Face of Nation : Much of the 2020 Democratic presidential field has now made its case directly to America.
The second night of the first Democratic primary debate came to an end Thursday night, with 10 more candidates seeking to grab enough of voters’ attention to help pave a path to becoming their party’s nominee and facing off against President Donald Trump.
Here are the winners and losers for night two of the Democratic presidential debate
Harris had her moment. Again. And again.
Repeatedly throughout the evening, the California lawmaker chimed in, laying out specific policies, such as repealing Trump’s 2017 tax cut. She commanded the stage, interjecting when her fellow Democratic competitors kept speaking over each other.
“Hey guys, you know what, America does not want to witness a food fight,” she said. “They want to know how we’re going to put food on their table.”
She also set herself apart when she asked to jump into the discussion of race relations, reminding the moderators and other candidates that she was the only black woman onstage.
Harris’ big moment came when she took on former Vice President Joe Biden.
She confronted Biden on his pastcomments about finding common ground with Sens. James Eastland and Herman Talmadge, who were Democratic segregationists. She said his comments were “hurtful.”
She then noted that Biden opposed busing, a policy that Eastland and Talmadge also were against.
“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,” she said. “And that little girl was me.”Biden watched stone-faced as the California Democrat swiped at him. Harris gave Biden a chance to reply, saying “Do you agree today that you were wrong to oppose busing in America?” The former vice president got defensive and forcefully denied that he opposed busing. Instead, he said he had opposed the federal implementation of that policy and the imposition of it on local communities that did not want it.
But Harris stood her ground and argued that preferences like that on the part of state and local governments were failures in the country’s quest for racial justice and that’s exactly why the federal government needed to step in.
Biden responded by touting his work on preserving civil rights. Yet, midway through his comments, Biden abruptly noted his time was up and stopped speaking.
