Democratic debate in Texas features fiery exchanges between the presidential contenders
Progressive Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders shared the debate stage for the first time with establishment favorite Joe Biden Thursday night in a prime-time showdown that displayed sharply opposing notions of electability in the party’s presidential nomination fight. Below is a look back at how the night unfolded, all times are ET. (You can click here to WATCH a replay of the entire debate.)
10:45 p.m. The debate has ended
The candidates are all smiles and Andrew Yang even blew a kiss as they left the stage.
10:42 p.m.: Klobuchar, Castro highlight family history in closing question
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar highlighted her struggles with her father’s alcoholism as the catalyst for leading her into public service.
“My challenges and resilience have brought me up here,” she said. “I grew up with a dad who struggled with alcoholism his whole life and after his third DWI, he had a choice between jail and treatment. He chose treatment…And that made me interested in public service, because I feel like everyone should have that same right, to be pursued by grace.”
Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro talked about growing up in a single-parent household to talk about his resiliency, “I shouldn’t be here on this stage. You know, Castro is my mother’s name and was my grandmother’s name before her. I grew up in a single-parent household on the west side of San Antonio, going to the public schools.”
He added: “There’s nobody that gets tested more in a position of public trust than the president of the United States. This president has failed that test. But I want you to know that if you elect me president, I won’t.”
10:40 p.m.: Booker reflects on his political legacy, O’Rourke invokes El Paso’s resiliency
Reflecting on resiliency, Sen. Cory Booker and former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke shared the stories of the communities that they call home.
“My biggest professional setback is embarrassing, because a lot of folks know about it. I, with a bunch of tenant leaders in Newark, New Jersey, in 2002 took on the political machine, and boy did they fight back,” Booker said.
“The lesson I learned of resilience is to trust people because the power of the people is always greater than the people in power. And the test of America right now is not a referendum on Donald Trump, it’s a referendum on us and who we are and who we’re going to be together,” Booker said.
O’Rourke told the story of a soccer coach who was shot in El Paso last month, and his desire to continue to do his job, and spoke to the city’s ability to come together in the face of tragedy.
“Everything that I’ve learned about resilience I’ve learned from my hometown of El Paso, Texas. In the face of this act of terror that was directed at our community, in large part by the president of the United States, that killed 22 people and injured many more, we were not defeated by that, nor were we defined by that,” O’Rourke said.
10:36 p.m.: Yang highlights his struggles with entrepreneurship
“I was an unhappy lawyer for five whole months and I left to start a business,” Andrew Yang began. “My company flopped. I lost investors, hundreds of thousands of dollars, still owed 100,000 in school debt. My parents still told people I was a lawyer.” But he said he persisted: “I kept working in small growth companies for another ten years and eventually had some success. After I had some success, I still remembered how hard it was.”
Yang pointed to one of his guests in the audience, Shawn Wynn, a young entrepreneurs who was supported by Yang’s nonprofit, Venture for America. He told him he hoped his path was a little bit easier than his own.
10:34 p.m.: Buttigieg gets candid about coming out and the struggles afterwards
South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who is openly gay, got candid about his decision to come out and the response he got afterwards.
“As a military officer serving under don’t ask, don’t tell, and as an elected official in the state of Indiana when Mike Pence was governor, at a certain point, when it came to professional setbacks, I’d wonder whether just acknowledging who I was, was going to be the ultimate career-ending professional setback,” Buttigieg said.
“I had no idea what kind of professional setback it would be, especially because inconveniently, it was an election year in my socially conservative community. What happened was that when I trusted voters to judge me based on the job that I did for them, they decided to trust me and re-elected me with 80% of the vote,” he added.
10:29 p.m.: Warren, Sanders and Harris show resiliency through their personal backgrounds
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, taking the final question on personal resiliency, said, “I’ve known what I wanted to be since second grade. I wanted to be a public school teacher…By the time I graduated from high school, my family didn’t have money for a college application, much less to send me off to four years at a university…I made it as a special needs teacher.”
She continued: “Here’s resilience. I said, I’ll go to law school. I practiced law for about 45 minutes and then went back to my first love, which is teaching…the reason I’m standing here today is because I got back up, I fought back. “
10:19 p.m.: Booker returns to his roots in Newark to debate charter schools
Seeking to find a lane amid a debate on charter schools, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker invoked his mayoral tenure, saying, “People are talking about raising teacher salary. We actually did it in Newark, New Jersey.”
