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Biden gives up instead of finishing answer on race record

He was roundly criticized online.

Photo of David Covucci

David Covucci

biden debate

If there’s one thing that a presidential candidate has never done in the history of debates, it is ceding their time when the light goes on. And if you watched the past two days of Democratic debates, you saw harried moderators frantically trying to silence candidates still speaking after their allotted minute expired.

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That is unless you are Joe Biden defending yourself against your work with segregationist senators, and your votes against bussing, while getting grilled by Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).

In the debate’s biggest exchange, Harris pressed Biden on his record, and Biden offered a vociferous defense, until… he didn’t.

“I supported the [Equal Rights Act] for the beginning,” Biden said. “I’m the guy who extended the Voting Rights Act for 25 years, we got to the place where we got 98 out of 98 votes in the U.S Senate doing it. I’ve also argued very strongly, in fact, that we deal with the notion of denying people access to the ballot box. I agree that everybody once they [gibberish] anyway my times up.”

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It may be the first time a candidate’s done something like that, and doing so, while defending his policies on race, was criticized online.

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In the wake of Biden’s spat with Harris, a Biden aide went on the offensive, calling her attacks “exactly what Donald Trump wants.”

https://twitter.com/jljacobson/status/1144453426299850754

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https://twitter.com/CristobalJAlex/status/1144428987596324865

Biden will have plenty of more time to answer that question, as there are still seven more months until the first primaries.

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