Joe Biden Refuses To Call Bernie ‘Liar’ Over Social Security Smear: ‘Staff Sometimes Gets Ahead of the Candidate’

Former Vice President Joe Biden passed up an opportunity to call Independent Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential rival Bernie Sanders a liar over a dishonest attack circulated by the Sanders campaign, instead blaming Sanders’ staff for the attack.

On Wednesday morning’s edition of Morning Joe, Biden was asked about the Sanders campaign’s recent attacks over the issue of social security, which included an official campaign newsletter that falsely accused Biden of praising Paul Ryan’s efforts to go after the program, when Biden was actually mocking Ryan.

Co-host Joe Scarborough asked Biden to respond to a Paul Krugman column that accused the Sanders campaign of “flat-out lying” about Biden’s record on social security.

“Did Bernie Sanders lie about you?” Scarborough asked.

“I don’t know whether Bernie, look, sometimes campaign staff gets a little ahead of the candidate,” Biden said, and added “you know it’s the same thing Bernie, someone on his staff wrote ‘Joe Biden is corrupt,’ and Bernie personally apologized to me. I accept the apology.”

“But the facts are that I have had 100% rating from the groups that rate Social Security, who support Social Security,” Biden said. “I think at a minimum it was taken out of context what they did, I’ve been a significant supporter, and the plan I have to deal with Social Security not only makes it solvent for the next, for my grandchildren, it also increases payments for the very elderly who are living beyond what they had coming to them in the beginning.”

Later in the interview, co-host Willie Geist asked Biden to respond to a Sanders tweet that said “Let’s be honest, Joe. One of us fought for decades to cut Social Security, and one of us didn’t. But don’t take it from me. Take it from you,” and which featured an audio clip from 1995.

“So it’s not just surrogates, and he can complain, but it’s coming from the principal himself, they think they have an issue with you on social security,” Gist said, and asked “So once and for all, will you cut Social Security benefits if you become president?”

“No, no, no, no,” Biden said, adding, “and we weren’t talking about cutting them either then, I was trying to figure out how we got through a debacle where the whole government didn’t shut down.”

“And so look, it’s, I find it amazing that we go back and look at statements, many of them, most of them taken out of context of 10, 20, 30, 35 years ago. It’s like my going back and pointing out how Bernie voted against the Brady Bill five times while I was trying to get it passed when he was in the house, or how he voted to protect gun manufacturers, as the only group in America you can’t sue,” Biden said.

“I mean he’s made up for that, he’s indicated that was past,” Biden continued. “But if you want to talk about things that are really different, my support for Social Security has been solid my entire career.”

“I did join with a lot of other Democrats to make sure we fixed Social Security, quote-unquote, made it solvent during the Reagan years,” Biden conceded. “But look it’s all about making sure we have, we have one real obligation, as Hubert Humphrey said. The youngest among us in the oldest among us. That’s real. And I’ve never walked away from that.”

“Did you think these attacks from this Sanders campaign are dishonest?” Geist asked.

“What I don’t want to do is start to characterize them, I accept the apology and I hope we’ll argue in the facts,” Biden said.

Watch the clips above via MSNBC.