“We didn’t stop there,” he said. “We closed poor-performing charter schools, but we expanded high-performer charter schools. We were a city that said, we need to find local solutions that work for our community.”
10:15 p.m.: Biden pressed on his record on race relations
Former Vice President Joe Biden was pressed by ABC News’ National Correspondent Linsey Davis on his record on race relations, which he defended vigorously.
“Look, there’s institutional segregation in this country. And from the time I got involved, I started dealing with that. Red lining, banks, making sure we are in a position where — look, you talk about education. I propose that what we take is those very poor schools, the Title I schools, triple the amount of money we spend from $15 to $45 billion a year,” Biden said.
Biden also used his time to answer a previously asked question about Venezuela.
“I’m going to go like the rest of them do, twice over. Okay? Because here’s the deal. The deal is that we’ve got this a little backwards. By the way, in Venezuela, we should be allowing people to come here from Venezuela. I know Maduro. I’ve confronted Maduro. Number two, you talk about the need to do something in Latin America,” Biden said.
10:10 p.m.: Warren touts her past career as a public school teacher
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren chimed in on the debate over public education, touting her background as a public school teacher. “I think I’m the only person on this stage who has been a public school teacher,” Warren said. “I’ve wanted to be a public school teacher since I was in second grade. And let’s be clear in all the ways we talk about this, money for public schools should stay in public schools. Not go anywhere else. I’ve already made my commitment.” “We will have a secretary of education who has been a public school teacher,” she insisted.
Elizabeth Warren: “I think I’m the only person on this stage who has been a public school teacher.” https://t.co/INdRXlIwFs #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/Ovs9n4ABOP
— ABC News (@ABC) September 13, 2019
10:08 p.m.: Buttigieg goes after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as he advocates for paying teachers more
Mayor Pete Buttigieg, garnering loud cheers from the crowd, went after President Trump’s Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.
“Step one is appoint a Secretary of Education who actually believes in public education. I believe in public education. And in order to strengthen it, some things are very complex, for preparing for a future where knowledge is at your fingertips, but we got to teach more to do with critical thinking and social and emotional learning,” Buttigieg said.
“If we want to get the results that we expect for our churn, we have to support and compensate the teaching profession. Respect teachers the way we do soldiers and pay them more the way we do doctors,” he argued.
10:06 p.m.: Yang defends his support for charter schools
Andrew Yang, one of the most vocal proponents for charter schools, said on his support, “I am pro-good school. I’ve got a kid, one of my little boys just started public school last week, and I was not there because I was running for president.
He then paused for a second, before adding, “We need to pay teachers more, because the data clearly shows that a good teacher is worth his or her weight in gold.”
“The answer is to put money directly into the families and neighborhoods to give our kids chance to learn and our teachers a chance to teach,” he concluded.
10:05 p.m.: Warren again casts corporate America as the culprit for lack of action on climate change, Harris calls out Republicans on the issue
The discussion on climate change continued with Senators Warren on Harris, who each cast the issue as one of the utmost importance.
“We need to work on every front on climate change. It is the threat to every living thing on this planet and we are running out of time,” Warren said.
Harris went after congressional Republicans over the issue, saying that their inaction shows a “lack of courage.”
“When I’ve been in the United States Senate for now the last two and a half years and I look at our counterparts, the Republicans in the United States Senate, they must be looking at their children and then when they look at the mirror, I don’t know what they see, but it’s a lack of courage,” Harris said.
10:02 p.m.: Klobuchar pitches a Midwesterner’s approach to climate change
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar leaned into her Midwestern roots to outline her approach to tackling the climate crisis, “I think having someone leading the ticket from the midwest will allow us to talk about this in a different way and get it done.” She continued: “On day one, I will get us back into the international climate change agreement. On day two, I will bring back the clean power rules that president Obama had worked on.”
10:00 p.m.: O’Rourke says he will take action on climate change ‘regardless of political consequences’
Former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke, responding to a question on climate change, said action on the issue is crucial “regardless of political consequences.”
“We will follow through, regardless of the political consequences or who it offends, because this is the very future of our planet and our ability for our children and grandchildren to be able to survive on it,” O’Rourke said.
