Joe Biden Says Attacks on the Media and the Judiciary Are ‘Corrosive’ and ‘Dangerous’

Former Vice President Joe Biden strongly repudiated attacks on the judiciary and the press Wednesday amid heated rhetoric against those institutions by President Donald Trump.

“When you delegitimize the courts, you delegitimize the legislative body. It’s corrosive. and it makes it impossible to reach compromise,” Biden said at the Newseum in remarks reported by ABC News. Biden also said he was “saddened” to have to defend the press and the First Amendment, particularly at the Newseum, a museum devoted to the importance of those topics.

Although Biden did not mention Trump by name, it was clear these references were in response to the President’s attacks on the press and the legal system. Trump has questioned the impartiality of the judicial system and called the press an “enemy of the American people.”