about my record and position on racial justice including busing. i never, never, any, ever opposed voluntary busing. reporter: but the issue wasn t voluntary busing. it is the federal government stepping in to desegregate schools which biden repeatedly opposed. the one way to push civil rights in america further back is to promote busing because it s a bankrupt policy. reporter: in 2019, the policy isn t really about busing but a conversation about democrats and whether biden fits the moment as the party increasingly shifts to the left. the post-debate spotlight would have shined even brighter for harris if she wasn t still trying to clear up a political mess of her own, about whether she would abolish private health insurance. she and senator bernie sanders were the only candidates to raise their hands when asked if they would abolish private
public school. so they sent me to a catholic school. so kamala harris is not alone in this. so many people who have a story. but let s get to the issue of joe biden with this. that is a 70s mindset and even before the 70s. 2019, he has to do something to fix it. he s getting into the weeds as to if it is about the federal government, or if it is about the city council or the state, at issue is joe biden said he has a great record and got into politics trying to work with civil rights, civil rights is about integration. the federal government, as he talks about he didn t want the department of education to do busing, the federal government integrated the military, the federal government integrated federal work space and the federal government integrated the post office and if it weren t for the lead of the federal government other agencies like i might sit here talking to you, wolf blitzer.
license to continue to do what he s been doing. and we can count on it for the election in 2020. so based on what you know, why is the president seemingly in your word so cavalier about this issue when he meets with putin? that is of course a question of the hour. and has been for some time. the president s ambivalence about the russian interference, his deference to putin among other autocrats is something of a mystery. he s yet to call him out for the profound broad gauged and deep interference in our election in 2016. as you remember, it was not long ago, a few weeks ago, the president told abc news he would accept information on his politic political opponents from foreign governments and like russia or china and he might or might not and might also call the fbi, might not call the fbi. based on what you saw, based on the what we re seeing now at the
i did not oppose busing in america. what i opposed is busing ordered by the department of education. reporter: it was a performance even many admirers charitably describe as rusty with one ally telling kcnn he knows has to do better and now biden is trying to seize command over his long record which he struggled to do on the debate stage. i want to be absolutely clear about my record and position on racial justice, including busing. i never, never, never, ever opposed voluntary busy. reporter: but the issue wasn t voluntary busing it was desegregating schools which biden opposed. the way to set civil rights further back is to continue to push busing because it is a bact policy. reporter: in the 2020 campaign the controversy isn t about busing but a conversation about the direction of democrats and whether biden fits the
moment as the party shifts to the lift. the post debate spotlight would have shined brighter for harris if she wasn t trying to clean up a political mess alone about whether she supports abolishing private insurance. who here would abolish private health insurance in favor of a government-run plan. reporter: she now said she misunderstood the question insisting she was only talking about her personal plan, not those for millions of americans. it is an issue she s struggled to make clear since this moment at a cnn town hall in january. let s eliminate that and move on. reporter: so senator harris spent the day trying to explain that as vice president biden was trying to explain his civil rights record as well. wolf, all of the other candidates trying to make their case. one thing that has stood out from being in miami for a couple of days here, it is a very diverse democratic field. it is a ideological divide and generational divide. this race is just getting