During a virtual town hall Thursday, former vice president Joe Biden estimated that some 10% to 15% of Americans are "not very good people," adding that the vast majority were "decent" folks the president should work to unite.
Irrelevant comparisons were quickly made to Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comment about Donald Trump supporters in 2016 and even GOP nominee Mitt Romney saying in 2012 that 47% of Americans weren't paying taxes and depended on the federal government. Really?
Here's the only comparison that matters: Biden didn't call a bunch of torch-wielding murderous neo-Nazis and white supremacists "very fine people." That distinction belongs to Trump, who normalized an aggressive and ultimately deadly rally of white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 by claiming many of those protesters had a legitimate and peaceful cause. "You had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest, and very legally protest,” Trump said, elaborating on his assertion that some "very fine people" took part in the events where attendees chanted the Nazi slogan "blood and soil."
Biden was originally asked at the town hall about how he would lead people differently than Trump "if it's true that you can't truly lead people if you don't love people." Here was Biden's fuller response, according to USA Today:
"I love people," Biden replied. He accused President Donald Trump of dividing the country with his words and said that when a leader does that "you're going to get the worst of us to come out,".
"It's about the attitude of the country – is this really as good as we think we can be as a nation?" Biden said. "I don’t think the vast majority of people think that. There are probably anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the people out there that are just not very good people, but that’s not who we are."
"The vast majority of the people are decent, and we have to appeal to that and we have to unite people – bring them together," Biden added.
Sorry, folks, but if you've got a problem with that comment, maybe it's more about taking a look in the mirror than what Biden said.