Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that Democrats "paid the price" for Hillary Clinton not making the problems of struggling working-class voters a "central part" of her presidential campaign.
In an interview on CNN's "State of the Union," Biden said Clinton's plan to help white working class voters — including free education — "got drowned out by the most vicious campaign, craziest campaign I've ever witnessed… since I've been involved."
The outgoing vice president argued "the real inequities that exist and still exist for working class, middle class people who were left behind" in the era of globalization were not "the central part of the campaign moving forward, in my view."
"I said at the convention, when I introduced Hillary and praised her, I said we don't show enough respect to that group that, in fact, has been left behind," he said. "There's ways to deal with that. But we never got a chance to speak to it in this election, and I think we paid a price for it."
"It's either the bulk of the debate was about e-mails and/or [then-GOP nominee Donald Trump's] boorish behavior," he added, conceding Trump's vow to bring jobs back and fight for the American worker "cut through, but there was no detail about anything."
He said he didn't know if he would have done a better job.
"They'd probably have eaten me alive," he said. "Who knows what would have happened. And I really mean that. I don't know. I learned how to become popular — not running for president. Oh man, you're the most popular guy out there."
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