Today, Explained - Two days, Explained

Episode Date: June 28, 2019

Twenty Democratic candidates. Two debates. Some awkward Spanish. Vox’s Ella Nilsen hits the highlights and Ezra Klein explains why Democrats should be worried. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ellen Nielsen, you covered Democrats for Vox, two nights of Democratic debates from Miami, a crowd that refused to hold their applause, technical difficulties, and just so, so, so many candidates. Do you think you could name them all? Oh, yeah. Night one? Night one? Night one. You don't want me to run through the list. I do. I do. I think it's great. de blasio insley warren booker klobuchar uh tim ryan no one's gonna remember tim ryan oh my gosh who else beto

beto o'rourke and then Castro. Am I missing somebody else? Am I only at eight? I think so. Fuck. I can't swear on. Tulsi Gabbard? Tulsi Gabbard and then Delaney. Delaney all the way to the right.

Oh, sweet John with his sweaty upper lip. All right, night two. Who's on the left? Williamson, we can't forget. Williamson, my fave. Field of love. I'm going to harness love for political purposes. I will meet you on that field, and sir, love will win.

Williamson, Yang, Swalwell. Yes. Bennett. Yep. Bernie, Biden, Harris, Gillibrand, Buttigieg. Buttigieg, one more for the win. Oh, no. Oh, Hickenlooper. Hickenlooper.

I'm a scientist. So let's start with the policy-focused night, Wednesday night. What were some of the highlights of the first big Democratic debate? So right out of the gate, I mean, it was clear to me that NBC and MSNBC were treating Elizabeth Warren as the frontrunner of that night. And she's number two and number three in the polls right now around Bernie Sanders' lead. But it was clear that they were really focused on Warren's policies, asking her about some of her policies and how that would impact taxes, asking other candidates to respond to some of her policies and how that would impact taxes, asking other candidates to respond

to some of her policies, including higher taxes for wealthy people in America, breaking up big tech companies, and then universal education and getting rid of student debt. By the time I graduated from high school, my family, my family didn't have the money for a college application, much less a chance for me to go to college. But I got my chance. It was a $50 a semester commuter college. That was a little slice of government that created some opportunity for a girl. And it opened my life. I am in this fight because I believe that we can make our government, we can make our economy, we can make our country work, not just for those at the top. We can make it work for everyone. And I promise you this, I will fight for you as hard as I fight for my own family.

So that was a big idea. There was a big debate about immigration and this kind of more obscure law that Julian Castro was talking about that he wants to repeal that would make it not a federal crime to be an unauthorized immigrant in the United States. This was Section 1325? Yes, exactly. The reason that they're separating these little children from their families is that they're using Section 1325 of that act, which criminalizes coming across the border, to incarcerate the parents and then separate them. Some of us on this stage have called to end that section, to terminate it. Some, like Congressman O'Rourke, have not. And I want to challenge all of the candidates to do that. And Castro, I think, really distinguished himself in a way that we hadn't seen before. Yeah.

There wasn't a lot of fighting on stage and there wasn't a lot of talk of Donald Trump on stage. And of course, that changed at least in terms of the fighting on night two. Yeah. Harris's first big one-liner on debate night number two was in the middle of this conversation that turned into this kind of shouting match between the candidates in which nobody knew who was talking. Harris like calmed everybody down and she goes, 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. And then just like went for it.

Like the floor was hers. Nobody was talking around her. So it was like this clear commanding like, hey, guys, shut up. I'm talking. And I'm going to now direct this advice, President Biden. 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's personal, and it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.

Biden made some comments at a fundraiser that this sort of idea of no civility in Congress anymore and this sort of lost bipartisanship and was talking about, oh, when I was a senator back in my day, I didn't agree with segregationists, but at least I got along with them and worked with them. And a lot of people weren't terribly happy about that comment. So Harris went straight for Biden last night. Obviously, she was the only black woman on stage, only black candidate on stage last night. And then she went even further and she went on the attack on Biden's past record on busing. In 1975, Biden sponsored a bill making it so that federal funds

couldn't be used by schools that were trying to desegregate by busing minority children to predominantly white schools and vice versa. And, 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 I will tell you that on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously. We have to act swiftly. And it was this moment where she was like looking Biden directly in the eye while she was saying this. Of course, like her campaign immediately tweets out a photo of her as this little girl going to school to make the point. And Biden quickly went on defense.

