Ten more Democrats will debate on Wednesday evening in Detroit, Michigan, in CNN’s presidential debate.
The presidential candidates on stage tonight include: New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), entrepreneur Andrew Yang, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO).
Dana Bash, Jake Tapper, and Don Lemon will moderate again.
Stay tuned to Breitbart News for live updates. All times eastern.
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Many on the left not happy CNN obsessed over minutiae and pitted Dems against each other… and Obama!
Van Jones with some high praise for Warren:
CNN makes Harris watch Gabbard destroying her. Harris throws shade and says that was expected from someone polling at 0% and brings up her Gabbard’s ties to Assad:
Most questions directed at Biden, Harris. Zucker doing his best to turn the debates into The Contender.
Bill Maher:
Tulsi dominates:
Sanders campaign calling out Biden:
Van Jones analyzes the debate:
What in the world is Stacey Abrams thinking right now?
Team Trump:
This was a good debate for Warren after last night’s performance.
10:35 PM: Candidates now giving closing statements:
Biden again says we’re in a battle for the soul of America. He says four years of Trump will go down as an aberration. He says eight years of Trump = the America we know will no longer exist. Biden then kind of fudges the number he wants viewers to text.
Harris says she has prosecuted big banks who preyed on homeowners and for-profit colleges and transnational criminal organizations and again says Trump is a predator who preys on people they think are weak and vulnerable. She says predators are cowards and what we need is someone who can prosecute the case against four more years… she says she has a long rap sheet.
Booker talks about the “defiant love” of Detroit. He speaks about his family’s history in Detroit. He says the dream of this country is under threat right now— millennials no longer guaranteed to do better than their parents. Booker says the way we beat Trump is to not focus on him but to understand there are common bonds to address common problems. He says he wants to put more indivisible into this one nation under God. He asks viewers to go to his website and join the mission.
Yang rips the media for talking more about his lack of a neck tie than automation. He says the game-show environment is why the country elected a reality tv star as president. He says the country needs to be focused on automation, jobs, ability of Americans to pay their bills. He says it’s not left, right, but forward and asks voters who are more concerned about their own lives than his neckwear to visit his website, enter their zip codes, and see what $1,000/month can do for their zip codes.
Castro says this election is about what kind of nation we are going to become. He says Trump has not been “bashful in cruelty” and he is not going to be bashful in his “compassion” and common sense.
Gabbard — She speaks about the “warmonger’s hoax” and there being “no shelter” when she got a false missile warning in Hawaii… Gabbard against talks about redirecting resources used for the military industrial complex to rebuild the country–investing in infrastructure, education, etc.
Gillibrand — Trump has torn apart the moral fabric. She’s running because she wants to help people and has the experience to do that. She brought Congress together and she can beat Trump because she has called him out on his broken promises in his backyard. She says she has never lost an election since winning a House seat in a red district.
10:30 PM: Castro argues that Democrats should impeach Trump because if they don’t Trump can claim in 2020 that he is innocent. Castro says if the House impeaches Trump and “Moscow Mitch” lets Trump get away with it, this will help Democrats at the ballot box with voters.
10:25 PM: Booker, Castro use questions about the Mueller report to again call for impeachment. De Blasio says Trump has committed crimes worthy of impeachment but American people want politicians to do more to improve their lives. He talks again about the wealthy paying their fair share in taxes, doing the people’s business. “The best impeachment is beating him in 2020,” he says.
10:17 PM: On Iran, Yang talks about reentering the Iran agreement with new timelines. Yang pivots to rail against forever wars America has been in for the last 18 years and says it’s time to bring Americans back home.
Inslee says he made the right judgment on the Iraq War… not-so-subtly implies Biden made the wrong decision without saying his name.
Tapper says it’s obvious Inslee was talking about Biden. Biden says he made a “bad judgment” trusting George W. Bush. He says he was “opposed to the effort” the moment “shock and awe” started. Biden says Obama told him to “get our combat troops out” and says he opposed the surge in Afghanistan.
Tapper now brings in Gabbard. “We were all lied to,” Gabbard says. “This is the betrayal to the American people.” She says she enlisted after 9/11 to go after those who attacked us but was betrayed with bogus WMB claims. She accused Trump of supporting al Qaeda (?) and betraying the American people. No follow up question at all.
De Blasio tries to get his opinion in on Iran but Lemon cuts him off and prevents De Blasio from gaming the format.
10:15 PM: Gillibrand takes her shot at Biden and accuses him of believing that women working outside of the home lead to the deterioration of the family based on an op-ed Biden wrote. Biden says he was opposing giving child care credits to families making more than $100,000 in today’s dollars and mentions that his wives have worked outside the home. He says Gillibrand praised him for being a champion for women at Syracuse and Biden says the only thing that has changed is she is running for president.
