Biden concedes that under Obama 'a lot of people were left behind'

Joe Biden said the White House under President Barack Obama, when Biden was vice president, did not do enough to address the concerns of white working-class voters in the Rust Belt.

"A lot of people were left behind," the 2020 Democratic candidate told the New York Times when discussing the post-recession economic recovery. "In areas where people were hard hit, I don't think we paid enough attention to their plight."

Biden, 76, tried chalking up the disillusionment of white former Democratic voters to a messaging problem, saying Obama told him he didn't want to take "a victory lap [because] we have so much more to do," despite pleas the White House "explain to people how we got to where we were now and why it happened."

In August 2016, Biden told The Atlantic one of the chief appeals of Trump was his ability to speak with the average American and the economically disadvantaged .

"I was doing the interview on Morning Joe, and they asked the same question. And I said, 'Look, the truth is we just haven’t paid enough attention to these people. We haven’t spoken to them.” And everybody went nuts going, 'Aw Jesus! Hillary is going to think that’s an attack.'