WATCH: Biden Confronts Breitbart Journalist Claiming Trump Didn’t Praise Charlottesville Marchers
Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden delivers a 20-minute campaign speech at the Des Moines Register Political Soapbox at the Iowa State Fair August 08, 2019 in Des Moines, Iowa. Image by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
By Aiden Pink August 9, 2019
Former vice president Joe Biden was fired up on Thursday while arguing with a journalist from the right-wing website Breitbart who claimed that Biden had mischaracterized President Trump’s comments about “very fine people on both sides” in Charlottesville after the 2017 white nationalist riot there.
After Biden descended from a podium after his 20-minute speech at the Iowa State Fair, he was confronted by a number of journalists, including Breitbart senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak, who has repeatedly argued that Democrats and the media have mischaracterized Trump’s speech and ignored the president’s condemnations of white nationalism.
Biden has said that Trump’s post-Charlottesville remarks were one of the key incidents that inspired him to run for president. And the former veep made his point in angry tones to Pollak. Portions of the exchange were captured on Twitter.
Up close confrontation at the Iowa state fair:this man accuses @JoeBiden of misquoting @realDonaldTrump on white supremacists — and Biden tears into him. pic.twitter.com/2ycHT869jP
— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) August 8, 2019
“Mr. Vice President, are you aware that you’re misquoting Donald Trump in Charlottesville, he never called neo-Nazis ‘very fine people’?” Pollak asked.
“No, he called all those folks who walked out of that — they were neo-Nazis. Shouting hate, their veins bulging,” Biden responded.
“But he said specifically that he was condemning them,” Pollak said.
“No, he did not,” Biden retorted. “He said, he walked out, and he said — let’s get this straight. He said there were ‘very fine people’ in both groups. They’re chanting anti-Semitic slogans, carrying flags.”
Pollak and other conservative figures, like the YouTube channel PragerU, have decried what they call the “Charlottesville Hoax,” claiming that the “very fine people” Trump was referring to were individuals who were in Charlottesville merely to oppose the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.
Shortly after that line in his remarks, Trump said that during the protest “the night before [the riot], they were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee” and that “a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest.”
That nighttime protest featured the march of white nationalists chanting “Jews will not replace us.”
Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor of the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aidenpink
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Our Goal: 500 gifts during our Passover Pledge Drive!
