Biden and Democratic Rivals Spar Over Policies
VIVIAN SALAMA, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: -- aggressive with his competitors about certain issues. And so we were seeing him ramp up on issues like criminal justice where a lot of his competitors actually say that he is responsible for a lot of the mass incarcerations because of the 1994 criminal justice bill. And so he's having to defend himself but to also go after their records on these issues. Same thing with Medicare for All and he's trying to find the gaps in that, as well as foreign policy issues. And so, yes, definitely starting to kind of gear up for next week's debates but going after some of these people that he feels will target him.</s>KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And he's also polling very poorly. So he realizes that that helped give Kamala a boost and he is seeking something similar to that. This fight has also kind of been brewing for a while between the two of them, Cory Booker and Joe Biden because remember, after Joe Biden talked about working with the segregationist senators, they got into that scuffle where Cory Booker was like you should apologize. Joe Biden was like no, you should apologize to me. Well, they didn't get the chance to have their moment because they weren't on the debate stage together and now they will be. So it seems like it's going to come to ahead.</s>JOHN KING, CNN HOST: And nice always ends. Remember, the 2016 Republican primary was never nice once Trump got in. That the nicknames and insults came in. Sanders/Clinton was not nice. Obama/Clinton was not nice. So this had to happen at some point, ambition ends nicely even if you're really friends.</s>MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: The thing is, John, I mean, you're actually heading on an important point because when you were talking about Sanders versus Clinton, this race is wide open, it really is. I mean, that was the lesson of the last debate. Is, you know, Booker is taking the shot because there is a path for Booker. He is polling low but there is an opportunity, it doesn't necessarily mean he'll hit it but he could. And I think that you are going to see Biden has some of the same -- that's why I think you're talking about this. Biden has similar challenges that Hillary Clinton had with Black Lives Matter protesters in her 2016 race where she found herself on really the wrong side of a generational issue where there had been a civil rights issue that had changed a lot over time. Biden is obviously not going to be as complacent as he was last time. I think that's been drilled into him. But that doesn't mean we know what this is going to look like for him either.</s>KING: Right. And the question is does it actually happen on the debate stage.</s>HABERMAN: Right.</s>KING: What candidates often, you know, say on television interviews, say in one speech when it's just them, they get more aggressive. And then they're standing side by side, and it will be Biden in the middle, Booker on one side, Harris on the other one. We'll see if it plays out but if you listen to Senator Booker in recent days, the vice president is target one.</s>SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm disappointed that it's taken Joe Biden years and years until he was running for president to actually say that he made a mistake. That there were things in that bill that were extraordinarily bad. Now that he's unveiled his crime bill, for a guy who helped to be an architect of mass incarceration, this is an inadequate solution to what is a raging crisis in our country.</s>KING: And again, you can tell the vice president, former vice president is preparing. He says Senator Booker, you want to talk records? Then let's talk records.</s>JOE BIDEN (D-DE), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you look at the mayor's record in Newark, one of the provisions that I wrote in the crime bill of pattern and practice of misbehavior, his police department was stopping and frisking people, mostly African-American men. If he wants to go back and talk about records, I'm happy to do that, but I'd rather talk about the future. I'm happy to debate with anybody the effects of the things that I did as a United States senator, as I did as a vice president. I'm anxious to have a debate with Senator Booker.</s>KING: He doesn't sound very anxious. You do get -- in the week before a debate when candidates talk to reporters, you get their briefing books. They started today just talk about what they've been reading and what they've been preparing. So it's clear he's been studying Senator Booker's record, it's clear in recent days he's been studying Kamala Harris' record as a prosecutor out in California so that he can exchange fire. He does not seem terribly energized by the prospect of fighting his fellow Democrats, but he has to, given his slide in the polls, right?</s>HEATHER CAYGLE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Yes. And I think this is an evolution for Biden because when he first came out he acted like he was the only Democratic candidate and Trump was the only opponent of his. And now after the segregationist comments, he had to respond to Booker. And ever since then, we've seen him kind of punch Booker and Harris on various things. And I think he's realized that he can't just be the presumed frontrunner and not respond to these criticisms from his fellow Democratic candidates.</s>SALAMA: A lot is also responding to the changes within the Democratic Party itself. President Obama remains very popular within the Democratic Party, but the party is also changing. And a lot of his opponents actually reflect those changes and so he's having to juggle the two where he's trying to also stay true to his roots with the Obama administration but also to communicate to this changing tide within the party itself.</s>KING: And you have this fierce competition for the Democratic base, African-American voters. And if you go back to 2008 and early on, that was all for Hillary Clinton. Even though Senator Obama was in the race, because nobody thought he was ready yet, nobody thought he was viable. Once he proved he was viable, the floodgates open. And so that's why you have Senator Harris and Senator Booker saying look at me, but they need to prove themselves. And that's why you have -- this is former vice president Biden on the Tom Joyner show again targeting African-American voters saying I guess I'm going to have to mix it up with Kamala Harris too.</s>BIDEN: I thought we were friends. And I hope we still will be. You know, she asked me to go out -- called me and asked me to go to her convention and be the guy from outside of California to nominate her at her convention for the Senate seat. I did. We've talked, we worked a lot together. She and my son Beau were attorneys general who took on the banks.</s>KING: She did invite him for the California convention. There's no nominating piece of that, so there's a factual discrepancy there. But again, he says I guess I'm going to have to -- he doesn't sound enthusiastic about the challenge he faces next week, which is, stand your ground, defend your past, but then pivot and don't be afraid to attack.</s>HABERMAN: He sounds like he wants to keep talking about being victimized by her which I have to say at a certain point is going to annoy voters, specifically women voters. Why would he think that she's not going to fight for the race that she entered because they were once friendly at a convention?</s>KING: Right.</s>HABERMAN: Just making a point.</s>KING: Friends and nice as we have learned. Pay attention to any campaign, friends and nice gives a way to ambition every time. That's how it works. As we go to break, some insight from some of those African-American voters. This is from yesterday's NAACP presidential candidate forum in Detroit.</s>DORETHA BROOKS, FLORIDA VOTER: Joe Biden is of my era, OK. And I think he has been second in command for quite a while.</s>JACKIE VICKERS, FLORIDA VOTER: I am leaning more towards Cory Booker. I just felt like he has that determination.</s>TERRI HUGHES, UTAH VOTER: Bernie Sanders really -- I hear that if he gets elected we won't have any more student debt so I'm cool with Bernie Sanders.