Biden Challenge to Warren, Sanders Shows Democrats’ Schism

(Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden battled Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on health care in a fight emblematic of the Democratic Party’s deepest schism.

The struggle between the Democrats’ left wing and a faction of moderates over whether to promote a sweeping government-run health care plan or to build on Obamacare dominated the third Democratic debate, the first in which all 10 of the leading candidates shared the same stage.

But other differences between the former vice president and his two chief rivals were more muted during the rest of the two-and-half-hour event, which had been particularly anticipated for the potential of a Biden-Warren face-off. Lower-polling candidates made occasional efforts to break out but were largely unable to deliver on their attempts to needle the trio of septuagenarians at center stage.

Biden repeatedly claimed the mantle of President Barack Obama’s de facto successor, as he did when he attacked Warren’s embrace of Sanders’ Medicare for All health care plan.

“I know the senator says she’s for Bernie but I’m for Barack,” Biden said, arguing for improvements to Obamacare rather than the government takeover of health insurance advocated by Sanders and Warren.

That forced Warren to partially agree with Biden. “We all owe a huge debt to President Obama, who fundamentally transformed health care in America,” she said.

The most aggressive attempt to cut down the front-runner came from his former Obama administration colleague Julian Castro. He asserted his health care plan was better than Biden’s because people who qualified would automatically be enrolled, saying that they would have to opt in to Biden’s Medicare for Choice plan.

“They wouldn’t have a buy in,” Castro said.

When Biden shot back, “They do not have to buy in,” Castro pounced.

“Are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago?” he said. “You’re forgetting that?”

But Biden had said earlier that people who can’t afford insurance would be “automatically enrolled in the Medicare-type option that we have.”

Castro’s not-so-subtle attack on the 76-year-old Biden’s memory exposed what had been a largely unspoken question in the Democratic field: whether Biden has the energy and endurance to fight a campaign against President Donald Trump.

The attack seemed to cement the idea that criticizing Biden, especially for his age, may end up hurting them more than Biden.

At that point, other Democrats made an appeal to unity. “This is why debates have become unwatchable,” Pete Buttigieg said. “We’re all on the same team,” Andrew Yang said.

“We’ve got one shot to make Donald Trump a one-term president,” Cory Booker said. “And we can’t lose it by the way we talk to each other.”

But Biden fought on for the rest of the debate, even defying moderators who tried to cut him off toward the end. “No, I’m going to go like the rest of them do, twice over, OK?”

Despite the occasional rancor, the Democrats also made more of an attempt to unify on two things they agreed on: praising Obama and condemning Trump.

Party officials recently have been warning against criticizing the former president at risk of turning off voters and instead focus on Trump.

Trade Policy

Trade brought a full round of criticism of the current president. The candidates who responded to questions on trade all agreed that Trump’s approach to trade -- especially his erratic approach to negotiations with China -- isn’t working, but didn’t offer detailed solutions.

Biden, Sanders and Warren all agreed that labor, farmers and environmentalists should be at the table for future trade talks.

“We can use trade not to undermine American workers,” farmers or small businesses but to “help build a stronger economy,” Warren said, also bemoaning the role that she said corporate interests have had in recent trade talks. Over the last two decades, trade has been the fourth biggest issue for Washington lobbyists, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Sanders noted his opposition to the North American Free Trade Accord and permanent normal trade relations with China, both measures that Biden had voted for while serving in the Senate. But Biden reiterated the plan for China trade talks that he’s also mentioned on the campaign trail, that the U.S. should “organize the world to take on China.”

The candidates clashed again over gun control. Biden has said Kamala Harris’ proposal to ban assault weapons by executive order would be unconstitutional.

“Hey Joe, instead of saying no we can’t, let’s say yes we can,” Harris said, echoing Obama’s slogan.

“Let’s be constitutional. We’ve got a Constitution,” Biden interjected.

Criminal Justice

Moderators asked pointed questions to the two former prosecutors on the stage, Harris and Amy Klobuchar, about their records prosecuting drug crimes and supporting police.

Harris said there were “distortions” of her record and that she tried to reform the system from the inside. “I was born knowing about how this criminal justice system in America has worked in a way that is informed by racial bias,” she said.

Klobuchar emphasized her work with the Innocence Project, and of prosecuting violent criminals accused of shooting schoolchildren in minority neighborhoods.

Biden also tried to establish a position as a reformer. “Nobody should be in jail for a non-violent crime,” he said. A campaign aide later clarified that he was talking only about non-violent drug crimes.

The debates so far haven’t altered the trajectory of the contest, leaving Biden in the lead of national polls and Warren and Sanders in a struggle for second. After a brief surge following the first debate, Harris’s poll numbers have flatlined, leaving her a distant fourth.

Biden is four points lower than he was before the first debate, but maintains a 10-point buffer with Warren and Sanders in the RealClearPolitics average.

Democrats chose Houston as the venue for the debate to highlight their chances of winning the state for the first time since Jimmy Carter did it in 1976. But the debate showed they still remain divided on what will bring voters to their side.

To contact the reporters on this story: Gregory Korte in Houston at gkorte@bloomberg.net;Jennifer Epstein in Houston at jepstein32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Joe Sobczyk

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.