Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden on Wednesday said the mass shootings over the weekend confirmed that President Trump had failed to lead the country.

In a blistering rebuke of the Trump presidency, Mr. Biden both blamed Mr. Trump for inciting white supremacist hatred and lambasted what he described as the president’s failure to respond to the tragedy.

“He has more in common with George Wallace than he does with George Washington,” Mr. Biden said, referring to the avowed segregationist who unsuccessfully ran for president in the 1960s.

Mr. Biden, the front-runner among 2020 Democratic hopefuls, said Mr. Trump failed the country.

“Trump offers no moral leadership, seems to have no interest in unifying this nation, no evidence that the presidency has awakened his conscience in the least,” Mr. Biden said in a speech in Burlington, Iowa.

He described Mr. Trump as someone with a “toxic tongue who has publicly and unapologetically embraced the political strategy of hate, racism and division.”

Mr. Trump on Wednesday visited Ohio and Texas, where back-to-back mass shootings over the weekend killed a total of 31 people, shocking the nation.

On Monday, Mr. Trump denounced racism and white supremacy. He called for unity in confronting hatred.

The president dismissed Mr. Biden’s full-throated attack.

“Watching Sleepy Joe Biden making a speech. Sooo Boring! The LameStream Media will die in the ratings and clicks with this guy,” he tweeted. “It will be over for them, not to mention the fact that our Country will do poorly with him. It will be one big crash, but at least China will be happy!”

Most of the 2020 Democratic hopefuls have blamed Mr. Trump for the El Paso shooting, as well as faulting him for not doing enough to curb gun violence.

Earlier, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey delivered an impassioned speech in South Carolina that condemned what he described as the country’s racist underpinning.

Mr. Booker, who among several black candidates in the race, said Mr. Trump’s hateful rhetoric “sowed the seeds” that produced white supremacist violence.

Mr. Biden said running against the racism and bigotry of the Trump presidency fueled his candidacy — and the mass shooting Saturday in El Paso, Texas, at the hands of an alleged white supremacist fit neatly into the narrative.

“Our president has aligned himself with the darkest forces in this nation. And it makes winning this battle for the soul of our nation that much tougher,” said Mr. Biden.

An online white supremacist screed has been linked to the suspected gunman, Patrick Wood Crusius, 21, who is accused of opening fire on Hispanic shoppers at a Walmart.

A mass shooting Sunday in Dayton, Ohio, did not appear to involve racism. The motivation of Connor Betts, who killed nine people including his sister in the attack before he was fatally shot by police, remains a mystery.

Mr. Biden said that an undercurrent of racism flowed through American history, from slavery to the Ku Klux Klan, but successive generations had always beaten back the hatred.

I wish I could say this hate began with Donald Trump — and will end with him. It didn’t, and it won’t. American history is not a fairy tale,” he said. “The battle for the soul of this nation has been a constant push-and-pull for 243 years between the American ideal that we are all created equal — and the harsh reality that racism has long torn us apart.”

But he warned that reelecting Mr. Trump would forever alter the noble character of the country.

“I can’t and I will not let this man be reelected president of the United States of America,” he said to a standing ovation from the crowd of supporters.

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