(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump has encouraged white supremacy to come out of the shadows, Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden will say Wednesday, adding that there’s very little that distances Trump’s rhetoric from the anti-immigrant screeds of mass shooters like the suspect in the recent El Paso, Texas, attack.

“How far is it from Trump’s saying this ‘is an invasion’ to the shooter in El Paso declaring ‘his attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas?’ Not far at all,” Biden plans to say during a campaign stop in Iowa, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks provided by his campaign.

“How far is it from the white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville – Trump’s ‘very fine people’ -- chanting ‘You will not replace us’ – to the shooter at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh saying Jews ‘were committing genocide to his people?’ Not far at all,” Biden plans to say. “In both clear language and in code, this president has fanned the flames of white supremacy in this nation.”

Biden’s focus on connecting Trump’s rhetoric to racial violence comes the same day the president will visit El Paso, where 22 people died in a mass shooting that the gunman said was motivated by a desire to kill Mexicans, and Dayton, Ohio, where nine people died hours later in another unrelated mass shooting. Some local leaders in both cities have asked Trump not to come.

While Biden’s words are some of his strongest to date on the subject, they pale in comparison to criticisms leveled at the president from some others in the Democratic field.

Beto O’Rourke, who’s from El Paso, said Trump is a “racist, driven by fear,” and added of the president’s suggestion to link gun legislation to proposals to restrict U.S. immigration that Trump was siding “with a mass murderer’s call to make our country more white.” Julian Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, said Trump “has made hate and bigotry and division a political strategy.”

In remarks at the White House on Monday, Trump condemned racism and white supremacy, though has not directly addressed overlap between his own anti-immigrant rhetoric and that of the El Paso shooting suspect. In a Twitter post Tuesday, Trump added he’s the “least racist person.”

The former vice president’s event in Burlington, in southeastern Iowa, will kick off a four-day trip across the state that will also include a Thursday afternoon stop at the Iowa State Fair. Nearly two dozen other Democratic hopefuls will also flock to the state in the coming days to take part in the retail politics tradition, as well as in a major fundraising dinner in Clear Lake -- the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding.

Biden will also offer an indictment of Trump’s leadership in a time of crisis and argue that the president’s failure to “fight for what is best of the American character” makes it even more critical for Trump to be defeated in 2020. At a fundraiser on Sunday in San Diego, Biden called Trump a “significant contributor” to the rise of hate.

“We have a president who has aligned himself with the darkest forces in this nation. And that makes winning the battle for the soul of this nation that much harder,” Biden plans to say, drawing on a core theme of his presidential campaign. Until Trump can be defeated, Biden will say, “it’s up to us” to fight against hate and for American values.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Washington at jepstein32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Derek Wallbank, Jon Herskovitz

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