[applause] v. P. Biden thank you very much. Please, thank you. [applause] biden folks, thank you very, very much for being here and giving me this opportunity. They at the outset that speech i am going to give you today i had planned on coming, when we set this up some weeks ago, to talk about agricultural policy, unions, rural policy, etc. But too much has happened in the recent past, and i have prepared, for me, what is a speech that i hope will set a marker for what we should be doing. You all know the words of the president matters. They can move markets. They can send our brave women and men to war. They can bring peace. Can calmcombination a nation in turmoil. They can console and comfort those who have faced tragedy. And they can inspire us to reach for the moon. They can encourage us to appeal to our better angels, or better nature. But they can also unleash the deepest, darkest forces in this nation. And that is what i believe donald trump has chosen to do. When he said after charlottesville there were, and i quote, very fine people on then it gavei said license and safe harbor to White Supremacists and neonazis and the ku klux klan. These words not only stunned america, but they stunned the world. And in doing so, he assigned a moral equivalence, a moral equivalence between those spewing hate and those with the courage to stand against it. We are in ae time battle for the soul of this nation. I said it again when i announced my candidacy. And i say it here today. Are in a battle for the soul of this nation. That is why, primarily, i am running for president. [applause] v. P. Biden charlottesville was no isolated incident. When trump announced he was running for president , he called mexicans rapists. Days before the midterm, he fomented fears of a caravan heading to the United States,reating hysteria when he said this is an invasion. An invasion. He asserted that immigrants would, quote, carve you up with a knife. Recently, he called a major American City a disgusting, ratinfected, wrote mess. No human being, he said, would choose to live there, as though the vibrant Community Around baltimore was less than human. Hea rally in florida, when asks the crowd, how do we stop these people, leading meaning immigrants, someone yelled back, shoot them, and he smiled. In north carolina, he basked in champs of send her back echoing across the stadium. How far is it from trump saying this is an invasion to the shooter in el paso declaring, this attack is a response to hispanic invasion of texas . How far apart are those comments . From whiteit supremacists and neonazis in charlottesville, trumps very fine people chanting you will replace us to the shooter at the tree of life synagogue in pittsburgh saying we are committing genocide jews are committing genocide on his , people . I dont think its that far at all. Its both clear language and in code. This president has fanned the flames of White Supremacy in the nation. His lowenergy, vacanteyed mouthing of the words written for him condemning White Supremacists this week, i dont believe fooled anyone at home or abroad. His energetic embrace the energetic embrace of this president by the darkest hearts and most hatefilled minds in this country say it all. When the White NationalistRichard Spencer celebrated trumps election by declaring hail trump at an altright conference where the nazi salute was being used. In charlottesville, david duke, the former leader of the kkk, said this is why we voted for donald trump. Because he said hes going to take back the country. After trump tweeted his go back screed, a leading neonazi website said, this is the kind of nationalism we elected him for. He knows it, he saw it. And on 8chan, a haven for radicalism on the internet, a declaration of hate linked to the el paso shooter was posted, one commentator wrote that trump is helping to normalize the most extreme radical sentiments because his perceived authority carried so carries so much weight. We have a problem with this rising tide of supremacy, White Supremacy in america. And we have a president who encourages and emboldens it. The statistics are clear. Extremism is on the rise in america. The Southern Poverty Center finds that of the 1020 hate groups operating in the United States in 2018 that is how many there are they pointed out that White Nationalist groups have surged by over 50 . In 2017, an active shooter with ties to white extremism claimed 135 victims and 70 killed. According to the antidefamation league, all but one of the 50 extremistlinked murders counted in 2018 had direct links to White Supremacists. His own fbi director recently testified to congress that extreme rightwing groups, White Nationalists, posed the greatest threat to raciallymotivated domestic terrorism. And what has trump done . He has poured fuel on the fire. He has retweeted postings from extremists and White Nationalists. Hes cutting funding, in some places completely eliminated funding, initiated by barack and i to counter violent extremism at home. Trump readily, eagerly attacks islamic terrorism but can barely bring himself to use the word White Supremacy. And even when he says it, he doesnt appear to believe it. He seems more concerned about losing their votes than beating back this hateful ideology. He says that guns are not the problem in Mass Shootings. The issue is Mental Health. Its a dodge. Hatred isnt a Mental Health issue. I can tell you, as the guy along with senator Dianne Feinstein who got the assault weapons ban and the highcapacity magazines banned in this country for 10 years, if elected president , we will do it again. We will do it again. [applause] mr. Biden 100 rounds in dayton. 