Joe Biden 'embarrassed' by 2016 presidential election race

Outgoing Vice President Joe Biden has lambasted the 2016 US presidential election, saying he feels “embarrassed” by the ugly nature of the race.

Biden made the comments during a forum in Washington, DC, on Thursday, lamenting that this year's presidential contest was a substance-free spectacle and devoid of policy or discussions of governance.

"This has been a very tough election. It's been ugly, it's been divisive, it's been coarse, it's been dispiriting. And it was more a battle of personalities than it was a battle of ideas in my view," Biden said.

"I find myself embarrassed by the nature of the way in which this campaign was conducted. And so much for the shining city on the hill," he said, using a metaphoric reference to America.

“For a lot of folks, it feels as if we’re more divided than we’ve ever been in our history and that the election brought out the worst in the political system,” Biden noted.

In his remarks, the vice president took a jab at the media, arguing that the reason why the recent presidential race lacked real political discussions was due to the poor coverage of the Democratic candidate’s debates and ideas.

"Why wasn't there more discussion?" Biden asked. "Hillary Clinton was the single most qualified on the fact of it to run for president of the United States that we've had, period. It wasn't that she didn't have all these ideas. She did. But the press, you didn't cover it."

He also warned about the future outcome of campaign trail sloganeering the US President-elect Donald Trump used in the run-up to the Election Day, calling for vigilance among progressives when the new administration assumes office.

"We should not remain silent one instant when this administration goes after the progressive values we care about, we should not back away one scintilla from the arguments and the merits of all the things we care about,” the vice president concluded.

Biden further stressed that he had no intention of running in the 2020 presidential election.

On November 8, Trump stunned the political world and won the US presidency despite extreme unpopularity among minorities, underscoring deep national divisions that have fueled incidents of racial and political confrontation across the country.

The real estate mogul won the presidential election with 306 votes in the Electoral College, 36 more than he required for winning the White House. 

Clinton, however, won the national popular vote by more than two million ballots in the November election.                                                             

Large protests have erupted nationwide in response to Trump's election victory following a contentious presidential campaign involving two of the least popular major-party candidates in recent US history.

Clinton has come under fire for using a private email account and server at her home in New York for official emails when she was America's top diplomat between 2009 and 2013 and Trump’s campaign has been replete with disparaging remarks and belligerent rhetoric against Muslims and minorities in the US.

His comments include a call to ban all Muslims from coming to America as well as stopping Mexican migrants by building a long wall along the US-Mexico border.

Trump has also sought for a database to track Muslims across the United States and said that the US would have "absolutely no choice" but to close down mosques.

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