“We will make sure that we get to net zero greenhouse gas emissions no later than the year 2050, that we are halfway there by 2030, that we mobilize $5 trillion over the next ten years to do that, that we invest here in Houston, Texas, with pre-disaster mitigation grants to protect those communities that are vulnerable to flooding, given the fact that this town has seen three 500-year floods in just five years,” O’Rourke added.
9:52 p.m.: Sanders contrasts his Iraq war vote with Biden’s
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders called out former Vice President Joe Biden’s ‘yes’ vote on the Iraq war in 2003 – when he was a senator from Delaware.
“The big differences between you and me, I never believed what Cheney and Bush said about Iraq and I voted against the war in Iraq and help lead the opposition,” Sanders said. “I think also I am the only person up here to have voted against all three of trump’s military budgets.”
9:49 p.m.: Biden defends his record on Iraq, Afghanistan
Former Vice President Biden, who has taken criticism recently for his record on foreign policy, and his vote in favor of the Iraq War, defended his record, and said he was wrong to say he opposed the war immediately after it started.
“With regard to Iraq, the fact of the matter is that, you know, I should have never voted to give bush the authority to go in and do what he did,” Biden said.
“I said something that was not meant the way I said it. I said, from that point on. What I was arguing against in the beginning, once he started to put the troops in, was that in fact we were doing it the wrong way, there was no plan,” Biden said.
He later leaned on the trust President Obama put in him to ensure an effective end to U.S. involvement in Iraq.
“And it was later when we came into office, that Barack – the president – turned to me, he said, Joe, we have a plan to get out. He turned, he said, Joe will organize this, get the troops home..”
9:46 p.m.: Buttigieg, only military veteran on stage, advocates against ‘endless wars’
South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a U.S. Navy veteran and the only candidate on stage Thursday with military experience, advocated for a drawdown of the War in Afghanistan.
“If there’s one thing we’ve learned about Afghanistan, from Afghanistan, it’s that the best way not to be caught up in endless war is to avoid starting one in the first place. And so when I am president, an authorization for the use of military force will have a built in three-year sunset,” Buttigieg said.
“By the way, we also have a president right now who seems to treat troops as props, or worse, tools for his own enrichment,” he added, taking a swipe at Trump.
9:44 p.m.: Warren takes up the issue of bringing troops home
When asked by “World News Tonight” Anchor and Managing Editor David Muir about keeping her promise to bring troops home starting now, without a deal with the Taliban, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren responded, “What we’re doing right now in Afghanistan is not helping the safety and security of the United States, it is not helping the safety and security of the world, it is not helping the safety and security of Afghanistan.”
“We need to bring our troops home,” she said. “Then we need to make a big shift. We can not ask our military to keep solving problems that cannot be solved militarily.”
During a follow up, Warren invoked her trip to Afghanistan with the late Sen. John McCain, to elevate her foreign policy credentials.
“I was in Afghanistan with John McCain two years ago this past summer,” she said. “We talked to military leaders, American and local leaders, we talked to people on the ground and asked the question…Show me what winning looks like…no one can describe it. And the reason no one can describe it is because the problems in Afghanistan are not problems that can be solved by a military.”
9:42 p.m.: Booker gives a shoutout to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and his hair
Hitting President Trump over his aggressive trade policies, including slapping tariffs on Canadian goods, Booker gave a shoutout to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“You literally have him using a national security waiver to put tariffs on Canada. I’m the only person on this stage that finds Trudeau’s hair very menacing, but they are not a national security threat,” the famously bald Booker said.
“We cannot go up against China alone. This is a president that has a better relationship with dictators like Duterte and Putin than he does with Merkel and Macron,” Booker said, invoking President Trump’s foreign policy strategy, which Democrats charge is too cozy with authoritarian regimes.
9:40 p.m.: Moderate Biden finds commons ground with liberal warren
In a rare moment of commodity, former Vice President Joe Biden said he agreed with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Amid the debate on trade, he said, “I think Elizabeth — Senator Warren is correct, at the table has to be labor, and at the table have to be environmentalists. The fact of the matter is, China, the problem isn’t the trade deficit, the problem is they’re stealing our intellectual property.”