I did not oppose busing in America. What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education. That's what I opposed. I did not oppose. 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. That's why we need to pass the Equality Act. That's why we have the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. That's why we need to pass the Equality Act. That's why we need to pass the ERA, because there are moments in history where states fail to preserve the civil rights of all people. I have supported the ERA from the very beginning. You know, Harris, like, really landed that punch. Like, I think, you know,

as soon as she had the that little girl was me line, like that was the line of the night. And Biden's campaign released a statement last night pushing back heavily on whether or not this impacted Harris personally. But like her campaign literally was putting out T-shirts with like her photo as a young child. Yeah, they wasted no time on the memes. No. Yeah. Like this is this is going to be a thing. And then all the way to the right last night was this relative unknown from California, Eric Swalwell. Oh, my God. But he his opening salvo to Biden was. 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. If we're going to solve the issues of automation, pass the torch. If we're going to solve the issues of climate chaos, pass the torch. If we're going to solve the issue of student loan debt, pass the torch. If we're going to solve the issues of climate chaos, pass the torch. If we're going to solve the issue of student loan debt, pass the torch. If we're going to end gun violence for families who are fearful of sending their kids to school, pass the torch.

Vice President, would you like to sing a torch song? And it cuts to Joe Biden that he's kind of like grimacing or something. It was this moment where he just called out Biden for sticking around for so long. And if there was sort of a recurring theme of these two nights, it was that this is a very progressive, different pool of candidates for the Democratic Party from what we've seen in the past. What were some of the more progressive moments where we really saw sort of a different conversation happening? Progressive moments happened around issues like Medicare for All. There were a lot of questions where it was like literally like,

raise your hand if you would be willing to get rid of like employee-sponsored health care in favor of a government-run plan. That was like a big deal on the first night. And again, on the second night, like there was a question about that again, where Kamala raised her hand. Then there was another question about would you support health insurance for undocumented immigrants in the country? Everybody raised their hand, including Biden, who had sort of this little like mini hand raise. I think he just couldn't hear the question. Biden is kind of straddling this weird line where he's going along with that.

Like some of the plans that he has released so far are certainly would be considered more progressive than four years ago. But he's also kind of trying to make this argument that what the American people want is actually a return to sort of this moderate center where it's not an extreme on either the left or the right. I think that that's sort of the big question of 2020 is, do we just want somebody to take us back to like the comfort of the Obama years? Yeah. Or do we want somebody to move us forward? Joe Biden may have the closest connection to Barack Obama, but he's doing a pretty bad job of carrying Obama's torch. That's in a minute on Today Explained. Thank you. Rating and reviewing

You don't know what you're missing You don't know what you're missing What are you doing? Five stars What are you doing? Five stars. What are you doing? Love this show. You don't know what you're missing. Five stars. Five stars. Five stars. Today. Today to explain. It's Today Explained. Ezra Klein, Vox editor-at-large. After seeing two nights of debates, are there one or two candidates that really elevated their profiles to you? What surprised you most? Who surprised you most? I watched a lot of debates.

And the thing about debates is they typically don't change anything. I don't think that's true here. I think that the debates changed something pretty profound. Kamala Harris became top tier and Joe Biden's weaknesses are real. Those are the two big takeaways out of the debates. Let's start with Kamala. So there's an interesting backdrop to Kamala Harris's performance. Since she was elected to the Senate, I don't think I've ever seen a

candidate, a politician, who as many people wanted to be great as wanted Harris to be great. There are all these pieces of the Democratic coalition that are hard to put together right now. And something about Harris was like, if you designed a candidate in a lab to put them together, you might get her. But there are always candidates who look great on paper. And the question was, would she be great in practice? Last night was an incredible debate performance by her. She calmly and methodically took apart Joe Biden in a way that was a message about how she would do Donald Trump. The reason Harris's performance really matters

is there are a number of factions of the party that are interested in supporting Harris. And if she can have a few more breakout performances like that, they will. She's somebody who could put together a coalition that could be the winning coalition. And people have just been waiting to see, does she have the chops to support that? And yeah, like after last night, we said, yeah, she does. And the most seasoned politician on the stage, Joe Biden, seemingly just forgot how to do his thing. Biden is trying to dispel a couple issues around his candidacy. One is a concern that he simply lost a step. He's been around politics for a long time.

He's been ideologically on a number of sides and in some cases on what now looks like the wrong side of a bunch of issues. And he's just quite a bit older. And so all these things have come together into questions about how strong is his candidacy really? Are we seeing the lift of being Obama's vice president? These are just name recognition and a kind of next in line sense. Are we seeing somebody who's like a real performer? And last night, we saw a candidate, I think, generously quite out of practice and under prepared. I don't think he expected Harris's attack at all, not from her, not the way she did it. He should have known and must have known that he was going to get attacked on busing at some point.

