On Sunday’s “Face the Nation,” former Vice President Joe Biden and Democratic candidate for president told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan that he never called South Carolina his firewall. Biden said it is the media that made that claim. However, Biden called South Carolina his firewall in an interview earlier this month with NBC News.
MARGARET BRENNAN, “FACE THE NATION” HOST: What is happening?
JOE BIDEN: What’s happening is you have Steyer spending hundreds of millions, tens of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars, out campaigning there. And so I think a lot’s happening in terms of the amount of money being spent by the billionaires to try to cut into the African-American vote. I think that has a lot to do with it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: South Carolina, though, is your firewall.
JOE BIDEN: You said it, my firewall.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You need–
JOE BIDEN: I’ve never said it–
MARGARET BRENNAN: The campaign has said it’s your–
JOE BIDEN: No–
MARGARET BRENNAN: –firewall.
JOE BIDEN: It’s not fi– I said I’m going to do well there. And I’ll do well there and I’ll do well-beyond there as well.
Biden in a February 2, 2020 interview with NBC News:
BIDEN: I think I’ll do well in Nevada. And I think I have a real firewall in South Carolina. And then we go into the Super Tuesday states that have a significant number of minorities and African Americans,” where “I think I’m gonna do fine. So I don’t think that this is like it has been in the past, that if you haven’t won the first two that you’re done.
