Biden adviser pushes back against Hyde reversal criticism: ‘He’s authentic’

A senior adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden defended the 2020 White House hopeful after he reversed his previous support for the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits using federal funds for abortions.

His reversal came just a day after Biden’s campaign had reaffirmed his decades-long support for the amendment, which was strongly criticized by other 2020 Democratic candidates as well as groups that support abortion rights.

“He’s authentic. Voters know who Joe Biden is. He is someone that has these deeply personal held beliefs … but he’s also somebody that believes in listening,” Symone Sanders said in a CNN interview on Friday. 

Sanders also rejected the criticism that Biden, widely seen as the current front-runner in the Democratic presidential primary, had reversed himself after facing liberal criticism.

“If the vice president was bending to the whims of a number of my liberal activist friends, he would have came out for ‘Medicare for All’ last night, but you heard him talking about a public option,” she noted, referring to the Biden speech on Thursday at a Democratic National Committee gala in Atlanta.

“He’s the same Joe Biden last night that he is today,” Sanders also said.

Sanders previously worked for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential run before joining Biden’s campaign this year.  

“He cannot justify locking out millions of women from coverage based upon their zip code.”

Joe Biden Senior Campaign Advisor @SymoneDSanders details the 2020 frontrunner’s course reversal on the Hyde Amendment amid criticism from Democrats.https://t.co/rgiSZi61mb pic.twitter.com/xyzhmX90gW

— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) June 7, 2019

Biden on Thursday justified his change in stance on the Hyde Amendment on abortion restrictions recently passed by Republican governors.

“If I believe health care is a right, as I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone’s ZIP code,” he said on Thursday.