30round clips in el paso. They will be banned. And when we do it, we will put in place a Buyback Program to get as many as we need to get these militarystyle weapons of war off the street. And we need we need a domestic terrorism law. We can do it without infringing on anyones free speech. Without tampering with anybodys liberties. Quite simply, we have to make the same commitment as a nation to root out domestic terrorism as we have in stopping international terrorists. I wish i could say that this all began with donald trump and will end with him. But it didnt and i wont. American history is not a fairytale. The battle for the soul of the nation has been a constant push and pull for 243 years between the american ideal that says we are all created equal and the harsh reality that racism has long torn us apart. The same document that promised to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity also allowed for slavery and the socalled 3 5 compromise that discounted the very humanity of black people in america at the time. The honest truth is, both elements are part of the american character. At our best, the american ideal wins out. But its never a rout, its always a fight, and its a battle that is never fully finished. Go back to the beginning. Thomas jefferson wrote what many believe to be the most important document, civil document in human history. And he was a slave holder. We have never lived up to our american ideals. Jefferson himself didnt. But what he wrote has pulled us towards justice for more than two centuries, and it still does. It remains this nations north star. Take a look at the klan, the ku klux klan. After the civil war, we saw a rise in the klan. It was beaten down only to rise again in the 1920s. In fact, in august of 1925, 30,000 fully clad klansmen in their robes and pointed hats marched down pennsylvania avenue in the streets of washington. Imagine. Imagine that today. And then the klan was once again beaten back, as it was after the civil war. How . The courts, the press, and yes, president s, stood against them. And that is the point. Our institutions often imperfectly stood against hate at moments when we were most tested. American president s have stepped up in the past. George h. W. Bush renouncing his membership in the nra. President clinton after oklahoma city. George w. Bush going to a mosque after 9 11. President obama after charleston. President s who led, who opposed, chose to fight for what the best of american character is about. Theres deafening silence now. Sadly, we dont have that today. Our president has aligned himself with the darkest forces in this nation. And it makes winning this battle for the soul of our nation that much tougher. Harder. Trump doesnt understand what franklin d. Roosevelt did. Roosevelt said that the presidency is, quote, preeminently a place of moral leadership. He doesnt see what jfk did when he said only the president represents the national interests. He is blind to what Lyndon Baines johnson said of the office when he said nothing makes a man come to grips more directly with his conscience than the presidency. Trump offers no moral leadership. He seems to have no interest in unifying this nation. No evidence that the presidency has awakened his conscience in the least. Indeed, we have a president with a toxic tongue who has publicly and unapologetically embraced a political strategy of hate, racism, and division. So, it is up to us, as it was in the 1920s. It is up to us. We are living through a rare moment in this nations history where our president isnt up to the moment. Where our president lacks the moral authority to lead. Where our president has more in common with George Wallace than he does with george washington. You know [applause] mr. Biden we are almost 330 million americans. We will have to do what our president cant. Stand together. Stand against hate. Stand up for what is best. Our nations best when were the best. In this nation, we believe when we are at our best. We believe in honesty. Decency. Treating everyone with respect. Giving everyone a fair shot. Leaving nobody behind. Giving hate no safe harbor. Demonizing no one, not the poor, the powerless, the immigrant, or the other. Lead by the power of our example, not by the example of our power. That has allowed us to stand as a beacon to the world. Being part of something bigger than ourselves. Its a code. Its uniquely american code. Its who we are. But donald trump doesnt get it. What this president doesnt understand is that, like every other nation on earth, we are unable to define what constitutes american by religion, by ethnicity, or by tribe. You cant do it. America is an idea. An idea stronger than any army. Bigger than any ocean. More powerful than any dictator or tyrant. It gives hope to the most desperate people on earth. It is not only are our values that are under assault, our democracy is as well. A free press, an independent judiciary, a legislature that is a coequal branch of government. These are the guardrails. [applause] mr. Biden these are the guardrails of our democracy. They are written into our constitution. And if you have noticed, for the last two plus years, they have been under attack. Phrases like fake news. Enemy of the people. They are no