Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) is not calling on former Vice President Joe Biden to apologize for controversial comments he made this week regarding former segregationist Democratic senators.
At a New York fundraiser on Tuesday, Biden said the Senate “got things done” with “civility” when the body included segregationists with whom he disagreed.
He added that the late Senator James Eastland of Mississippi used to call him “son” but not “boy,” a reference with an overt racist connotation.
Biden’s fellow candidates in the Democratic 2020 presidential scrum quickly rebuked him, however, Jones — a Biden supporter — is taking a different approach.
“I’m not sure he needs he to apologize,” Jones on Thursday said, according to Politico.
Referring to Biden’s “boy” line, Jones added, “He may want to acknowledge that that one term was not the appropriate term to use for sure.”
This is not the first time Biden has made similar comments about segregationist colleagues or even Eastland individually.
In fact, Biden used almost the same talking point when he stumped for Jones at an Alabama rally in 2017.
Jones is up for re-election in 2020. He has pledged to back whomever the Democrats ultimately nominate against President Donald Trump, no matter how radical that individual is.
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Sean Ross is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
