Booker maintains Biden showed 'lack of understanding' in segregationist remarks

By Bianca Quilantan
"I heard from many, many African Americans who found the comments hurtful,” he said.

Sen. Cory Booker said former Vice President Joe Biden “showed a lack of understanding or insensitivity” through his comments last week about working with two Southern segregationist senators.

“He is a presidential nominee and to say something — and again, it’s not about working across the aisle …” Booker told Martha Raddatz, co-host of ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopolous.” “This is about him evoking a terrible power dynamic that he showed a lack of understanding or insensitivity to by invoking this idea that he was called ‘son’ by white segregationists who — yes, they see him, in him, their ‘son.’”

Biden faced backlash from several 2020 Democratic candidates, including Booker, who is African American, for naming Sens. James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia as examples of people he disagreed with but still “got things done” with during his time in the Senate.

“I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” Biden said on Tuesday, according to pool reports. “He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son.’”

“You don’t joke about calling black men ‘boys,’” Booker said in a statement on Wednesday in response to Biden’s comments. “Men like James O. Eastland used words like that, and the racist policies that accompanied them, to perpetuate white supremacy and strip black Americans of our very humanity.”

Since then, Biden has said he was taken out of context. On Sunday, Booker said he “didn’t understand” Biden’s claim.

“I listened to the full totality of what he was talking about, and, frankly, I heard from many, many African Americans who found the comments hurtful,” Booker said. “Look, we make mistakes, we sometimes tread upon issues that maybe we aren’t knowledgeable of.”

“I don’t think the vice president should need this lesson,” he added, “but this was a time for him to be healing and to be helpful, especially the time that he is looking to bring this party together and lead us in what is the most important election of our lifetime.”