Joe Biden is facing an angry backlash from Democrats after he called Donald Trump’s vice-president Mike Pence "a decent guy”.
Mr Biden, who is reportedly set to announce a bid to become the Democratic nominee for the 2020 presidential elections, made the remark at a foreign policy forum in Nebraska.
Mr Biden, who was Barack Obama’s vice-president between 2009 and 2017, immediately came under fire from furious Democrats over Mr Pence’s record on LGBT issues.
Former Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon, who last year failed in a bid to become the governor of New York state, led the criticism. She tweeted: “You’ve just called America’s most anti-LGBT elected leader ‘a decent guy’. Please consider how this falls on the ears of our community.”
In response, Mr Biden said he made the remark in the context of foreign policy.
He tweeted back: “You’re right, Cynthia. I was making a point in a foreign policy context, that under normal circumstances a vice-president wouldn’t be given a silent reaction on the world stage.
“But there is nothing decent about being anti-LGBTQ rights, and that includes the vice-president.”
Ms Nixon, however, didn’t buy his defence, saying: “Appreciate the response. But please understand from where we sit, his dehumanizing of our community disqualifies @MikePence for the honorific of ‘decent’, regardless of the context.”
Mr Biden had been referring to how international leaders responded to Mr Pence at the Munich Security Conference last month.
He was reported as saying: “The fact of the matter is, it was followed on by a guy who's a decent guy, our vice-president, who stood before this group of allies and leaders and said: 'I'm here on behalf of president Trump.' And there was dead silence. Dead silence.”
Mr Biden has a tendency to talk about his friendships with Republicans. At the forum, he also called secretary of state Mike Pompeo "a good guy".
One Democratic official warned Mr Biden he should focus first on the Democratic primary, not the general election, if he decides to run.
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Brenda Kole, an Iowa Democrat who was a senior advisor to Hilary Clinton's 2008 and 2016 campaigns, said: "He has to be careful not to run too much of a potential general election campaign before he even gets in the primary race."
Additional reporting by Associated Press.
