| From: | The Washington Post | <email@washingtonpost.com> |
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| Subject: | The Daily 202: Counterpunching like Trump, Biden attacked most of his rivals on the debate stage. He looked weak. | |
| Sent: | Thu, 1 Aug 2019 14:56:08 +0000 | |
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# Counterpunching like Trump, Biden attacked most of his rivals on the debate stage. He looked weak.
Biden becomes debate night target as candidates go on the attack
BY JAMES HOHMANN
with Mariana Alfaro
THE BIG IDEA: Joe Biden didn’t just defend himself in Detroit on Wednesday night. He went after Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Julián Castro, Kirsten Gillibrand and even Bill de Blasio.
The media coverage of the second night of the second Democratic debate has focused on the hits leveled against Biden. But these were all expected. Going after the candidate leading in the polls is de rigueur. More striking, and historically unusual, was how hard Biden fired back at anyone and everyone who criticized him.
Coming out swinging the way he did will probably reassure panicky donors and bed-wetting establishmentarians, thereby stabilizing his struggling campaign. But it also diminishes his stature. Yes, Biden leads
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in the polls. But calling him the front-runner feels like an exaggeration. Last night demonstrated that, unable to stay above the fray the way he hoped he could, Biden is now in the mosh pit with everyone else.
After faltering during the first debate in Miami – and facing not-so-quiet whispers about his age – Biden seemed determined to show that he’s the kind of street brawler who can take the fight directly to President Trump. At times, however, his performance was reminiscent of Trump’s response to Hillary Clinton during a 2016 debate: “No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet!” The Biden debate strategy can best be summed up with the playground taunt: I know what you are, but what am I?
That's certainly how Biden sounded when he accused both African American senators onstage – each the child of civil rights activists – of being weak on civil rights.
In Biden’s telling, Booker stood idly by as mayor of Newark while police officers under his command engaged in stop-and-frisk policies that targeted black men. “You went out and you hired Rudy Giuliani's guy,” Biden said. “You had 75 percent of those stops reviewed as illegal. You found yourself in a situation where three times as many African American kids were caught in that chain. … The Justice Department came after you for engaging in behavior that was inappropriate, and then, in fact, nothing happened the entire time you were mayor.”
Booker: 'You're dipping into the Kool-Aid and you don't even know the flavor'
Standing next to Biden, Booker noted that the local leader of the American Civil Liberties Union praised him for putting forth a national model in police accountability. "If you want to compare records — and, frankly, I’m shocked that you do — I’m happy to do that," he said. "Mr.
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Vice President, there’s a saying in my community. You’re dipping into the Kool-Aid and you don’t even know the flavor. You need to come to the city of Newark and see the reforms that we put in place.”
Still sore over the way she lacerated him last time for working with segregationist senators to oppose busing in the 1970s, Biden tried to turn the tables by focusing on Harris’s record as a prosecutor. “When Senator Harris was attorney general for eight years in the state of California, there were two of the most segregated school districts in the country in Los Angeles and in San Francisco. And she did nothing,” he said. “I didn't see a single solitary time she brought a case against them to desegregate them. Secondly, she also was in a situation where she had a police department when she was there that was abusing people's rights.”
Biden essentially accused Harris of prosecutorial misconduct, claiming that she withheld exculpatory evidence from “defense attorneys like me.” “Along came a federal judge who said, ‘Enough!’ And he freed 1,000 of these people,” Biden continued. “If you doubt me, Google ‘1,000 prisoners freed, Kamala Harris.’”
Harris responded, "That is simply not true." She added that she spent her time as California's chief law enforcement office "cleaning up the bills you passed" in the Senate.
Referring to himself as a defense attorney is a stretch: Biden was a parttime public defender for about a year in the late 1960s. He spent the lion’s share of the half-century that followed as one of the Democratic Party's most outspoken tough-on-crime acolytes.
Gillibrand attacks Biden's record on working women
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Gillibrand, the senator from New York, questioned Biden over an op-ed he wrote in 1981 with the headline “Congress Is Subsidizing Deterioration of Family.” In it, the then-senator argued that couples with higher income shouldn’t get tax credits for child care because, if they can afford it, one parent should stay home. “That was a long time ago,” Biden responded.
Then he highlighted Gillibrand’s past praise for his record on women’s issues. “You came to Syracuse University with me and said it was ‘wonderful’ that I'm ‘passionate’ about … making sure women are treated equally,” he said. “I don't know what's happened, except that you’re now running for president.”
When de Blasio asked Biden whether he ever advised Barack Obama to deport fewer undocumented immigrants during their eight years in the White House, Biden suggested – apparently apropos of nothing – that the New York mayor cannot be trusted to hold someone’s confidences. “I keep my recommendation to him in private,” he told de Blasio. “Unlike you, I can expect you would go ahead and say whatever was said privately with him. That is not what I do.”
But Biden had no qualms during the immigration discussion about disclosing that Castro, who was Obama’s secretary of housing and urban development, did not bring up the issue during Cabinet meetings. “I never heard him talk about any of this when he was secretary,” Biden said. “The fact of the matter is, if you cross the border illegally, you should be able to be sent back. 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.”
