01 Biden remarks philadelphia 0602
Biden: If Trump opened the Bible, he'd learn something
04:06 - Source: CNN
CNN  — 

Joe Biden’s campaign has turned the former vice president’s speech on civil unrest across the nation into a digital ad released Wednesday in battleground states.

The ad, “Build the Future,” plays footage of the presumptive Democratic nominee’s speech and overlays it with images and video of the chaotic clash between protesters and federal law enforcement officials from Monday. It also ties in footage from the August 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one counter-protester dead.

“I won’t traffic in fear and division. I won’t fan the flames of hate. I’ll seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued our country, not use them for political gain,” Biden says as video of white nationalists marching in Charlottesville appears. A news clip of President Donald Trump’s comment that “both sides” were violent in Virginia then flashes on the screen.

The ad is set to run statewide on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube in battleground states Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, targeted specifically at younger and more diverse voters. A version of the ad will run with Spanish language captions.

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Biden has sought to offer a stark contrast between himself and the President on racial issues, especially as protests have swept the nation in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd. On Monday, Trump declared himself an “ally of all peaceful protesters” before gas and rubber bullets were used to clear out those demonstrating peacefully so he could visit the church across the White House for a photo opportunity.

In addition to releasing statements, Biden has left his home to meet with community leaders and visited the site of a protest in his hometown of Wilmington. Trump, for his part, has drawn criticism from both sides of the aisle for stoking tensions over protests and riots by threatening police retaliation and military intervention.

Biden has long credited the Charlottesville protests – and Trump’s reaction to them – as his reason for ultimately deciding to get into the presidential race.

“In that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I’d ever seen in my lifetime,” Biden said in his announcement video last year.

The video ends with Biden saying, “I promise you this job is not about me, it’s about you. It’s about us. To build a better future, that’s what American does, we build the future, it may in fact be the most American thing to do. This is the United States of America. There’s never been anything we’ve been unable to do, and we set our mind to do it and we’ve done it together.”

In a new Monmouth poll, 65% of people of color say they have no confidence “at all” in Trump’s ability to handle race relations, while 67% say they have at least some confidence in Biden’s ability to handle the issue. A third of voters say that race relations will be a major factor in their vote for president this November.

After his remarks at in Philadelphia on Tuesday, Biden met with eight black local elected officials for a half hour to discuss the issues underpinning the civil unrest sweeping the nation and garner advice on how to talk about these issues publicly. Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, who was present at the meeting, told CNN that Biden asked questions and “did a lot more listening than he did talking.”

CNN’s Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this story.