It's come up. People have brought it up. The idea that he was for states' rights on busing. And so she's like, yeah, that's why we had a federal government, because we needed that kind of implementation. That was a terrible defense. The other one that I really noticed, though, that I think was almost as important, although I'm sure we'll not get quite as much attention, is towards the end of the night, he was asked about Iraq. He supported the war in Iraq. And so he was asked by Rachel Maddow, why should we trust you on foreign policy now? What he said was... Once Bush abused that power, what happened was we got elected after that. I made sure the president

turned to me and said, Joe, get our combat troops out of Iraq. I was responsible for getting 150,000 combat troops out of Iraq, and my son was one of them. It showed, I think, an underlying problem of his candidacy, which is that the case for him is that he's the heir to Obama. Being the candidate on stage who sounds the most like and represents Obama versus being the candidate on the stage who is using Obama as a shield to not answer questions about his own philosophy, that's not going to work as well. And just being so unprepared for such an obvious attack, that's a real problem. One of the reasons he looked a little out of place last night is because the party has

clearly shifted so much to the left. What about that was most interesting to you in the two debates? I was struck how little of Biden's problems last night had to do with the party shifting to the left. I do think a huge theme of the two debates has been that. So in particular, the push from Julian Castro to get Democrats to endorse repeal of Section 1325, which would decriminalize border crossing. That is a policy that you can't imagine Democrats of four years ago or eight years ago even considering. And it's not just that. You had the candidates raising their hand to abolish private insurance, which also polls extremely badly. You had a bunch of the

candidates saying, and I agree with this policy on substance, by the way, that undocumented immigrants would get health care under their plans. I mean, you can remember famously Joe Wilson yelling, The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegal. About Obama saying there would be no health care for undocumented immigrants under his plan, just a couple of years ago, this was something that the president made sure that you couldn't say about his plan, again, because it polls terribly. Now Democrats are embracing it. Bernie Sanders said that under Medicare for all, all abortion would be paid for.

That, again, is the kind of thing that creates a lot of friction around in politics. The underlying thing, the Democratic Party is taking a hard left turn, is very true. But the critique wasn't really that Joe Biden isn't left wing enough. The critique was that he's out of touch. With Sanders, this was actually a bigger problem. In a funny way, I think Bernie Sanders' ideas won these debates. And he, I don't want to say lost him because I think he performed fine, but it was really notable in a field where his ideas or some kind of counterproposal and critique of his ideas are table stakes. He did not seem as distinct. I felt it was a lot harder for him to break out.

And as much, again, as his policies were central, he was not that central to the debate last night. On night one, President Trump just tweeted, boring. But last night, he sort of upped his game and got a little analytical. He tweeted, all Democrats just raised their hands for giving millions of illegal aliens unlimited health care. How about taking care of American citizens first? That's the end of that race. I mean, does he have a point? Is this super progressive baseline of the party going to alienate the middle? Or is the eventual move to the middle going to alienate progressives leaving a lot of room for Donald Trump in this election?

He definitely has a point. How good that point is, we'll see. But if you just pull this stuff, it pulls terribly, right? People do not want to give undocumented immigrants health care. And all the candidates last night raised their hands to say they support it. But Donald Trump's instinct that that is a wedge issue, he can drive into the Democratic Party and drive into independence is true. He has always had a very, very deep sense of the resentments that undocumented immigrants

arouse in the rest of the country. And so the best argument for the popularity of something like Medicare for all, this feeling that people have that they'll be taken care of, it begins to fall apart when the feeling they actually have is that their tax dollars are going to go to subsidize people they don't want to subsidize. That has always been the problem in America with social policy, that people turn us against each other. Democrats in kind of going all the way on that, yeah, this in many ways I think were a good set of debates for Donald Trump. He is quite unpopular and his policies are quite unpopular, but Democrats endorsing a bunch of also very unpopular policies gives him arguments he didn't have before and wouldn't have had otherwise. This is something I was surprised to not see Biden take up.

I thought something Biden was going to do in the debates was use his role in the party to hold a line, right, to say, no, like we're not going to give health care to undocumented immigrants. We're not going to do that. There's something like 13,000 debates left before November 3rd, 2020. These ones were important to get a feel for these 20 people. What are you looking for in the ones to come? A winnowing of the field. So they're going to escalate the requirements to get into the debates, which will begin to thin out the field. You just had too many players up on that stage to get into some of the crosstalk and conversations that you need to see.

I'm looking to see how people evolve. I mean, it's remarkable how strong Harris came out of the gate. I thought Warren did a good job in her debate, although she was facing a lot less competition. If you go back to 2008, Obama doesn't perform that well in the early debates, but he's a lot better as time goes on. And so there's just going to be a quality in these debates of people learning them and then getting more airtime. And so five, six, seven debates down the road. And, yeah, we're going to go way more than that. You're going to have a smaller debate field filled with stronger candidates who have a better sense of how they perform at debates and what they need to do.

So this is like the first inning of a 13,000 inning game. The fact that some candidates won it and some candidates lost it, that's not going to be steady state. Everybody's strategy is going to now adapt in response to whatever people see in the polling and in the media coverage of the debates. You could get into very different dynamics than we saw and then we'll just have to see how people respond that time. Ezra Klein hosts a podcast called The Ezra Klein Show. If you scroll through his feed, you'll be pleasantly surprised to find interviews with some of the Democrats who were on stage debating this week, including Senators Michael Bennett and Elizabeth Warren, as well as Mayor Pete. I'm Sean Ramos for M.

This is Today Explained.