Biden to ABC's Robin Roberts on 'you ain't Black' comment: 'I shouldn't have said it' but there's a 'fundamental difference' between me, Trump on race

In an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America" co-anchor Robin Roberts, former Vice President Joe Biden argued that despite the controversy some of his comments on race have sparked, there is a “fundamental difference” between him and President Donald Trump on one of the defining issues of the 2020 election.

“I shouldn't have said it,” Biden said in an interview conducted on Friday in Wilmington, Delaware, referring to comments he made during a May interview on “The Breakfast Club” radio show, where he quipped that “you ain’t Black” to African Americans that are still deciding who to vote for between him and Trump. “But, the truth is, there's a fundamental difference between Donald Trump and me on the issue of race across the board.”

“I was trying to make the point that this is a man who spent his entire career denigrating African Americans. Denigrating them, continuing to denigrate them. To do nothing but go after race and inflame it. Pour, you know, gasoline on the fire,” Biden told Roberts.

“I wouldn't be here without the African American community,” Biden added, pointing to the support within the Black community he has in his home state of Delaware.

Harris and Biden's joint interview, their first since accepting the Democratic nomination, was conducted by Roberts and "World News Tonight" anchor David Muir for a special edition of "20/20" called "The Ticket: The First Interview," which aired tonight on ABC.

Pressed by Roberts over the former vice president’s comments on race, Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, said that she and Biden have had conversations over the course of the 2020 campaign on the state of race relations in America, and that as president, Biden would say the words “Black Lives Matter.”

“Joe speaks the words and actually knows how to say the words ‘Black Lives Matter.’ Contrary to what … the current president of the United States does, which is to sow hate and division full time, [he] has never spoken those words and will never speak the words ‘Black Lives Matter,’” Harris said.

“He has been outspoken on those issues and, and continues to talk about disparities, and I know where his heart is. I know where his heart is,” Harris, who famously challenged Biden during the first Democratic primary debate on the issue of racial integration through the busing of children to public schools, told Roberts.