Joe Biden attacked for race record at debate

Democratic divisions over race, age and ideology burst into public view in Thursday night's presidential debate, punctuated by a heated exchange between former Vice-President Joe Biden and California Sen. Kamala Harris.
It was one of several moments that left the 76-year-old Biden, who entered the night as his party's early front-runner, on the defensive as he works to convince voters he's still in touch with the modern Democratic Party and best-positioned to deny President Donald Trump a second term.
"I do not believe you are a racist," Harris said to Biden before criticiSing his record of working with Democratic segregationist senators on non-race issues as "hurtful." Biden called Harris' criticism "a complete mischaracteriSation of my record." He declared, "I ran because of civil rights" and later accused the Trump administration of embracing racism.
The night marked an abrupt turning point in a Democratic primary in which candidates have largely tiptoed around each other, focusing instead on their shared desire to beat Trump. With millions of Americans peeking inside the Democrats' unruly 2020 season for the first time, the showdown revealed deep rifts eight months before primary voting begins. The showdown featured four of the five strongest candidates - according to early polls, at least. Those are Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and Harris. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who debated Wednesday night, is the fifth.
There are so many candidates lining up to take on Trump that they do not all fit on one debate stage - or even two. Twenty Democrats debated on national television this week in two waves of 10, while a handful more were left out altogether. Trump tweeted Friday that he heard it was "not a good day" for them.
The level of diversity on display on the debate stage was unprecedented for a major political party in the United States. The field features six women, two African Americans, one Asian American and two men under 40, one of them gay.
Harris is the only African American woman to qualify for the presidential debate stage and showed she could land a forceful attack on rivals. Any of the three women featured Thursday night would be the first ever elected president. Yet in the early days of the campaign, two White septuagenarians are leading the polls: Biden and Sanders.
Buttigieg, a 37-year-old gay former military officer, is four decades younger than Sanders and Biden and has framed his candidacy as a call for generational change in his party.
Sanders slapped at his party's centrist candidates, vowing to fight for "real change." He raised his hand to indicate he would give up his private insurance coverage in favor of a government-financed plan. Most of the candidates on stage, including Biden, didn't join him.
While many candidates, including Biden, embrace at least some version of Sanders' "Medicare for All" proposal, the former vice president also defended the role of private insurance, praising its role in the aftermath of the car accident that killed his wife and daughter and left his sons injured decades ago.
Along with Medicare, Buttigieg defended private insurance, too, but he also said, "We can't just be relying on the tender mercies of the corporate system."
Little-known California Rep. Eric Swalwell, who is just 38 years old, was among Buttigieg's chief critics. He also took a swipe at Biden's advanced age.
Either Biden or Sanders would be the oldest president ever elected.
"Joe Biden was right when he said it was time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans 32 years ago," Swalwell jabbed.
Biden responded: "I'm still holding onto that torch." 
Others on the stage Thursday night included Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who tried to elbow her way into the packed debate at times, Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, New York businessman Andrew Yang and author and social activist Marianne Williamson.
Thursday's session featured four of the race's top five candidate in national polling, including Biden's main challenger Sanders, the 77-year-old US senator whose high-spending policies like universal healthcare have pushed the party leftward in recent years.
The top tier also includes Harris and Buttigieg, who shot to prominence earlier this year but has seen that momentum tail off.
Biden endured attacks not just from the new generation but from the old guard. When Biden, questioned about his Senate vote in support of the Iraq war, insisted that he took responsibility for getting 150,000 combat troops out of Iraq, Sanders pounced.
"Joe voted for that war, and I helped lead the opposition to that war, which was a total disaster."
Biden, seeking a recovery in his closing remarks, called for restoration of "the "soul of the country. This president has ripped it out."
"We have got to unite the United States of America," he added.
All candidates savaged Trump for his immigration policy, including Senator Kirsten Gillibrand who said the president had "torn apart our moral fabric" by separating children.
Author Marianne Williamson, a surprise presidential candidate, offered a more scathing rebuke, likening the policies to "kidnapping" and child abuse.
"These are state-sponsored crimes," she said.
When all candidates raised their hand supporting undocumented immigrants' access to health care, Trump himself weighed in from Japan, where he is attending the G20 summit.
In a tweet he accused Democrats of supporting "giving millions of illegal aliens unlimited healthcare. How about taking care of American Citizens first!?"
Candidates savaged Trump on taxes, health care and income inequality, while debate also addressed whether the party should embrace a shift towards more liberal politics and government involvement in the economy on issues like health care and climate change.
Third place Elizabeth Warren, the rising star progressive US senator, was on Wednesday's stage, where she called out disparities in wealth and income and pledged to work to improve the lives of struggling working class families.
Sanders, a democratic socialist, covered the same ground Thursday, but he also acknowledged that, in a shift to his Medicare for All platform, Americans would have to pay more taxes.