Former Vice President Joe Biden gave a rousing speech to graduates at Cornell University on Saturday where he denounced the policies of President Donald Trump while also calling for "unity and purpose" among Americans, the Washington Examiner reported Saturday.
Though not mentioning Trump by name, he criticized the plan to build a wall along the country's southern border with Mexico and the president's policies to ban refugees from Muslim countries from entering the U.S.
"America is an idea — that's the uniqueness of who we are," he said. "I assure you that this is a temporary state of affairs."
"The American people will not sustain this attitude for long, I promise you," he continued. "It's time for America to get up, it's time to regain our sense of unity and purpose and remember who we are."
Biden also addressed the uncertain economic futures many Americans feel, citing the "great anxiety" of the middle class. He told the graduates they were entering a world "where there are a lot of Americans uncertain and anxious about their futures," and blamed globalization that had "cost some of them their livelihoods."
He also decried the contentious rhetoric from the 2016 presidential campaign, which he said stoked people's fears of "the ugliest realities."
"I thought we had passed the days when it was acceptable for political leaders ... to bestow legitimacy on hate speech," Biden said. "The world is changing so rapidly, there are a lot of folks out there that are afraid and susceptible to this kind of negative appeal."
"We saw the forces of populism, not only here but around the world, call to close our nation's gates against the challenges of a rapidly changing world," he added.
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