Former vice president and potential 2020 candidate Joe Biden responded to criticism he received for calling current Vice President Mike Pence “decent” during a speech.
Biden made the remark during a speech in Omaha, Nebraska, where he was discussing when Pence was met with silence after he brought up President Donald Trump during a speech in Munich.
“The fact of the matter is it was followed on by a guy who’s a decent guy, our vice president, who stood before this group of allies and leaders and said, ‘I’m here on behalf of President Trump,’ and there was dead silence. Dead silence,” the former vice president said.
Calling Pence “decent” sparked some criticism online from liberals, as Mediaite notes.
Cynthia Nixon, who ran in the Democratic primary for governor of New York last year, criticized the comment on Twitter because of the vice president’s views on the LGBTQ community.
“.@JoeBiden you’ve just called America’s most anti-LGBT elected leader ‘a decent guy.’ Please consider how this falls on the ears of our community. @DrBiden,” Nixon wrote.
.@JoeBiden you’ve just called America’s most anti-LGBT elected leader “a decent guy.”
— Cynthia Nixon (@CynthiaNixon) February 28, 2019
Please consider how this falls on the ears of our community. @DrBiden https://t.co/Cw2beknTj7
Biden responded to Nixon’s tweet shortly after it was posted.
“You’re right, Cynthia. I was making a point in a foreign policy context, that under normal circumstances a Vice President wouldn’t be given a silent reaction on the world stage,” he wrote. “But there is nothing decent about being anti-LGBTQ rights, and that includes the Vice President.”
Biden is expected to announce his bid to seek the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. If he does, he would join an already crowded field of hopefuls.
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