Joe Biden made a glaring gaffe and said poor kids are ‘just as smart as white kids’

Getty Images/Sean Rayford

Former Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday that "poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids" while speaking to a group of mostly minority voters in Iowa.
The 2020 frontrunner quickly clarified on those remarks, saying "wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids, no, I really mean it, but think how we think about it."
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In a glaring gaffe, former vice president Joe Biden told a group of mostly minority voters in Iowa that "poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids," while discussing discrimination faced by low-income students.

"We have this notion that somehow if you’re poor, you cannot do it. Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids," he told the crowd during a town hall hosted by the Asian & Latino Coalition in Des Moines.

After a brief pause, he clarified on those remarks, saying, "wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids, no, I really mean it, but think how we think about it."

President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign was quick to point out Biden’s remarks, sharing a video clip from the event on Twitter. Andrew Clark, the campaign’s rapid response director, tweeted "yikes… have fun mitigating that one."

Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said in a Friday statement that the former vice president "misspoke and immediately corrected himself during a refrain he often uses to make the point that all children deserve a fair shot, and children born into lower-income circumstances are just as smart as those born to wealthy parents."

Biden has, in the past, referred to himself as the "gaffe machine" due to his history of embarrassing slip-ups and misstatements while in the public eye.

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