CNN anchor John King appeared to offer a defense of Joe Biden‘s remarks about Black and Latino communities Thursday, after the network completely avoided on-air coverage of Biden’s “Are you a junkie?” exchange with a reporter during the same interview.
King played a clip of Biden praising Latino diversity, which the former vice president contrasted favorably with “the African American community,” followed by President Trump‘s claim that the presumptive Democratic nominee “totally disparaged and insulted the Black community.”
BIDEN AGAIN PRAISES LATINO DIVERSITY AS BEING ‘UNLIKE THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY’
“Is it very insulting?” King asked. “Did Joe Biden disparage and insult the Black community?”
Before members of the accompanying panel were able to respond, King seemed to attempt to answer his own question.
“He’s trying to make the point, and maybe he didn’t make it articulately as he would have liked, [but] I believe the point he was trying to make is that most African-Americans overwhelmingly support Democrats, and if you go around the country — you go to Florida, for example, you have the Cuban-American population, or you might have a Puerto Rican population that has moved to Florida that has a different view than, let’s say, a Latino in Nevada or Arizona,” King elaborated. “Is it disparaging, this whole thing, with what the former vice president said?”
CNN AVOIDS ON-AIR COVERAGE OF BIDEN’S ‘ARE YOU A JUNKIE?’ REMARK ABOUT TAKING A COGNITIVE TEST
Errin Haines, editor-at-large of the media outlet The 19th, agreed with King, calling Biden’s comments “inartful” and accusing Trump of “seizing” on the gaffe in an attempt to make inroads with Black voters.
The comments discussed by King were the second example of remarks by Biden that raised eyebrows during an interview that aired at the convention of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ).
In a preview clip released Wednesday, the former vice president snapped at CBS News correspondent Errol Barnett over a question about whether he had taken a cognitive test, comparing it to asking Barnett to “take a test where you’re taking cocaine or not.”
“What do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?” Biden then asked Barnett, who is Black.
Those remarks were not covered by CNN.
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In the full interview, broadcast Thursday, Biden sad that “unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different things.”
Biden doubled down on those comments while speaking to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials conference later in the day.