Friday on ABC’s “The View,” 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful former Vice President Joe Biden discussed the controversy over his treatment of Anita Hill during the 1991 Clarence Thomas Supreme court nomination.
Biden who was the Judiciary Committee during the Thomas hearings called Hill this month, but Hill told the New York Times she was not satisfied with his comments.
Hill said, “I cannot be satisfied by simply saying, ‘I’m sorry for what happened to you.”
Biden said, “I’m not going to judge whether or not it was appropriate, whether she thought it was sufficient, but I said privately what I said publicly. I’m sorry she was treated the way she was treated. I wish we could have figured out a better way to get this thing done. I did everything in my power to do what I thought was within the rules to be able to stop things.”
Co-host Joy Behar said, “I think she wants you to say I’m sorry for the way I treated you. Not ‘the way you were treated.’ I think that would be closer.”
Biden said, “If you go back and look at what I said and I didn’t say, I don’t think I treated her badly. I took on her opposition.”
He continued, “I thought the issue was to try to not — to make it clear that I believed Anita — excuse me — Dr. Hill. I believed what she was saying. What would happen if someone came and said I’m not going to say anything? That would guarantee this happened. Look, there were a lot of mistakes made across the board. For those, I apologize. We may have been able to conduct it better. I believed Dr. Hill from the beginning, from the beginning and I said it.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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