The NPR Politics Podcast - The 1st Democratic Debates: Night 2 Takeaways

Episode Date: June 28, 2019

NBC hosted the first Democratic presidential debates, which was split into two nights because of the sheer number of candidates running. In the second night, race became the focus of the debate when Senator Harris challenged former Vice President Biden on his record. This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Scott Detrow, political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Scott Tetra. I cover politics. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I also cover politics. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And it is currently 12.15 a.m. Friday, June 28th, which is super duper disappointing to me because I was hoping to get an NPR politics podcast hat trick by doing three podcasts in 24 hours. But now we're just the late, late show, just like channel early 90s Conan O'Brien for the vibe we're going for here. Well, that's where we are right now. So the second night of the first

Democratic debates on NBC ended a little bit ago, and we are here with thoughts. I am here in the studio, Danielle Kurtzleben, also here. I'm right across from you. Yeah, we're right here. Hi. And Scott and Mara, you are back in the spin room. And you know what? We're going to get to this in a moment, but tonight, spin was required.

The spin room was necessary. Yes, as opposed to last night, because tonight the reason why spin is necessary is when one candidate has a lot of splaining to do. And tonight the Joe Biden campaign had a lot of splaining to do in the spin room. Sure did. And we are going to get to sort of the big takeaways and then dig deep on some of the major moments of the night. But first, Danielle, for the last time in at least a little while, can you tell us who was on stage in order of their time speaking? Yes. Okay. So tonight we are going to start with the person who had the most time,

not only of tonight, but of tonight and last night together. This is a person with the most time of both debates, former Vice President Joe Biden. He had 13 minutes and 30 seconds on stage, according to our team here who was counting this. That is more than a minute and a half more than number two, who was Kamala Harris, California senator, at 11 minutes, 56 seconds. Number three, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Number four was South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Number five, Colorado Senator

Michael Bennett. Number six, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Next was former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, California Representative Eric Swalwell, author Marianne Williamson. And number 10 by a fair shot, entrepreneur Andrew Yang at three minutes and two seconds. That is more than a minute and a half less than Marianne Williamson. Andrew Yang barely got a word in edgewise tonight. That is some math the Yang gang is not going to appreciate. He's good at math, as he often tells us. He did talk about the things that he came to talk about,

including universal basic income. Okay, so big themes of the night, guys. What stood out to you from this debate? Well, what stood out to me, it was a bad night for Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, who stood in the middle. And Sanders became a kind of foil on policy, a lot of people pushing back against Medicare for All and doing away with the private health insurance industry. Great night for Kamala Harris. And it turns out that the generational challenge, generational politics inside the Democratic Party is also racial politics. And I know we'll get to that later, but it was really interesting how those two things collided in the exchange between Harris and Biden? Yeah, to me, the symbolic moment of the evening was that

this exchange set off by Eric Swalwell going after Joe Biden, saying that he needs to pass the torch to a new generation. And then afterwards, both Biden and Bernie Sanders saying, well, we should respond. Our generation was mentioned, as Pete Buttigieg and the other younger people said, what about the younger generation? We need to speak. And you had baby boomers and millennials talking over each other like they do in households across America because there was a real divide here tonight that was clear. I mean, one thing that I want to add is that compared to the first night especially, it was a pretty light night in terms of policy. And I mean this in two ways. One is that when they got to some topics like trade, the candidates

kind of danced around. It didn't really say much except boo China, boo Trump. Okay, that says practically nothing in this field. But aside from that, the other thing that is really interesting was that, for example, on the topic of race, which was a major theme, often when race comes up in these sorts of debates and in this field, it's about policy. It's about criminal justice. It's about economics. It's about reparations. Tonight, it was about Joe Biden's past stances. It was about Kamala Harris's experiences. It turned into a generational thing. It turned into a can you defend your past thing. It turned into a Washington insider thing. It was all sorts of stuff. Well, and just stylistically, and I know we're not here as style judges, but this debate, they were talking to each other. They were talking about each other's

views on policy. They were talking about each other's views on a lot of things. They were talking about each other's records. This was not 10 people staring forward talking about themselves in the same way as it was last night. They were talking over each other a lot. Constantly. I think one thing that they seemed to take away from the first night was that interrupting works. And tonight, it was a clown car atmosphere for quite a bit of it. A lot of like, can I finish? Can I finish? And all of that. With one important exception, when Joe Biden, for some reason,

