Biden on claim he was arrested in South Africa: ‘I guess I should have said I was detained’

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday addressed his false claim that he had been arrested in apartheid-era South Africa while attempting to visit Nelson Mandela in prison, saying he “should have said I was detained.”

“What I was doing was talking about [was] the fact that I was strongly opposed to apartheid,” Biden told host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” explaining that he was referring to an incident in which he landed with a black congressional delegation and refused to enter through a separate whites-only doorway.

“What they finally did was cleared out a baggage claim area and took us all through the baggage claim area,” he said.

Wallace also played the clip of Biden’s claim along with another clip of him appearing to say he was running for “the United States Senate,” which the former vice president said was in the context of him explaining how his campaigning methods when running for Senate would translate to a presidential bid.

Wallace also played a clip of President Trump speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference saying that Biden, as president, would be “in a home someplace,” prompting laughter from the Democrat.

“Is that the stable genius saying that? Give me a break, God love him,” Biden responded. 

“I’m gonna resist saying what I feel like saying,” he added. “I’m not going to try to assign names and insults to the stable genius, this is a guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing, doesn’t know how to run the country.”