Now, the second night of the Democratic debates just ended.
And of the two nights,
this was the debate everybody was waiting for.
You know, if last night was a small lower back tattoo,
tonight was Mike Tyson's face!
Because, coming into tonight,
we all knew it was about beef.
REPORTER: The stage is set for a second heated showdown.
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris facing off just hours from now.
REPORTER 2: High stakes rematch. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
facing off again tonight
after her blistering attack in the first debate.
Biden vowing he won't be so polite this time.
Joe Biden telling donors it's no more Mr. Nice Guy.
I was probably overly polite in, uh, the way I didn't respond.
Yes, according to Biden, the last time he didn't do well
was because he was overly polite,
which is a convenient excuse for getting your ass handed to you.
I, uh... I used that same excuse
whenever I lost a fight in high school.
(crying): "The only reason he was able to shove me
in that locker is because I'm a gentleman."
So, in the buildup to tonight's debate,
the main story was Kamala Harris versus Joe Biden.
But because Cory Booker has also been going after Biden
for the past couple of weeks,
tonight's debate was set up for fireworks,
especially once we found out
where everyone would be standing on that stage.
REPORTER: Biden will find himself flanked
by Booker and Harris.
Biden standing in between two candidates
who have targeted him most,
Cory Booker, Kamala Harris.
And racial inequality could be a very big discussion.
Joe Biden is in an uncomfortable sandwich on that stage.
He's got on either side of him Kamala Harris and Cory Booker.
Yeah, Joe Biden, this was an unlucky draw, man.
Cory Booker on the one side,
Kamala on the other side, and he's in the middle.
It's like the world's most racially charged Oreo.
I feel like Joe Biden got on the stage
and just instinctively tried to lock his car doors.
He was like... (groaning)
"No attacks."
And if you tuned into the debate hoping to see conflict,
it didn't take long for you to get your wish.
Vice President Biden's campaign calls your plan
"a have it every which way approach."
Well, they're probably confused 'cause they've not read it.
There will be a public plan under my plan for Medicare
and a private plan under my plan for Medicare.
If you'll notice, there's no talk about the fact
that the plan, in ten years, will cost $3 trillion.
You will lose your employer-based insurance.
You can't beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan.
You're just simply inaccurate in what you're describing.
Your plan, by contrast,
leaves out almost ten million Americans.
So I think that you should really think
about what you're saying but be reflective and understand
that the people of America want access to health care.
That's right. Two minutes into the debate
and Kamala was already removing her earrings
and Biden was removing his hair plugs.
"Oh, it's on. It's on."
Now, this time, this time,
Biden and Kamala were arguing back and forth
about who had a stronger health care plan.
And compared, compared to the previous skirmish,
they were a lot more civil, as you saw.
You know? This was like a couple fighting
after the cops had told them to calm down, you know?
Just like, "No, I'm trying to keep my cool here,
"but your-your health care plan ain't shit,
just like your mama." (inhales sharply)
But other than that, other than that,
the health care debate was pretty civil tonight.
Again, the Democrats largely agreed
on the big picture of getting universal health care.
What they disagreed on is how to get there.
Biden proposed polishing Obamacare
and disrupting the system as little as possible.
Kamala wanted a Medicare plan that also incorporated something
that would include private insurance.
And Bill de Blasio, he just wanted to knock
the whole thing down, you know?
Just like he did to Tokyo.
So, to figure out
who had the best plan,
the Democrats got down to the numbers.
And I mean a lot of numbers.
Let's talk about math.
Let's talk about the fact that the pharmaceutical companies
and the insurance companies last year alone
profited $72 billion.
My plan costs $750 billion.
That's what it costs.
-Not $30 trillion. -Thank you, Mr. Vice...
That is 70%
of what the government will collect in taxes
over the next ten years.
20% of our economy,
one out of every five dollars spent, on health care.
I don't know what math you do in New York.
I don't know what math you do in California.
But I tell you, that's a lot of money.
"Hey, I'll tell you what kind of math we got in New York.
"Number one and number two, asshole!
"That's the kind of math we got here!
-'Ey!" -(cheering and applause)
I'm-- Can I be honest with you guys?
This, this is the part of the debate
where I think Democrats really need to get a whole lot better.
No one at home can keep up with all of these numbers.
40 billion, seven percent,
70% over ten years, 30 trillion,
three trillion when you compound the--
No, it's too complicated, all right?
It almost made me miss Donald Trump. Yeah.
Because when he does math, he just comes onstage like,
"Folks, we're gonna do numbers.
Best numbers, bigger numbers."
And everyone at home is like, "Yeah, numbers.
I guess there's numbers."
You got to find a middle ground.
So that was health care.
Then came immigration.
And just like last night,
the major question facing Democrats was
how would they deal with the crisis at the border,
most of them agreeing, again,
that they would try and find a more humane way
to treat asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.
But when they brought up President Obama's record
of mass deportations,
Joe Biden probably wished that he could have been deported
out of this debate.
Vice President Biden, I didn't hear your response
when the issue came up of all those deportations.
You were vice president of the United States.
I didn't hear whether you tried to stop them or not,
using your power, your influence in the White House.
The president came along, and he's the guy that came up
with the idea, first time ever, of dealing with the Dreamers.
He put-put that in the law.
I don't hear an answer from the vice president. I'm confused.
Mr. Vice President, you want
to be president of the United States.
You need to be able to answer the tough questions.
I guarantee you, if you're debating Donald Trump,
he's not gonna let you off the hook.
I was vice president. I am not the president.
I keep my recommendations to him in private, unlike you.
I would expect you would go ahead
and say whatever was said privately with him.
