Biden tells Lin-Manuel Miranda Latinos 'keeping us going' during pandemic

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Joe Biden, in an outreach to Latino voters, told playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda that the path to victory relied on them, and he added that President Trump had “failed” the Latino community.

The former vice president said that the pandemic had revealed how “essential” Latinos are to the U.S.

"This is the moment to get it done. The pandemic has ripped the blinders off the rest of our country about who's really essential," said Biden.

"Who the hell is keeping us going during this pandemic? Latinos," he said, referring to workers in the food industry.

Biden added that the pandemic should spur change on demands from Hispanics on matters such as immigration reform.

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"The path to victory in November is going to rely on Latino voters — that's not hyperbole," Biden continued. "We need every single voter to sign up and get engaged in our campaign.”

In a virtual forum organized by Voto Latino, a progressive Hispanic political group, Biden slammed the president’s relationship with Latino groups.

"He's failed the Latino community time and again in order to satisfy the vicious right-wing of his party that he keeps feeding raw meat to,” he said. Biden said that Trump is not "concerned about anything other than his own ego, but I think it's beyond that: he lacks the capacity.

"Every generation has moved that needle closer — never gotten there — to a more perfect union, to be more inclusive," said Biden. "Except this president, he's trying to turn it back."

Biden earlier this month praised Latinos for their “diversity,” which he said was “unlike the African American community.”

“What you all know, but most people don’t know, unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different things,” the presumptive Democratic nominee said as part of the joint convention of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

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He elaborated, "You go to Florida, you find a very different attitude about immigration in certain places than you do when you're in Arizona, so it's a very diverse community."

Manuel-Miranda, who wrote and starred in the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton,” asked Biden to talk about inclusion in the context of history.

"Our founders referred to making 'a more perfect union' — I interpret that as understanding that it was not perfect when it was founded, and we would always be striving to make it better," said Miranda.

Biden noted: “Human nature is one of the things I think our founders understood better than most founders in other countries."

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Biden said that the founding fathers demonstrated "a leadership who isn't concerned about doing the work."

The Latino community makes up the largest minority voting bloc and is prevalent in battleground states such as Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania and Arizona.