Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden backtracked on earlier statements he’d made calling Donald Trump “xenophobic” for banning much of the travel from China during the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, instead claiming during Thursday night’s debate that he never called Trump “xenophobic” for the travel ban.
"He is xenophobic, but not because he shut down travel to China,” Biden tried to hedge Thursday night, saying that while he has called Trump "xenophobic," it wasn't for implementing the travel ban back in January.
Except that’s simply not true. Now only did Biden reference Trump’s alleged “record of xenophobia” while criticizing the president's travel ban…
WATCH: Joe Biden slammed President Trump's life-saving travel restrictions on China as hysterical and "xenophobic." #Debates2020 pic.twitter.com/6kuIZKwKBB
— Francis Brennan (@FrancisBrennan) October 23, 2020
…but he also outright accused the president of “xenophobic fear-mongering” in a tweet back in March.
Biden, who didn’t support Trump’s supposedly "xenophobic" travel ban until April, changed his tune dramatically on Thursday, now claiming that Trump waited too long to halt travel from China in an effort to pin the blame for the coronavirus pandemic on the president.
(Cover Photo: Gage Skidmore)