Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, appeared on Fox News Sunday over the weekend, and it didn’t go great for anyone who was hoping to maintain any kind of semblance of trustworthiness on the part of the Trump campaign. Among other nonsense that she shared, Lara totally misrepresented Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s actual response to isolated instances of violence that have erupted during an ongoing nationwide protest movement against vestiges of societally-embedded racism like police brutality. She suggested that Biden hasn’t been quick enough to denounce the violence — but he did so almost three months ago!
Lara said:
‘You might remember that it took him almost three months to finally come out and condemn this violence and say that people should stop doing it… So I would put the onus on Joe Biden and say that it took him a little bit too long to come out and say that this wasn’t a problem, and I think it’s probably because he knows that that is his base, and he doesn’t want to upset these people.’
Watch her comments, and a repudiation from Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield, below:
Here's Chris Wallace just letting Lara Trump lie about Joe Biden, and @KBeds fixing it.@JoeBiden, June 2: “There is no place for violence, no place for looting…" pic.twitter.com/L3XqBJmmHR
— Tommy X-TrumpIsARacist-opher (@tommyxtopher) August 30, 2020
Little of Lara’s commentary had any relationship to reality, at all. In early June — almost three months ago at this point — Biden insisted, on camera, that there “is no place for violence [and] no place for looting.” How much more unequivocal can he get? Does he need to hire a plane to write the message in the sky before his political opponents take his condemnation seriously? Does he need to privately fund a mission to the moon and place a flag there saying “violence is wrong” before the Trump team takes his denunciations of violence seriously?
More recently, amidst protests that erupted following a police shooting of a black man named Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Biden said:
‘I condemn violence in any form… And by the way, when I spoke to the family, the mom was really incredibly straightforward, she said, this is not who we are as a family, this is not who my son is, we condemn the violence. So who is rooting for the violence?’
Again — how much more unequivocal can he get?
Biden: "I condemn violence in any form … And by the way, when I spoke to the family, the mom was really incredibly straightforward, she said, this is not who we are as a family, this is not who my son is, we condemn the violence. So who is rooting for the violence?" @MSNBC
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 27, 2020
It’s worth noting — on Sunday morning, Lara seemed to suggest that the Trump team was essentially “rooting for violence,” as pundit Dan Pfeiffer put it.
Lara Trump doubles down on the idea that Trump is rooting for violence as Trump incites violence in Portland https://t.co/CTcx5l2MF6
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) August 30, 2020
In response to questioning about outgoing Trump staffer Kellyanne Conway’s recent remark that “the more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns, the better it is” for Trump’s re-election prospects, Lara claimed that the violence “certainly paints a very clear picture,” adding that, if observers had been considering a Biden vote, she “[bets] their mind was changed.” In other words, the Trump team sounds eager to try and use violence as political leverage.
During her Fox appearance, Lara also said that women voters shouldn’t “think about what this president has said, or the way he delivers the message specifically,” but instead, “look at what he’s actually done.” Things like low unemployment across the board have gone out the window amidst COVID-19. It’s not exactly very reassuring for Trump’s re-election campaign to ask women voters not to pay attention to what Trump actually says.
Lara Trump tells Chris Wallace the campaign is doing everything they can to remind women voters "don't think about what this president has said, or the way he delivers the message specifically. Look at what he's actually done."
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) August 30, 2020
