Former Vice President Joe Biden shut down a Breitbart News reporter over President Donald Trump's comments saying there "very fine people" on both sides after the white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

The heated exchange between the leading Democratic presidential candidate and the Breitbart reporter Joel Pollak happened on Thursday afternoon at the Iowa State Fair, and it was caught on video.

In the video, Biden strikes a fiery tone. He repeatedly points his finger in Pollak's face to drive his argument home and speaks angrily at him for distorting Trump's remarks.

After the Charlottesville rally, Trump defended the white supremacists, saying, "You also had people that were very fine people, on both sides."

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Former Vice President Joe Biden shut down a Breitbart News reporter over President Donald Trump's comments saying there "very fine people" on both sides after the white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

The heated exchange between the leading Democratic presidential candidate and the Breitbart reporter Joel Pollak happened on Thursday afternoon at the Iowa State Fair. It was caught on video and posted on Twitter.

In the video, Biden strikes a fiery tone. He repeatedly points his finger in Pollak's face and speaks angrily at him for distorting Trump's remarks.

"No, he did not. He said, he walked out and he said ... let's get this straight," Biden said. "He said there were 'very fine people' in both groups. They're chanting anti-Semitic slogans, carrying flags."

Biden then walked away from Pollak.

The August 2017 rally in Charlottesville saw violent clashes between white supremacists and counterprotesters over the removal of Confederate statues in the South. During the protests, a car driven by a white supremacist plowed into a crowd of peaceful protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

A few days later, Trump drew a moral equivalency between the two groups and said "there was blame on both sides."

Read more: President Trump has repeatedly claimed he's not a racist, despite weeks of criticism specifically aimed at lawmakers of color

Then he defended the white supremacists, saying, "You also had people that were very fine people, on both sides." The driver was indicted on federal hate-crime charges, found guilty, and recently sentenced to life in prison.

Biden has repeatedly cast Trump's actions in Charlottesville as a central reason for his entry into the presidential race, coming back to it in his stump speeches across the country.

The argument between Biden and the Breitbart reporter comes after the deadly shooting in El Paso, Texas, that left 22 people dead. Law-enforcement officials have pointed to a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto believed to have been written by the shooting suspect that used the language of white supremacists. It thrust the nation into a searing debate over Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric emboldening white supremacists to carry out deadly attacks.

In the aftermath of the shooting, several prominent candidates like Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, as well as former Rep. Beto O'Rourke, have called Trump a white supremacist.