Carolina is first in the south primary. Its critical for democratic hopefuls and winning will depend lively on the support from its black community. In just a few moments, Vice President joe biden will be right here taking my questions. But right now i want to bring back my panel for discussion, ja. Jace s Jason Johnson is editor for politics. Com and we also have atima omara. What do you want to hear from joe biden tonight . Hes made statements around segregationists and has been called upon several to apologize. What do you want to hear from him . It doesnt sound like its affected him tonight. It doesnt sound like its affected him in this room, but of course its a lot of his supporters that are here. I would certainly love to hear if he has taken to heart some of the criticisms that were made of him this week. We dont know all the details of the conversation he had with senator booker, but senator booker was kind of general. Yeah. So i want to see if he gets it. I mean, some people say it was a gaffe this week. I dont actually necessarily think it was a gaffe. I think this is part of a Larger Campaign hes always had from the beginning which is a return to normalcy which is really tailored toward an older demographic of predominantly white voters who are thinking of a time when we sort of compromise, we sort of talked about a lot of issues and worked with republicans across the aisle, and thats the sort of era that were not in anymore. Anyone in politics for the last few years will know we cant get anything done with republicans because they dont want to work with us. So he, by bringing up and speaking fondly of segregationists like he did which werent even across aisle, theyre actually thin the Democratic Party, he sounded like he was fantasizing this saying, he never called me boy, he called me son. Of course he didnt because you were white. So some recognition of that is what i would like to hear. What would you like to hear, jason . I would like to hear some effort. I heard a lot of passion from senator booker, warren, harris. What i heard was a guy reading from a speech because hes got a 15 to 20point lead. The core issue ive always had with the biden campaign, not that hes not qualified, thats not the issue. Hes running under this underlying issue of, im a white guy and i can go into a racial room and get things done. There is no indication that works anymore. So outside of im a white guy and i used to work for barack obama, what is your actual vision for america, because the america youre trying to return us to doesnt exist anymore. Thats what i want to see from joe biden. Many people are saying, and im playing devils advocate here, though the devil doesnt need an advocate where i come from, but the many people are saying its about who can beat donald trump. Right. And were not looking for a perfect candidate, were looking for a winning candidate. How do you respond . I always say this is my main theme. There is a difference between being viable, which is win your nomination, and being electable, you can win a general election. You cant beat donald trump if you cant create a coalition within your own party. So people who are voting for someone because they think they can beat donald trump, any of the five or six candidates, is side for mayor pete, can beat joe biden. Atima . I 100 agree with that. None of the candidates here, theyre all human. Theyre not perfect. There are things you could pick out on each one of them that they could posititentially do better. Pretty much under the age of 45. I talk to anybody working in the digital universe, the demographic are 50 and up. He knows those are the folks he wants to talk to specifically, predominantly white, who are much more for giving the africanamerican voter on some things he said were fond at the time of the wing man, of president obama, and voters are interested in structural change, theyre interested in aggressive policies, someone who stands on principle and puts forward plans. That is for him not what hes been doing this entire time. All right. Were going to take a break here. I want to replay part of the speech by i want to play a part of the speech by former Vice President joe biden moments ago. My time is running, im sorry. Hey, thank you, everybody. I never like to cut off cheers but my time is running here. Welcome, South Carolina, to hear from all of us and were happy to be here. The only thing i miss is my buddy fritz hocollins. He was my mentor and im sorry hes not here. You know this is more important than any campaign youve been engaged in. We have a president who embraces white supremacy, embraces dictators. In fact, goes around the world weakening our alliances. And look, our children are watching. Theyre watching. It matters what president s say and do. Barack obama they watched and they emulated. They wanted to be like him. Four more years of donald trump will permanently change the character of this country. We cant let that happen. We have to beat donald trump as the overwhelming parody we have. We have to rebuild the backbone of this nation. Hardworking people, middle class people. Ladies and gentlemen, wall street did not build america. You built america. Average people getting a chance build america. And right now from the bottom coming out of the middle class, made worse by trump tax cuts, the top 1. 