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Joe Biden fundraises for Richard Cordray at Queen City Club

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CINCINNATI -- Former vice president Joe Biden initially felt compelled to spend the first year of Donald Trump's presidency keeping mum, he said Friday evening, in order to let the fledgling administration breathe.

He changed his mind Aug. 12, 2017, when white supremacists marched through the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, and one of them killed anti-racist protester Heather Heyer.

“I couldn’t remain silent after I saw those Nazis -- neo-Nazis -- coming out of fields carrying torches in one of the historic cities in America, followed by and accompanied by white supremacists, and them being objected to by other citizens and the president saying there are good people in both places," he told reporters at Beyond Image Barber Salon in Camp Washington. "I mean, come on."

Biden wasn't getting his hair cut. He was in Cincinnati to flex his political voice at a Queen City Club fundraiser for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray, who will challenge Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine for the Buckeye State's highest office in November.

A poll this month from Quinnipiac University found the race was too close to call, with Cordray up 42 percent to DeWine's 40 percent.

The former VP, whom political analysts have marked as a possible 2020 presidential candidate for his party, has been busy in the run-up to the 2018 election. In addition to slamming the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" immigration policy, which resulted in the separation of over 2,000 migrant families, and telling Americans he believes "so many of our fundamental rights, freedoms, and liberties -- and the rule of law -- are all at risk," he's been on a cross-country endorsement tour to help shore up his party's base in November.

Other candidates with Biden's stamp of approval include Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, New Mexico gubernatorial candidate Michelle Lujan Grisham and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Brown's rival, Trump-endorsed Republican Rep. Jim Renacci, also threw a fundraiser at the Queen City Club in June. His celebrity guest? Donald Trump Jr.