9:36 p.m.: Harris navigates the debate on trade
California Sen. Kamala Harris, who was asked how her trade policy would differ than former President Obama’s, said, “When we look at this issue, my trade policy, under a Harris administration, is always going to be about saying, we need to export American products, not American jobs. And to do that, we have to have a meaningful trade policy. I’m not a protectionist Democrat. Look, we need to sell our stuff. And that means we need to sell it to people overseas.”
As she has done several times throughout the debate, Harris then hit at President Trump, asserting in jest, “But the bottom line is this, Donald Trump in office on trade policy, you know, he reminds me of that guy in “The Wizard of Oz,” you know, when you pull back the curtain, it’s a really small dude?”
9:31 p.m.: Klobuchar says Trump is treating farmers and workers like ‘poker chips’
As she directed her criticism at President Trump, the frequent target of attacks Thursday night, Minnesota Amy Klobuchar said, “What [Trump] has done here, has assessed these tariffs on our allies, he’s put us in the middle of the trade war and treating our farmers and workers like poker chips in one of his bankrupt casinos.”
9:29 p.m.: Yang, Buttigieg criticize Trump’s trade strategy with China
Both Yang and Buttigieg criticized President Trump’s strategy in dealing with China, and the South Bend Mayor calling him an “empty chair” on the global stage.
“We have to let the Chinese know that we recognize that President Trump has pursued an arbitrary and haphazard trade policy that has had victims on both sides,” Yang said.
“Well, the president clearly has no strategy. You know, when I first got into this race, I remember president Trump scoffed and said he’d like to see me make a deal with Xi Jinping. I’d like to see him making a deal with XI Jinping. Is it just me or was that supposed to happen in like April?” Buttigieg asked rhetorically.
9:19 p.m.: Buttigieg: ‘Anyone who supports this president is supporting racism’
Fielding a question from Univision’s Jorge Ramos, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg gave a stark answer on President Trump’s supporters when it comes to the issue of immigration.
“Anyone who supports this is supporting racism…The only people, though, who actually buy into this president’s hateful rhetoric around immigrants are people who don’t know any,” Buttigieg said.
He also said as president he will get comprehensive immigration reform done.
“We have an opportunity to actually get something done. But we cannot allow this continue to be the same debate with the same arguments and the same clever lines often among the same people since the last real reform happened in the 1980s,” he warned.
9:16 p.m.: Yang fields question on legal immigration
Entrepreneur Andrew Yang invokes his ancestry when talking about legal immigration, “My father grew up on a peanut farm in Asia with no floor and now his son is running for president. That is the immigration story.”
Yang continued: “We have to say to the American people, immigrants are positive for our economic and social dynamism, and I would return immigration to the total it was in the Obama administration.”
He also took aim at the current president, telling the crowd: “I am the opposite of Donald Trump in many ways. He says, ‘build a wall.’ I’m going to say to immigrants, ‘come to America, because if you come here, your son our daughter can run for president.'”
9:13 p.m.: Castro again expresses frustration over Obama administration’s lack of action on immigration reform, lashes Biden over invoking his former boss
After Biden defended the Obama administration’s record on immigration, Castro criticized the former Vice President for invoking his former boss only when it’s convenient.
“My problem with Vice President Biden, and [Senator Booker] pointed this out last time is, every time something good about Barack Obama comes up, he says, oh, I was there, I was there, I was there, that’s me, too, and then every time somebody questions part of the administration that we were both part of, he says, well, that was the president,” Castro said.
“I stand with Barack Obama all eight years. Good, bad and indifferent. That’s where I stand. I did not say I did not stand with him,” Biden said in defense.
9:10 p.m.: Univision Anchor Jorge Ramos questions Biden on immigration
When tasked with defending former President Barack Obama’s record on deportations, former Vice President Joe Biden said, “What Latinos should look at, comparing this president to the president we have is outrageous, number one. We didn’t lock people up in cages. We didn’t separate families.”
You didn’t answer the question,” Ramos said.
“Well, I did answer the question,” Biden responded.
“Did you make a mistake with those deportations,” Ramos posed.
“The president did the best thing that was able to be done,” Biden said.
Ramos replied, “How about you?”
Biden said: “I’m the vice president of the United States.”
9:06 p.m.: Warren reaffirms support for eliminating the filibuster for gun control
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren pivoted from mass shootings to talk about the gun violence epidemic happening everyday in the country.
