President Biden traveled to Buffalo on Tuesday to meet with the families of the victims, as well as with local law enforcement, first aid services and community leaders. The president was joined by several New York officials, including Gov. Katie Hochul, Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and Mayor Byron W. Brown, Buffalo’s first black mayor. This transcript is slightly undercut clarity.
Majority leader Sumer, Senator Gillibrand and Congressman Higgins and governor, thank you for accepting my call when I called.
And Mayor Brown, you were – you were wonderful. Thank you. And I know that’s a lot – when a vice-presidential or presidential trip comes up, that’s – there are all kinds of accessories and people, and I know it’s not easy.
I would like to thank your law enforcement officials not only for what they have done in this crisis, but also for sheltering us with all the elected officials and law enforcement officers, first aid officers and leaders of the faith who are here today.
Jill and I came to stay with you, and the families came to mourn with you. It’s not the same, but we know little about losing a piece of your soul, whether it’s a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, a mother, a father. The feeling of having this – as I told some of you when we spoke in private, you feel that there is a black hole in your chest in which you are sucked and – and you suffocate, you can not – you can not breathe.
It felt that way, at least for us, and I’m sure some version of it feels that way about you, the anger, the pain, the depth of loss that is so deep. You know, we know it’s hard to believe and you probably won’t believe it, but now I can tell you from our personal experience and many others we’ve met that the day will come and come when your loved one brings a smile, when you remember him or her. As long as you remember it, it will bring a smile to your lips before it causes a tear in your eye. It takes some time for this to happen. It takes some time. It may take more than a season, but our prayer for you is that this time will come sooner or later. But I promise you he will come.
As a nation, I tell families, we remember them. We read about them. We visited a memorial where he shows love for them and you all showed up from the supermarket.
Celestine Cheney, 65, a brain cancer survivor, went to church, played bingo, went to buy strawberries to make her favorite cake. Loving mother and grandmother.
Roberta Drury, 32, beloved daughter and sister. He returned home to help care for his brother after a bone marrow transplant. She went to buy groceries for dinner. The center of attention that made everyone in the room laugh and smile when she entered.
Andre McNeill, 53. Worked in a restaurant. He went to buy his 3-year-old son a birthday cake. His son celebrates his birthday and asks, “Where’s Daddy?”
Catherine Massie, 72, a writer and lawyer who dressed in school costumes and mowed the lawn in the park and helped with local elections. The glue of family and community.
Margus Morrison, 52, assistant on the school bus. I went to buy breakfast for the weekly movie night with the family. He is survived by his wife and three children and a stepdaughter. The center of their world.
Hayward Patterson, 67, father, church deacon. Feed the homeless in the supehna. He drove to a grocery store for neighbors who needed help. Putting food in the trunk of others when he took his last breath.
Aaron Salter, 55, a retired Buffalo police officer for three decades. Three decades. I loved electric cars. He gave his life to save others on a Saturday afternoon, and if this man had not worn the vest he had bought — a bulletproof vest — many lives would have been saved. Beloved father and husband.
Geraldine Tally, 62 Expert banker, known for his warm, gentle personality. A friend to all. Devoted mother and grandmother.
Ruth Whitfield. Beloved wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. I sing in the church choir. She took care of her husband by bringing him clean clothes, cutting his hair, holding his hand every day, she visiting him in the nursing home. A heart as big as her head.
Pearl Young, 77, grandmother, mother, missionary of God, public school teacher who also ran the local panties. He loved to sing, dance and his family.
All three who were injured, 20-year-old Zaire Goodman, shot through the neck but fought back; Jennifer Warrington, 50; Christopher Braden, 55, was both treated for long-term recovery.
An individual life of love, service and community that tells the bigger story of who we are as Americans, a great nation because we are good people. Jill and I carry this message deep into the soul of our nation. In America, evil will not win. I promise you. Hatred will not prevail and the supremacy of white will not have the last word.
Because evil has indeed come to Buffalo and has come to too many places, manifested in armed men killing innocent people in the name of a hateful and perverse ideology rooted in fear and racism. It took so much; 10 lives cut off at a grocery store, three more injured – three – three more injured by a hateful individual who drove 200 miles from Binghamton in this range to commit a murderous, racist rampage that will be broadcast live , live in the world.
What happened here is simple and clear: terrorism. terrorism. Internal terrorism. Violence in the service of hatred and the vicious thirst for power, which makes a group of people inherently inferior to any other group. The hatred that, through the media and politics, the internet radicalizes angry, alienated and lost people in the false belief that they will be replaced. That’s the word. Replaced by the other. From people who don’t look like them.
I and all of you reject the lie. I call on all Americans to reject the lie and condemn those who spread the lie for power, political gain and profit.
Here is what it is. We have already seen too many times the deadly and destructive violence that this ideology unleashes. We heard chanting – “you will not replace us” – in Charlottesville, Virginia. I would not run for president again, as the senator knows. When I saw these people coming out of the woods in the fields of Virginia, Charlottesville, carrying torches, shouting, you will not replace us, accompanied by whites and Nazi flags, then I said, “No, no.” And I, to be honest, those who know me – Chuck, you know, I certainly wouldn’t run. But I would be damned if I let it be – anyway, I’m leaving.
Look, we saw the mass shootings in Charleston, South Carolina; El Paso, Texas; in Pittsburgh. Last year in Atlanta. This is weak in Dallas, Texas, and now in Buffalo. In Buffalo, New York.
The superiority of white is poison. This is poison. It is true. Going through our political body. And he was allowed to fester and grow right before our eyes. No more. I mean, no more. We must say as clearly and unequivocally as possible that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America. None.
Look, not speaking will be complicity. Silence is complicity. This is complicity. We cannot remain silent.
The strength of our nation has always come from the idea – it will sound banal, but think about it – what is the idea of our nation? That we are all children of God. All children – life, freedom. Our universal goods, God’s gifts. We did not receive it from the government. We got it because we exist. We were called to protect them. The poison of haters and their weapons of war, of violence in the words and deeds of – lurking our streets, our shops, our schools. This poison, this violence cannot be the history of our time. We cannot allow this to happen.
Look, I’m not naive. I know that the tragedy will come again. It cannot be overcome forever. Nor can it be fully understood. But there are some things we can do. We can keep the landing weapons away from our streets. We’ve done it before. I did it when I last passed the crime bill and the violence went down, the shooting went down. We cannot prevent the radicalization of people to violence, but we can tackle the relentless use of the internet to recruit and mobilize terrorism. We just have to have the courage to do it, to stand up.
You see, the American experiment with democracy is in danger, as it has never been in my life. This hour is in danger. Hatred and fear receive too much oxygen from those who pretend to love America but do not understand America. To stand up to the ideology of hatred, we need to take care of all people. Make no distinctions. Venerable Scriptures, seeing that we are all part of the divine.
This is the America I know, Jill knows. And most deserve the most – you see, we are the most racial, most dynamic nation in the history of the world. Now is the time for people of all races, of all backgrounds, to speak as the majority in America and reject the superiority of white. These actions, which we have seen in these hateful attacks, represent the views of a minority filled with hatred.
We cannot allow them to distort America. The real America. We cannot allow them to destroy the soul of the nation.
As President of the United States, I travel the world all the time. And other nations ask me, the heads of state of other countries ask me what’s going on? What in God’s name happened on January 6? What happened in Buffalo? They will ask.
We must refuse to live in a country where blacks who go shopping weekly for groceries can be destroyed by weapons of war used in a racist cause.
We must refuse to live in a country where fear and lies are packed for power and profit.
We all need to get involved in this great cause of …
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