Biden wielded the former president like a shield. “Everybody’s talking about how terrible I am on all these issues,” he said. “Barack Obama knew exactly who I was. … He had 10 lawyers do a background check
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on everything about me on civil rights and civil liberties, and he chose me, and he said it was the best decision he made."
This argument makes sense. A CNN poll last year found that 66 percent of Americans had a favorable view of Obama, including 97 percent of Democrats. But when Biden distanced himself from the Obama administration’s record of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, Booker called him out for trying to have it both ways. “You invoke President Obama more than anybody in this campaign,” he said. “You can’t do it when it’s convenient and then dodge it when it’s not.”
Democrats spent the second debate arguing about math
Criticizing his opponents who support Medicare-for-all, Biden accused them of trying to destroy Obamacare and peddling “a bunch of malarkey.” That’s long been one of his favorite fallback words. He said the plan – initially championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and embraced to varying degrees by a handful of the other candidates – will raise taxes on the middle class by trillions and increase out-of-pocket health-care costs. Referring to de Blasio and Harris, he said: “I don’t know what math you do in New York. I don’t know what math you do in California.”
In most of these instances, it appeared that Biden was trying to muddy the water enough so that these exchanges would get described as a draw. Taken together, they underscore just how many big issues he’s vulnerable on in the modern political environment. In other ways, the exchanges showed, stylistically, how much he’s a throwback to another time.
Biden began the line of attack on Castro by referring to his opponent as "Julián." Then he corrected himself. "Excuse me," he said, "the secretary." (That gave me a flashback to when Sarah Palin asked Biden
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if she could call him "Joe" at the start of their debate in 2008.)
Biden accidentally referred to Booker as “the president” during his attack over stop-and-frisk, but he was playful about it. “Excuse me,” he quipped, “the future president.” (Booker loved it.) “Go easy on me, kid,” the 76-year-old joked to Harris, 54, as she came onstage and shook his hand.
Elizabeth Warren was not onstage, but Biden even took a little dig at the senator from Massachusetts, as well. Jake Tapper read aloud the quote from the night before about how Democrats won’t win in 2020 “with small ideas and spinelessness.” Biden replied by touting his role in the auto industry bailout. “I suspect that’s why the mayor [of Detroit] endorsed me,” he said, “and not the senator.”
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who has made climate change the centerpiece of his campaign, said Biden’s environmental proposals aren’t sufficiently ambitious. “Middle-ground solutions like what the vice president has proposed are not going to save us,” said Inslee. “There is no middle ground about my plan,” Biden replied.
“I've heard you say that we need a realistic plan,” said Inslee.
Biden took umbrage. “No, I didn’t say that,” he replied.
Let that sink in. It was as if “realistic” has somehow become a pejorative. Biden’s reflexive denial that he ever called his plan “realistic” speaks volumes about the leftward lurch of the party since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez toppled Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) in a primary last summer. Moments like this are why so many Democratic pooh-bahs are fretting privately that Trump’s chances of getting reelected go up with each debate. Ultimately, more than anything else, the allergy toward “realistic” approaches might be what dooms Biden’s third try for the presidency.
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Fact-checking the second Democratic debate | The Fact Checker
## HOW IT’S PLAYING:
-- Wednesday’s debate turned on character as much as ideology, which chief correspondent Dan Balz interprets as a foreboding turn for Democrats: “By the end of the evening, the candidates had done as much to make a case against one another as against the president, without offering much in the way of an aspirational message or connecting directly with the voters they will need to win the presidential election. The reality is that little changed as a result of the debate. The absence of clear winners and the absence of the emergence of a candidate with a hopeful message for a broader audience produced a status quo ending. … Harris delivered a more uneven performance than in Miami. Booker, by his aggressiveness toward Biden, made his bid to move up in a race where he has struggled. … Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.) lamented that the Democrats were wasting time litigating the past and ignoring both the urgent problems of today and the threats posed by the Trump administration. His voice went largely unheard by the others on the stage.”
-- As several Democrats rushed to criticize Biden, they grew increasingly comfortable with criticizing Obama’s legacy by proxy.
Matt Viser, Toluse Olorunnipa and Amy B Wang report: “The Obama administration’s record on deportations, criminal justice, trade and health care was challenged implicitly and explicitly by several candidates. Even Biden stepped away from the former president on one issue, saying he no longer supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership.” That’s quite a flip-flop. Biden was a prominent salesman for the deal three years ago. Notably, Obama is staying neutral and has declined to endorse his former No. 2.
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-- More team coverage:
- Biden spoke the most this round, clocking in at 21.2 minutes, almost four minutes more than Tuesday night’s longest speaker, Warren. Harris trailed behind Biden, speaking for 17.7 minutes. Booker came in third with 12.8 minutes. Gillibrand spoke for 11.6 minutes; Inslee, 10.7; Bennet and Tulsi Gabbard, 10.6; Castro, 10.5; de Blasio, 9.7; and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang came in last, speaking for only 8.7 minutes.
- The Fact Checker team scrutinized 13 statements made during the debate.
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