Vice president Joe Biden has disparaged gun-rights advocates as “tea baggers,” CNN host John Walsh told reporters today. Walsh, the former host of America’s Most Wanted, recounted that he bonded with Biden over the need for more gun control and their distaste for the National Rifle Association..

“I said to Joe Biden, ‘90 percent of Americans are for a responsible background check for a gun, and you know what this Congress has done? Not voted on it, not brought it to the floor, not introduced a bill,’” he recalled to reporters during an event for his upcoming program, a crime show called The Hunt. “I said, ‘They’re all scared shitless of the NRA, aren’t they?’”


“‘John, every one of them,’” the vice president replied, according to Walsh. “‘Because the NRA will run a tea-bagger against you. . . . They’ll put 5 million bucks against you.’”

Walsh made clear that he is a gun owner, but said the United States needs to do more to address gun violence and characterized himself as “the biggest advocate for background checks out of any gun owner in America.”