Harris then whacks Biden for his support of the Hyde Amendment. She says she is confused why it took Biden so long to change his mind on it.
Yang makes the case for the freedom dividend being a women’s rights issue because it would enable women trapped in their jobs because they need the money freedom to start business, leave abusive relationships etc.
10:00 PM: Bash brings up the record-low unemployment numbers of Latinos and wonders if Castro’s tax increases will hurt the economy. Castro says the notion that America is doing fine is wrong. He blasts Trump for taking credit for the economy when we’ve had 105 straight months of job growth. He says “thank you Barack Obama” for the good economy.
Bash strangely asks a Chamber of Commerce-approved question about how the TPP supposedly was meant to combat the rise of China (it would have emboldened China). Gabbard doesn’t accept the premise and talks about fair trade deals with other countries where America doesn’t lose its sovereignty.
On tariffs, Gabbard is against Trump’s tariffs because there is no strategy behind them.
Biden says he would renegotiate the TPP and not rejoin it “as it was initially put forward.”
9:50 PM: Tapper asks Biden if he is progressive and bold enough to energize Democrats to beat Trump in 2020 and win Michigan. Biden says he has done it before with Obama.
Gillibrand says she has won in red districts before.
Yang says he is building a coalition of disaffected Trump supporters, Democrats, libertarians, and people outside the political system. He says Democrats must change the economic measurements around our own well being (he doesn’t think GDP measure the true health of society because suicide rates are up and life expectancy keeps declining) to win.
Gabbard says she’ll speak the truth and says Trump won because people were fed up with politicians on both sides. Points out country is spending $4 billion a month in Afghanistan that could be used to rebuild America.
Booker says Trump won Michigan because everyone from the Russians to Republicans suppressed the votes of blacks, especially African American women–the party’s most valuable voters.
9:49 PM: De Blasio calls for a federal mandate on lead removal.
Castro says lead is a major public health threat and talks about his experience getting results as HUD secretary.
9:45 PM: Gillibrand says the first thing she will do as president is “Clorox the Oval Office.” Second – climate change. She talks about a green energy race with China. She wants to put a price on carbon. Gets cut off.
9:39 PM: Bash tees up a climate change question for Inslee. He says “middling” proposals that some of his rivals have put forth are not going to solve the climate change problem. Inslee then talks about “environmental justice” issues. Bash cuts him off before he can further explain.
Biden says “there is no middle ground” with his plan.
Yang says we are too late in many respects and it’s time to start giving people resources to move to higher ground.
Inslee rips Biden for not getting the country off of coal in ten years (not fast enough) after Biden says he eventually wants to eliminate coal, fracking.
9:30 PM: Lemon asks Bennet why he is the best candidate to heal the racial divide.
Bennet says Trump’s racist rhetoric should be enough to get him booted out.
Inslee says because, as a white man, he has not experienced discrimination that people of color have, he has a “double responsibility” to address the racial divide. He then calls for the elimination of the filibuster
Yang says the freedom dividend will be the most effective way to address racial inequality in a general way after talking about how automation (greatest economic transformation in history) and natural disasters affect people of color and the poor disproportionately.
Gillibrand says it shouldn’t be up to Booker and Harris to be on the front lines on this issue. Gillibrand says she can talk to suburban voters about white privilege and how people’s “whiteness” prevents kids from being shot.
Bennet now talks about how our schools are more segregated today than they were 50 years ago. “Equal is not equal,” he says. Bennet says you can draw a straight line from slavery to Jim Crow to Redlining to massive incarceration. He then says most of the people in prison have dropped out of high school, so we have to fix the education system to fix the school-to-prison pipeline.
9:27 PM: Gabbard rips into Harris. Says she laughed about smoking weed after jailing Californians for marijuana offenses. Gabbard says Harris used prisoners for cheap labor, blocked evidence that would have freed people on Death Row, and kept cash bail in place.
Gabbard says Harris owes people who suffered under her reign as a prosecutor an apology.
9:23 PM: Tapper now brings the debate back to busing to give Harris an opportunity to go after Biden.
Harris says she would have been on the other side of the aisle had she been in the Senate when Biden was working with segregationists to oppose busing. She says Obama would never have been president had the segregationists had their way.
Harris says she has spoken to Garner’s mom as well and talks over Tapper (“this is important”) and rips Trump for overriding the decision of the DOJ re: Garner.
Biden says two of the most segregated school districts were in California when she was attorney general and she never brought a lawsuit against those districts. [Biden sounds like he is just memorizing oppo research notes.]
