Democrats are once again attacking Joe Biden, following the former vice president’s latest polarizing comments.
Biden appeared to praise segregationist lawmakers James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia by describing them as examples of “civility,” and remarked that Eastland “never called me boy,” during a New York City fundraiser Tuesday. (RELATED: Joe Biden Holds Fundraiser In $34 Million NYC Penthouse)
Prominent liberals — including multiple 2020 Democratic presidential candidates — ripped Biden for speaking highly of two men with such histories.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called Biden “out of touch,” and pointed to his own interracial family to highlight the perceived tone-deafness of the Democratic frontrunner’s comments. (RELATED: Bill De Blasio Claims Anti-Semitism Is Just A ‘Right-Wing Movement’)
It’s 2019 & @JoeBiden is longing for the good old days of “civility” typified by James Eastland. Eastland thought my multiracial family should be illegal & that whites were entitled to “the pursuit of dead n*ggers.” (1/2) pic.twitter.com/yoOOkpaTX2
— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) June 19, 2019
Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, another 2020 presidential candidate, called on Biden to apologize for his comments.
“Vice President Biden’s relationships with proud segregationists are not the model for how we make America a safer and more inclusive place for black people, and for everyone,” Booker said.
Other prominent liberals such as Jamil Smith and Shaun King also ripped into Biden.
Eastland was known as the “Voice of the White South.” He opposed the Civil Rights Act, complained of “mongrelization,” and spoke of black people as “an inferior race.” He may have liked you, @JoeBiden. He still voted to undermine our humanity. You just disproved your whole point. https://t.co/H35eEBALJN
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) June 19, 2019
“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to abolish the Negro race, proper methods should be used. Among these are guns, bows, arrows, slingshots, and knives.”
Had you seen this quote from Big Jim Eastland before you fondly recalled him tonight @JoeBiden? pic.twitter.com/z0xz1gKnZ1
— Shaun King (@shaunking) June 19, 2019
Biden has come under fire from members of his own party for his past positions on race, as well as previously-held positions on abortion, crime, and the Iraq War, which are considered by many to be out of touch in the modern day Democratic party.
While a young senator in the mid 1970s, Biden opposed desegregating school buses, and claimed that segregation was a point of “black pride.”
“I think the concept of busing … that we are going to integrate people so that they all have the same access and they learn to grow up with one another and all the rest, is a rejection of the whole movement of black pride,” Biden said in 1975.