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“We have this notion that somehow if you’re poor you cannot do it. Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids — wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids. No, I really mean it, but think how we think about it,” he said.
“They can do anything that anybody else can do, given a shot,” he added later.
“I am a gaffe machine, but my God what a wonderful thing compared to a guy who can’t tell the truth,” Biden said in December, in reference to President Donald Trump.
Trump’s reelection campaign seized on Biden’s comments on Thursday. Andrew Clark, the rapid response director for the Trump 2020 campaign, tweeted an edited video of Biden’s comments.
Reacting to Biden’s comments at the White House on Friday, Trump attacked the former vice president’s intelligence and said that Biden is “not somebody you can have as your president.”
Biden’s campaign said the former vice president “misspoke and immediately corrected himself” and drew a contrast between Biden’s comments and Trump’s past rhetoric on race.
“Joe Biden has spent his life fighting for civil rights and the dignity of all people. The Trump campaign posting the video without the Vice President’s immediate correction is patently disingenuous — and it’s no coincidence this comes days after Joe Biden laid out how this president emboldens white nationalism and embraces racism,” deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said in a statement.
Democratic presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, the only Asian-American man in the race, defended Biden, saying he was “trying to convey a message and it came out the wrong way.”
“The fact is there are many, many poor kids in this country who are underrepresented minorities, kids of color,” Yang told CNN’s John Berman on “New Day” Friday. “And it’s Joe just trying to express an idea that came out the wrong way.”
CNN’s Corey James contributed to this report.
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