CHARLESTON, S.C. — President Joe Biden continued his campaign for the 2024 election on Monday by denouncing white supremacy as he tried to appeal to Black voters in South Carolina during a stop at the site of the Charleston church massacre where nine Black people were killed in 2015.
Biden called white supremacy a “poison” that has no place in the U.S. “not today, tomorrow or ever” during his speech in the pulpit of Mother Emanuel AME Church. Nine Black parishioners were fatally shot, and one person was injured when 21-year-old Dylan Rooff, a white supremacist, opened fire during bible study.
“The word of God was pierced by bullets of hate, of rage, propelled not just by gunpowder, but by a poison, a poison that has for too long haunted this nation,” Biden said on Monday.
“(White supremacy) is a poison, throughout our history, that’s ripped this nation apart. This has no place in America,” said Biden.
In the 2020 president election, South Carolina, with its high concentration of Black voters, helped Biden win the election, which the president acknowledged during his speech on Monday.
South Carolina is also home to the possible GOP presidential frontrunner Nikki Haley, the state’s former governor. Haley was appointed U.N. Ambassador by Donald Trump in 2017, but has been a frequent critic of the former president before and after her resignation as ambassador in 2018.
Haley continues to rise in the polls against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was once pegged the presumptive 2024 nominee for the GOP. But DeSantis fall in the polls almost mirrors Trump’s sharp rise in the polls. As of Jan. 8, 2024, a FiveThirtyEight.com poll shows Trump leading with 61.8%. DeSantis is polling at 12.1%, and Haley has 11.2%.
During a townhall forum on Monday, Haley pounced on Biden’s visit to the Charleston church.
“For Biden to show up there and give a political speech, it’s offensive in itself. I don’t need someone who palled around with segregationists in the ‘70s and has said racist comments all the way through his career lecturing me or anyone in South Carolina about what it means to have racism, slavery, or anything related to the Civil War,” Haley said.
Last week, Haley found herself embroiled in controversy for not acknowledging slavery was the root of the U.S. Civil War. Biden was one the critics who pointed out Haley’s omission about slavery’s role in the civil war.
Many of Haley’s critics pointed to her record as governor of South Carolina, when she didn’t specifically state any support for the removal of a confederate flag on state property until 2015, after the massacre. But in 2019, she defended the confederate flag’s existence.
More on Biden’s campaign speech in South Carolina.
