Former Vice President Joe Biden apologized Tuesday evening for using the word “lynching” over 20 years earlier.
Following President Donald Trump’s tweet comparing his possible impeachment to a lynching, videos quickly surfaced of Democrats — including Biden — who had used the same terminology to describe the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton in 1998.
“This wasn’t the right word to use and I’m sorry about that,” Biden tweeted, pivoting quickly from his apology to an attack on the president. “Trump on the other hand chose his words deliberately today in his use of the word lynching and continues to stoke racial divides in this country daily.”
This wasn’t the right word to use and I’m sorry about that. Trump on the other hand chose his words deliberately today in his use of the word lynching and continues to stoke racial divides in this country daily. https://t.co/mHfFC8HluZ
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 23, 2019
President Trump’s tweet almost exactly mirrored Biden’s 1998 comments calling the Clinton impeachment a “partisan lynching.” (RELATED: Democrats Compared Clinton’s Impeachment To Lynching, Now Say Trump’s Racist For Doing The Same)
“So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. But we will WIN!” he said.
So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. But we will WIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2019
Other Democrats who referred to the Clinton impeachment as a “lynching” were Democratic Illinois Rep. Danny K. Davis and former Democratic Rhode Island Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy. Former Democratic Rep. John Conyers Jr. (MI) and Democratic Reps. Jerry Nadler (NY) and Maxine Waters (CA) called it a “Republican coup d’etat.”
