Tom Perez Blasts Trump’s Record With African-Americans: ‘He Has Killed Them’ With Pandemic Response
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez called out President Donald Trump as being directly responsible for the deaths of African-Americans because of his bungled, delayed response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking with MTP Daily‘s Chuck Todd, Perez contrasted Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s relationship with the African-American community to that of the presidents as well as their conduct during the nationwide unrest following the alleged murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
“Do you believe the former vice president is doing enough public events?” Todd pressed. “Do you feel like he’s inching out in an appropriate way or more of him in more communities?”
“I think over the last week to two weeks, we have seen such a stark difference between Vice President Biden and President Trump,” Perez said. “Vice President Biden was the uniter in chief. His speech in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder was pitch perfect. It touched all the points you should touch. We need a consoler-in-chief. Not a tweeter-in-chief. Joe Biden was that. He’s a listener-in-chief as well. He went down to Houston to pay his respects to the [Floyd] family.”
“Donald Trump rather than battling bigotry wants to battle Twitter. Rather than bringing us together, he wants to continue to drive us apart,” Perez continued, amping up his anger, while alluding to Trump’s ongoing incendiary tweets and battles with social media platform. “What you didn’t note yet in your reporting is June 19th is a significant day for African-Americans: Juneteeth. The celebration of emancipation of slaves and the notion he would go to the city of Tulsa, the Birther president, a person who presided over the doubling of African-American unemployment in this country would go to the city of Tulsa, the Black Wall Street of 100 years ago and what has he done to black people in America? He has killed them in some places because of his failed response to coronavirus, the unemployment rate, joblessness, hopelessness that he is trying to stoke.”
“The differences between Joe Biden a Donald Trump couldn’t be clearer,” Perez added, alluding to Biden’s video address at the Floyd funeral. “I applaud what the vice president has been doing in coming forward to making sure that the American people know that under a Biden leadership we will make government work again. We will work for every one unlike this president who only wants to work for the rich few. We will make sure that opportunity returns to every one, hope return to every one and we will take bold action, whether it’s on police abuse or anything else.”
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
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