Can Joe Biden Apologize His Way To The Presidency?

Former vice president and new 2020 Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden has a problem. His problem is simple: He has a record. That record is long and checkered. And that means that Biden has spent the first months of his undeclared campaign apologizing.

In January, Biden apologized for having supported criminal sentencing laws that helped drive down crime in the United States. He did so because those laws are now considered both passe and un-woke — they’ve been maligned as inherently racist. Thus, Biden stated: “I haven’t always been right. I know we haven’t always gotten things right, but I’ve always tried,” adding that the bill in the early 1990s “trapped an entire generation” and “was a big mistake when it was made.” That’s a change from 2016, when Biden told CNBC he wasn’t ashamed “at all” for supporting the bill and bragged, “I drafted the bill.”