That is not what I do.
Oh, hold up.
Did Joe Biden just call Bill de Blasio a little-ass snitch?
(laughter)
That's-that's what he said, right?
Yeah. I hadn't realized Biden was so true to the streets.
He's like, "Uh, Mr. Mayor, unlike you, I protect my neck,
"'cause these bitches ain't loyal.
That's what I do."
So, this is where the debate got interesting, right?
Bill de Blasio sucker-punches Biden out of nowhere,
asking him why he let Obama deport so many people.
And just when Biden is trying to battle the giant of New York,
Cory Booker jumps in with the shiv.
Mr. Vice President, you can't have it both ways.
You invoke President Obama more than anybody in this campaign.
You can't do it when it's convenient,
-and then dodge it when it's not. -Right.
Yeah. Cory Booker makes a good point.
Joe Biden's really good at using Obama
when it'll help his résumé, but then, when it comes to something
that Obama wasn't really great at, all of a sudden,
Biden's like, "Obama? Obama?
"Is that the Irish guy-- Patty Obama?
Is that who? I think I've been to that pub."
And that Obama line was just the beginning, right?
Because after that, Cory went on full-on attack mode.
Senator Booker called your new criminal justice reform plan,
"An inadequate solution
to what is a raging crisis in our country."
Why is Senator Booker wrong?
Well, I don't... I think he is wrong.
I think we should work together. He has a similar plan.
I think that we should change the way we look at prisons.
We have a system right now that's broken,
and if you want to compare records--
and frankly, I'm shocked that you do--
uh, I am happy to do that.
There's a saying in my community.
"You're dipping into the Kool-Aid,
and you don't even know the flavor."
-(groaning, clamoring) -Uh, you need to...
-Whoa. -(hooting, whooping)
Yeah! You know what's cool about being black
is you can just make up phrases,
and white people don't know if it's real.
(laughter)
(applause and cheering)
'Cause we were watching the debate,
and every white person in the room just looked at me,
like, "Is that a thing? Is that...?"
Black people-- we can just say whatever.
Just be like, "Man, you better watch yourself,
"'cause right now, you deep frying a chicken.
but it ain't got no skin."
(laughter)
This is where Cory was in his element.
He had Biden on the ropes.
And he was always gonna have him on the ropes,
because Vice President Biden has been in politics for 50 years.
He is bound to have more baggage than anyone else.
It's not a fight that he could win.
And then, just when you thought
that Biden was the target of the night,
Tulsi Gabbard pops up from under the ring
and slams Kamala with the chair.
Senator Harris says she's proud of her record as a prosecutor
and that she'll be a prosecutor president,
but I'm deeply concerned about this record.
She put over 1,500 people in jail
for marijuana violations,
and then laughed about it when she was asked
-if she ever smoked marijuana. -(applause and cheering)
She blocked evidence...
She blocked evidence
that would have freed an innocent man from death row.
-And she fought to keep... -Thank you, Congresswoman.
...cash bail system in place
that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way.
Yeah, that was a rough moment for Kamala,
'cause while she was trying to come after Biden
for his history on criminal justice,
Tulsi Gabbard came after her for hers,
which isn't exactly the best record.
And you could see Kamala wasn't happy
in this moment, you know?
She was about to be like, "Tulsi, let me tell you
"a story about a little girl who got her ass beat,
and that little girl was you."
(laughter)
So now, you've got de Blasio coming after Biden,
Booker jumping in the middle, Gabbard hitting Kamala.
It was almost like
Quentin Tarantino wrote this part of the debate--
everyone killing everyone.
And then, just like yesterday,
while all the bigger candidates were fighting,
the smaller candidates used the little time they had
to try and break through with policy and ideas.
And tonight's Marianne Williamson
was Colorado senator Michael Bennet.
This is the fourth debate that we have had
and the second time that we have been debating
what people did 50 years ago with busing,
when our schools are as segregated today
as they were 50 years ago.
(applause and cheering)
I believe you can draw a straight line
from slavery through Jim Crow,
through the banking and the red-lining
to the mass incarceration that we were talking about
on this stage a few minutes ago.
But you know what other line I can draw?
88% of the people in our prisons dropped out of high school!
Let's fix our school system,
-and maybe we can fix... -Senator?
-...the prison pipeline that we have. -(applause and cheering)
(imitating South Park's Mr. Mackey): M'kay?
(laughter, applause)
Say what you want about him, but Mr. Mackey is right.
Instead of spending half of the debate
talking about laws written 50 years ago,
it would have been nice to hear more
about how the Democratic candidates plan
to fix America's problems today.
And I'll be honest with you.
It was really weird that the Democrats allowed themselves
to get sidetracked by side beefs
when they all also acknowledge that they have one common goal--
defeating public enemy number one.
But this pitting against progressives, against moderates,
saying one is unrealistic, and the other doesn't care enough--
that, to me, is dividing our party
and demoralizing us in face of the real enemy here.
I would take any Democrat on this stage
over the current president of the United States.
We cannot tear each other down.
We have to focus on beating Donald Trump.
Don't let the Republicans divide this party against itself.
We're gonna make America better than it's ever been
in the years to come.
-Let's do that together. -(applause and cheering)
Yeah, you see? It's weird. Everyone says that.
They all said they want to beat Donald Trump.
But here's the honest truth: if the Democrats spend
every single debate destroying each other,
by the time you get to a one-on-one with Donald Trump,
you'll already have done his work for him.
Yeah. 'Cause you'll get to the debate all discredited,
and he won't have to do anything.
He'll just come out and be like, "Guys, so many numbers.
So many numbers." We'll be right back.
(cheering)