Between this and Bernie’s shot at Elizabeth Warren, things are starting to get spicy.

Silly me, I thought the Biden comments from last night that would make the biggest splash were him telling a crowd of wealthy liberals not to worry, that their lifestyles wouldn’t change once Uncle Joe was in the White House. That was a miscalculation on my part. Biden’s already dead to the left; reminding them that he doesn’t want to hang the rich from lampposts doesn’t change any votes. Where Biden is strong is with black voters. If you want to knock him down in the polls, you’d better start denting his support among Obama’s African-American base. Result: Highlight what he said about the “civility” he experienced as a young senator from Dixiecrats James Eastland and Herman Talmadge.

Warren came after him for it this afternoon:

Elizabeth Warren on Joe Biden’s remarks about working with segregationists in the Senate: “I’m not here to criticize other Democrats but it’s never ok to celebrate segregationists. Never.”

— Jason Donner (@jason_donner) June 19, 2019

Cory Booker, one of the two black candidates in the race, came harder:

Kamala Harris, who’s hoping South Carolina’s black primary electorate is her springboard to the nomination, went right at him too:

Kamala Harris slams Joe Biden: “To coddle the reputations of segregationists, of people who if they had their way I would literally not be standing here as a member of the U.S. Senate … it’s misinformed and it’s wrong. … The Ku Klux Klan celebrated the election of one of them” pic.twitter.com/KHPb24mbKE

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) June 19, 2019

Far be it from me to interrupt a blue-on-blue brawl, but Biden didn’t “celebrate” segregationists. Go read what he said. His point was sort of the opposite, that Eastland and Talmadge practiced odious politics but that he put his contempt for that aside and remained cordial with them because, at the end of the day, nothing gets done in the Senate without a majority. He wanted to move the Democratic agenda forward so he was civil to them to keep them voting the right way. His advisor, Symone Sanders, underlined the point this afternoon:

.@JoeBiden did not praise a segregationist. That is a disingenuous take. He basically said sometimes in Congress, one has to work with terrible or down right racist folks to get things done. And then went on to say when you can't work with them, work around them.

— Symone D. Sanders (@SymoneDSanders) June 19, 2019

Joe Biden has been an ally in the fight for civil rights for years. I am all here for VALID CRITICISM, but suggesting that Joe Biden – the man who literally ran for office against an incumbent at 29 because of the civil rights movement, the man who…

— Symone D. Sanders (@SymoneDSanders) June 19, 2019

was at the forefront of marriage equality before it was politically popular, the man who served as President Obama’s VP, the man who literally launched his 2020 campaign calling out Nazis in Charlottesville along with Trump’s equivalency – suggesting he is…

— Symone D. Sanders (@SymoneDSanders) June 19, 2019

Actively praising a segregationist is just a bad take and a willfully disingenuous act.

— Symone D. Sanders (@SymoneDSanders) June 19, 2019

It was and is bizarre that he chose Eastland and Talmadge to illustrate a basic point about working towards a common goal with people you may not like, as there were any number of Republicans he might have named instead. And it was callous of him to praise the “civility” he experienced from Eastland and Talmadge when they cared so little for civility, never mind decency, towards blacks. But he wasn’t “celebrating” segregationists, for cripes sake.

The great thing about a primary, though, is that bad-faith opportunistic outrage is the coin of the realm. There’s going to be so much more of it over the next year. And I, as the kids say, am very much Here For It.

Harris and Biden will be onstage together next week at the second night of debates. It’s a cinch that she’ll bring this up, especially since there are plenty more warm words in the vast Biden archives about segregationist colleagues than what he had to say last night about Eastland and Talmadge. Just don’t let Harris and lefties know that sainted Ted Kennedy, the Senate’s liberal lion, also had not-unfriendly reminiscences about Eastland, as Steve Kornacki recalled this afternoon. In lieu of an exit question, here’s MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt falsely identifying Eastland and Talmadge as Republicans, which I’m sure is an honest mistake and not the product of the media always and forever believing that “racist” equals “Republican.”

MSNBC's Kasie Hunt: “Joe Biden references his relationships with two former Republican colleagues at an event in NYC. The only problem? They were both segregationists”

The Senators were identified as James Eastland & Herman Talmadge

They are Democrats

No correction was issued pic.twitter.com/Ut3EpAwrnf

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) June 19, 2019