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Joe Biden on Tuesday called the death of George Floyd in police custody a “wake-up call” for the country, as he blasted President Donald Trump over a vow to deploy the military to quell violent protests in U.S. cities.
In remarks prepared for an address at Philadelphia’s City Hall, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Biden invoked Floyd, a black man, who died after he was pinned at the neck for several minutes by a white Minneapolis police officer.
“ ‘I can’t breathe,’ ” Biden said, quoting Floyd’s last words. “But [the words] didn’t die with him. They’re still being heard. They’re echoing across this nation.”
Biden’s address comes a day after Trump threatened to mobilize the U.S. military to keep the peace across the country, following days of violent protests and minutes after federal police charged a crowd of peaceful demonstrators to clear a path for a presidential photo-op.
Read: Trump threatens to mobilize military to quell protests; crowd tear-gassed ahead of photo op.
Biden — who is poised as early as Tuesday to clinch the Democratic nomination — said Trump is “more interested in serving the passions of his base than the needs of the people in his care.”
