Official White House Photo by Pete Souza(WASHINGTON) — Oh, Joe.
Vice President Joe Biden managed to step in it this morning while speaking about domestic violence and sexual assault at the Democratic National Committee’s annual Women’s Leadership Forum in Washington, D.C.
After giving an impassioned plea to end such abuse, Biden closed his remarks with a few comments about the challenges facing Democrats in the upcoming elections.
“This is not your father’s Republican Party. This is a different breed of cat,” he said, lamenting the absence of Republicans he said used to champion issues like voter fraud. “It’s Republicans that were involved, guys like [Charles] Mac Mathias, [Bob] Packwood and so many others.”
Perhaps that’s not the best example to use in a speech aimed at reaching out to women.
Oregon Republican Bob Packwood resigned from the Senate in 1995 amid sexual harassment and abuse allegations.
But the Packwood reference was not the only gaffe of the week for the VP. Earlier this week, Biden had to apologize after referring to moneylenders as “Shylocks,” a Shakespearean term considered to be anti-Semitic.
“People would come to him and talk about what was happening to them at home in terms of foreclosures, in terms of bad loans that were being — I mean, these shylocks who took advantage of these women and men while overseas,” he said Tuesday.
After facing criticism from the Anti-Defamation League, Biden admitted, “It was a poor choice of words.”
And Wednesday, he referred to Asia as the “Orient,” a widely outdated term that is often considered to be offensive.
“You know, on the way back from Mumbai to go meet with President Xi in China, I stopped in Singapore to meet with a guy named Lee Kuan Yew, who most foreign policy experts around the world say is the wisest man in the Orient,” Biden said in Iowa this week.
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