Latinos constitute a more “diverse” community than African Americans, Joe Biden said on Tuesday in an interview with members of the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
“Unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly different attitudes about different things,” Biden told NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro. “You go to Florida, and you find a very different attitude about immigration in certain places than you do when you’re in Arizona.”
Biden was responding to a question on whether he would slow deportations of Cuban asylum seekers.
President Trump slammed Biden’s remarks after watching footage of the interview.
“Joe Biden this morning totally disparaged and insulted the black community,” Trump told reporters. “I don’t know what’s going on with him but it was a very insulting statement he made.”
Biden has a history of verbal gaffes, including in this year’s election campaign. During the same interview on Tuesday, Biden was asked by an African American journalist if he had taken a cognitive test.
“Come on, man! That’s like saying you . . . before you got in this program, you’re take [sic] a test whether you’re taking cocaine or not. What do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?” Biden responded.
Biden apologized in May after saying in an interview that African Americans who vote for Trump aren’t black.
“If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” Biden told radio DJ Charlamagne tha God on an episode of The Breakfast Club.