BIDEN VOWS TO CHOOSE WOMAN AS RUNNING MATE
Plus: Pritzker makes endorsement in race
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday committed to naming a woman as his running mate if he’s the Democratic presidential nominee.
Biden made that assertion during Sunday night’s Democratic debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders in response to a video question from a voter about how he would handle women’s health issues. Asked the same question, Sanders didn’t definitively commit but said, “In all likelihood, I will.”
Also Sunday night, Biden repeated a previous pledge to nominate a black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court if given the chance to do so as president. During last month’s debate in Charleston, South Carolina, ahead of that state’s primary, Biden said he was “looking forward” to making that a reality.
Biden and Sanders sought in Sunday’s debate to cast themselves as best-positioned to lead the nation through a global pandemic, with Biden pledging to deploy the military to help with recovery efforts and Sanders using the crisis to pitch his long-sought overhaul of the country’s health care system.
The fast-moving coronavirus dominated the first one-on-one faceoff of the 2020 campaign, reflecting the way the crisis has upended American life by closing schools, disrupting travel and raising questions about President Donald Trump’s ability to lead the nation through turbulent times.
“This is bigger than any one of us — this calls for a national rallying for one another,” Biden said.
Biden’s and Sanders’ prescriptions for addressing the public health and economic crisis highlighted the ideological divide between the two men vying for the Democratic nomination. Biden, a centrist who helped implement the 2009 bailout of the financial industry, warned that another government-backed economic rescue plan may be needed in the coming months, while the liberal Sanders suggested a tax on the wealthiest Americans.
The stakes and the standings in the race for the Democratic nomination have shifted dramatically since Biden and Sanders last debated less than three weeks ago. After a sluggish start to the primary season, Biden has surged to the front of the field, drawing overwhelming support from black voters and consolidating the backing of several rivals who have dropped out of the race.
Biden appeared determined to keep his focus on the general election, making direct overtures to Sanders’ supporters and committing for the first time to selecting a woman as his running mate if he becomes the Democratic nominee.
Sanders has struggled to broaden his coalition beyond young people and liberals, and his path to the nomination is rapidly shrinking. Still, he appeared determined to draw sharp contrasts with Biden throughout, challenging the former vice president to disavow a super PAC backing his candidacy and casting Biden as inconsistent during his career on his support for the financial industry and women’s health issues.
The Vermont senator also repeatedly pushed questions regarding the coronavirus toward a now-familiar debate between him and Biden over health care. Sanders argued that the troublesome shortages in coronavirus tests and anxiety over the preparedness of the nation’s health care system to deal with an impending increase in patients highlight why the U.S. should move to the government-run, “Medicare For All” system he has long championed.
“One of the reasons that we are unprepared, and have been unprepared, is we don’t have a system. We’ve got thousands of private insurance plans,” said Sanders, who backs a sweeping government-run health insurance program. “That is not a system that is prepared to provide health care to all people in a good year, without the epidemic.”
Biden, who supports adding a public insurance option to the current system, argued that a pandemic was not a moment to attempt to push through an overhaul of the American health insurance system, a politically arduous endeavor.
“This is a crisis,” Biden said. “We’re at war with a virus. It has nothing to do with copays or anything.”
As the debate opened, Biden and Sanders skipped a handshake, greeting each other instead with an elbow bump. They took their positions at podiums spaced 6 feet apart in keeping with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.