Former Vice President Joe Biden Joe BidenPelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It 'isn't worth the paper it's signed on' Hillicon Valley: Subpoenas for Facebook, Google and Twitter on the cards | Wray rebuffs mail-in voting conspiracies | Reps. raise mass surveillance concerns Fox News poll: Biden ahead of Trump in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Ohio MORE defended his past opposition to busing black students to predominantly white schools after he was attacked on the issue in his first Democratic presidential debate appearance.

After a tense exchange with Sen. Kamala Harris Kamala HarrisHundreds of lawyers from nation's oldest African American sorority join effort to fight voter suppression Biden picks up endorsement from progressive climate group 350 Action 3 reasons why Biden is misreading the politics of court packing MORE (D-Calif.) about his record on civil rights, Biden sought to clarify his position, saying he believed the issue should have been decided at the local level and that courts, rather than the Education Department, should set the rules.

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“I supported busing to eliminate de jure segregation,” he told MSNBC after the debate. "But what we’re talking about is whether or not the Department of Education, as opposed to the courts, could order de jure segregation, meaning segregation imposed by law.”

“I supported the court’s ability to strike down any, to order busing, in fact I voted against an amendment that came up in the Senate ... that wanted to take away the power of the court to stop busing.”

Pivoting away from his decades worth of experience dealing with race issues in Washington, Biden urged the conversation moving forward to focus on future actions.

“It should be about the future. It should be about what we’re going to do to deal with institutional racism. And it’s real,” he said. “We’re going at this backwards.”

The exchange with Harris was the emotional high point of the debate, as Harris pointed out that she herself had benefited from busing as a child.

Biden has sought to shield himself from criticism about race in recent weeks after touting his ability at a fundraiser to work with two segregationist senators while he was in Congress, a comment Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican descent, said was “hurtful.”