Biden pushed on defensive during Democratic debate
MIAMI — Joe Biden, after months of trying to stay above the campaign fray, joined his 2020 rivals in debate and immediately faced challenges on issues of race, his relationship with Republicans, his support for the Iraq War and the need for generational change in the party.
The former vice president, who has been frontrunner in early polls, was thrown on the defensive Thursday by California Sen. Kamala Harris over his recent remarks sounding nostalgic about an era in the Senate when he could work civilly with segregationists.
In a rare flash of anger, Biden defended his record on civil rights including his opposition in the 1970s to federally ordered school busing for desegregation — one of several occasions where he drilled down to defend his record over 40 years in Washington and the reputation of the Obama administration.
“If you want to have this campaign litigated on who supports civil rights ... I am ready to do that,” he said.
It was a dramatic, personal challenge that overshadowed the expected clash between Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the democratic socialist who is his ideological foil and is running second among Democratic primary voters in most polls.
It was the second of two evenings of debates on MSNBC, under rules set by the Democratic National Committee, which marked the beginning of a new phase of the 2020 campaign that reached beyond the party’s most politically active members to a broader electorate.
The debate also exposed divisions among the 10 candidates onstage Thursday night — over health care, immigration and what it will take to beat President Donald Trump in 2020. It was something of a free-for-all of cross-talk and interruptions, as candidates — especially the lesser known ones — struggled to be heard.
The scene got so unruly that at one point, Harris interjected: “America does not want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we are going to put food on their table.”
Sanders set the pace for the party’s left wing with his trademark call for dramatic change, including the expansion of Medicare for all Americans and free public college.
“We have a new vision for America,” said Sanders. “We think it is time for change. Real change.”
Sanders acknowledged he would impose higher taxes on the middle class but said it would be offset by the dramatically lower costs of health care under his plan to extend Medicare to all Americans. Still, it was a statement that Republicans immediately seized on as ammunition to use against Democrats in the campaign.
“Bernie Sanders boasted that middle class Americans are going to have to pay more in taxes if his socialist policies are enacted,” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said on Twitter. “The contrast could not be clearer — @realDonaldTrump cut taxes for the middle class, and Democrats want to tax middle class Americans into oblivion.”
But Sanders made no apologies for his agenda, saying it would not doom the party’s chances to beat Trump.
“The last poll had us 10 points ahead of Donald Trump,” he said. “The American people understand Trump is a phony. Trump is a pathological liar and a racist . ... That’s how we beat Trump. We expose him for the fraud that he is.”
Biden, who has espoused more incremental approaches to economic and health policy, did not directly engage Sanders on these issues and brushed off a question about a comment he made at a recent fundraiser saying that the rich should not be demonized. He instead turned the focus to the president, as he has done throughout his campaign.
“Donald Trump thinks Wall Street built America,” he said. “Ordinary middleclass Americans built America.”
A big question going into the debate was whether Biden would hold on to his status as the clear front-runner or suffer from the comparison to younger and more liberal candidates.
Some of his answers were tangled or off point. When asked pointed questions, he often changed the subject. He was subdued until he came under attack by Harris and others, then he showed more passion — especially when defending the record of the Obama administration, a cornerstone of his campaign resume.
Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, a long-shot candidate, took an early stab at challenging Biden on the broadest ground that his time to rule has come and gone. “It’s time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans,” Swalwell said.
Biden refused to take the bait. “I’m holding onto that torch,” he said, but then went on to talk about education.
Sanders also criticized Biden for his support for the Iraq War, which Sanders opposed.
Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, another long-shot candidate, criticized a major fiscal deal that Biden bragged of negotiating with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Bennet called the deal “a complete victory for the tea party” because it allowed most of the Bush-era tax cuts to be extended.
“That was a great deal for Mitch McConnell,” Bennet said. “It was a terrible deal for America.”