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Harris said, as she ripped
into Biden’s rejection of
“Medicare for all” in favor of
a plan to shore up Oba-
macare.
Biden entered the debate
determined to stanch the
losses he has endured in the
polls in recent months as ri-
vals attacked his nearly 50-
year record in politics, high-
lighting his long-ago efforts
to limit mandatory federal
busing, expand incarcera-
tion for drug crimes and
forge legislative partner-
ships with segregationists.
“Everybody is talking
about how terrible I am on
these issues,” Biden said.
“Barack Obama knew ex-
actly who I was.... He chose
me and he said it was the
best decision he made.”
The battle at Detroit’s
historic Fox Theatre was
less of an ideological clash
on the debate stage than the
night before, where the rift
between the centrists and
left-flank stalwarts Sens.
Bernie Sanders and Eliza-
beth Warren intensified.
Wednesday’s encounter was
more personal, with Biden’s
rivals calling him to account
for actions decades ago.
It was a night defined by
feuding, and despite occa-
sional efforts by candidates
to bring the focus back to
President Trump, the per-
sistently bitter tone de-
parted from the message of
hope and unity Democrats
went into the night seeking
to project.
The former vice presi-
dent lit into his critics on-
stage, building off the re-
bukes he had delivered
toward Harris and Booker in
the days leading up to the
event, after the New Jersey
lawmaker called him ill-
suited to reform the criminal
justice system, and the Cali-
fornian — who was bused as
a child — demanded Biden
apologize for fighting
against the practice. It was a
sharp shift by a candidate
who earlier in the race tried
to take a front-runner’s pos-
ture of avoiding intraparty
skirmishes.
Biden accused Harris of
misleading the public about
her Medicare for all plan’s
cost and impact on health
insurance. “To be very blunt
and very straightforward,
you can’t beat President
Trump with double talk on
this plan,” he said.
He later accused her of
condoning abusive police
practices while a California
prosecutor, an attack that
was joined by Rep. Tulsi
Gabbard of Hawaii, who also
took aim at Harris’ record as
a prosecutor.
It was not an easy night
for Harris. Biden was more
prepared than in the first
round of debates, when his
response to her attacks was
flatfooted, but he struggled
to emerge from the scrum
and present himself as
uniquely presidential and vi-
sionary.
Biden had the most to
lose Wednesday, but the
stakes were high for all 10
candidates onstage. Harris,
who has been rising in the
polls — particularly in some
crucial early states — was
eager to show she is not just
capable of the occasional vi-
ral moment but is posi-
tioned to go the distance and
take on Trump.
Booker has struggled to
gain traction despite chatter
for years that he represented
the future of the party. Sev-
eral other politicians came
to the debate at risk of fallingout of the race altogether.
Gabbard, Sens. Kirsten
Gillibrand of New York and
Michael Bennet of Colorado,
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee
and New York Mayor Bill de
Blasio won’t make the de-
bate stage in September
without a lift in the polls and
infusion of donors.
They looked for openings
for the kind of moment for-
mer Housing Secretary
Julián Castro had in the
June debate in Miami, when
he rocketed out of obscurity
by pillorying fellow Texan
and former U.S. Rep. Beto
O’Rourke for not embracing
Castro’s call to decriminal-
ize unauthorized border
crossings. On Wednesday,
Castro confronted Biden,
who also disagrees with him
on that issue.
“It looks like one of us has
learned the lessons of the
past and one of us hasn’t,” he
told Biden. “What we need
are politicians that actually
have guts on this issue.”
De Blasio pressed Biden
on whether he did anything
to try to dissuade President
Obama from pursuing mass
deportations while in office.
Biden refused to reveal pri-
vate conversations withObama. “I expect you would
go ahead and say whatever
was said privately with him,”
Biden said. “That’s not what
I do.”
Booker pounced. “Mr.
Vice President, you can’t
have it both ways,” he said.
“You invoke President
Obama more than anybody
in this campaign. You can’t
do it when it’s convenient
and then dodge it when it’s
not.”
Booker went on to criti-
cize Biden after the ex-vice
president said immigrants
with a PhD degree should
automatically get green
cards letting them stay in
the United States for seven
years.
