Co-host of “The View” Joy Behar talked former Vice President Joe Biden through an acceptable apology for his questionable behavior Friday, telling him exactly which words to say.
Biden gave his first interview since declaring his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic primary on ABC’s “The View,” and one of the first topics he addressed was his tendency to touch people.
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Co-host Sunny Hostin kicked off the segment by noting that Biden had been accused of touching several women without their permission — and although it had never reached the level of harassment, some were not satisfied with the way he had responded to the accusations.
“Even Speaker Nancy Pelosi said to say ‘I’m sorry you were offended’ is not an apology. It’s ‘I’m sorry I invaded your space.’ Are you sorry for what you did?” Hostin asked. “Are you prepared to apologize to those women?”
Biden explained that he is learning to be more cognizant of the way that other people feel, and he said that he should have been able to read the people around him better. (RELATED: Joe Biden In 2018: ‘Nothing Justifies Touching A Woman Without Her Consent’)
“I don’t think anyone’s ever said that I invaded their space in a way that was designed to do something other than making them feel uncomfortable but not anything having to do with harassment,” Biden added.
“They have said that,” Hostin conceded, adding, “But they have also said, ‘we’d like an apology.'”
“Look, I’m really sorry if what I did in talking to them and trying to console that in fact they took it a different way,” Biden responded. “It’s my responsibility to make sure that I bend over backwards to try to understand how not to do that.”
“Nancy Pelosi wants you to say ‘I’m sorry that I invaded your space,'” Behar cut in.
“So I’m sorry I invaded your space. I’m sorry this happened.” Biden parroted but then went on to qualify that apology as well. “I’m not sorry in the sense that I think I did anything that was intentionally designed to do anything wrong or be inappropriate. It was inappropriate that I didn’t understand that I took — I assumed — look, I was — anyway,” he trailed off.