“People die from violence from suicide and domestic abuse. We have a gun violence problem in this country,” she said before reiterating her support for eliminating the filibuster to take action on gun reform. “I was in the United States Senate when 54 Senators said, ‘let’s do background checks, let’s get rid of assault weapons’ and with 54 Senators, it failed because of the filibuster. Until we attack the systemic problems, we can’t get gun reform in this country.”
9:04 p.m. Booker says action on gun control can’t wait until tragedy reaches more communities
Sen. Booker pushed an urgent response to the recent mass shootings, saying that action cannot only come after those tragic events, but also in response to violence in the communities like his (Booker resides in Newark, New Jersey).
“I’m happy that people like Beto O’Rourke are showing such courage now and coming forward and also now supporting licensing. But this is — what I’m sorry about, I’m sorry that it had to take issues coming to my neighborhood or personally affecting Beto to suddenly make us demand change,” Booker said.
“We have had more people die due to gun violence in my lifetime than every single war in this country combined from the revolutionary war until now. This is not a side issue to me. It is a central issue to me,” Booker said in response to a follow up question from World News Tonight Anchor David Muir.
8:59 p.m.: O’Rourke maps out his plan for mandatory buybacks
When asked if he would implement mandatory buybacks for assault-style weapons, former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke says, “I am, if it’s a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield.”
O’Rourke grew more passionate, as he continued: “So many other people were shot by that AR-15 in Odessa, there weren’t enough ambulances to get to them in time. Hell yes, we’re going to take away your AR-15, your AK-47. We’re not going to allow it to be used against a fellow American anymore.”
Hell yeah, we’re going to take your AR-15. If it’s a weapon that was designed to kill people on the battlefield, we’re going to buy it back. pic.twitter.com/cCEWkG6y0X
— Beto O’Rourke (@BetoORourke) September 13, 2019
8:57 p.m. Harris again calls back to Obama, also praises O’Rourke’s response to the El Paso shooting
Harris, as multiple candidates on stage have already done, invoked former President Barack Obama and his signature campaign slogan when discussing her ability to carry out gun control via executive order.
“Yes, we can, because I’ll tell you something. The way that I think about this is, I’ve seen more autopsy photographs than I care to tell you. I have attended more police officer funerals than I care to tell you. I have hugged more mothers of homicide victims than I care to tell you,” Harris said.
She also praised Congressman O’Rourke’s response to the mass shooting last month in El Paso, Texas.
“Beto, god love you for standing so courageously in the midst of that tragedy. You know, people asked me in El Paso, they said, you know, because I have a long-standing record on this issue,” Harris said.
8:54 p.m.: Gun control takes center stage at the third Democratic debate, with El Paso survivors in the audience
Former Vice President Joe Biden says that since Sandy Hook, gun control “went from a cause to a movement.”
He then praised former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke for his response to the El Paso shooting:
“By the way Beto — forgive me for saying Beto,” Biden said.
O’Rourke responded: “That’s okay. Beto’s good.”
Biden continued: “The way he handled what happened in his hometown is meaningful. To look into the eyes of those people, to see those kids, to understand those parents, you understand the heartache. But this is the problem. This is the problem.”
8:49 p.m.: Klobuchar defends her record as a prosecutor in Minnesota
When Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar was pressed on her eight-year tenure as a prosecutor in Minnesota, in which dozens of incidents where black men were killed by police, she responded, “That’s not my record … when I was there, the way we handled these police shootings, I actually took a stand to make sure outside investigators handled them.”
She added: “I will make sure we don’t just do the First Step Act when it comes to criminal sentencing, that we move to the Second Step Act.”
8:47 p.m.: Conversation turns to criminal justice reform, and Harris’ prosecutorial record comes under scrutiny
The conversation around racism then turned towards criminal justice reform, and Sen. Kamala Harris’ record as a prosecutor came under direct scrutiny, a record she defended.
“I’m glad you asked me this question, and there have been many distortions of my record. Let me be very clear. I made a decision to become a prosecutor for two reasons. One, I’ve always wanted to protect people and keep them safe and second, I was born knowing about how this criminal justice system in America has worked in a way that has been informed by racial bias,” Harris said.
“My plan is about making sure that in America’s criminal justice system, we de-incarcerate women and children, that we end solitary confinement and that we work on keeping families intact. And as President of the United States, knowing the system from the inside, I will have the ability to be an effective leader and get this job complete,” Harris added.