“Well that’s playing into
what the Republicans want
— to pit some immigrants
against other immigrants,”
Booker said, and then al-
luded to Trump’s reported
description of some African
nations. “Some are from
‘shithole countries,’ and
some are from worthy coun-
tries.”
The exchange on health-
care was equally heated.
“You will lose your employer-
based insurance,” Biden
said of the Harris plan.He was playing to the po-
litical sensitivities of the is-
sue because more than 150
million Americans currently
have job-based health cov-
erage, and many are wary of
change, polls show. But Har-
ris counterpunched by say-
ing Biden’s plan, which
would build on the existing
Affordable Care Act, would
still leave millions of Ameri-
cans without affordable
healthcare coverage.
“We will ensure that ev-
eryone has access to health-
care,” Harris said.
The challenge of satis-
fying progressives who want
transformative change in
the nation’s healthcare sys-
tem and moderates anxious
about losing choice has
proved particularly tricky
for Harris. Her vision for
achieving universal health-
care went through various
iterations — and some con-
tradictions — until she un-
veiled a detailed plan days
ago. “The senator has had
several plans so far,” Biden
said.
When attacked on his
criminal justice record, Bid-
en shot back with criticism
of Booker’s tenure as mayor
of Newark, N.J., over allega-
tions of abuse in the city’s
police department and its
stop-and-frisk practices.
Booker said he inherited a
troubled department, but
that his record compares fa-
vorably with Biden’s heavy
hand in federal anti-crime
policy. He said he was
“shocked” that Biden
wanted to compare records
on the issue, and called the
attacks on his Newark
record ill-informed.
“There is a saying in my
community,” Booker said to
Biden. “You’re dipping into
the Kool-Aid and you don’t
even know the flavor.”
Just as Biden attacked
Booker’s record in Newark
to deflect attention from his
own work on criminal justice
issues, he turned to Harris’
past when the issue of his
history with busing came up.
Biden said he supported
busing that was court-or-
dered, as well as voluntary
busing, which was the type
of integration effort the
Berkeley school Harris at-
tended as a child used. He
argued that his position on
the issue is similar to hers.
“That is simply false,”Harris said. “When Vice
President Biden was in the
United States Senate work-
ing with segregationists to
oppose busing, which was
the vehicle by which we
would integrate America’s
schools, had I been in the
United States Senate at that
time, I would have been com-
pletely on the other side of
the aisle.”
Biden didn’t respond di-
rectly to these attacks, in-
stead turning to Harris’
record as attorney general of
California. “There were two
of the most segregated
school districts in the coun-
try, in Los Angeles and in
San Francisco, and she did
not — I didn’t see a single sol-
itary time she brought a case
against them to desegre-
gate,” he said.
Biden’s rivals also chal-
lenged him over his plans to
combat climate change,
with Inslee calling them
“middling.”
“Too little, too late,” In-
slee said, noting he visited a
neighborhood in west De-
troit this week located next
door to a petroleum refinery
where residents have experi-
enced high levels of asthma
and other illnesses.
Biden said his plan would
eliminate the use of fossil fu-
els and create 500,000 elec-
tric-car charging stations.
By 2030, he said, the country
would move to all electric ve-
hicles. While working toward
those goals, he’d bring world
leaders together to discuss
other long-term solutions.
Gillibrand took a lighter
approach, saying the first
thing she’d do as president
to clean up the environment
is “Clorox the Oval Office.”
But the most clever line
of the night may have come
from New York entrepre-
neur Andrew Yang.
“We need to do the oppo-
site of much of what we’re
doing right now,” Yang said,
“and the opposite of Donald
Trump is an Asian man who
likes math.”Halper reported from
Washington and Mehta and
Beason from Detroit. Times
staff writers Janet Hook and
Noam N. Levey in
Washington and staff
writers Michael Finnegan
and Matt Pearce in Los
Angeles contributed to this
report.WEDNESDAY’S EVENTat the Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit concluded the second round of 20-candidate, two-night presidential debates. The third round, next month,
■■■ ELECTION 2020 ■■■
Detroit Democratic debate
Biden confronts attacks from all sides
[Debate, from A1]
CORY BOOKER,right, talks with Joe Biden before they take the debate stage.
The pair clashed over criminal justice, immigration and other issues.Jim WatsonAFP/Getty Images