Everyone Had a Great Time Dunking on Joe Biden About Immigration

Former HUD Secretary Julián Castro and Vice President Joe Biden used to attend the same cabinet meetings under Barack Obama, but on Wednesday night, the two went head to head over immigration laws. Spoiler alert: Biden got his ass handed to him for sounding like a Republican.

Castro, who dressed down Beto O’Rourke in the last round of debates for not supporting his push to decriminalize crossing the border, came under fire from Biden tonight for the same thing. After jabbing at Castro that Biden “never heard him talk about any of this when he was secretary”—of Housing and Urban Development, Joe—Biden made a hard right turn.

“The fact of the matter is, if you cross the border illegally, you should be able to be sent back,” Biden said, just moments after protesters were thrown out of the debate hall for calling out the nearly three million deportations under Obama. “It’s a crime. It’s a crime.”

Castro shot back: “It looks like one of us has learned the lessons of the past, and one of us hasn’t.” Later, Castro said that “politicians need to have guts on the issue,” to which Biden responded that he has “guts enough to say his plan doesn’t make sense.” Good one, Joe.

Then, Bill de Blasio piled in too, pushing Biden repeatedly to say what he did to reduce the millions of deportations carried out while he was vice president. Biden’s answer was shaky, to say the least. And then Cory Booker slammed him too.

Aside from everyone getting a nice dunk on the former vice president, it was a good glimpse into what Biden would look like in a general election against Trump: desperately trying to outflank him on the right on pretty much everything.