Harris comes back and says she was cleaning up the mess Biden created.
9:21 PM: When all else fails, Biden pulls out the Obama card again and asks his critics why Obama chose him if his criminal justice and civil rights record were so bad.
Yang says he would trust any Democrat more than Trump on criminal justice. Yang now pivots to the freedom dividend and says a prison guard in New Hampshire said we should pay people to get out of jail. Yang is cut off before he could further elaborate on his freedom dividend.
9:15 PM: Booker talks about “marijuana justice.” Reinvest profits in communities disproportionately targeted…Booker now says he is “shocked” if Biden wants to compare criminal justice records after Biden brings up “stop and frisk” in Newark. Booker accuses Biden’s Crime Bill of “destroying communities like mine.”
“You’re dipping into the Kool-aid, and you don’t even know the flavor,” Booker says to Biden.
Castro agrees with Booker that a lot of what Biden helped author in 1994 was a mistake. He says Biden has flip-flopped a lot. Castro then pivots and says he is the only candidate who has put forth a police reform plan because the system is broken. No qualified immunity for police officers, says Castro.
Inslee talking about banning the box. He seems to take issue with Castro that Castro is the only person with a police reform plan.
De Blasio is asked why the officer who killed Garner is still on the force. He claims there will never be another Eric Garner incident going forward.
9:09 PM: Obama admin’s deportations are going to be a problem for Biden, especially in Nevada. Last thing Biden needs is for Nevada to blunt any momentum he may have going into South Carolina:
Lemon bizarrely calls on de Blasio again after letting Gabbard, who opposes free college for illegal immigrants, discuss her plans for higher education. De Blasio, taking advantage of his time again, hits Biden again on deportations. He says Biden needs to answer tough questions if he wants to be president because he didn’t answer de Blasio the last time.
Biden says he was the vice president and not the president and he will keep his recommendations private. Biden says Obama tried to fundamentally change the immigration system for the better.
Booker says Biden can’t have it both ways on the issues when Biden is the one who has invoked Obama more than anyone else running.
9:03 PM: De Blasio calls out Biden about the 3 million deportations. He wants to know if Biden worked to stop the deportations from happening while Obama was president. Biden sidesteps again and talks about DACA. De Blasio again being a thorn in the side, but he is good at taking advantage of this format whenever he gets a chance to speak.
8:56 PM: Lemon asks Biden about Obama and immigration. Amnesty hecklers chant “3 million deportations.” They are still very upset at the Obama (“Deporter-in-Chief”) immigration agenda for being too tough. Biden says “Secretary Castro” never spoke about these issues when they were in cabinet meetings.
Biden says illegal crossing is a “crime.”
Castro says “one of us has learned the lessons of the past, and one of us hasn’t.”
Yang says his father was an immigrant and got 65 patents so that is a “pretty good deal” for America.
He says immigrants are being scapegoated for things they have nothing to do with. He talks about wall to wall machines.
Booker again says Democrats are playing into Trump’s hands on immigration. He wants civil courts to handle immigration issues.
8:53 PM: Castro says open borders is a “right-wing talking point” and says he is disappointed that some Democrats have “taken the bait.” He says he is a leader and not a follower and doubles down on decriminalizing illegal immigration because it is the only way, he says, that will end family separation.
Bennet disagrees with Castro. Talks about how his mother was separated from her parents and should have been in jail. Gillibrand also says illegal border crossing should be a civil violation.
8:51 PM: Harris says Biden’s plan doesn’t do anything to hold insurance companies to account after Biden says he doesn’t know what math they are doing in California and New York. Democrats seem to have forgotten, as Marianne Williamson articulated, that “wonkiness” is not going to beat Trump.
8:49 PM: De Blasio says Democrats should stand for universal health care and should stand for nothing less than that. He says Americans should be able to make that choice through an election. Say what you want about de Blasio, he has a forceful personality and knows how to work the debate format. Also helps that he is to the left of most of the candidates on stage on nearly every issue.
8:45 PM: More than a bit bizarre that CNN not letting Yang speak. Yang is near the center because his polling average is higher than all the milquetoast insiders CNN is giving plenty of airtime to tonight.
Yang is finally allowed to speak says when he told his wife he was running for president the first thing she asked was what they were going to do about health care (Yang has an autistic child).
He says Democrats are talking about health care the wrong way. He says the current health care system makes it harder to hire and harder for people to switch jobs. Yang says Democrats should be making a pro-business and pro-entrepreneur argument re: Medicare for all.
8:30 PM: Bash starts the questioning by asking Harris about her healthcare plan.
