by Chuck Ross
President-elect Joe Biden on Friday called Sen. Mitt Romney a “man of enormous integrity,” a stark difference in rhetoric from the presidential campaign trail in 2012, when Biden told an audience with many African Americans that Romney would “put y’all back in chains.”
At a press conference on Friday, Biden said that he spoke to Romney earlier in the day about his opposition to GOP-led efforts to question the results of the 2020 election.
Biden called Romney “a man of enormous integrity…who lives his faith.”
Biden had less praise for Romney more than eight years ago during a campaign rally in Danville, Virginia.
The then-vice president accused Romney, who was then the Republican nominee for president, of being too cozy with Wall Street, and said that the Republican’s economic policies would harm the middle- and working classes.
“They’re going to put y’all back in chains,” Biden told the audience of 800 people, which was estimated to be 40% African-American.
Romney said at the time that Biden’s remark “sinks the White House a little lower.” Romney also called Biden’s remarks “demeaning” to the political process.
Romney, who was elected to the Senate in 2018, has been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, he criticized fellow Republicans who challenged the results of the Electoral College. He was also the only Senate Republican to vote to convict Trump during impeachment proceedings last year.
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Chuck Ross is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Joe Biden” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
