For all of Joe Biden's political experience - Jeff Gundlach recently said that Biden had spent 32 years running for president (unsuccessfully) - the former vice president has an uncanny habit of inserting his foot in his mouth at the worst possible times.

That's precisely what happened to Joe Biden on Tuesday when he reassured a room full of mega-rich donors that “nothing would fundamentally change” if he wins the presidency in 2020, hardly the stuff progressive Democrats' dreams are made of. Speaking to a room full of wealthy donors in New York City’s Carlyle Hotel, Biden said he would not "demonize" the rich and promised them that their lifestyles would not change under his watchful eye, the Hill reported.

“I need you very badly,” Biden told the room, explaining that he had “got in trouble” with some of his team for defending the rich, but said he did it because “rich people are just as patriotic as poor people." He was also defending the rich when he told the rich he was defending them.

“No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change,” Biden told the room of 100 less than progressive supporters, who were served lobster hors d'oeuvres. The moderate Democrat also balked at the kind of revolutionary-style politics advocated by his more progressive-left opponents Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, promising the donors that he would be the candidate of marginal, incremental change.

The day before, Biden held a $2,800 per-person fundraiser at the $34 million New York City penthouse belonging to investment billionaire Jim Chanos, where he assured his most financially comfortable supporters that they are “going to do fine” if he wins.

To be sure, Biden’s opponents - and there are plenty of those - will likely seize on his latest comments to accuse him of being out-of-touch.

And speaking of Joe Biden criticism, the presidential candidate was also slammed by fellow Democratic presidential contenders Wednesday for something totally different: speaking kindly of two 1970s-era pro-segregationist senators.

“I have a great deal of respect for Vice President Biden,” Senator Kamala Harris of California told reporters. “But to coddle the reputations of segregationists — of people who, if they had their way, I would literally not be standing here as a member of the U.S. Senate — is I think, it’s just misinformed and it’s wrong.”

“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,” Booker said in a statement Wednesday. He was responding to Biden’s comments about the late Democratic Senators James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia during a fundraiser on Tuesday in New York.

“He never called me boy, he always called me son,” Biden said of Eastland, taking on a heavy Southern drawl as he recalled his early years representing Delaware in the Senate. Talmadge, he added, was “one of the meanest guys I ever knew, you go down the list of all these guys” but “at least there was some civility.”

The criticism by Harris and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, who is also African-American, occurred as the race enters a new phase, with the South Carolina event and the first debates of the 2020 election next week.

Even Bill de Blasio, who for some unknown reason is running for president, tweeted his own condemnation of Biden’s remarks, accompanied by a photo of himself with his African-American wife and children.

“It’s 2019 & @JoeBiden is longing for the good old days of ‘civility’ typified by James Eastland," de Blasio wrote. "He repeatedly demonstrates that he is out of step with the values of the modern Democratic Party.”

Democrats have in the recent past criticized Biden for praising the late Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, another segregationist, as well as a string of Republicans who he’s described as decent people despite not sharing his political views.

Polls show Biden with a lead in South Carolina - a state where the majority of Democratic primary voters are African-American, and that is crucial to the hopes of Booker and Harris.