The Many Ways That Joe Biden Trips Over His Own Tongue

In the summer of 2003, a large crowd gathers in the state capital of South Carolina for a funeral of massive proportions. There’s a horse-drawn carriage that’s gliding through the street with a casket in the back, draped in an American flag.

Then the casket is brought in to a large church that’s ornately decorated with flowers and wreaths.

One by one people, step up to the microphone —

— and praised the man’s life and accomplishments.

The man that they’re there to eulogize is Senator Strom Thurmond, the longest serving member in the history of the U.S. Senate. He was a noted segregationist and open racist for much of his early career, including his opposition to the early Civil Rights Act in the 1960s and his opposition to the desegregation of schools. And so, because of that history, which made Senator Thurmond a controversial figure throughout his career, it’s a little surprising who comes to the microphone next to speak at his funeral.

It’s Senator Joe Biden.

There’s a lot of moments throughout Joe Biden’s longstanding political career that point to how he views the world. But this one, when he’s eulogizing Strom Thurmond, I think, is a unique insight to how he views himself as a bridge-builder, between Republicans and Democrats, between black communities and white communities, and sees himself as someone who sees the best in people and can bring that out of them, even as his own party and maybe sometimes his own supporters doubt it.

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Part 4 in our series on pivotal moments in the lives of the top four Democratic candidates for president. Today: Joe Biden. It’s Friday, December 20.

Astead Herndon, you pointed us to this moment when Biden is at Strom Thurmond’s funeral, eulogizing him, as particularly revealing of who he is as a candidate today. And we repeatedly invited Joe Biden to tell us his story himself, but of the four Democratic presidential candidates that we decided to profile, he’s the only one to have declined to participate. So where do you think that this story starts for Joe Biden?

Well, for Biden, I think the story starts in the 1960s, in Wilmington, Delaware.

After the assassination of Martin Luther King —

Wilmington was one of the cities that experienced riots that changed the landscape of the city forever. And those riots really built on the racial tension that was already existing in Delaware.

Now, folks may not know this, but Delaware has always had a pretty racially fraught history. The southern portions particularly have been compared to the more Confederate South. It would not be surprising, according to folks at the time, to see Confederate flags there. And it was one of the cities and regions that were deeply involved in the desegregation fights that culminated with Brown v. Board of Education. And in those northern portions of Delaware and the suburbs of Wilmington, you have the more liberal areas and the places that fuel the Democratic electorate. So Wilmington is caught in between those two worlds.

It’s in that tension, it’s in the context of that tension, that Joe Biden gets involved in politics.

And who is Joe Biden in this moment?

He was a lot of things. He was a son of Delaware and also someone who had legitimate relationships in black communities in Wilmington. That included longstanding friendships from his time as a lifeguard at the black swimming pool in town, but it also included relationships with civil rights activists, including the leaders who led some of the civil rights protests and marches for school desegregation.

Mm-hmm.

So when the city is going through this tumultuous period, Biden sees those relationships as something that makes him unique in the community and something that positions him to make change. So he decides to get involved in politics. He moves from law to run for the city council, and then later for the Senate in 1971.

And in that Senate race, he leans on those relationships to craft a new brand of politician in the state.

It’s a type of politician that is emblematic of generational change and can tell Wilmington, I’m not like those white politicians of the past.

I come from your community. I know your community. And I’ll legislate in your interest. That’s his pitch to voters, that in this time when there is legitimate tension between Wilmington and the rest of the state, between black communities and white communities, he’s someone who has good relationships in both. And that pitch to Delaware voters worked. Joe Biden was elected by a tiny margin, 50 to 49, and he came to the Senate to embody that new type of politician that he sold himself as. And as a new senator, he’s trying to figure out how to navigate a Washington that really runs on personal relationships at this time. Joe Biden, fresh and new, is trying to figure out what he can accomplish and also how he can serve those dual constituencies, the black and white communities, in Delaware. And one of the issues he decides to focus on is crime.

And why crime? Why that issue?

So since those riots in the ‘60s, there had been a fear around crime in Wilmington, some founded, some unfounded. But as you move throughout the decade, particularly through the ‘70s, there is a kind of more increasing nationwide focus on the presence of drugs —

— and an increasing violent crime rate. That is kind of a whisper in the ‘70s that grows to a full-blown chorus by the ‘80s.

