On Friday morning, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden told the co-host of a popular radio show, “If you have a problem figuring out if you’re for me or Trump, you ain’t black.”
Biden’s comment during a somewhat tense interview with The Breakfast Club‘s Charlamagne tha God ignited a social media firestorm, and by early afternoon, #YouAintBlack was the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter.
Katrina Pierson, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign and leader of its Black Voices for Trump group, called Biden’s comment “racist and dehumanizing.”
“Joe Biden believes black men and women are incapable of being independent or free thinking,” Piersen said.
Symone Sanders, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign, tried to clean up the mess, saying Biden “spent his career fighting alongside and for the African American community.”
“The comments made at the end of the Breakfast Club interview were in jest, but let’s be clear about what the VP was saying: he was making the distinction that he would put his record with the African American community up against Trump’s any day. Period,” Sanders wrote.
Watch the full interview below.
