On Saturday evening, former Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, spoke at the Human Rights Campaign’s national dinner in Washington, D.C.
The former vice president, among his other remarks, said that he and former President Obama had agreed that they would not speak about the new administration for the first year — in order to give it a “chance to get up and running.”
As the audience began to laugh, Biden said, “God forgive me.”
He continued his remarks to the audience: “But I could not remain silent after Charlottesville. This is about basic decency.”
He was referring to Trump’s remarks after the Alt-Right protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, that “there were good people on both sides.”
The remarks drew widespread criticism across the political spectrum; a woman was killed in the ensuing conflict.
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Biden said, “We are in a fight for America’s soul! And we have leaders who, at the time when that occurred, when these guys were accompanied by white supremacists and Ku Klux Klan and those that objected, making a comparison saying there are good people in both groups.”
He added, “What has become of us? Our children are listening. And our silence is complicity!”
Shortly after Charlottesville, Biden wrote an article for The Atlantic called “The Battle for America’s Soul.”
From there, he continued to the main focus of his speech.
He discussed the progress of the Human Rights Campaign and other groups around the world in promoting same-sex marriage and other rights, including India’s unanimous decision to decriminalize homosexuality, which cited U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
While Obama did not mention the agreement that Biden referenced on Saturday, he did imply he had considered carefully whether he was going to continue to be involved.
Obama, for his part, recently said in a speech to college students in Illinois that, while there is a long tradition of presidents remaining out of politics or staying silent after they leave office, he believes that the upcoming midterms are too important for him to keep quiet.
While he did not mention the agreement that Biden referenced on Saturday, he did imply that he had considered carefully whether he was going to continue to be involved.
He ended that speech by calling for the students to go out and vote this November — for Democrats to oppose President Trump in Congress.
You can watch his remarks here in the video below:
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