A spokeswoman for the advocacy group Turning Point USA questioned former Vice President Joe Biden’s racial track record in her address at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention Friday.
Candace Owens delivered her remarks during the NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) Leadership Forum in Indianapolis.
Owens took issue with the claim by the 2020 Democratic candidate that he entered the presidential race because of the 2017 violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, which he explained in a video released by his campaign Thursday.
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Owens suggested Biden used a false narrative of the attacks as motivation to run for office. “Joe mentioned the Charlottesville attacks again, the one where our president clearly and specifically condemned both Nazis and white supremacists, words which the media carefully edited out, but Joe says that that’s the moment, Charlottesville, that’s the moment that he realized that he had to step up and save the nation,” she said.
Owens said that Biden inferred President Donald Trump’s supporters are racist and is deflecting attention away from his own track history related to race. Biden supported segregation in the 1970s, according to Owens, and advocated for the 1994 crime bill, which Owens claims led to the mass incarceration of black men. Biden has publicly claimed that deceased Democratic West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd was a mentor and friend, she said. Byrd was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
“And now he wants us to believe that he is a champion against racism,” Owens concluded. “I’m going to have to pass on this one, creepy Joe.”
The convention is being held at the Indiana Convention Center through April 28. The event is expected to draw more than 80,000 attendees.
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