Former Vice President Joe Biden said Monday that the August white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., was a “turning point” for America that required the nation’s leaders to speak out.
In an interview on CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” the former vice president called President Trump’s equivocal remarks about the protests and counterprotests in Charlottesville as “reprehensible.”
{mosads}”To not have an outright, flat condemnation of that [is wrong],” he said.
“I thought the silence was deafening. And then, when the comparison was made to those that were [counter]protesting, I found it reprehensible — I couldn’t remain silent anymore. It goes to the soul of the country.”
Biden, who is promoting a new book, also heaped blame on former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon.
“It’s not just the president. It’s all that surrounds this, and Bannon and the alt-right I find to be reprehensible. I mean, the inability to condemn hate is …” Biden trailed off, to cheers.
He added that if Trump had been defeated in November by Hillary Clinton, there would be no question as to whether Clinton would “understand the role of the presidency.”
“But for 74,000 votes or thereabouts, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We’d have a good president who understands the role of the presidency,” he added.