8:45 p.m.: Buttigieg talks up his ‘Douglass Plan’
As he followed suit with his democratic rivals, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg addressed the system racism in the country, saying, it “preceded this president and even when we defeat him, it will be with us.”
“That’s why we need a systemic approach to dismantle it,” he continued. “It’s — it’s not enough to just take a racist policy, replace it with a neutral one and expect things will just get better on their own … This time, a Douglass plan that we invest right here at home. To make sure that we’re not only dealing with things like the over-incarceration of black Americans.”
8:43 p.m.: Booker pitches a new path forward to attack ‘systemic racism’
Booker, fielding a question from ABC News’ Linsey Davis, said a comprehensive criminal justice plan is central to combatting “systemic racism,’ in America.
“Racism exists, the question isn’t who isn’t a racist, it’s who is and isn’t doing something about racism,” Booker said.
“It’s nice to go back to slavery, but we have a criminal justice system that is so racially biased, we have more African-Americans under criminal supervision today than all the slaves in 1850. We have to come at this issue attacking systemic racism, having the courage to call it out and having a plan to do something about it,” he added.
8:41 p.m.: O’Rourke tackles racism in America standing on the stage of HBCU Texas Southern University
When asked about addressing the racial divide in the country, former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke said, “Racism in America is endemic. It is foundational…I’m going to follow Sheila Jackson Lee’s lead and sign a reparations bill that will allow us to address this at its foundation. But we will also call out the fact that we have a white supremacist in the white house and he poses a mortal threat to people of color all across this country.”
The other Texan on stage, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro chimed in, first praising O’Rourke for his response to the El Paso shooting, and then arguing, “We need to root out racism and I believe we can do that, because that doesn’t represent the vast majority of Americans who do have a good heart. They need a leader to match that and I will be a president that matches that.”
8:38 p.m.: Outsider Yang injects his business background in health care debate
Amid a tense moment between some of his fellow contenders, Andrew Yang said, “We know we’re on the same team here. We know we’re on the same team. We all have a better vision for health care than our current president.”
He then continued: “I believe we’re talking about this the wrong way. As someone who has run a business, I know that our current health care system makings it harder to hire people, makes it harder to give them benefits and treat them as full-time employees. It’s harder to change jobs. It’s certainly harder to start a business. The pitch we have to make to the American people is, we will get the health care weight off of your backs and then unleash the hopes and dreams of the American people.”
8:36 p.m.: Castro goes directly after Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar tries to be the voices of reason
Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro and Biden had a particularly contentious exchange, also over healthcare, with Castro accusing Biden of forgetting the details of his own healthcare plan.
“Are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago? Are you forgetting already what you said just two minutes ago? I can’t believe that you said two minutes ago that they had to buy in, and now you’re saying they don’t have to buy in. You’re forgetting that,” Castro said to gasps from the audience.
“I said anyone like your grandmother who has no money,” Biden said in defense.
“This is why presidential debates are becoming unwatchable. This reminds everybody of what they cannot stand about Washington. Scoring points against each other. Poking at each other,” Buttigieg said.
“A house divided cannot stand. And that is not how we’re going to win this,” Klobuchar said.
8:35 p.m.: Texas native O’Rourke argues some Democrats are offering a ‘false choice’
Former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke spoke directly to his fellow Democrats to tell them, “we’ve got to do better.” “I also think we’re being offered a false choice between those who propose an all or nothing gambit, forcing tens of millions off of insurance that they like, that works for them, to force them onto medicare and others who want to, as the vice president does, incrementally improve what we have, which will leave many, maybe millions uncared for,” he said. “We’ve got to do better.”
8:33 p.m.: Biden invokes Sanders ‘socialist’ label
“If you notice, nobody’s yet said how much it’s going to cost the taxpayer. I hear this, large savings, the president — my friend from Vermont thinks that the employer is going to give back if you negotiate as a union all these years, got a cut in wages because you got insurance. They’re going to give back that money to the employee?” Biden asked Sanders.
“As a matter of fact, they will,” Sanders responded.
“Well let me tell you something. For a socialist you got — For a socialist, you have a lot more confidence in corporate America than I do,” Biden said.
