Video shows Biden referring to Trump's past criticism of Mexican immigrants | Fact check

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The claim: Joe Biden vowed to stop ‘rapist Mexicans’

An Aug. 12, 2022, YouTube video titled ”Joe Biden & rapist Mexicans” shows President Joe Biden speaking to a crowd.

“I’m going to take on those rapist Mexicans,” Biden says in the video.

The end of the video shows on-screen text that reads “liberal heads exploding” in capital letters.

The video, which continues to circulate online, was liked more than 60,000 times on YouTube and shared more than 6,000 times on Facebook, according to CrowdTangle, a social media analytics tool.

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Our rating: Altered

The video is deceptively edited. It excludes a part of Biden's speech just before this quote when he makes it clear he is referring to comments Donald Trump made when Trump launched his first presidential campaign in 2015.

Biden was referring to Trump's 2015 campaign announcement

The video shows part of a speech Biden gave Dec. 13, 2019, during a campaign stop in San Antonio, Texas.

In the run-up to the part of the speech shown in the YouTube video, Biden describes Trump as someone who has “poisoned our soul” with divisiveness. Biden then refers to comments Trump made when he announced his first presidential campaign in 2015.

“Coming down the escalator when he announced in Trump Towers, he said – he was doing it before he hit the ground floor,” Biden says. “Remember what he said? He said ‘I am going to take on those rapist Mexicans.’”

A portion of Trump's first presidential campaign announcement, which he made June 16, 2015, focused on immigration. He spoke specifically of Mexico, saying, “They're not sending their best.”

“They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists, and some, I assume, are good people,” Trump said.

Fact check: As Title 42 ends, post falsely claims Biden has no plan for migrants at US-Mexico border

Biden and Trump have publicly and vociferously disagreed on how to address immigration for years. During their final presidential debate in 2020, Biden criticized Trump for taking a more hostile approach to those seeking asylum than his predecessors.

Trump put in place an emergency immigration restriction, known as Title 42, that made it easier to turn away or expel migrants at the southern border. The measure was tied to the federal public health emergency for COVID-19 and stayed in place until that order expired May 11.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media users who shared the clip for comment and did not immediately hear back.

AFP also debunked the claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Video shows Biden referring to Trump immigration critique | Fact check