By Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said on Sunday he thought it was awful that President-elect Donald Trump was trying to do away with birthright citizenship in the United States.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Biden said the transition to Trump’s government seemed to be going smoothly, though he said he thought there was a problem with Trump’s team internally related to the handover.
Asked ahead of the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol whether he still thought Trump was a threat to democracy, Biden said he thought what Trump did was a “genuine threat to democracy.”
Trump falsely claimed he had won the 2020 election and urged his supporters to go to the Capitol that day.
“It should not be rewritten,” Biden said about Jan. 6. “I don’t think it should be forgotten.”
Biden said white supremacy was one of many threats to the United States.
“We are the most extensive multicultural nation in the world. It’s the reason why we’re so strong. It’s the reason why we’re who we are,” Biden said.
Trump told NBC last month he plans to take executive action on his first day in office to try to end birthright citizenship, which confers citizenship on anyone born in the U.S. regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
“The idea we’re going to change a constitutional birthright – if you’re born in the country … you’re not a citizen? What’s going on?” Biden said.
Biden, a Democrat, criticized Trump, a Republican, for encouraging lawmakers not to vote for a bipartisan immigration bill Biden supported to strengthen border enforcement. “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous,” Biden said.
Trump used immigration as a key issue to rally his base in the 2024 election, which he won, prevailing over Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Chris Reese and Diane Craft)
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