On Saturday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation,” 2020 Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden stated that the context of his remarks about working with segregationist senators “was totally different.”

Host Al Sharpton asked if he understands “some of the hurt feelings there?”

Biden responded that he does.

He added, “They didn’t 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 who headed the committee. I’m the guy that extended the Voting Rights Act 25 years, not five. … Let me tell you something, you’ve got to deal with what’s in front of you. And what was in front of me were a bunch of racists, and we had to defeat them. And as I said in that statement, I said in that statement that the fact of the matter is, the meanest man in the world I’ve ever dealt with in the United States Senate was a guy from Georgia named Herman Talmadge, and I included Jim Eastland. … I do understand the consequence of the word boy. But it wasn’t said in any of that context at all.”

Biden further stated that Ted Kennedy was called “boy,” and the reason that he was called “son” was “to demean me more.”

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