On February 1, 2020, in the midst of the presidential campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden blasted former President Donald Trump for issuing a travel ban on some countries in Africa due to an outbreak of the coronavirus.

“Trump further diminished the U.S. in the eyes of the world by expanding his travel ban. This new ‘African Ban’ is designed to make it harder for black and brown people to immigrate to the United States. It’s a disgrace and we cannot let him succeed,” Biden tweeted.

Biden called Trump “xenophobic.”

“We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus,” Biden tweeted as a presidential candidate last year the day after Trump imposed travel restrictions from several countries including China. “We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency.”

Vice President Kamala Harris at the same time tweeted: “Trump’s extended un-American travel ban undermines our nation’s core values. It is clearly driven by hate, not security.”

So Biden and Harris both condemned travel bans from Africa as “racist” and condemned Trump as “un-American” for imposing them. But on November 26, 2021, Biden announced he was restricting travel into the United States from several African countries because of a new strain of the coronavirus known as the Omicron variant. That includes South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.

So, for Biden and his supporters, it is not racist to ban travel from Africa because of a disease but it is racist if President Trump does it.  Could anything  be more hypocritical?