to stop immigrants, someone in the audience said: “shoot them.” Trump smiled and took it as a joke. Biden argued that it “is not far at all” from Trumpian comments to the alleged El Paso murderer’s diatribe that “this attack is in response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” just as his praise to “very fine” neo-Nazis chanting “you will not replace us” is not far at all from the words of the mass murderer at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, who said Jews “were committing genocide to his people.”