Biden after Jacksonville shooting: ‘Domestic terrorism will not prevail in America’

President Biden on Saturday called the deadly shooting in Jacksonville, Fla., a terrorist act, adding that domestic terrorism “will not prevail” in the United States.

“Domestic terrorism will not prevail in America. Silence is complicity,” Biden said in Live Oak, Fla. “We must not. We will not remain silent.” 

The president added that he’d have much more to say on the issue later.

Biden was in Florida to tour storm damage after Hurricane Idalia hit the Sunshine State. Biden meet with survivors and thanked personnel leading the response and recovery efforts, alongside first lady Jill Biden, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and others.

The shooter opened fire last weekend at a store near a historically Black university, using an assault-style rifle and handgun to kill three Black Americans. The shooting is suspected to be racially motivated and federal law enforcement has opened a civil rights investigation it, treating it as a possible hate crime and act of domestic violent extremism.

“We must refuse to live in a country where Black families going to the store or Black students going to school live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin,” Biden said in a statement last week.

And, Vice President Harris said after the shooting that “America is experiencing an epidemic of hate.”

“Too many communities have been torn apart by hatred and violent extremism,” she said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who did not meet with Biden during his trip to the Sunshine State, also condemned the gunman, calling him a “scumbag.”

“This shooting, based on the manifesto they discovered from the scumbag that did this, was racially motivated,” DeSantis said in a video message. “He was targeting people based on their race. That is totally unacceptable.”