8:31 p.m.: Kamala Harris cheers Obama, slams Trump
After the second Democratic debate saw former President Barack Obama’s legacy criticized, California Sen. Kamala Harris praised him: “I want to give credit to Barack Obama for bringing us this far.”
She then took aim at the current White House occupants, President Trump, telling the crowd, “But at least five people have talked, some repeatedly on this subject, and not once have we talked about Donald Trump. So let’s talk about the fact that Donald Trump came into office and spent almost the entire first year of his term trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.”
8:29 p.m.: Buttigieg says he ‘trusts the American people’ on healthcare, Sanders hits back
Buttigieg also went after Medicare for All, and pitched his own plan that he dubs “Medicare for All who want it.”
“The problem, Senator Sanders, with the damn bill that you wrote, and that Senator Warren backs, is that it doesn’t trust the American people. I trust you to choose what makes the most sense for you. Not my way or the highway,” Buttigieg said.
Sanders doubled down on his plan, Medicare for All, “Medicare for All is comprehensive health care. Covers all basic needs, including home health care. It allows you to go to any doctor you want, which many private insurance company programs do not.”
8:27 p.m.: Amy Klobuchar seeks to carve out her path on health care by taking aim at Sanders
“Senator Sanders and I have worked valiantly to bring down the cost of pharmaceuticals,” said Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. “And while Bernie wrote the bill, I read the bill. And on page eight — on page eight of the bill, it says that we will no longer have private insurance as we know it.”
“That means that 149 million Americans will no longer be able to have their current insurance. That’s in four years. I don’t think that’s a bold,” she added.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar: “I may not be the loudest person up here, but I think we’ve already got that in the White House. Houston, we have a problem. We have a guy there that is literally running our country like a game show” https://t.co/T37EaVOvlU #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/oLXwsx3tv6
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 13, 2019
8:25 p.m.: Warren, Sanders join forces to defend health care plans
Both Warren and Sanders again defended their health care plans after Biden pointed out the high cost of the programs they are advocating for.
“So, let’s be clear, I’ve actually never met anybody who likes their health insurance company. I’ve met people who like their doctors, I met people who like their nurses, I’ve met people who like their pharmacists, I met people who like their physical therapists. What they want is access to health care,” Warren said.
“Let us be clear, Joe, in the United States of America, we have spending twice as much per capita on health care as the Canadians or any other major country on Earth,” Sanders argued.
8:23 p.m.: Biden keeps up the fight for Obamacare by taking aim at the progressive tag team
“This is about candor, honesty,” the former vice president said. “The tax of 2% that the Senator [Warren] is talking about, that raises about $3 billion. Guess what? That leaves you $28 billion short. The senator said before, it’s going to cost you in your — there will be a deductible – in your paycheck. You’re gonna — The middle class person, someone making 60 grand with three kids, they’re going to end up paying $5,000 more.”
8:21 p.m.: Sanders forcefully defends Medicare for All after Biden’s criticism
Sanders immediately defended his Medicare for All plan, and went after Biden for pushing for “the status quo.” “Joe said that Medicare for All would cost over $30 trillion. That’s right, Joe, status quo over ten years will be $50 trillion!” Sanders said.
“We need — we need a health care system that guarantees health care to all people as every other major country does, not a system which provides $100 billion a year in profit for the drug companies and the insurance companies. I’ll tell you how absurd the system is tonight on ABC, the health care industry will be advertising, telling you how bad medicare for all is, because they want to protect their profits. That is absurd,” Sanders said.
8:19 p.m.: Biden pushed back on Warren and Sanders’ health care plans
Former Vice President Joe Biden kicked off the debate and pushed back on the health care plan being pitched by Warren and Sanders, Medicare for All.
“I think we should have a debate on health care. I think — I know that [Senator Warren] says she’s for Bernie, well, I’m for Barack. I think it worked,” Biden said.
“So as far, my distinguished friend, the senator on my left has not indicated how she pays for it and the senator has,” Biden said gesturing to Sanders and Warren. “In fact, come forward and said how he’s going to pay for it, but it gets him halfway there.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren: “We all owe a huge debt to President Obama, who fundamentally transformed healthcare in America, and committed this country to healthcare for every human being. And now the question is–how best can we improve on it?” https://t.co/T37EaVOvlU #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/vvupnzXtUp
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 13, 2019
8:17 p.m.: Biden pushed back on Warren and Sanders’ health care plans
Former Vice President Joe Biden kicked off the debate and pushed back on the health care plan being pitched by Warren and Sanders, Medicare for All.