1 let alone 1 . Its time we started to reward work over wealth. We need big and bold ideas, and folks, on day one, on day one i will move to eliminate trumps tax cuts as well for the super wealthy and literally cut by close to 400 to 500 billion the tax loopholes built in that have no social redeeming value and put that money to good use. Health care joining me now for his first cable news sitdown interview since announcing his white house bid is former Vice President joe biden. Thank you for being with us tonight. Good to see you, rev. Good to see you. Let me ask you before we get into some of what you said in the speech, the president announced today that hes going to have a twoweek delay on his announcement that he was sending i. C. E. In after hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. Nancy pelosi called him last night and asked him not to do it. Hes going to do a twoweek delay. Whats your reaction . He shouldnt do it at all. You see theyre in the ninth circuit right now arguing that kids who are being detained by i. C. E. Should not even have blankets, toothbrushes and the rest, they can sleep on floors. Theyre actually making that argument today. And not only is that cruel, but imagine what it says to the rest of the world about who we are. Look, we should immediately let the d. R. E. A. M. Ers in, period. We should be moovving in the direction to make sure there is a path for citizenship for those who are whehere. We should change fundamentally the access to in terms of asylum by putting more judges on the border. We should not be getting rid of my 750 billion proposal that we put together bipartisan in the administration that provides money for el salvador, guatemala in order to change the environment while theyre there, improve their education and have a real criminal justice system, et cetera. These are things we should be doing. Look, you come from a state that has a big old statue. It says, send me your and it goes on. Thats who we are. Thats who we are. This is absolutely mindless what hes doing. I heard in your speech, you got into detail about how to deal with the tax code and what it would do in terms of money, which means a lot, particularly in a state like South Carolina, a huge black population, a population that needs jobs, infrastructure development. Why is this so critical to you and will this be a machb thein . Its a gigantic theme. Were the eighth largest black population in america. I know those communities. Theyre getting killed and the environmental stuff, all the bad stuff is happening. They have wooden pipes that are in fact leaking as the headline in the South Carolina paper said today, like tissue paper. Whats going on here . Theyre the ones with the refineries built next to them where the smog is occurring, where all this stuff is dropping. Heres the deal. As we strengthen the Africanamerican Community throughout this country, bwhat e do, we not only make it better for them, we make it better for all of america. For those who are cynical about this, i want to point out billions of dollars in the process. Billions of dollars. Look, rev, we can do this. Im not making these numbers up. Mine are not lets make everything free for everybody all the time. We can send everybody to Community College for free, cutting in half the cost of college by just adding 6 billion to our budget. Of the trillion 600 billion in loopholes, its only 17 billion. You can change it all. We should be making sure that the Corporate Tax is 28 , not what when it was too hyatt 20some. But 28 . Look at all the corporations paying zero federal tax. This is within our wheelhouse. Its really within our wheelhouse. Criminal justice reform. You spoke about Martin Luther king iii and you talked about how you had one position in 94 with the crime bill and you felt differently but you spoke at the time when many black voters were there and you want to see the system work differently now. Tell us about that. The black caucus voted for the majority. The only people against it were republicans because it had 9 billion in there for prevention. It had drug courts which i call for 400 million to divert people from prison. But things have changed. Things have changed. What we should be doing is what barack and i started in our administration. There are 32 Million People in the federal prison system. You have almost 1,800,000 people in federal and state prisons. You have less than 200,000. It doesnt mean 2 million in federal prisons. We should reduce that population. No one should go to jail for a drug offense. They should go to rehabilitation. Thats the smartest thing for them. When people get out of jail, the idea we give them 25 and a bus ticket to go under a bridge but they dont qualify for public housing, they dont qualify for food, they dont qualify for pell grants. Thats crazy. We should be doing the opposite. You know, rev, ive been calling for it and ive been calling for it for a long time, there should be job training in prisons, not training on how to be criminals. There is so much to do and its within our capacity to do it. Thats the interesting thing. I think whats happening now is i think donald trump may have reawake understaned sensibilitis country to say, whoa, maybe we can do this now. Just as our generation was awakened when dr. King and dr. Bobby kennedy were assassinated. These millennials, they get it. And now they want to get engaged. You started the campaign with a video talking about charlottesville and the division in the country, and i watched you close up during the obama years fight, even sometimes internal fights in the staff for samesex marriage and a lot of tough stuff. You and i disagreed in the 90s, and i said, wow, this biden is a real go to the mat kind of fighter. This week you got into it about a statement you made about racists and segregations. Dont you understand some of the hurt feelings that you caused cory booker and you had mayor de blasio and others calling on you to apologize. Many things ive said that i didnt intend mrs. King said to me, you cant say things that hurt people. It hurts when you talk about boy. It means Something Different to us. It does. It hurts when you call a racist like you normalize it. Thats not the biden i got to know, dont you understand that . I do fully understand. Thats not what i said, though. They didnt print the whole deal, you know what i mean . The context of this was totally different. And by the way, the fact of the matter is i ran against all those folks. I got on the Judiciary Committee to defeat the man ahead of the committee. Im the guy who extended the Voting Rights act 25 years, not five. We finally got to the point when i was a Senior Member on the Judiciary Committee to get 98 votes to accident tend the Voting Rights