Joe Biden on Tuesday condemned Donald Trump’s use of the Bible as a prop in his show of force against those peacefully protesting for racial justice, saying in a Philadelphia speech that the president’s theatrics make clear he’s “more interested in power than in principle.” “I just wish he opened [the Bible] once in a while instead of brandishing it,” Biden said of Trump in his latest remarks on the George Floyd protests. “If he opened it, he could’ve learned something.”
Trump on Monday responded to the heated protests across the country—and to ego-bruising reports that he retreated to a bunker as demonstrators rallied outside the White House—by threatening in a Rose Garden speech to mobilize the military against American citizens; having authorities disperse peaceful protesters using tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash bangs; and posing awkwardly with a Bible outside the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church, which sustained fire damage over the weekend. While some allies praised Trump for the cartoonish show of strength, it was sharply criticized by politicians of both parties, religious leaders, and other stunned observers as a dangerous and despicable new low—even for this president. “This is revolting,” Rev. James Martin, a prominent Jesuit priest, said in a statement. “The Bible is not a prop. A church is not a photo-op. Religion is not a political tool. And God is not a plaything.”
The president’s visit to St. John’s served as a stark contrast with an appearance by Biden in a church earlier Monday. After visiting with protesters in Delaware over the weekend, the presumptive Democratic nominee—who has been more visible in recent weeks after campaigning largely from his home amid the coronavirus pandemic — appeared at a black church in Wilmington, where he listened to community leaders describe the anger underlying the nationwide demonstrations against racism and police brutality. He had his missteps there—at one point, Biden suggested officers could be trained to “shoot ‘em in the leg instead of in the heart” as one potential solution to the killings of unarmed black people by police—but images of the former vice president praying in the church, as one does, rather than standing outside of it clumsily wielding a Bible nevertheless seemed to draw a distinction between the two.
Criticizing Trump’s response to the protests Tuesday, Biden described the lessons of the Bible as “the work of America” that the president was abdicating. “Donald Trump isn’t interested in doing that work,” an impassioned Biden said. “Instead, he’s preening and sweeping away all the guardrails that have long protected our democracy—guardrails that have helped make possible our nation’s path to a more perfect union, a union that constantly requires reform and rededication.”
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