Donald Trump Calls Joe Biden Racist

Donald Trump branded President Biden "a very nasty and vicious racist" during a speech on Friday at the Black Conservative Federation's annual gala in Columbia, South Carolina.

In response, the White House referred Newsweek to comments made by Biden-Harris 2024 Black media director Jasmine Harris before Trump's address, in which he branded the Republican presidential frontrunner an "anti-Black tyrant."

The former president, and 2024 Republican presidential frontrunner, Trump accused Biden of "palling around with notorious segregationists" and drafting a 1994 crime bill "that devastated the Black community."

Trump has himself repeatedly been accused of promoting racism. including by Biden. In July 2020, the Democrat said the then-White House leader was the first racist "to get elected president." Biden's campaign team later said there had been a number of other racist presidents but added that "Trump stands out – especially in modern history."

Speaking at Friday's gala, Trump said: "On top of everything else, Joe Biden really has proven to be a very nasty and vicious racist. He's been a racist whether you like it or don't like it.

"Biden spent years palling around with notorious segregationists, you know that. He boasted that his home state was a slave state," Trump added. "He was very proud of that; he thought it was great. If you go back and look at his body language, the way he said it, he was very proud of it."

This appears to refer to comments Biden, then a Democratic senator, made in 2006 at the Columbia Rotary Club in South Carolina. During his speech at the event, Biden said he was from Delaware, which he described as a "slave state that fought beside the North." The Democrat added: "That's only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South. There were a couple of states in the way."

Referring to Biden at the Black Conservative Federation's annual gala, Trump added: "He said he didn't want his children to grow up in a 'racial jungle.' Joe Biden drafted the 1994 crime bill which caused unfair sentencing disparities that devastated the Black community, Black families."

During a speech in 1977, Biden said: "Unless we do something about this, my children are going to grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle with tensions having built so high that it is going to explode at some point." He was one of the architects behind the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which provided for 100,000 additional police officers and dramatically increased prison funding.

When asked for comment by Newsweek the White House press office send over a statement made by Biden-Harris 2024 Black Media Director Jasmine Harris ahead of Trump's speech to the Black Conservative Federation gala.

Harris said: "The audacity of Donald Trump to speak to a room full of Black voters during Black History Month as if he isn't the proud poster boy for modern racism. This is the same man who falsely accused the Central Park 5, questioned George Floyd's humanity, compared his own impeachment trial to being lynched, and ensured the unemployment gap for Black workers spiked during his presidency.

"Donald Trump has been showing Black Americans his true colors for years: An incompetent, anti-Black tyrant who holds us to such low regard that he publicly dined with white nationalists a week after declaring his 2024 candidacy.

"Come November, no matter how many disingenuous voter engagement events he attends, Black Americans will show Donald Trump we know exactly who he is," Harris added.

During his address on Friday, Trump also said his police mugshot had been embraced by the Black community. He added that Black people like him because they have also suffered from discrimination, sparking a backlash online.

Trump said: "I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time, and a lot of people said that that's why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I'm being discriminated against...

"My mug shot, we've all seen the mug shot, and you know who embraced it more than anybody else? The Black population. You see Black people walking around with my mug shot, you know. They do shirts and they sell them for $19 apiece. It's pretty amazing—millions by the way."

Trump's mugshot was released in August 2023 after he was arrested in Fulton County, Georgia, over allegations he broke the law trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election in that state.

The former president has also been charged over allegations he orchestrated the payment of hush money to a pornographic actress; mishandled classified documents; and acted illegally while trying to overturn the 2020 election outcome at a national level. Trump has pled not guilty to all counts and repeatedly said the cases against him are politically motivated because he is the frontrunner to be the Republican candidate for the White House.

Black Americans have long formed a key part of the Democratic electoral coalition. An NBC poll of 1,000 registered voters, released in September, found Biden had the support of 76 percent of Black voters in a hypothetical presidential rematch against Trump, versus just 14 percent for the likely Republican nominee.

Update 2/24/24 7:15 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with a statement from Biden-Harris 2024 Black Media Director Jasmine Harris.