There was a national panic around drugs and drug dealing. There was a national panic around violent crime. And this crosses racial lines.

Both white and black leaders were seeing their communities upended —

— seeing their communities really ravaged —

— and were looking for the federal government to intervene and do something about it.

So with this issue that cuts across race, Biden sees a political opportunity for himself and for the Democratic Party. For himself, he sees a chance to really hone in on an issue that can appease both black and white communities and insulate himself for what was going to be a tough re-election in the Senate. And for the Democratic Party, he thinks he can change the reputation that Democrats have as being soft on crime. He sees focusing on this issue as an opportunity to broaden the Democrats’ national appeal and actually become the leaders on reforming the criminal justice system.

So what does he actually do, now that he’s landed on this issue as his focus?

So Biden works his way onto the most important committee that focuses on this issue — the Senate Judiciary Committee. And for him to accomplish anything, he knows that he needs to have working relationships with Republicans, who, at this point, are in the majority and control the Senate. And the number one person who could impact Biden’s ability to pass legislation on the Senate Judiciary Committee is its chairman.

Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.

Strom Thurmond, like many conservative Republicans at the time, has that law and order streak —

— and has always thought that the way to kind of combat lawlessness was through the expansion of the prison system.

But let’s remember, Thurmond’s approach isn’t that unique in this era. Because of that national panic around crime and drugs, it’s not just conservatives who have that law and order mindset like Thurmond. But Democrats are coming around to that idea, too. And Biden is one of those people. So while Biden and Thurmond had different rhetoric, came from a different civil rights background, there is an agreement about the direction the criminal justice system needs to go. He agrees with Thurmond that a more punitive approach is necessary. And so Biden and Thurmond together start working on crime legislation.

So I get that for any Democrat to get anything done while they’re in the minority, they need to work with Republicans. But I’m wondering how Biden, someone who thinks of himself and talks about himself as a civil rights champion, thinks that this partnership with this particular Republican could end up being good for him, given Strom Thurmond’s well-known reputation on race.

Well, Biden has an incentive to grow his stature on Capitol Hill. That includes relationships with Republicans and most specifically, it requires him to have a working relationship with his partner on this important committee. But Biden is also making a lane for himself. He sees this as an opportunity for Democrats to make inroads on a very specific issue. So he’s willing to have this relationship with someone whose reputation might be controversial, because it is helpful for him. But let’s remember that Strom Thurmond gets something out of this, also. Instead of these issues being seen as completely partisan, or only being helmed by someone who has a checkered reputation on race, a sordid reputation on race, he now has a new face for the legislation. There is a civil rights lawyer from Delaware, someone with a good record in black communities, who can allow the legislation to move in a way that it probably wouldn’t have if it was just linked with the stench of Strom Thurmond’s racial history. So for both men, it’s a marriage of convenience. And this kind of partnership, it’s also just the way it worked back then. People had relationships because of votes, but also the collegiality, the old boys’ club-ness of it all. That’s just the way the Senate was.

So how did they approach this legislation once they decide that they are going to work together?

Well, they go big.

They don’t just try some incremental change to criminal justice. They propose something that is sweeping and bold. Something that would probably be the most significant overhaul of the criminal justice system in decades. In 1982, they proposed legislation that would target almost every area of the criminal justice system. It would limit access to bail and parole for those who had been arrested. It would create much tougher sentences for those who are convicted of crimes. And it would just overall expand the government’s ability to pursue the war on drugs. And the bill passes the Senate by a huge margin, 95 to 1.

Wow.

And so with this legislation, Biden is able to bring the Democrats along with him on what has typically been seen as a conservative approach to the criminal justice issue.

So the Democrats, following Joe Biden’s lead, are now fully embracing this law and order legislative agenda?

Yeah. And it shows the power of the relationship between Joe Biden and Strom Thurmond. So from there, the bill heads to President Reagan’s desk, who campaigned for the Oval Office on the tough-on-crime agenda.

So Biden and Thurman feel confident in the president’s signature. But Reagan vetoes it. He thinks that some of the measures are just too much of a federal government intrusion into the criminal justice space.

So this is a big defeat.

Well, on one hand, it is. The president killed their big bill, their sweeping overhaul of criminal justice. But on the other hand, it is a real testament to their partnership and what they can achieve by reaching across the aisle. And it signals a real path forward for Biden. It shows that through building bridges, he can bend the Senate to his will.