act. Let me tell you something, you got to deal with whats in front of you. Whats in front of you are a bunch of racists and we had to defeat them. I said in that statement that the fact of the matter is, the meanest man in the world ive ever dealt with in the United States senate was a guy from georgia named Herman Talmage and i included jim eastland. I do understand the consequence of the word boy. But it wasnt said in any of that context at all. But you understand, they would never call me son. No, but they call Teddy Kennedy boy. The reason they call me senator i mean, son because he said im not even qualified to be in the senate. Im not old enough. Im a kid. To those that are listening, and those that have respected you or that were hurt by that, what do you say to them . Ive heard your justification and youre explaining it, but youre saying to them you understand the feeling. I do understand the feeling. Look, as you know, rev, you know about me in delaware. I came up in that community. I came up in the black church. I came up because thats where we sit down to organize to go out and march. I was the only white employee on the east side of wilmington, delaware in terms of being a lifeguard and a park director. Because i chose to be there and i learned more there than anywhere of all of those folks that got good jobs were athletes. I was not a bad oot leet but i was the only white employee. The fact of the matter is, i remember sitting in there and a guy named jamie roles is a good athlete. He said, do you have a jerry can, joe . You mean a big 5gallon one . Yeah. What do you need a jerry can for . I cant stop and get a jerry can. I didnt have it anywhere near as tough as any black man or woman i sesrved with, but all te people i think there were a total of 14 africanamericans and me. I was in the middle of a city and i didnt know anybody white. They would ask questions like, whats did like for a, b, c or d . I am fully aware of that. And to the extent that anybody thought that i meant Something Different, that is not what i intended. And it would be wrong for anybody to intend that. Iran, i have to ask you about that before i let you go. The whole back and forth with this president sending out one signal i mean, actually having people in the air headed that way, then he pulls back and he tells this story that he heard 150 people would die and he decided not to do it, how do you react to his story, because some people are saying the story is unbelievable, and how do you react to the seemingly no policy. We dont even have a secretary of defense. Look, as you know, i served as chairman of the Foreign Relations committee a long time. I met virtually every major world leader in the last 35 years and met them on their first name basis. Some are absolute tyrants like putin and others that he embraces. But i also sat on the Intelligence Committee and i also was, as you know, did a major piece of intelligence operations for president of the United States when i was there. If, in fact, the military did not brief him and vet him on what was happening, i just dont believe it. The military doesnt do that. They sit down and say, mr. President , do you want us to do a . Heres what we think will happen. This is the consequence. Your decision, mr. President , we recommend or not. But the idea that they would say to him when he said, go ahead and bomb and take out whatever they were going to take out and not tell him what the consequences would be, not possible. Simply not possible. The military does not function that way whether or not there is a secretary of defense. Wow. All right. I really mean it. Not a joke, rev. Not possible. Thank you for coming by. Thank you for this first sitdown interview on cable tv news. You and i can always talk blunt and frank, and you always make me listen to you. Ive always listened to you. You know that, man. Youve done a lot more than ive done for the civil movement. We owe you, pal. Vice president joe biden. [ cheers and applause ] well have much more well have much more when politics nation continues right after the break. Well be right back. Well be right back. Applebees new loaded chicken fajitas. Now only 10. 99. mom nooooo. son nooooo. avo quick, the quicker picker upper bounty picks up messes quicker and is 2x more absorbent. Bounty, the quicker picker upper. Play it cool and escape heartburn fast with new tums chewy bites cooling sensation. Tum tum tum tums with new tums chewy bites cooling sensation. At panera, our salads with peakseason berries. Creamy avocado. And a dressing fit for a goddess. Come taste what a salad should be. And order online for delivery right to you. Panera. Food as it should be. Hey i live on my own now ive got xfinity, because i like to live life in the fast lane. Unlike my parents. You rambling about xfinity again . Youre so cute when you get excited. Anyways. Ive got their app right here, i can troubleshoot. I can schedule a time for them to call me back, its great you have our number programmed in . Ya i dont even know your phone anymore. Excuse me . what . I dont know your phone number. Aw well. He doesnt know our phone number you have our fax number, obviously. Todays xfinity service. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Ill pass. I know that we have in this white house a president who says he wants to make America Great again. What does that mean . Does that mean he wants to take us back to before schools were integrated . Does that mean he wants to take us back before the Voting Rights act was enacted . Does that mean he wants to take us back before the civil right act was enacted . Does he mean he wants to take us back before roe v. Wade was enacted . Because were not going back be part of this fight. This is our chance in 2020. Our chance to dream big, to fight hard, and to win i am sick of the word values being talked about like it only belongs on one side of the aisle. Values like freedom and security and democracy are not conservative values, they are american values. And this is the year we break the republ