Former US vice president Joe Biden, who is mulling a White House run, on Wednesday said after coming under fire over his physical contact with women that he would be “more mindful” about respecting personal space.
“Social norms are changing. I understand that and I’ve heard what these women are saying,” the 76-year-old Biden said in a message on his Twitter account.
Several women have gone public with claims that Biden touched them inappropriately years ago.
Photo: AP
“Politics to me has always been about making connections, but I will be more mindful about respecting personal space in the future,” Biden said.
“That’s my responsibility and I will meet it,” added Biden, who is considering whether to seek the Democratic presidential nomination next year.
Amy Lappos told Connecticut’s Hartford Courant about an incident at a 2009 political fundraiser which, she said, “wasn’t sexual, but he did grab me by the head.”
Another accuser, former Nevada state lawmaker Lucy Flores, last week said that she was “mortified” when Biden planted a “big, slow kiss” on the back of her head as she waited to take the stage at a campaign rally five years ago.
Biden came under criticism in 2015 for massaging the shoulders of Ashton Carter’s wife as her husband was sworn in as US secretary of defense.
Photographs of that incident have circulated online so frequently that Stephanie Carter wrote a column on Sunday saying that Biden was merely “a close friend helping someone get through a big day, for which I will always be grateful.”
In a video which accompanied his Twitter message, Biden said that in his long political career he has “always tried to make a human connection.”
“That’s my responsibility, I think — I shake hands, I hug people,” he said. “Whether they’re women, men, young, old, it’s the way I’ve always been. It’s the way I’ve tried to show I care about them and I’m listening.”
The former vice president and longtime Democratic senator from Delaware said he has “never thought of politics as cold and antiseptic.”
“I’ve always thought it’s about connecting with people, and now it’s all about taking selfies together,” he said.
“Social norms have begun to change. They’ve shifted, and the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset and I get it. I get it,” he added.
“I hear what they’re saying. I understand it and I’ll be much more mindful,” he added.
Concluding his video, Biden said that he has “worked my whole life to empower women” and to “prevent abuse.”
Biden has yet to declare his candidacy, but he is already the early favorite to win the Democratic nomination and challenge US President Donald Trump in next year’s election.
Several former Republican Senate colleagues have jumped to his defense.
US Senator Lindsey Graham on Wednesday told reporters that Biden is “one of the most decent people I’ve ever met.”
“I don’t believe for a second that he meant to do anything wrong and I can understand why people took it differently than he meant,” Graham said. “Joe Biden is my friend. I know him very well. Whatever he did it may have been inappropriate, but it was not driven by malice or misconduct.”
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