instead of just talking and talking until someone cut him off, he said, my time's up. I agree that everybody wants to stay in fact, anyway, my time's up. I'm sorry. Thank you. That is definitely being taken as a metaphor by a lot of people who do believe his time is up and that he had exposed a lot of weaknesses tonight in a way that might hurt him in a way that his previous gaffes on the campaign trail have not so far. Okay, so let's get into what is clearly the biggest moment of the night, the thing that I think everybody is going to be talking about for a while,

which was Kamala Harris turning to Vice President Biden and addressing head on something that was a very big controversy for him last week. I do not believe you are a racist. And I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground. But I also believe and it is personal and I personal, and it was hurtful. And what she's talking about is she's saying that when he, last week, talked about working with segregationist senators, who he disagreed with and found repulsive, he was talking about it as saying, you know, I could work with these people even though I didn't agree with them, because, you know, you work with people, you get things done in the Senate. That was his point.

She said that it was hurtful to her. It was difficult for her to see him saying that in part for a very personal reason related to what they were working on together. One of the issues he was working on with the segregationists was opposing federally mandated school busing. So busing that was done to desegregate schools. You know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools. And she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me. So this was remarkable for a lot of reasons.

First of all, because over the last few weeks, as other candidates in the top tier of polling have started to take shots at Biden, Kamala Harris had not done that. She had been repeatedly asked to weigh in on things that he said, and she had mostly not done so. She had responded earlier to this segregationist comment from last week, but she had been the one top tier candidate who wasn't going after Joe Biden. And what did she do here? She tells a really personal story about how something he did affected her, how she was one of the first classes to integrate schools in California.

And it was clearly something her campaign had planned because they immediately were posting pictures of her as a second grader on social media. And this accomplished a couple things. I've talked to people on the Harris campaign. Number one, they want her to get more of her personal story out. I've heard from them about her being the second class in her school that was integrated. So they wanted her to tell her own personal story, which they feel that she's been derelict in doing on the campaign trail. They also wanted her to remind voters of the Kamala Harris who interrogates people in a Senate hearing room. Those have been some of her most impressive moments.

That hasn't been the way she's campaigned. But here she was on the debate stage, taking it to Vice President Biden in a very respectful manner. I don't think you're a racist. This was hurtful. She has now vaulted herself, I think, into the top tier of candidates. And this led to a really big clash between these two on stage, probably the most memorable one of the night. But Vice President Biden, do you agree today, do you agree today that you were wrong to oppose busing in America then? Do you agree?

I did not oppose busing in America. What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education. That's what I opposed. Well, there was a failure of states to integrate public schools in America. I was part of the second class to integrate Berkeley, California public schools almost two decades after Brown v. Board of Education. Because your city council made that decision. It was a local decision. So that's where the federal government must step in. That's why we have the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. Kamala Harris brought in failure of states. Now, their one rallying cry that some segregationists use was states' rights. And so

what I did see a lot of pundits on Twitter, for example, responding to on this was, was Joe Biden making a states' rights argument here? In which case, that seems like a sort of... Not a good thing to do in a Democratic primary. Or was he making a local control of education argument? Sure, sure, sure. Which some people might find more palatable. And either way, that is where the spin room came into play tonight because Joe Biden, Joe Biden's campaign brought a lot of surrogates into this room to African-American surrogates.

Yeah, including Cedric Richmond, who is the national co-chair of his campaign. He is Louisiana congressman, former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. And he was making the point and he was saying things like, well, one thing that Biden really didn't get a chance to say was that how important education is. But this is the one thing that he said that the campaign was repeating in a lot of different forms over the course of all of their interviews here. All of that was out there when the first African-American president of the United States decided to pick Joe Biden as his running mate. And he had the vice presidents back every day of the week. So I'm not sure that voters are going back 40 years to a nuanced conversation to decipher positions. And the campaign was also like they did a few weeks ago, talking about Biden has repeatedly said that the Charlottesville, Virginia racist protest was a key motivator for entering this race. Still, though, like Danielle, you're talking about that back and

forth. To me, that was a really striking moment when you respond to a personal story like Harris was telling with a bristling response talking about the difference between local and federal government. The way Vice President Biden responded to this criticism, it comes in sort of stark contrast to the way that Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, responded to a question about his leadership in the city in the face of a shooting involving a white police officer and a black citizen of South Bend. And let's just hear this exchange with NBC moderator Rachel Maddow. The police force in South Bend is now 6% black in a city that is 26% black. Why has that not improved over your two terms as mayor?

Because I couldn't get it done. My community is in anguish right now because of an officer-involved shooting, a black man, Eric Logan, killed by a white officer. And I'm not allowed to take sides until the investigation comes back. The officer said he was attacked with a knife, but he didn't have his body camera on. It's a mess, and we're hurting. It's kind of a remarkable thing to hear someone in politics, and he obviously came prepared to say this,

but it's kind of a remarkable thing to hear someone in politics say, yeah, on me. Now, there are plenty of people in South Bend, especially who still have their criticisms of him and him saying this tonight does not fix any of these problems. But yeah, it was really striking for him to say that, especially in comparison to Joe Biden. Except that what is Pete Buttigieg's goal? He needs to increase his support among the African-American community, which after Iowa and New Hampshire, plays an outsized role in Democratic primaries.

And his support right now is about 1% in the African American community. And I think that his refreshing candor and accepting responsibility might have played well on the debate stage. I don't know if it helped him accomplish his goal right now. All right, we are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, some other big contrasts on this stage related to health care policy and also generations. Hey, it's Peter Sagal. So you're listening to this NPR podcast because you want to be informed. You want to learn something.

But what if you need a little break? Well, then you want to check out Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR news quiz. It's the show that lets your lizard brain enjoy itself for once. You can be serious again later. Listen to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me on NPR One or wherever you get your podcasts. And we are back. And let's start with health care, which was a big theme from the first night debate. And now in the second night, there were, again, some major moments related to health care. Right. And also related to hands going up.

I mean, we we got some substance tonight. We also got some shows of hands. And they the moderators, thankfully, did that same question. They did the first night, which I don't know about you guys. I found it very revealing and is going to be a good sort of marker going forward of, okay, would you abolish private insurance as Medicare for All would essentially do? So tonight, of the 10 candidates as last night, two of them, their hands went up. Bernie Sanders, no surprise because he is the person who crafted and introduced Medicare for All. And Kamala Harris, who has co-sponsored it with him.

Interestingly, Kirsten Gillibonsored it with him. Interestingly, Kirsten Gillibrand also on that stage. Her hand didn't go up. Similarly, last night, Cory Booker, another co-sponsor, his hand didn't go up. But yeah, we had two more people tonight saying, yes, I am willing to get rid of private insurance. And once again, you had some clashes over this. Some recognitions from John Hickenlooper, for example, that, you know, that might upset some people who are fine with their current private insurance. We can't promise every American a government job. If you want to get universal health care coverage, I believe that health care is a right and not a privilege. But you can't expect to

eliminate private insurance for 180 million people, many of whom don't want to give it up. So while you have someone like Hickenlooper on stage saying, hey, wait, you can't do this, you'd be taking plans away from people who like their plans. You also have Bernie Sanders very proudly, happily defending, speaking up for Medicare for all, even to the point of saying he was asked, well, is Medicare for all going to mean that people's taxes would go up? And and he said, I mean, after some prodding. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. People who have health care on the Medicare for all will have no premiums, no deductibles, no copayments, no out ofof-pocket expenses. Yes, they will pay more in taxes, but less in health

care for what they get. Thank you, Senator. Now, to me, this strikes me as this is like, even aside from that, might you lose your private insurance question? This strikes me as a phenomenally tough needle for him to thread on a national stage. Of course, we saw him try to do it four years ago as well. This question of being able to tell voters in a succinct, pithy, soundbite way, yes, your taxes would go up under this. But when you take away premiums, when you take away co-pays, it is possible that you, Joe Blow, your overall health costs might go down. Might not, but they might. And also, you're going to be in a government program that you might or might not want. True.

I mean, 160 million people might not, as Hickenlooper tried to point out, might not want to do this. I thought it was interesting that only two people raised their hands. I mean, Bernie Sanders on policy right now is more overall approach really dominated the conversation for like the first 15 minutes or so of this debate. Candidates were either agreeing with or disagreeing with. And a lot of candidates like Michael Bennett, who have carved out their space in this field as opposing the Democratic socialist, you know, big, bold approach to a lot of things. We're caveating all their criticism with, I agree with Bernie on the cause, but. Right. Bernie's right about the problems, but.

Driving the conversation is not the same as winning the argument. Back to hand raising. There was another raise your hands question where all 10 people on stage raised their hands. Raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants. All 10? So this is one of those moments where you're like, wow, the Democratic center of gravity has shifted a very long way in a not too long period of time which last night i think that was the key storyline right i think tonight the the politics of things and how candidates interact with each other and frame things was more of the top story but over the course of the two

nights yeah like that is the big theme and i think that if you are uh with the trump campaign or with the various super PACs spending a lot of money on this you got a lot of material for ads that you're going to be airing eight or nine months from now over the last two nights especially that image of everyone's hands raised seems like a great flyer to me if I'm trying to talk a lot about immigration and big government and open borders you know the types of uh attacks that you've been hearing nonstop from the president. Yeah. And the Trump message is basically like and has been all along. We need to focus on Americans. Look, and he's going to be able to say, look at those 10 people on that stage who raised their hands.

They want to help people who aren't American. Let's move on to the other big theme of this night, which was a battle of the generations. And it started with Congressman Eric Swalwell. I was six years old when a presidential candidate came to the California Democratic Convention and said, it's time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans. That candidate was then Senator Joe Biden. Joe Biden was right when he said it was time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans 32 years ago. He's still right today. I'm still holding on to that torch. I think that was actually one of Biden's best moments.

Yes, I do too. That was kind of a stunt. The generational theme was expressed in a couple different ways. There was the Swalwell kind of planned line. Which he came to over and over again.. Which he came to over and over again. Yes, he came to over and over again, and the audience was laughing. Then there was the Kamala Harris exchange, which we've discussed a lot. But that was a generational challenge because in the Democratic Party, part of the generational gulf is about race.

And the Biden campaign's response to all of this, which you heard a bit from Biden, but more from when his people were out in here in force, was all these candidates are talking about things they want to do. Joe Biden has done that in one way or another. But I think a lot of those candidates would say you did it ineffectively and not as fully as we would like to see. So this actually went from this thing about the torch to like a full on everyone on stage being like, I'm older, I'm younger. I'd like to I'd like to weigh in. Senator Sanders. As the youngest guy on the stage, I feel like I probably ought to contribute to the generation. As part of Joe's generation.

I'm all for it. As part of Joe's generation. Let me respond. Before we move on. Boomers. Millennials. Please, please. Senator Sanders.

Hey, guys, you know what? America does not want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we're going to put food on their table. That was also planned, but she delivered it at the right moment. She really came prepared. But, you know, I think that the generational problem for Biden is not going to be about what position he took on busing in the 1970s. It's going to be about how he looks. Does he perform or does he seem old and a little out of it? And to me, that moment where he said, my time is up, I'm sorry, is kind of a metaphor. To me, a subtext of when Eric Swalwell brings that up or when Kamala Harris says, you know, busing affected me. There's a sort of subtext there of you are a Washington insider.

You've been doing this a long time. You've been a politician since I was a child, sir. And that kind of adds to this feeling of if you're a Democratic voter and you think that certain politicians have been around too long, maybe kick them out. As we wind down our second night of talking about people on stage talking, how are we beyond sort of the hot takes and the tweets and whatever cable commentary is out there, how are we going to know whether this has changed, whether anything materially has changed? We're going to find out from voters what they think. Aside from the fundraising numbers, perhaps. Well, sure.

That's another way of measuring support. Yeah. Oh, yeah. One thing that this did, assuming Biden stays in the race until the fall, and I can't tell you how many people I talk to who thinks he might not even make it that far. This has raised the stakes for him for the Detroit debate. And that debate is at the end of July. We will be there. We will do more very late night podcasts. So I just want to pull you guys on something. We have, as I said, done three podcasts in the last 25 hours. But who's counting? But who's counting? It's technically Friday now.

We have not done a weekly roundup. Are you guys okay with that? Oh, yes. Nope. Let's do it right now. What? I'm ready. I'm ready.

We're disconnecting. Yeah, we're leaving. Goodbye. Good night. We're going to bed. I've just ruined my friendship with both of them. All right. I'm sorry.

We are not partying until the break of dawn here in Miami. But you can do the weekly roundup. I don't think that's how it works. So that All right, I'm sorry. We are not partying until the break of dawn here in Miami. But you can do the weekly roundup. I don't think that's how it works. So that's right, guys. No weekly roundup this week. But we are heading out

on the campaign trail this weekend to bring you another interview with a presidential hopeful, someone who we talked about a bit tonight. Stay tuned.

That will be in your podcast feeds on Monday. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover politics. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I also cover politics. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.