Biden, at site of white supremacist murders, warns of Trump-led extremism

In his first visit to an early voting state this year, President Joe Biden on Monday in Charleston, South Carolina, warned MAGA Republicans led by former President Donald Trump «tried to steal an election» and «now they're trying to steal history.»

He also called «white supremacy» a «poison» that continues to haunt the nation during a campaign speech at the historic Mother Emanuel AME Church, where nine Black Americans were murdered by a white supremacist in a 2015 mass shooting.

«On June 17, 2015, the beautiful souls… five survivors invited a stranger into this church to pray with them,» Biden said. «The Word of God was pierced by bullets and hate, rage — propelled by, not just gunpowder, but by a poison. Poison as for too long haunted this nation. What is that poison? White supremacy. It's a poison. Throughout our history, it's ripped this nation apart. There's no place in America. Not today. Tomorrow. Or ever.»

After Trump said Saturday in Iowa that Civil War bloodshed could have been avoided through negotiation — and after former South Carolina GOP Gov. Nikki Haley didn't acknowledge slavery as the root cause of the Civil War — Biden talked about how the Confederacy embraced «what's known as the lost cause,» comparing that to Trump and his allies refusing to accept defeat in the 2020 election.

«Let me be clear for those who don't seem to know, slavery was the cause of the Civil War. There is no negotiation about that,» he said.

«Now, we're living in an era of a second lost cause,» Biden said. «This time the lie is about the 2020 election.»

Biden also referred to race concerning Trump's downplaying of the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob trying to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden as