‘Are you with me?’ Biden, Harris launch outreach to Black voters

Trump wants to ‘turn America into a place of anger,’ president warns.

PHILADELPHIA — President Joe Biden renewed his election-year pitch to Black voters on Wednesday, lashing out at Donald Trump’s “MAGA lies” and saying the winner of this year’s White House race will make crucial decisions, including nominees for the Supreme Court, that could affect the country for decades.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, in a joint appearance at a Philadelphia boarding school, thanked Black voters for being the linchpin to their 2020 victory and made the case that their agenda has had a big impact on improving those voters’ lives.

The Democratic president also argued that an “unhinged” Trump is peddling misinformation in an effort to win back the White House.

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to let Donald Trump turn America into a place of anger, resentment and hate,” Biden said, calling on the crowd to help him and Harris win a second term. “My question is a simple one: Are you with me?”

At Girard College, which has a predominantly Black student body, Biden warned about the threat he said a second Trump presidency would pose and cited some of the racial controversies fanned by the presumptive Republican nominee during his life.

“This is the same guy who wanted to tear gas you as you peacefully protested George Floyd’s murder. The same guy who still calls the Central Park Five guilty, even though they were exonerated,” Biden told the crowd. “He’s that landlord who denies housing applications because of the color of your skin.”

The visit was the start of what the Biden campaign describes as a summerlong effort to engage Black student organizations, community groups and faith centers. It reflects in part how much of their support of him has frayed as Trump aims to make inroads into the longtime Democratic constituency.

The issues of abortion rights and the judiciary also were prominent in the remarks from Biden and Harris. The vice president noted that Trump dramatically shaped the Supreme Court as she invoked the name of Thurgood Marshall, the high court’s first Black justice.

Trump, she said, “handpicked three members of the Supreme Court — the court of Thurgood — with the intention that they would overturn Roe v. Wade,” the landmark abortion rights ruling. “And as he intended, they did.”

“Who sits in the White House matters,” she said.

President Joe Biden hugs Vice President Kamala Harris during a campaign event at Girard College, which has a predominantly Black student body, Wednesday in Philadelphia.