We’ll be right back.

So after this 1982 bill fails, but with this partnership very well established, how do Biden and Thurmond move their agenda forward?

So even though their big legislation fails, they know they have support in Congress for the idea.

So they try to pass each of the major planks of the legislation. They just do it in separate parts.

So having failed to do it all in one big package, they try to do these same reforms piecemeal?

Right. And they’re successful at it.

They start with mandatory minimums —

— which places a baseline amount of time that someone has to spend in prison for a drug crime.

They also create a sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, which are the same drug. Just one is cheaper and more widely available. It meant that people who were caught using crack, the more street-level version, were treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than people who were caught using powder cocaine.

And then they keep going.

They put something in place which is called civil asset forfeiture.

And what it means is that the government can take your property if they suspect that you’ve used it while committing a crime.

And most dramatically —

They reinstate the death penalty on the federal level. And the legislation specifies that it can be applied to drug trafficking.

So through pieces of small legislation, they accomplish the overall overhaul that they initially set out to do. And Joe Biden has successfully changed the Democratic Party’s reputation on the issue of crime.

By the ‘90s, you have a Democratic Party that has completely shifted on criminal justice.

And the biggest evidence for that shift is Bill Clinton, the Democratic nominee in 1992.

He is saying, I’m going to legislate kind of tough on crime.

And those aren’t just empty words. It is backed by a series of legislation, helmed by Biden, which give Democrats real credence to say that we are now the tough-on-crime party.

And once Clinton wins —

— he wants to deliver on that campaign promise of tough-on-crime legislation.

And so, his natural partner in this is Joe Biden, because Biden has had a decade’s worth of practice building consensus on this issue.

So Clinton is tapping Biden to follow through on Clinton’s campaign promise on criminal justice. And that’s going to further the Democratic Party’s agenda to be this party that is tough on crime.

Exactly. And what’s important about this time is that Democrats are now in the majority. So unlike the ‘80s, when there was Strom Thurmond leading the Judiciary Committee, it is now Biden at the helm. And that gives him a unique space of power in which to operate. He is able to implement those lessons of consensus-building between Democrats and Republicans and apply them as the head of the Judiciary Committee. And so with that power and with those skills, he is now able to craft the most significant legislation of his Senate career, the 1994 crime bill.

And it passes.

With big bipartisan support.

It provides billions in funding to increase the amount of police officers on the street, to build new prisons in states, and it incentivizes states to create harsher sentences on drug crimes. But it does include some measures that are more progressive, that try to stop people from committing crimes in the first place. It includes money for alternative measures that aren’t prison.

It also includes the Violence Against Women Act —

— which focuses on preventing domestic violence. And it includes an assault weapons ban, a rare rebuke to the National Rifle Association.

But let’s be clear. While there are some progressive measures, this is a continuation of that tough-on-crime approach we saw from Biden in the ‘80s.

So what does this moment represent for Biden?

This 1994 bill is the political culmination of what Biden set out to do in Washington. It’s now that Biden has solidified himself as the bridge-builder between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate, particularly on criminal justice. And Biden’s no longer reliant on a Republican like Strom Thurmond to get this legislation done. In fact, Strom Thurmond votes against the 1994 crime bill, citing some of those progressive measures. But Biden is able to get it passed anyway, because he’s moved the Democratic Party along with him, and because he has his own relationships with Republicans to be able to win over some of those votes. It’s a full-circle political moment from where Biden started in the ‘70s. He is no longer learning from some of the Senate wheelers and dealers of the past. This is now Biden’s political brand.

So this is a major accomplishment. And it’s clear evidence that Biden can bridge the parties in Washington. But you also told us that Biden’s focus on criminal justice was also about this desire to serve both the black and white communities in Delaware. So did that work?

Depends on how you slice it. Politically, it worked well. He keeps getting re-elected. And he does so with significant support in both black and white communities in Delaware. Tons of people love him. But that is not universal. There were definitely people, as early as the ‘80s, who were saying that this criminal justice overhaul that was led by Biden would have particularly devastating effects in black communities.

And now, we have a lot of evidence that those people have been proven correct.

You can’t overstate what the war on drugs did to black communities.

