Black lawmakers get Biden's back amid 'segregationist' uproar [View all]

[Kahuna7]

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/19/joe-biden-segregationist-comments-1370844


Senior members of the Congressional Black Caucus leaped to former Vice President Joe Biden’s defense Wednesday after he touted his bipartisan work with known segregationists as a time of “civility.”

Progressives pounced on the remarks, and two other White House hopefuls criticized the 76-year-old Democratic presidential poll leader over his comments at a fundraiser Tuesday night. But more than a half-dozen CBC members argued that Biden’s remarks were taken out of context and that the former senator’s call for decency is needed now more than ever.


“I worked with Strom Thurmond all my life,” House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the highest-ranking African American in Congress, said of the infamous segregationist senator. “You don’t have to agree with people to work with them.”

Clyburn is preparing to host his annual fish fry event in South Carolina this weekend, a must-stop on the Democratic presidential circuit. Nearly all of the two-dozen Democratic hopefuls, including Biden, are set to attend.

At the fundraiser in New York, Biden pushed back at liberal critics who say he’s out of touch for thinking he can work with Republicans after the hyper-partisanship of Donald Trump's presidency. Biden recalled his days in the Senate working to find consensus with hard-line segregationists like James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia.

“At least there was some civility,” Biden said of that era. “We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done.”