MIAMI _ Joe Biden, after months of trying to stay above the campaign fray, joined his 2020 rivals in debate and immediately faced challenges on issues of race, his relationship with Republicans, his support for the Iraq war and the need for generational change in the party.
The former vice president, who has been front-runner in early polls, was thrown on the defensive Thursday by California Sen. Kamala Harris over his recent remarks sounding nostalgic about an era in the Senate when he could work civilly with segregationists.
In a rare flash of anger, Biden defended his record on civil rights including his opposition in the 1970s to federally ordered school busing for desegregation _ one of several occasions where he drilled down to defend his record over 40 years in Washington and the reputation of the Obama administration.
"If you want to have this campaign litigated on who supports civil rights ... I am ready to do that," he said.
It was a dramatic, personal challenge that overshadowed the expected clash between Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the democratic socialist who is his ideological foil and is running second among Democratic primary voters in most polls.
It was the second of two evenings of debates on MSNBC, under rules set by the Democratic National Committee, that marked the beginning of a new phase of the 2020 campaign that reached beyond the party's most politically active members to a broader electorate.
The debate also exposed divisions among the 10 candidates onstage Thursday night _ over healthcare, immigration and what it will take to beat President Trump in 2020. It was something of a free-for-all of cross-talk and interruptions, as candidates _ especially the lesser known ones _ struggled to be heard.
The scene got so unruly that at one point, Harris interjected, "America does not want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we are going to put food on their table."
Sanders set the pace for the party's left wing with his trademark call for dramatic change, including the expansion of Medicare for all Americans and free public college.
"We have a new vision for America," said Sanders. "We think it is time for change. Real change."
Sanders acknowledged he would impose higher taxes on the middle class but said it would be offset by the dramatically lower costs of healthcare under his plan to extend Medicare to all Americans. Still it was a statement that Republicans immediately seized on as ammunition to use against Democrats in the campaign.
"Bernie Sanders boasted that middle class Americans are going to have to pay more in taxes if his socialist policies are enacted," Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said on Twitter. "The contrast could not be clearer _ @realDonaldTrump cut taxes for the middle class, and Democrats want to tax middle class Americans into oblivion."
But Sanders made no apologies for his agenda, saying it would not doom the party's chances to beat Trump.
"The last poll had us 10 points ahead of Donald Trump," he said. "The American people understand Trump is a phony. Trump is a pathological liar and a racist...That's how we beat Trump. We expose him for the fraud that he is."
Biden, who has espoused more incremental approaches to economic and health policy, did not directly engage Sanders on these issues and brushed off a question about a comment he made at a recent fundraiser saying that the rich should not be demonized. He instead turned the focus to the president, as he has done throughout his campaign.
"Donald Trump thinks Wall Street built America," he said. "Ordinary middle class Americans built America."
A big question going into the debate was whether Biden would hold onto his status as the clear front-runner, or suffer from the comparison to younger and more liberal candidates.
Some of his answers were tangled or off point. When asked pointed questions, he often changed the subject. He was subdued until he came under attack by Harris and others, then he showed more passion _ especially when defending the record of the Obama administration, a cornerstone of his campaign resume.
Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, a long-shot candidate, took an early stab at challenging Biden on the broadest ground that his time to rule has come and gone. "It's time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans," said Swalwell.
Biden refused to take the bait. "I'm holding onto that torch," he said, but then went on to talk about education.
Sanders also criticized Biden for his support for the Iraq war, which Sanders opposed.
Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, another long shot candidate, criticized a major fiscal deal that Biden bragged of negotiating with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Bennet called the deal "a complete victory for the tea party" because it allowed most of the Bush-era tax cuts to be extended.
"That was a great deal for Mitch McConnell," Bennet said. "It was a terrible deal for America."
But no line of debate drew more heat and emotional than when the subject turned to race relations. Harris, one of two black candidates in the race, criticized Biden for recent comments about working with segregationist senators and his record decades ago of pushing through a compromise on school busing.
"It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and careers on segregation of race in this country," said Harris. "It was not only that. You also worked with them to oppose busing."
Harris reflected on her personal experience with busing, being part of a class that integrated an elementary school in Berkeley. She said the bill Biden championed undermined such progress in civil rights.
Biden responded angrily: "It is a mischaracterization of my position across the board."
He reflected on his career as a public defender and his work with President Obama, the nation's first black president, to advance civil rights.
He said his legislation on busing was designed just to get the federal Department of Education out of the equation, and leave decision making to local communities.
Harris pushed back in the tensest, most personal exchange of the debate.
"Do you agree today you were wrong to oppose busing in America?" Harris asked. He responded that it was just federally ordered busing he opposed, but Harris said that was unacceptable.
"There are moments in history where states fail to preserve the civil rights of all people," she said.
The back and forth on race had started with question for Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind., who has been struggling with his own controversy after a white police officer in his city shot and killed an African American man. Buttigieg's response to the incident has been attacked by both the African American community, which accuses him of not holding the police accountable, and the police, who accuse him of rushing to judgment.
"I can walk you through all the things I have done. But nothing I say will bring him back," he said of the man killed. "Until we move policing out from the shadow of systemic racism, we will be left with the problem that there is a wall of mistrust. It threatens the well being of every community."
The debate also brought into stark relief the deep division within the party over how to reform the healthcare system, even as many of the candidates tout the same slogan: Medicare for All.
Biden spoke forcefully about the need to build on, not scrap, the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, sharing with the audience his personal experience with the healthcare system as his late son battled cancer. He unequivocally rejected the idea, popular among progressives, that the nation should end private insurance and move to a single-payer system.
Sanders retorted forcefully that the current system is broken.
"The function of the healthcare system today is to make billions in profits for the insurance companies," he said. "We will have Medicare for All when tens of millions of people are prepared to stand up and tell the insurance companies and the drug companies their day is gone, that healthcare is a human right."
Buttigieg struck a middle ground, proposing a system of "Medicare for all who want it."
"For our primary care, we can't be relying on the tender mercies of the corporate system," he said.
All the candidates were asked if their plans for expanded healthcare would cover immigrants in the country illegally; the White House hopefuls all raised their hands. It was a moment that President Trump relished from halfway around the globe.
Trump, who was in a series of four tightly scheduled meetings with world leaders on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, claimed to have "just passed a television set" on his way to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He told reporters allowed into that meeting briefly that he "saw that maximum healthcare was given to 100% of the illegal immigrants coming into our country by the Democrats."
Hook reported from Washington and Halper reported from Miami and Times staff writer Michael Finnegan contributed from Los Angeles.
