Lisa: Is this the weirdest place you’ve ever selfied?
Booker: This is unbelievable, that we literally have a team of photographers behind us on a Ferris wheel in Iowa. This is really one of the more surreal moments of my life and — I’m glad we’re sharing, you as a reporter, me as a candidate, the surrealness of this moment.
Lisa: O.K., so did you change your message in the second debate?
Booker: No, no, no. Well, if you know me, first of all, we didn’t, like, sucker-punch. We didn’t, like, suddenly spring and attack. Criminal justice reform is an issue so personal to my journey. I’ve been talking about it since I was a law student and been working to overcome those crime bills from the ’80s and ’90s. And I was disappointed that he [Joe Biden] didn’t come out with a true speaking toward Three Strikes You’re Out, money to build prisons, change laws, didn’t talk to that, didn’t own the mistakes, and then didn’t put out a vision out for rolling back those things.
Lisa: Do you think you got a boost from that second debate?
Booker: I don’t really think about it in that terms. I think the second debate, generally, we definitely got a boost. But look, the way I did it, I think Vice President Biden and I were smiling. We were laughing. We were cordial — not even cordial. We were warm. He’s a person I respect and love, and I showed that.
Can we rock this? Do you think we can rock it? Can we do the roller coaster?
Lisa: All right. All right. Thank you for indulging us, Senator.
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What to read tonight
• The Trump administration on Monday announced that it would change the way the Endangered Species Act is applied. The changes significantly weaken the law, which is credited with rescuing the bald eagle and the grizzly bear from extinction.
• Robert Ballard found the Titanic beneath the Atlantic Ocean in 1985, but he’d given up on ever finding Amelia Earhart’s plane. Then one day, an old friend presented him with a startling clue.
• The Los Angeles Times recounts the story of how a journalist reunited identical twins: one stolen from China and raised in America, the other left with her birth family.