The presumptive 2020 Democrat presidential nominee, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, used the N-word 13 times in a 1985 hearing series, U.S. Senate transcripts reveal.
Video of one such instance where Biden used the N-word twice when he was quoting someone else already surfaced late last month. The Senate hearing series during which Biden repeatedly used the offensive term was when he was questioning William Reynolds, then-President Ronald Reagan’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, when Reynolds was under consideration for a promotion to be associate attorney general. In particular, Biden was asking Reynolds about his role in providing clearance for a redistricting plan in Louisiana that courts later struck down.
A memo was submitted to Reynolds before he approved the redistricting plan that included a racist quote from someone described as a “key legislator” in defeating the alternative redistricting plan. According to this memo, that legislator, then-Republican Rep. Charles Emile Bruneau of New Orleans, allegedly said he opposed the left’s desired redistricting plan for Louisiana in starkly racial terms. We already have a n***** mayor (in New Orleans), and we don’t need another n***** bigshot,” Bruneau was quoted in that document as saying.
In his line of questioning Reynolds in these 1985 hearings—which stretched over multiple days—Biden repeatedly brought up this exact quote and kept using the N-word. In fact, U.S. Senate transcripts from the time demonstrate that Biden used it a grand total of 13 times.
The first instance occurred during the morning of June 4, 1985, when Biden first used the term twice. A later instance, from the next day, June 5, has already had widely circulating video of Biden reciting the derogatory term from the quote twice. While some people circulating the video left out the context that includes proof Biden was not using the N-word himself but quoting someone else saying it, the mere question as to if that is even acceptable has dogged politicians for some time. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, for instance, faced questions last year over his use of the word in a book in the late 1990s, especially from leftists and Democrats on Twitter:
In fact, MSNBC’s Joy Reid—who on Monday evening takes over the primetime slot that former anchor Chris Matthews vacated—has repeatedly argued publicly that it is never acceptable for white men to use the N-word even when quoting someone else. Biden will appear on Reid’s new primetime program, The ReidOut, at 7:00 p.m. on Monday night—and it is unclear if she will ask him about this. Biden’s campaign has not responded to requests for comment from Breitbart News about these instances of his repeated use of the N-word in U.S. Senate hearings. But Reid has called out other politicians, including former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), when they have used it and has a long history of being opposed to any white people using it in any context, even if quoting someone else:
Reid has even floated the possibility of a tape of President Donald Trump saying the racist term, a tape which has never materialized despite constant rumors from the establishment media and the left:
Plenty more examples exist of Reid calling out the use of the N-word in all forms on her Twitter page. And even though that rumored Trump tape has never emerged–possibly because it might not exist despite all the hopes from the leftist media–she does have the Democrats’ presidential candidate on her debut primetime show on Monday and plenty of evidence contained here of Biden using the term she says white men like him must never use under any circumstances.
Two instances of Biden using the term, which surfaced in the videos spreading around social media, found their way into pieces from establishment media figures such as Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher and into an attack ad against Biden from the outside pro-Trump group, Committee to Defend the President. That group mentions the first instance in a recent campaign ad, saying Biden was “caught on the record repeating the N-word twice” in the middle of listing out a string of issues Biden has had with race over the years:
The first instance came in the morning of June 4, 1985, when Biden was questioning Reynolds and quoted from the document using the N-word twice in his first bit of questions for the Reagan appointee. Later that afternoon, Biden—again when quoting that document citing the term to the Louisiana state lawmaker—repeated the word five more times, according to Senate transcripts. Those transcripts demonstrate that Biden used the term again the next day, two more times, in a June 5 hearing. Then on June 18, 1985, in a follow-up hearing, the Senate transcripts demonstrate he used the N-word when quoting that original document four additional times in three different instances. That means, in total, during these 1985 hearings, Biden used the N-word 13 total times.
The context of Biden repeatedly using this word happened on the backdrop of his laying the groundwork for his first run for the White House, a doomed 1988 presidential campaign. While he did not even make it all the way to the actual primaries in 1988—he dropped out in 1987 amid concerns he plagiarized throughout his early political career—Biden was in the mid-1980s barnstorming the American South, showing common cause with segregationists concerning racial issues.
In 1986 in Alabama, for example, as Breitbart News has reported, Biden downplayed civil rights as he prepared to run for president. He spent years before that currying favor with segregationists, and also in 1986 in a speech in Baltimore to the NAACP, he pushed for the group to “move beyond” busing as an issue to integrate American schools. It cost him politically at the beginning of the Democrat primaries as Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), his one-time opponent who is now vying to be his running mate, attacked Biden on the debate stage at the first Democrat primary debate over busing.