Heather Heyer’s mother talks about call from Biden

The mother of Heather Heyer, the woman killed protesting against the Unite the Right rally in 2017, told CNN Friday about her conversation with former Vice President Joe Biden after Biden mentioned the Charlottesville, Va., incident in his campaign launch video. 

Susan Bro, Heyer’s mother, said that Biden called her around 4:30 p.m. on Thursday after launching his presidential campaign that morning. 

“We talked a lot about bereavement,” she said, noting that Biden lost his son, Beau Biden, in 2015 in addition to previously losing his first wife and daughter.{mosads}

Bro added that they acknowledged that Biden didn’t use Heyer’s name in the video and that she did not wish he did. 

“It’s not about her, the issue is about the hate, it’s not about Heather,” she said.

She said that she did not feel traumatized by the images, but that she told Biden that people who were actually present for the attack may have been bothered by the images. 

“I think it was traumatizing for some other people in Charlottesville to just suddenly have that thrown up at them on the screen and I did mention that to him.”

Charlottesville attack victim Heather Heyer’s mother @SusanBro7 spoke to Joe Biden after he made the attack a focus of his 2020 launch.

“I think it has to be part of the political dialogue,” she says when asked about him highlighting her daughter’s death. https://t.co/Sy1XOJzyGh pic.twitter.com/okXqF3X5RA

— New Day (@NewDay) April 26, 2019

Biden on Thursday morning launched his campaign with a video posted to social media. He is one of 21 people vying for the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nomination. The Hill has reached out to his campaign for comment.