*Earlier today both former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Cory Booker (D/NJ) made speeches on the current climate in the country in the wake of the dual massacres in American Cites over the weekend.
As the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin put it, “the contrast between the bitter, little man who occupies the White House, attacking Beto O’Rourke on Twitter and insisting before taking off Wednesday morning against all evidence that his rhetoric brings us together, and former vice president Joe Biden, who chose to deliver a big, important speech Wednesday in Iowa could not have been more stark.z”
Biden, campaigning in Iowa, 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.”
As Rubin noted, Biden’s tone varied from defiant to sorrowful as he emphatically blasted out each phrase. The language was plain and direct, but the call to recall our founding principles was profound and stirring.
Here is Joe Biden’s full speech:
Rubin also covered Cory Booker’s speech delivered from Mother Emanuel church in Charleston, South Carolina, where, four years ago, white supremacist Dylann Roof fatally shot nine people at a Bible study class. (Roof was found guilty of murder and has been sentenced to death.) Booker delivered a speech addressing white nationalism and gun violence in sweeping, often poetic terms.
Rubin wrote that “Booker began by talking about the ‘profound contradiction’ at the founding the country — the establishment of a democracy at time blacks were counted as three-fifths of a person. But his intent was not a history lesson; rather, he wanted to strike an uplifting and unifying message in tone and substance evocative of President Barack Obama, who spoke at the church in the wake of the killings in June 2015.”
Here is Cory Booker’s full speech:
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