Cory Booker said Saturday there was no ‘hatchet’ to bury with Joe Biden and offered the former vice president his ‘respect and gratitude.’
‘I don’t think there is a hatchet,’ Booker told reporters at the South Carolina Democratic state convention.
‘I did what I think is the people you do with people you love and care about, which is you speak truth to them. So there’s no hatchet. I have a lot of respect and gratitude for the vice president and I want folks to know I’ve got nothing to do to apologize for speaking truth to power and he’s a powerful person,’ he added.
Cory Booker said Saturday there was no ‘hatchet’ to bury with Joe Biden and offered the former vice president his ‘respect and gratitude.’
Joe Biden called for unity and the defeat of Donald Trump
He said no one owed anyone an apology.
‘I hope that our candor with each other will always help to make each other better servants of the people,’ said Booker, the first African American to serve as a senator from New Jersey.
Booker, who criticized Biden for invoking the name of two segregationist senators in a speech on working with the opposition and called on him to apologize, took on a notable new tone Saturday.
He spent the weekend calling for unity as did Biden.
Both men emphasized those themes in their speech to the African American heavy crowds at the state convention and at Representative James Clyburn’s fish fry on Friday night.
‘We have to unite this country. We have to unite. That’s the only way we’re going to be able to harness this,’ Biden told the delegates on Saturday, referring to the energy in the room.
Most of 20 Democratic contenders went after Trump in their speeches. No one attacked another candidate directly in a day that stressed party unit.
‘We have to beat Donald Trump – that’s the overwhelming imperative that we have,’ Biden said.
Booker echoed a similar call.
‘Beating Donald Trump is the floor not ceiling,’ Booker told the crowd and he went on to talk about his policy platform: healthcare as a right for all Americas, a living wage, and supporting public education.
His words grew more fiery and his speech grew louder as he made an impassioned plea for people to vote in 2020.
He also recounted how a man in Iowa asked him to punch President DonaldTrump in the face.
‘I said hey man, that’s a felony,’ he said.
‘We will not beating Donald trump by his tactics,’ Booker intoned.
Pete Buttigieg reminded delegates the party would not beat President Trump with his own tactics
Kamala Harris entered the convention with a drum line of supporters
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg sounded a similar theme in his remarks.
‘We are not going to win by going on the president’s show,’ he said. ‘I know it’s massively entertaining. Is it a game show? Is it a reality show? It’s a horror show.’
Elizabeth Warren noted she wasn’t in South Carolina to trash talk the competition.
‘I’m not here to criticize other Democratic candidates,’ she told reporters at a Planned Parenthood Action Fund forum – days after the most significant intra-party flare-up. ‘I’m here to talk about why I’m running for president.’
The candidates made a lot of noise – literally – as they came into the hall for the Democratic state convention in South Carolina on Saturday.
Part of the festivities of the weekend involves making an entrance – which the contenders cheerfully took pat of.
Kamala Harris danced with a drum line that played as she rode down the escalator into the convention center.
Booker strode over to the convention center with a group of shouting, cheering supporters, singing out his name ‘C-O-R-Y, Cory, Cory, Cory.’
And Beto O’Rouke came in with a crowd of his own – shouting and waving his black and white Beto signs – and took a swig from a large cup handed to him by a supporter.
His supporters gathered on-stage behind him while he spoke – and an emcee had to turn up music to get him off the stage.
Beto O’Rourke paused for a sip as he and his supporters rushed the convention hall
It’s a tradition for the candidates to make some noise as they arrive at the convention
Bernie Sanders had a gaggle of supporters with him on stage during his remarks – the only candidate to make such a move – including author Cornel West and actor Danny Glover.
The Vermont senator delivered an attack on a centrist think tank whose head called him an ‘existential threat’ to the Democratic Party.
Sanders, who is running second in national Democratic Party polling, took on his ideological critics days after giving a speech in defense of democratic socialism.’
‘I was called quote an existential threat to the Democratic Party,’ Sanders said.
‘Why am I an existential threat?’ he asked. ‘Maybe its because my administration will finally take on the insurance companies and the drug companies and pass a Medicare for all’ bill, he said.
Bernie Sanders brought supporters on stage with him – the only contender to do so
Rev. Jesse Jackson said Sanders could win in South Carolina
‘Maybe it’s because we’re going to break up the major banks on Wall Street and lower interest rates for consumers,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s because we’re going to take on the fossil fuel industry,’ added Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats and who challenged Hillary Clinton for the party’s nomination in 2016.
Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was on hand for some of the speeches, said Sanders, who backed his own 1988 race for president, could ‘technically’ win in the state. But the South Carolina native listed others as favorites.
‘Kamala has a strong support base here. Booker does,’ Jackson told DailyMail.com, also mentioning Warren and Biden as doing well.
Jackson acknowledged Sanders’ past support, but indicated it might not end up being reciprocal.
‘I support him very much for that. But that was not binding,’ he said.
But Jackson defended the word ‘socialism,’ which is attached to Sanders.
‘I know how to take on predators,’ she told delegates here in Columbia, South Carolina.
Joe Biden defended his record on women’s issues at a Planned Parenthood Action Fund forum in South Carolina
‘It really means the same thing. We shouldn’t be confused about the language. Interstate highway is social. Military is social. The bridges, the roads the highways are social[ism],’ he said.
‘They keep trying to hammer him across the head with that word.’
Harris, a former prosecutor, ran down what she termed the ‘rap sheet’ of President Donald Trump, and told South Carolina Democratic delegates that ‘I know how to take on predators.’
She did not mention, however, Friday’s extraordinary account by a writer E. Jean Carroll who claims Donald Trump raped her inside a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s.
‘I know how to take on predators,’ she told delegates here in Columbia, South Carolina.
‘I took on the big banks,’ she continued. ‘I took on for profit colleges and put them out of business … I took on transactional criminal organizations who are praying on women and children. I know how to get that job done and I did it for the people,’ she continued.
Earlier Saturday, Biden defended his record on women’s issues at a Planned Parenthood Action Fund forum after he flip-flopped on his support for a ban on tax payer funding for abortions.
WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER: The 21 Democratic presidential candidates along with SC Rep. Jim Clyburn take the stage during ‘Jim Clyburn’s World Famous Fish Fry’ in Columbia, South Carolina, U.S., June 21, 2019
The former vice president grew defensive asked about his ‘mixed’ record on reproductive rights.
‘I’m not sure about the mixed record part. I’ve had a 100 percent voting record with you,’ he told the female heavy crowd.
Biden explained his decision to flip on his support for the Hyde amendment, legislation that forbids government funds to be used in abortions.
‘It became really clear to me that although the Hyde amendment was designed to split the difference here and make sure women still had access, you can’t have access, and in fact, have everyone covered by a federal policy,’ he said, adding that was why ‘I announced that I can no longer continue to abide by the Hyde amendment.’
Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bill de Blasio all expressed support for guaranteeing the legality of abortion by codifying Roe vs. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized the procedure – which was a popular stance with the crowd.
Warren told the crowd it was ‘time to go on offense with Roe v. Wade’ by codifying it.
She also called for the Hyde Amendment to be repealed.