Democrats scrap for 2nd night
10 candidates lock horns over health care, immigration stances
DETROIT — Former Vice President Joe Biden attempted to regain his footing on the debate stage Wednesday night, offering a counterweight to some of the liberal shifts that have marked much of the Democratic presidential primary contest.
Health care was a dominant theme in the early portions of the exchange, with Biden arguing to alter the current health care law while others on the stage — most prominently Sen. Kamala Harris of California — pushed for major changes.
“This is the single most important issue,” Biden said before addressing Harris. “And to be very blunt, and to be very straightforward: You can’t beat President [Donald] Trump with double talk on this.”
Harris released a proposal Monday that would allow for private insurance as long as it followed Medicare’s coverage rules. Biden’s campaign has accused her of being inconsistent in her positions and not forthcoming about the costs for middle-class taxpayers, saying that her proposal belongs in a “fantasy world.”
Voters, Biden said, should be skeptical “anytime somebody tells you you’re going to get something good in 10 years.”
Harris fired back quickly. “You’re just simply inaccurate in what you’re describing,” she said, countering that Biden’s proposal to create an elective government-backed health insurance option would leave many Americans uncovered.
“Your plan, by contrast,
leaves out almost 10 million Americans,” she said, adding, “The cost of doing nothing is far too expensive.”
But Biden persisted. Echoing some of the criticism that centrist Democrats leveled against Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in Tuesday night’s debate, the former vice president warned that Harris’ plan would be costly, disruptive and slow to take effect.
Defending his own proposal, Biden called it a prudent update to the system devised under President Barack Obama’s administration.
“My response is: Obamacare is working,” he said.
It was the second night of debate among the candidates over the future of health care in the country. Like the 10 contenders who debated Tuesday, the candidates split over whether the country should retain some form of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or completely transform the system into some form of “Medicare for All.”
The second night of debate also put on display the party’s thirst to have a nominee who represents growing diversity. Half of the 10 candidates onstage Wednesday at the Fox Theatre were members of minority groups, making it a historically diverse debate lineup.
“Mr. President, this is America,” Biden said, addressing Trump, pointing to the diversity in race and experience on the stage. “And we are stronger together because of this diversity. Not in spite of it, Mr. President. We love it, we are not leaving it. We are here to stay. And we’re certainly not going to leave it to you.”
Biden was halting and lackluster in the first debate — at one point stopping himself mid-thought to say, “My time’s up, I’m sorry” — and his campaign was eager for him to deliver a more commanding performance that would remind voters of the steady stature he built over nearly five decades in public office.
“Go easy on me, kid,” Biden told Harris as she got onstage and shook his hand. She smiled and said, “You good?”
More than half of the candidates in the field are at risk of not meeting the polling and thresholds to qualify for the next round of debates in September. The first night of the second debate attracted only about half of the television audience as the first night of the June debate.
From some of the first moments, the candidates seemed ready to go on the attack.
“There are good people on this stage, but there are real differences,” New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio said. “Joe Biden told wealthy donors that nothing fundamentally would change if he were president. Kamala Harris said she’s not trying to restructure society. Well, I am.”
He added: “We will tax the hell out of the wealthy.”
Some contenders focused their most aggressive attacks on Trump.
“For the last three years, we’ve been consumed by a president who, frankly, doesn’t give a d*** about your kids or mine,” said Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado. “Mr. President, kids belong in classrooms, not cages. And they deserve something better than a bully in a White House. Let’s end this three-ring circus in Washington.”
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii said Trump “is not behaving like a patriot.”
The president weighed in before Wednesday’s exchange with his views about the first night of the debate, tweeting: “Very low ratings for the Democratic Debate last night — they’re desperate for Trump.”
BIDEN A TARGET
While Wednesday’s debate marked a rematch between Biden and Harris, who criticized him in the June debate over his willingness to restrict court-mandated busing as a way to further integrate schools, the former vice president came under attack from many of the other candidates.
Before Wednesday’s debate, Biden’s campaign aides insisted that he was ready for the onslaught of attacks and that he had learned from the first debate in Miami that his record would come under deeper and more personal scrutiny than he had anticipated.
Bennet has tried to portray Biden as a bad dealmaker who was hoodwinked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey had spent the week leading up to the debate focusing on Biden’s criminal justice record as a senator, which resulted in harsh penalties for offenders. Pointing to Biden’s signature 1994 crime bill and the increase in black people put in prison as a result, Booker called him “an architect of mass incarceration.”
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York blasted Biden for once opposing a decades-old tax credit for working mothers and fathers, suggesting that meant Biden opposed women working outside the home.
Biden responded, “That was a long time ago,” adding that he now supports an $8,000 tax credit for working families.
Gillibrand kept pressing, prompting Biden to note that she had previously traveled with him to promote his work supporting equal pay for women.
“I don’t know what’s happening except that you’re now running for president,” Biden said, referring to Gillibrand’s apparent change of heart.
While Biden took many hits on the stage, Harris took some hits as well. Gabbard tore into Harris’ record as a prosecutor and attorney general in California, including Harris’ handling of death penalty cases.
The candidates also clashed over how much to liberalize immigration laws. Biden said he could not recall Julian Castro, the housing secretary under Obama, ever criticizing the administration’s immigration policies.
“If you cross the border illegally, you should be able to be sent back. It’s a crime,” said Biden, rejecting Castro’s plan to decriminalize illegal immigration.
Castro shot back that “it looks like one of us has learned the lessons of the past and one of us hasn’t,” and added that the only element missing in border policy is “politicians who have some guts.”
“I have guts enough to say his plan doesn’t make sense,” Biden retorted.
During the June debate, most Democratic candidates raised their hands when asked if they would decriminalize unauthorized border crossings, an issue that has since caused a rift in the party.
Although Democrats have uniformly criticized Trump’s immigration policies, they have been deeply divided over the appropriate legislative response to a surge of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Obama’s immigration policies also faced scrutiny, as candidates sought to distance themselves from his administration’s record of deporting millions of migrants.
Information for this article was contributed by Matt Viser, Toluse Olorunnipa and Amy B. Wang of The Washington Post; by Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin of The New York Times; and by Steve Peoples, Sara Burnett and Thomas Beaumont of The Associated Press.