joke. They are insidious. They are corrosive. Just look around the world. The worst despots are using now trumps language to justify their own abuses of power. Trump is trying to weaken our institutions, the press, the courts, the congress, precisely because they are the only checks on his power. Thats what this is all about. The abuse of power. If theres one thing i cant stand, and i know you cant, is the abuse of power, whether it is a boss taking advantage of his or her workers, or a man who raises his hand to a woman or a child. Or a president who is running roughshod over everything this country believes and stands for. [applause] mr. Biden no matter how old or young you are, you have never seen anything like this in your lifetime. We are being reminded every day that there is nothing guaranteed about democracy. Not even here in america. We have to constantly earn it. We have to protect it. We have to fight for it. I believe america is, as lincoln named us, the last best hope on earth. But we have to remember why. Its not because we have the biggest economy. The Strongest Military in the history of the world. It is not because we have the most innovative entrepreneurs and the greatest research universities. Thats all true, but its not why we are america. The reason is, what we believe, the most powerful idea in the history of the world i think beats in the hearts of the people of this country, it beats in all of us, no matter your race, ethnicity, no matter your gender identity, your sexual orientation, no matter your faith. It beats in the hearts of the rich and poor alike, it unites america, whether your ancestors were native to these shores or they were brought here forcibly and enslaved, or they are immigrants from generations back, like my family from ireland, or those coming today, looking to build a better life for their families. The american creed that we are all created equal was written long ago, but the genius of every generation of americans has opened it wider and wider and wider, to include those who have been excluded in the previous generation. That is why it has never gathered any dust in our history books. It is still alive today, more than 200 years after its inception. But i, honest to god, dont believe donald trump sees it that way. On january 20, 2017, in his inaugural address, donald trump painted a dark, bleak picture of our country in crisis, when he declared, and i quote, this american carnage stops right here. It stops right now. But as a sitting president , trumps anger, hate, and divisiveness, pitting americans against one another, preying on our divisions and doing nothing, nothing about the endemic and the epidemic of guns that is fueling a literal carnage in america. We now have more Mass Shootings in 2019, since january, than we have days that have passed since january 1, 2019. As of monday, according to data from the gun violence archives, there have been 255 Mass Shootings in the first 217 days of this year. We cant let this go on. We cant, and i will not, let this man be reelected president of the United States of america. [cheers and applause] mr. Biden we cant. [applause] mr. Biden folks [applause] mr. Biden folks, his incompetence, his immorality, his carnage stops with us, right here, right now, starting in the midwest. Limit to four years, and i believe history will look back on this president as an aberrant moment in american history. But if donald trump is reelected, i believe he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation. If we give donald trump four more years, this will not be the country envisioned by washington and adams and jefferson. If we give donald trump four more years, this will not be the nation bound together by lincoln. If we give donald trump four more years, this will not be the nation lifted up by roosevelt or inspired by kennedy. It will not be the nation that barack obama proved bends toward justice. [applause] mr. Biden the danger of donald trump and the alt right pose to this nation is not hypothetical or exaggerated. It is real. The core values of this nation, our standing in the world, our very democracy, everything that makes america america, is at stake. Folks, everyone knows who donald trump is, even the people who support him. We have to show who we are. We choose hope over fear. We choose science over fiction. We choose unity over division. And yes, we choose truth over lies. [applause] mr. Biden if we stand together, if we stand together, we will win the battle for the soul of this nation. We are the United States of america. There is not a single thing beyond our capacity, if we stand together and get up and remember who we are. This is the United States of america. Period. Thank you, and may god protect our troops. [applause] [crowd cheering] the former Vice President will be at the iowa state fair today. We will take you to the fair live at 1 45 eastern. The former Vice President montana at 2 30, and governor Steve Bullock at about 1 45. Live coverage on cspan. Campaign 2020. Watch our live coverage of the president ial candidates on the campaign trail and make up your own mind. Cspans campaign 2020. Your unfiltered view of politics. Later this afternoon, the Cato Institute joins the Heritage Foundation for a debate of their political ideologies of the two think tanks. The debaters will be there in turns, libertarianism versus conservatism, live on cspan. Org or listen on the free cspan radio app. Q a y not on [chanting] midth