Harris says people like Biden are confused because they have probably not read it. She claims her plan is responsive to the needs of American people. She says she listened to Americans, and that is why the transition period to Medicare for All is 10 years. She says there will be a public plan and a private plan.
Biden says Harris has had several plans so far. “You can’t beat President Trump with double talk on this plan,” Biden says.
Harris and Biden seem to be careful to not come off as belligerent. Harris says the “cost of doing nothing is far too expensive” after Biden raises concerns.
Bash now brings in de Blasio?
He says he has no idea what Biden and Harris are talking about. He says there is a mythology that all of these people are in love with their insurance plans. De Blasio says the people he speaks to are angry at private insurance companies that are skimming all the profits.
Biden responds by saying “Obamacare is working.” He wants to build on Obamacare and put back the provisions Trump “took away.” He says his plan costs $750 billion and not trillions.
Bash now calls on Gillibrand, and she says health care should be a right in America. Talks about his son’s allergic reaction to eggs. She says she could afford health care but most Americans can’t. She rips the for-profit insurance companies. “So let’s not lose the forest from the trees,” she says before blasting Republicans and Trump for wanting to “take away your health care.”
Booker rails against dividing moderates and progressives on health care. Says the infighting just helps Trump.
Gabbard, channeling Williamson, says we have a “sick care” system and not a healthcare system. She points out Sebelius works for Medicare Advantage and would profit off of Harris’ plan and says her support is the “fatal flaw” in Harris’s plan.
Harris says Sebelius just endorsed her plan and didn’t write it. She doesn’t address the Medicare Advantage charges.
Harris also talks about separating health care from employment.
8:15 PM: Opening statements begin:
— De Blasio up first, says he is bringing a “message of hope” to working people of America. Touts his pre-K program in NYC. De Blasio attacks Biden and Harris right off the back, painting both as wanting to keep the status quo. He says “we will even up the score” and “tax the hell out of the wealthy” when he is president.
— Bennet says he saw a “Love it or leave it” sign outside of a church. He talks about his background running a school district where kids lived in poverty. He says their parents had the same hopes for them as his parents had for him. He says Trump “doesn’t give a damn about your kids and mine.”
— Inslee says he is running for president because Democrats are the “last, best hope for humanity on this planet.” He then talks about his bold and ambitious climate mobilization plan.
“Mr. president, kids belong in classrooms, not cages,” he says.
— Gillibrand, sounding like an Adidas ad, says her mother and grandmother taught her that “nothing is impossible.” That’s her theme for tonight, it seems. She says Democrats need a nominee who doesn’t know the meaning of impossible.
— Gabbard talks up her military background. She says she knows what patriotism is, and Trump is “not behaving like a patriot.”
— Julian Castro says we were reminded and inspired by Puerto Ricans days ago that public service is about you and your family. He says he doesn’t want to take America back or “back where we came from.” He wants to move America forward.
— Yang talks up his $1,000/month freedom dividend. Points out that Martin Luther King was for it. He says we need it because of automation. And he’ll pay for it by taxing tech companies that now pay zero in taxes. He says the “opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math” and goes into the numbers about how his freedom dividend would work.
— Booker’s opening is interrupted by “Fire Pantaleo” chants. Booker rips Trump over his Baltimore comments and says we know who Trump is
— Harris says she and her sister spend their childhoods marching and shouting for civil rights. She talks about prosecuting the case against Donald Trump but seems a bit subdued and corrects herself after initially saying she wanted to prosecute the case of four more years for Trump.
— Biden says he’s running for president to restore the soul of this country. He says Trump is ripping the social fabric of the country but no one man is strong enough to do that… Biden hypes up the diverse group of people on stage… and he says America is strong because of diversity and not in spite of it.
8:02 PM: Candidates appearing on stage.
Harris campaign:
8:00 PM: CNN intro has the feel of The Contender reality show that aired on Zucker’s old network and was also a Mark Burnett production.
7:45 PM: Harris and Biden invite prominent African American mayors.
Justice Democrats going after Harris on Medicare of All:
7:40 PM: DNC Chair Tom Perez said he’s worked on a garbage truck and knows trash when he sees it. Says this administration is a dumpster fire.
7:35 PM: Biden, Harris, and Booker have qualified for the next round of debates. Yang is one poll away from also qualifying, and Castro needs two more qualifying polls. The other candidates need this debate to keep their campaigns alive.
7:30 PM: Probably not worthy yet of a New Yorker cover like the one that depicted Hillary Clinton with two baseball caps (Mets/Yankees). But the California senator who is not quick on her feet is getting there…
7:25 PM: As always, Breitbart’s Joel Pollak is on the ground in Detroit:
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