There are 10 times more people in jail for drug offenses by 2017 than there were in 1980.

The longer sentences for crack disproportionately hurt people of color, specifically black people. And the white drug users, who were often arrested using cocaine, got away with shorter prison sentences for what was essentially the same drug.

The amount of police on the streets meant constant surveillance of communities and report after report of police brutality.

And what that has is a real human effect on these communities. These aren’t just numbers. These are lives.

So families are disrupted. Community leaders are gone. And the whole structure of government’s relationship, particularly in black communities, is forever upended.

So the impact of this legislation has been devastating, particularly for communities of color. It’s been so bad, in fact, that both Democrats and Republicans have largely moved away from many of these positions and agree that the measures were overly punitive. Joe Biden himself has changed positions on a number of these issues and is now arguing the exact opposite of the legislation that he passed in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. He is against the death penalty. He is against mandatory minimums. He wants to eliminate the disparity between crack and cocaine in sentencing. But here’s the thing. While he disavows the policies that were put in place as a result of this legislation, he does not disavow the politics that helped produced these policies. Biden sees the bipartisanship across our relationships, the bridge-building that produced the legislation in the ‘80s and ‘90s, as foundational to his vision of politics. And it’s a view of Washington that says what’s most valuable is bringing people together.

And it’s that belief that leads him to eulogize Strom Thurmond in 2003.

And when I listen to this eulogy, it strikes me that Biden’s political vision is also a personal one.

Different from most politicians, it’s not just that he thinks bipartisanship is important because it can make things happen in the legislative context. He sees reaching across parties and reaching across communities as a necessary thing to actually personally transform people.

He has chosen to believe that if you do the hard work of reaching across the aisle, you won’t just get a policy to happen, but you can make someone better. You can transform the soul of an individual, but also of Washington, and in turn, the country.

That’s why you hear him talking so much about civility in this campaign.

His slogan is, “Restoring the soul of America.”

He is evoking an era in which consensus-building and cross-aisle relationships were the order of the day. And the promise of his candidacy is to bring that time back. But that is coming into conflict with a growing wing of the party that is more concerned around ideals than process. It is their argument that for too long, Democrats have been concerned with reaching across the aisle to build Republican support, and should be thinking about how to overcome them to produce the big solutions that they desire.

Right. The left wing of the Democratic Party, which is very skeptical of Joe Biden, says you cannot separate this instinct of his, this kind of bipartisan politics and dealmaking, however noble it is in intention, from the policies that those politics have produced, and from their real-world impact, which, in the case of criminal justice reforms, were devastating. And Biden seems to be saying, actually, you can separate them and you should separate them. Don’t fixate on one bill or one legislative partner that I had in the Senate. Focus on the tactics and the tone. And imagine a world where those are used for whatever it is you want to get done, because that’s what it actually takes to get big things done in Washington.

Right. But here’s why the left disagrees. The left’s evidence for their criticism is not in the 1970s or ‘80s or ‘90s, the time in which Biden was in the Senate. They point to the last Democratic president. They say that Barack Obama tried to use the same type of strategies to reach out to Republicans to try to build consensus. And in this era of polarization, of partisanship, of divisiveness, that it didn’t work. This is the central question that the Biden candidacy is asking of Democrats — can the bridge-building still apply in this era? Or, with the tone that has been set in Washington, is it more important for Democrats to orient themselves around ideals and around making big things happen, no matter if Republicans are included in that solution or not? Biden chooses to believe something different. That even in this era, even with this tone, that restoring the collegiality and consensus-building of Washington should still be the priority of any president. He believes that if you create a Washington that is more civil, then that could be more transformative than any particular policy could ever be.

Astead, thank you very much.

Thank you.

We’ll be right back.

Here’s what else you need to know today.

On Thursday, just hours after impeaching President Trump, House Democratic leaders raised the possibility of withholding the articles of impeachment from the Senate indefinitely, in order to negotiate better terms for a trial or avoid a trial altogether.

But Democratic leaders, including Majority Whip James Clyburn on CNN, predicted that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would hold a rushed and biased trial that would quickly exonerate Trump without seeking or introducing any new evidence. By not transmitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate, the Democrats can stall a trial for weeks or even months until they get the kind of trial that they want.

Senate Republicans, including Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, called the tactic a form of legislative extortion.

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That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.