Biden invokes Jim Crow at campaign stop in S.C.

Voting rights must be protected, ex-VP says

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Former Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday that Jim Crow is “sneaking back in” as he emphasized the need to ensure voting rights are protected.

Biden drew several hundred people to a community center in Columbia as he opened his presidential campaign in South Carolina, home of the first-in-the-South primary and a place where black voters play a major role in the Democratic nominating process.

In criticizing Republican attempts to reconfigure voting rules, including establishing identification requirements, Biden recalled the racial segregation laws of the past known as Jim Crow.

“You’ve got Jim Crow sneaking back in,” he said. “You know what happens when you have an equal right to vote? They lose.”

Biden centered much of his speech on the need to restore decency to the White House, continuing to make his campaign a full-throttle assault against President Donald Trump.

“Quite frankly, I’ve had it up to here,” he said. “Your state motto is, ‘While I breathe, I hope.’ It’s not a joke. We’re breathing, but God, we have got to have hope.”

Ahead of her husband’s remarks, Jill Biden emphasized the couple’s long ties to South Carolina, saying they came to the state to grieve after their son Beau died of cancer in 2015.

“Joe and I love South Carolina,” she said.

Elsewhere on the campaign trail:

■ Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota told reporters after an event in Des Moines, Iowa, that her message to Russian President Vladimir Putin would be very different from Trump’s.

“What I would say when I’m president to Vladimir Putin is that we’ve got your number, I’ve got the FBI after you, I’ve got the CIA looking at all of this, I’ve figured out what you guys are up to and we’re going to protect our elections and we’re going to put increasing sanctions on against you,” she said.

■ Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts called for more funding for the State Department.

Under his presidency, “we will see a lot less money in the military compared to the State Department,” Moulton said while campaigning in New Hampshire.

■ Beto O’Rourke said the legacies of “slavery, of segregation, of Jim Crow, of suppression” are “alive and well” today.

“The work is far from over,” the former congressman said in a commencement address at historically black Paul Quinn College in Dallas.

■ Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts warned that the nation remains “at risk” for further foreign interference in its elections.

After a campaign stop in Iowa, Warren also said that Trump “puts us squarely in trouble” with his public warmth toward Putin.

Meg Kinnard The Associated Press Former Vice President Joe Biden takes photos with supporters following the first rally of his 2020 campaign Saturday in Columbia, S.C.