“I think we should have a debate on health care. I think — I know that [Senator Warren] says she’s for Bernie, well, I’m for Barack. I think it worked,” Biden said.
“So as far, my distinguished friend, the senator on my left has not indicated how she pays for it and the senator has,” Biden said gesturing to Sanders and Warren. “In fact, come forward and said how he’s going to pay for it, but it gets him halfway there.”
8:17 p.m.: The top four candidates also give opening statements
California Sen. Kamala Harris targets President Donald Trump: “But here’s what you don’t get. What you don’t get you is that the American people are so much better than this. And we know that the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us, regardless of our race, where we live or the party with which we’re registered to vote … And now, President Trump, you can go back to watching Fox News.”
Sen. Kamala Harris has a message for President Trump in her opening statement: “The only reason you were not indicted is because there was a memo in the Department of Justice that says a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime” https://t.co/T37EaVOvlU #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/NGmmb90AxG
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 13, 2019
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., pitched his long-standing message of fundamental economic change to benefit the country’s working class: “It goes without saying that we must and will defeat Trump, the most dangerous president in the history of this country. But we must do more. We must do more. We have got to recognize that this country is moving into a form of society where a handful of billionaires control the economic and political life of this country.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., talks up her Houston roots before touting why she should be at the top of the ticket: “I got my big opportunity about a half mile down the road from here at the University of Houston, back when it cost $50 a semester … I know what’s broken, I know how to fix it and I’m going to lead.”
Former Vice President Biden called back to a speech President John F. Kennedy gave when he launched the “Moonshot Program” to land on the moon: “We’re walking around with our heads down like “woe is me.” We’re the best-equipped nation in the world to take this on. It’s no longer time to postpone. We should get moving. There’s enormous, enormous opportunities once we get rid of Donald Trump,” Biden said.
8:12 p.m.: The next series of candidates give opening statements
Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke invokes the shooting of El Paso in his opening remarks: “On August 3rd, in El Paso, Texas, two things became crystal clear for me … The first is just how dangerous Donald Trump is the cost and the consequence of his presidency … The second is how insufficient our politics is to meet the threat that we have right now.”
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker struck a unifying tone in his opening statement: “That’s the story of America. At our best, we unify, we find common cause and common purpose. The differences amongst us Democrats on the stage are not as great as the urgency for us to unite as a party, not just to beat Donald Trump, but to unite America in common cause and common purpose,” Booker said.
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg harkened back to the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, saying he wants to focus on the future of the country: “We just marked the anniversary of 9/11. All day today I’ve been thinking about September 12th, the way it felt when for a moment, we came together as a country. Imagine if we had been able to sustain that unity,” Buttigieg said.
8:10 p.m. Andrew Yang officially announced plans to give 10 new individuals $1,000 a month
Entrepreneur Andrew Yang announced on tonight’s debate stage 10 new people to receive the “Freedom Dividend,” a $1000 a month payment, his signature campaign policy, according to a Yang campaign source. Three people already received the payment from Yang, bring the total number of people receiving the dividend to 13. A source tells ABC News he will use campaign funds to make the payment.
In his opening statement, Andrew Yang says his campaign will give “$1,000 a month for an entire year to 10 American families.” https://t.co/T37EaVOvlU #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/9BMh0OJXaK
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 13, 2019
8:05 p.m. Klobuchar ribs Trump in her opening statement
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar ribbed President Donald Trump in her opening statement at Thursday’s debate. “I may not be the loudest person up here, but I think we’ve already got that in the white house. Houston, we have a problem. This — we have a guy there that is literally running our country like a game show. He would rather lie than lead,” Klobuchar said.
8:03 p.m.: Candidates launch opening statements
First up, former HUD Secretary Julian Castro: “There will be life after Donald Trump. But the truth is that our problems didn’t start just with Donald Trump and we won’t solve them by embracing old ideas. We need a bold vision,” he said. “We have to win… it’s what I can do in this race get back Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia and Arizona and finally turn Texas blue and say good-bye to Donald Trump.”
KVIA 2019
