Joe Biden and Cory Booker have escalated their fight over racism and working with racists

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) are still fighting over remarks Biden made at a fundraiser on Tuesday night and Booker's call for Biden to apologize. Biden had used his working relationship with two hard-line segregationist former Democratic senators, James Eastland and Herman Talmadge, to argue that the Senate used to be more civil and amenable to getting things done with people you disagree with.

On Wednesday evening, Biden told reporters he "could not have disagreed with Jim Eastland more," Eastman "was a segregationist" and "I ran for the United States Senate because I disagreed with the views of the segregationists," and his point had been that "you don't have to agree, you don't have to like the people in terms of their views, but you just simply make the case and you beat them."

When reporters noted that Biden's Democratic rivals were suggesting he had problems talking about race and asked if he would apologize, as Booker requested, Biden responded: "Cory should apologize. He knows better. There's not a racist bone in my body. I've been involved in civil rights my whole career. Period, period, period."

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Booker appears to have taken special offense at Biden recalling Tuesday night that Eastland "never called me 'boy,' he always called me 'son.'" He said on CNN Wednesday night that Biden's inability to admit he'd said something wrong and to call for Booker to apologize is "so insulting and so missing the larger point," which is that he needs to be anti-racist, not just not racist.

The first 2020 Democratic presidential debate is June 26, but Booker and Biden are on separate nights.