The feud between Harris and Biden over his record on busing was the highlight of the first Democratic debate. Here's round two.
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00:00You have also been quite critical of Vice President Biden's policies on race, specifically
00:06on the issue of busing in the 1970s, having benefited from busing when you were a young
00:12child.
00:13Vice President Biden says that your current position on busing, you're opposed to federally
00:19mandated busing, that that position is the same as his position.
00:25Is he right?
00:26That is simply false.
00:28And let's be very clear about this.
00:30When Vice President Biden was in the United States Senate working with segregationists
00:35to oppose busing, which was the vehicle by which we would integrate America's public
00:41schools, had I been in the United States Senate at that time, I would have been completely
00:46on the other side of the aisle.
00:47And let's be clear about this.
00:49Had those segregationists their way, I would not be a member of the United States Senate.
00:54Cory Booker would not be a member of the United States Senate.
00:56And Barack Obama would not have been in a position to nominate him to the title he
01:00now holds.
01:02And so on that issue, we could not be more apart, which is that the vice president has
01:09still failed to acknowledge that it was wrong to take the position that he took at that
01:14time.
01:15Now, I would like to also talk about this conversation about Eric Garner, because I
01:19too met with his mother.
01:21And one of the things that we've got to be clear about is that this president of the
01:24United States, Donald Trump, while he has been in office, has quietly been allowing
01:29the United States Department of Justice to shut down consent decrees to stop pattern
01:34and practice investigations on that case.
01:36We also know that the Civil Rights Division, this is important, the Civil Rights Division
01:41of the United States Department of Justice said charges should have been filed.
01:44But this United States Department of Justice was usurped.
01:48And I believe it is because that president did not want those charges to go forward.
01:52And they overrode a decision by the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department
01:56of Justice.
01:57Under my administration, the Civil Rights Division will reign and there will be independent
02:01investigations.
02:02Vice President Biden, I want to give you a chance to respond to what Senator Harris just
02:04said.
02:06When Senator Harris was the attorney general for eight years in the state of California,
02:11there were two of the most segregated school districts in the country, in Los Angeles and
02:16in San Francisco.
02:18And she did not.
02:19I didn't see a single solitary time.
02:21She brought a case against them to desegregate them.
02:24Secondly, she also is in a situation where she had a police department when she was there
02:29that in fact was abusing people's rights.
02:32And the fact was that she in fact was told by her own people that her own staff that
02:37she should do something about and disclose to defense attorneys like me that you in fact
02:42have been the police officer did something that did not give you information would expropriate
02:47your your your client.
02:50She didn't do that.
02:51She never did it.
02:52And so what happened?
02:53Along came a federal judge and said, enough, enough.
02:56And he freed a thousand of these people.
02:58If you doubt me, Google a thousand prisoners freed Kamala Harris.
03:02Thank you, Vice President Biden and Senator Harris, your response.
03:06This is simply not true.
03:10And as attorney general of California, where I ran the second largest Department of Justice
03:14in the United States, second only to the United States Department of Justice, I am proud of
03:18the work we did, work that has received national recognition for what has been the important
03:22work of reforming a criminal justice system and cleaning up the consequences of the bills
03:27that you passed when you were in the United States Senate for decades.
03:32It was the work of creating the one of the first in the nation initiatives around reentering
03:37former offenders and getting them jobs and counseling.
03:39I did the work as attorney general of putting body cameras on special agents in the state
03:44of California.
03:45And I'm proud of that.
03:46I want to.