Former Vice President Joe Biden mocked his tendency to be what Stephen Colbert called a “gaffe machine” in a Late Show interview Wednesday night.
Said Colbert: “In the last few weeks you’ve confused New Hampshire for Vermont, said Bobby Kennedy and MLK were assassinated in the late ’70s, assured us, ‘I’m not going nuts.’ Follow up question: Are you going nuts?”
Replied Biden: “Look, the reason I came on the Jimmy Kimmel show is because…”
Biden faced much tougher questioning (that he seemed to be unprepared for) at CNN’s town hall on climate change.
The question came from Isaac Larkin, a doctoral student at Northwestern University and a Bernie Sanders supporter, who began by referencing a study that demonstrated a 40-year history on the part of fossil fuel giants like ExxonMobil and Gulf to hide the baleful effects of carbon on global temperatures. Then he asked: “How can we trust you to hold these corporations accountable when you are holding a high-dollar fundraiser held by Andrew Goldman, a fossil fuel executive?”
As Biden began to answer the question, CNN moderator Anderson Cooper interjected. Cooper quoted at length from the report denouncing the fossil fuel companies, and then read from Goldman’s bio. Hours earlier, The Intercept had reported: that “Andrew Goldman, a co-founder of Western LNG, a natural gas production company based in Houston, Texas, is co-hosting one of two high-dollar fundraisers Biden will attend in New York on Thursday. Western’s major project is a floating production facility off the northern coast of British Columbia designed to provide Canadian gas to markets in northeast Asia. Goldman and Biden have deep ties: Goldman served as an adviser to Biden while he was in the Senate and was the Northeast director of finance for Biden’s 2008 campaign.” (Seemingly, the Biden campaign either did not see the Intercept story or did not realize that it would likely be an issue at a climate town hall.)
Bernie Sanders supporters immediately seized on the moment.
