Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden suggested during Wednesday night’s presidential debate on MSNBC that it was okay to hit a woman as long as it was in self-defense.

“Vice President Biden, the #MeToo movement has forced a cultural reckoning around the issue of sexual violence and harrassment against women in America,” an MSNBC moderator said to Biden. “Are there specific actions that you would take early in your administration to address this problem?”

“Yes, and by the way, it’s one of the reasons the first thing I would do is make sure we pass the Violence Against Women Act re-authorization,” Biden responded. “The fact is, what happens now is we in fact have to fundamentally change the culture, the culture of how women are treated. That’s why as vice president, I asked the president if I could start the movement on the college campuses to say it’s on us, it’s everyone’s responsibility.”

“No man has a right to raise a hand to a woman in anger other than in self-defense,” Biden said, adding, “and that rarely ever occurs.”

Biden continued by saying that the culture must change, adding, “we have to keep punching at it, and punching at it, and punching at it.”

The audience started to laugh at him at which point he responded, “no, I really mean it.”

WATCH:

.@JoeBiden to men: The only time you should hit a woman is “in self defense.” pic.twitter.com/muhBaz2FdS — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 21, 2019

Biden’s remarks came after he attended a fundraiser this last week with two Democrat Senators who have an alleged history of violence against women.

“The fundraising event, on Nov. 13, included Democratic Delaware Sen. Tom Carper and former Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who have both been accused of violence or misconduct against women,” The Daily Caller reported. “Carper has admitted that he beat his wife during an argument and Dodd was previously accused of sexually assaulting a waitress at a restaurant in Washington, D.C.”

Law&Crime reported the following excerpt from a 1998 interview, in which Carper said, “Did I slap my wife 20 years ago? Yes. Do I regret it? Yes. Would I do it again? No. I slapped Diane one time. It was a stupid thing to do and I … regret it now. It caused some discoloration of her left eye and some puffiness.”

Biden’s campaign stumbled heading into the debate on Wednesday as the campaign “accidentally sent out a fundraising email celebrating his performance at Wednesday’s Democratic debate – hours before the event had even begun,” Fox News reported. “The message was sent out to Biden supporters several minutes after 3 p.m. ET, nearly six hours prior to the start time.”

“I’m leaving the fifth Democratic debate now,” the email stated. “I hope I made you proud out there and I hope I made it clear to the world why our campaign is so important.”

An hour later, the Biden campaign sent out a follow-up email, stating: “You might have just gotten an email from Joe about just getting off of the debate stage. That’s our bad, team. We know Joe is going to make us proud tonight. We were just so excited for it that we accidentally hit send too soon.”