GAFFNEY, South Carolina — Former vice president Joe Biden told reporters Wednesday evening that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) debate rules were “fairer than anything that’s ever occurred.”

Biden was speaking after the end of a town hall meeting at Limestone College that drew roughly 400 to 500 people on a hot, humid afternoon. He was asked for his reaction to the withdrawal of Sen. Kirsten Gellibrand (D-NY) from the race.

“She’s a talented person. I hope that means she’s going to stay involved in what she’s doing, because if I’m lucky enough to be one of the people who gets elected, the person who gets elected, I would go to her for help,” he said.

Gillibrand was among the candidates who were excluded by the DNC from the next debate in Houston in September because she failed to meet the donor and polling threshold. Only ten qualified, which means that there will only be one night of debates instead of two. Several candidates have criticized the DNC’s debate rules.

Asked whether he thought the rules were unfair, Biden said: “It’s been fairer than anything that’s ever occurred… I mean, when you have twenty — anyway, it makes it hard to have a debate, when you have so many people and they’re limited to one minute to tell your life story, and a minute to, you know, thirty seconds, et cetera.

“So I think, you know, anyway — it’s fairer than anything that’s ever occurred in electoral presidential politics that I’m aware of.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.