A Biden campaign social media account on Friday shared a video of a formerly undecided voter, who happens to be a convicted murderer turned community activist, endorsing the president.
“I would vote for Biden for sure,” William Latif Little said in a clip posted by the Biden-Harris HQ X account, adding that Thursday’s debate was the deciding factor for him. Little was convicted of third-degree murder in 1989, a crime that he served ten years for, and has since become active in community efforts to decrease violent crime, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Biden’s performance at Thursday’s debate, which included a number of verbal gaffes, sparked strong concern among senior Democrats, with many saying he should step down. The New York Times editorial board has since called on the president to drop out of the presidential race.
Little, in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation, pointed to Biden’s handling of the economy as well as the wars in Gaza and Ukraine as reasons why he wasn’t committed to backing Biden before the debate.
“I’m not a blind voter, so I like to see what’s really going on,” Little told the DCNF. “So I’m hopeful now, after hearing [Biden] talk … that hopefully Democrats can hold him accountable for building this economy back up.”
“We have the worst two people running for president,” Little said to the DCNF. “Maybe if we had someone else running, we’d have a better chance.”
Little had no opinion on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he told the DCNF. He also praised former President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy but said the former president’s “exaggerating” and “extreme” political positions turned him off from supporting him.
Speaking about his murder conviction, Little told the DCNF that he had acted in self-defense, only returning fire after he and his friends had been fired upon outside a skating rink in Philadelphia, a claim that he unsuccessfully argued in court.
“Will looked to his surroundings for leadership and advice, eventually finding what he needed in gangs, drugs and violence,” a biographical section on Little’s personal website reads. “His experience led to a gunfight that took another man’s life, a man just like him.”
Little emphasized that he had done a “180” and that his life now is focused on spreading a message of “forgiveness and redemption,” giving presentations at schools, prisons and for corporate America. He noted that the brother of the man he killed ultimately forgave him and worked with him as an activist for a few years.
Biden’s performance at Thursday’s debate sent shockwaves through the Democratic ecosystem so severe that liberal megadonors mulled holding an intervention aimed at getting the president to drop out of the race.
In addition to mumbling and a sickly appearance, Biden also made false claims at the debate, saying, for instance, that no members of the armed forces had been killed overseas during his time in office. Thirteen service members died during the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, however.
Biden also asserted that Trump called neo-Nazi’s “very fine people,” a claim that has been debunked by fact checkers.
Rapper Fat Joe, another convicted criminal, also lent Biden some post-debate support, appearing at a rally in North Carolina with the president on Friday, Axios reported. A federal court sentenced Fat Joe to four months in prison for failing to file tax returns on over $3.3 million in income, according to the Department of Justice.
