Mayor Bill de Blasio, a long-shot candidate for president, said current front-runner Joe Biden should be disqualified from being the Democratic Party's nominee unless he apologizes for his prior relationship with a segregationist senator.
"I don't think it's disqualifying if he stands up and says 'Look, I made a mistake.
I now understand the pain I caused. I want to do better,'" de Blasio said on MSNBC today."I think he is a guy who's devoted his whole life to public service and I do appreciate that a lot. I respect that," he said. "What I don't understand is how much trouble he's having getting in touch with today's reality — today's reality for the Democratic party."
De Blasio, who campaigns and governs alongside his black wife, Chirlane McCray, has publicly criticized Biden several times this week for his work decades ago with Sen. James Eastland, a Mississippi Democrat who opposed racial integration and allowing African American soldiers to serve during World War II.
During remarks at a fundraiser Tuesday, Biden spoke favorably of his time working with Eastland. It was in keeping with his campaign pitch that he has bipartisan appeal.
"It’s 2019 & @JoeBiden is longing for the good old days of 'civility' typified by James Eastland. Eastland thought my multiracial family should be illegal & that whites were entitled to 'the pursuit of dead n*ggers,'
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine