Vice President Joe Biden, unsurprisingly, is not a fan of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s hateful rhetoric.
“When I listen to some of the stuff Donald Trump says, it just makes me sad,” Biden told the Hollywood Reporter in a long Q & A, published Wednesday. “It’s never, never been wise to try and appeal to the darker side of human nature. Abraham Lincoln was right — it’s about appealing to our better angels. That’s who Americans are, and that’s what they want.”
The vice president also was asked how he feels about “one of the candidates in this election cycle” (presumably meaning Trump) promoting violence among his supporters and how that affects the strides Biden has made in his efforts to raise awareness about sexual assault.
“It not only undermines the work that President Obama and I have done, it undermines the work a majority of Republicans and Democrats have done,” he said. “It is the antithesis of everything this country is about.”
Biden since 2014 has been a vocal part of President Obama’s It’s On Us campaign, designed to promote awareness of the issue on college campuses.
He has teamed up with pop star and sexual assault survivor Lady Gaga multiple times to champion the cause, including introducing her performance of “Til It Happens to You,” a song written for the documentary “The Hunting Ground,” at February’s Academy Awards.
The vice president will join Gaga on April 7 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for an event to “highlight [the] problem of sexual assault on college campuses,” according to ABC News.
NEW: @ladygaga to join @VP Biden at Las Vegas event next week to highlight problem of sexual assault on college campuses. –@ArletteSaenz
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 30, 2016
“Lady Gaga is brave and sincere,” Biden told the Hollywood Reporter. “She’s a survivor who has the courage to speak out, and I know how difficult that can be. We’ve talked at length, and I admire her courage — everyone can see it because it’s on display. She encourages so many other women to step forward.”
Biden said his father always taught him that the “worst sin is the abuse of power, and the cardinal sin is for a man to abuse a woman or a child.”
To that end, Biden said he will continue his fight against sexual assault even after he and Obama leave the White House.
“It won’t be my last legacy, but it will be my proudest legacy,” he said.
