Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) attacked former vice president Joe Biden on Thursday for his claims last month about segregationists and busing, accusing him of “revisionist history.”
Harris made her comments in a taped interview with The Breakfast Club, a New York-based radio show. The interview will air Friday morning, according to ABC News.
Biden had been criticized for weeks over his repeated praise for segregationist Democrats, whom he had invoked to show that he could work with people with whom he disagreed. Biden’s past opposition to busing as a method of de-segregation also came in for criticism on the left.
On the second night of the first Democratic Party presidential primary debate in Miami, Florida, Harris pounced:
But I also believe, and it’s personal — and I was actually very — it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing.
And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day. And that little girl was me.
So I will tell you that, on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously. We have to act swiftly.
Biden struggled to respond, claiming that he only opposed busing by the U.S. Department of Education, which did not exist at the time. He finally apologized last weekend.
Harris and Biden both avoided the topic earlier this week at a National Education Association (NEA) forum. But as polls emerged showing Biden still leading the primary race — both nationally and in South Carolina, where African-American voters have a strong voice — Harris seems to have renewed her attack.
According to ABC, she told The Breakfast Club: “I’m not going to let us engage on a debate stage for who’s going to be the next president of the United States — I’m not going to allow us to engage in revisionist history.”
She added: “I can’t stand on that stage and allow certain conversations to be taking place.”
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. 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.
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