Former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks during a campaign stop at the IBEW Local 490 in Concord, NH on June 4, 2019. Matthew J. Lee | The Boston Globe | Getty Images

Democratic presidential candidates on Wednesday attacked presidential front-runner Joe Biden a day after the former vice president cited his working relationships with two late segregationist senators as examples of the type of "civility" in Congress that has since disappeared. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., both denounced Biden by name in a break with the practice most Democrats have followed on the trail thus far. De Blasio, whose wife is black, and Booker, who is black, framed their criticism in personal terms.

Biden has come under scrutiny for the remarks about the late lawmakers James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia delivered at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City on Tuesday evening. Biden said that Eastland "never called me boy" and said he was able to work with Talmadge despite disagreements. De Blasio wrote that "Eastland thought my multiracial family should be illegal & that whites were entitled to 'the pursuit of dead n------'." The mayor included a photo of him with his wife, Chirlane McCray, and their multiracial children. Booker wrote in a statement that "frankly, I'm disappointed that he hasn't issued an immediate apology for the pain his words are dredging up for many Americans. He should." Biden did not respond to a request for comment. De Blasio tweet In a second tweet, de Blasio wrote that "It's past time for apologies or evolution from Joe Biden. He repeatedly demonstrates that he is out of step with the values of the modern Democratic Party." Later Wednesday, Symone Sanders, a Biden adviser, tweeted that Biden "did not praise a segregationist. That is a disingenuous take." "He basically said sometimes in Congress, one has to work with terrible or down right racist folks to get things done. And then went on to say when you can't work with them, work around them," she wrote. TWEET

Biden cited segregationist senators in praising Senate's former 'civility'