Biden responds to President Trump's 'Obamagate' tweets
Former Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday during a Yahoo News virtual town hall responded to President Trump’s “Obamagate” tweets.
Video Transcript
- You know, Mr. Vice President, I want to bring us online a little bit, because there's been lots of activity. The president, by our count, has tweeted the word OBAMAGATE in all caps at least a dozen times. I'm curious what goes through your mind when you see those tweets and what your response is when he makes this very-- it's a very personal attack when he says that Obamagate was the greatest political crime in American history.
JOE BIDEN: This is his pattern. Diversion, diversion, diversion, diversion, diversion. Don't speak to whatever the issues before us are. My God. Obamagate. And he also, by the way, just said-- I read that he is not going to allow President Obama's picture to be hung in the White House as long as he's president. That's another inducement for you to make sure he's not president beyond January 20th. Come on. This is so venal. So petty. The greatest crime? I mean, my lord. This is-- ugh.
- Well, to go into that to even more extremes, both of his sons over the weekend insinuated that children should feel unsafe around you, which, at least to me, seemed reminiscent of outlandish Pizzagate pedophilia allegations leveled at Hillary Clinton's campaign all the way back in '16.
So I guess my question is, A, how do you feel about that, but B, how do you combat this? I think that there's a sense that perhaps Hillary Clinton's campaign fell into some traps and was unable to dig themselves out of it, you know? How can you acknowledge without falling those into those traps yourself?
JOE BIDEN: When that was called to his attention by mainstream press like you, he said, I was only kidding. What he's trying to do is get something going on the internet, just try to get it going. Say it enough, like his father says. If you say it enough, people will believe it.
- Well, that's a pretty, pretty pointed joke if it is a joke, you know? And, of course--
JOE BIDEN: It's sick. It's sick. It's sick. But he is his father's son.
- So are you and your campaign just not going to acknowledge those kinds of statements going forward?
JOE BIDEN: No, I don't want to get down in the mud with these guys. I mean, look, people know who I am. The good news is the bad news. They know me. They know my faults. They know my talents. They know me. So it's hard to lay on me some of the things that are just totally out of sync with anything in my whole life that anyone has ever said in their life.
But this is bizarre. Think about that. Think about the idea that when I sit down on the floor with the kids that want to talk to me, and I'm sitting on the floor during a conference, and they says, well, god, that Biden-- I don't know, man. Look at him around those kids. I mean, God almighty, this is sick. I mean, it just-- they never fail to amaze me how venal and-- well, I don't want to get going, because I just-- I don't want to do what they do.
