Joe Biden was in full damage-control mode Friday, defending his past positions on racial issues a day after he was left speechless when Sen. Kamala Harris slammed his opposition to school busing at the Democratic debate.
But the gaffe-prone ex-veep and longtime Delaware lawmaker, 76, made another goof as he sought to undo the damage from his troubling debate performance.
He made a cringe-worthy reference to a stereotype about young black men — while trying to discredit stereotypes.
“We’ve got to recognize that a kid wearing a hoodie may very well be the next poet laureate and not a gangbanger,” he said.
Biden also defended his decades-long civil rights record.
“I’d like to say something about the debate we had last night. I respect Senator Harris. We all know that 30 seconds to 60 seconds on a campaign debate exchange can’t do justice to a lifetime commitment to civil rights,” he said in Chicago at a luncheon with Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
“I want to be clear about my record and position on racial justice, including busing. I never, never ever opposed voluntary busing as a program, that Senator Harris participated in,” he said.
Biden said he only opposed busing ordered by the federal government — but then went on to list federal anti-discrimination efforts he supported.
Addressing Jackson, he said: “You know, I fought my heart out to ensure that civil rights, voting rights, equal rights are enforced everywhere.”
During Thursday’s debate, Harris, the only African-American on the stage, spoke passionately about herself being bused as a child.
“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public school, and she was bused to school every day. That little girl was me,” she said.
A stunned Biden struggled to respond, before cutting himself off and declaring, “Anyway, my time’s up. I’m sorry.”
A day later, he spoke of his “two heroes,” Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and about how he had quit his job with “a prestigious law firm” in order to become a public defender before being elected to Congress.
“One of the first things I did was to go on the committee to strengthen the Voting Rights Act. I voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1990 to ban employment discrimination,” he said, before touting his two terms as Barack Obama’s vice president.
Biden later sent an e-mail blast to his supporters repeating his defense — and highlighting his relationship with Obama, who has not commented on Biden’s plight — in another effort at minimizing the political damage.
During the debate, Harris also called out Biden for touting his work with racist Sens. James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia as examples of how he could work with people despite disagreeing with them.
On Friday, Harris doubled down, calling his controversial comments about the two segregationist senators “misplaced.”
Harris was grilled about the heated exchange with her fellow Democratic candidate during an appearance on MSNBC.
“There are no segregationists in the United States Senate today, thank God. And I think that at some point you have to draw the line,” she said.