The walls are quickly beginning to close in on socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as more and more Democrats rally behind former Vice President Joe Biden’s bid for the 2020 nomination. Joining the Biden camp as of this morning is Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who hailed the former vice president as the “answer to hatred & division.”
“The answer to hatred & division is to reignite our spirit of common purpose,” Booker announced on Twitter. “[Joe Biden] won’t only win – he’ll show there’s more that unites us than divides us. He’ll restore honor to the Oval Office and tackle our most pressing challenges. That’s why I’m proud to endorse Joe.”
The answer to hatred & division is to reignite our spirit of common purpose.@JoeBiden won’t only win – he’ll
show there's more that unites us than divides us.He’ll restore honor to the Oval Office and tackle our most pressing challenges.
That’s why I’m proud to endorse Joe. pic.twitter.com/RcsnZs5mfQ
— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) March 9, 2020
Booker’s newfound love for Joe Biden stands in stark contrast to statements he made about him while campaigning for president, most notably when Biden praised two former segregationist senators as examples of civility.
“I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” Biden said last year, reportedly in a southern accent. “He never called me boy, he always called me son.”
Sen. James O. Eastland (D-MS) fervently opposed civil rights and has been referred to as the “Voice of the White South.” Biden also held up Sen. Herman Talmadge (D-GA) as an example of political civility — a man whom Biden described as being “one of the meanest guys I ever knew.”
“Well guess what? At least there was some civility,” he said of Talmadge. “We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore.”
Booker said of Biden at the time: “You don’t joke about calling black men ‘boys.’ Vice President Biden’s relationships with proud segregationists are not the model for how we make America a safer and more inclusive place for black people, and for everyone. I have to tell Vice President Biden, as someone I respect, that he is wrong for using his relationships with Eastland and Talmadge as examples of how to bring our country together.”
Following that, Cory Booker said savaged the former vice president for making further comments on racial unity, and saying that Americans should “recognize that the kid wearing a hoodie may very well be the next poet laureate and not a gangbanger.”
“This is a bad culture when you can’t admit mistakes, when you can’t speak to your vulnerabilities and your imperfections,” Booker said at the time. “We all have them, but when it comes to difficult issues with race, if you can’t talk openly and honestly about your own development on these issues, I think it’s very hard to lead our country forward so that we can actually deal with our past and rise to a better common cause and common future.”
“We have one destiny in this nation, and right now the vice president, to me, is not doing a good job at bringing folks together,” Booker added. “In fact … he’s causing a lot of frustration and even pain with his words.”