Did Joe Biden Really Say the Black Community Is Not as Diverse as the Latino Community?

Earlier this summer, the Democratic presidential candidate was caught flack for a statement he made on The Breakfast Club.

Joe Biden is catching fire for recently saying the Latino community is “incredibly diverse,” “unlike” the Black community. 

During a roundtable interview held by the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists yesterday, Biden shared: "Unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly diverse attitudes about different things.” He also added: "You go to Florida, you find a very different attitude about immigration than you do in Arizona. So it's a very diverse community."

The questions that led to this response were asked by NPR journalist Lulu Garcia-Navarro. Navarro inquired if Biden would engage with Cuba and the different immigration concerns specifically between Cuban and Venezuelan Americans.

After the live-streamed event, Biden’s campaign team declared the comment was intended to refer to the diversity of political opinion of Latino Americans, reports Politico. They also clarified it wasn’t a judgment on “cultural diversity.”

Symone Sanders, a senior Biden campaign adviser also shared the following statement after the clip went viral:

"If you look at the full video and transcript, it’s clear that Vice President Biden was referring to diversity of attitudes among Latinos from different Latin American countries. The video that is circulating is conveniently cut to make this about racial diversity but that’s not the case.”

The previously mentioned clip alongside Garcia-Navarro wasn’t the only piece of news from Biden that was garnering attention yesterday, on Wednesday he also took an offensive jab at CBS correspondent Errol Barnett. When asked if he had taken a cognitive test he responded by saying "That's like saying to you, before you got on this program if you had taken a test were you taking cocaine or not. What do you think, huh? Are you a junkie?"

Following this, his campaign expressed Barnett's question was  "preposterous" and "deserving of a response that showed the absurdity of it all."

Back in May, Biden drew criticism when he declared “you ain’t black” if “you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump” during an interview with The Breakfast Club. Biden later apologized for the comment. 

In the coming days, Biden is set to announce who his running mate for the November election will be. The shortlist which includes Sen. Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Stacey Abrams includes 11 women in total.