BIDEN, HARRIS BACK AT IT
Dem debate features encore showdown
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris got their rematch, sparring over health care and revisiting their spat on busing during the second night of the Democratic debates in Detroit.
Wednesday night was primed to be a repeat of last month’s Miami debate from the start. Biden greeted Harris with a handshake, telling her, “Go easy on me, kid.” In his opening, the former vice president said, “Some Democrats are expecting some engagement here, and I expect we’ll get it.”
And get it they did. Biden — looking for a stronger performance after a lackluster outing in Miami — fared better while weathering attacks from his onstage rivals on everything from health care, to immigration, to criminal justice and women’s equality. Harris — who leapfrogged into the top tier of candidates after the first debate — parried blows on health care and her record as a prosecutor.
Biden and Harris first clashed over the California senator’s version of “Medicare for All” that would offer both public and private plans with a 10-year transition period. Biden was quick to jump on it, retorting that “Any time someone tells you you’re going to get something good in 10 years, you should wonder why it takes 10 years.”
Harris, who scored her breakout moment in the first debate by taking Biden to task on his record on race, including his 1970s stances on busing, got the chance to do so again Wednesday.
Asked about her own stance on busing, Harris said “on that issue we could not be more apart” and the “vice president has still failed to acknowledge it was wrong to take the position he took at that time.”
Biden took shots at Harris’ record as a prosecutor and as California’s attorney general. U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii picked up the attack on Harris, saying she’s “deeply concerned” about Harris’ record as a prosecutor. She jabbed Harris putting “over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations” and saying she “laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked,” and slammed her for keeping “people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California.”
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey — who turned his early attacks on President Trump, taking the stance of party unity that bounced around stage in the debate Tuesday — went for Biden on immigration and his frequent invocations of President Barack Obama, saying, “You invoke President Obama more than anybody in this campaign. You can’t do it when it’s convenient and dodge it when it’s not.”
The two clashed again on criminal justice reform. Booker, who went after the former vice president’s plan for criminal justice reform ahead of the debate, did so again, saying Biden has taken credit for “every crime bill” since the 1970s. Biden attacked Booker’s criminal justice record as mayor of Newark, saying his police department “engaged in stop-and-frisk.” But Booker shot back, “If you want to compare records, and frankly I’m shocked that you do, I’m happy to do that.”
And Julián Castro, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Obama, sparred with Biden over Castro’s idea to decriminalize border crossings. Biden — who has taken heat this campaign for roughly 3 million Obama-era deportations and was interrupted by a protester in the crowd in Detroit — said, “If you cross the border illegally, you should be able to be sent back, and it’s a crime.”
Castro replied, “It looks like one of us has learned the lessons of the past, and one of us hasn’t.”