Liveblogging the first 2016 Democratic Presidential Debate from the great Northwest

UPDATE, 5:33 PM: CNN is cur­rent­ly air­ing its preshow. DNC Chair­woman Deb­bie Wasser­man Schultz spoke to the crowd in Las Vegas and intro­duced a video mes­sage from Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma, who exhort­ed Democ­rats to work hard to elect a Demo­c­rat to the White House in 2016.

UPDATE, 5:40 PM: Here we go! Ander­son Coop­er is intro­duc­ing the moderators.

UPDATE, 5:42 PM: Final­ly, all the CNN self-pro­mo­tion­al non­sense is over…. time for the singing of the Nation­al Anthem.

UPDATE, 5:45 PM: CNN is squeez­ing in one last com­mer­cial break before actu­al­ly begin­ning the debate.

UPDATE, 5:48 PM: We’re back, final­ly. CNN’s Ander­son Coop­er is explain­ing the ground rules.

UPDATE, 5:50 PM: For­mer Rhode Island Gov­er­nor and ex-Repub­li­can Lin­coln Chafee gets to make his intro­duc­tion first. He’s tout­ing his expe­ri­ence as a may­or, sen­a­tor, and gov­er­nor. “I believe in pros­per­i­ty through peace,” he says.

UPDATE, 5:52 PM: For­mer U.S. Sen­a­tor James Webb, who rep­re­sent­ed Vir­ginia for six years in Con­gress, is the sec­ond can­di­date to speak. He’s stress­ing his non-polit­i­cal expe­ri­ence, includ­ing his ser­vice as a mil­i­tary leader in Pentagon.

UPDATE, 5:53 PM: Mar­tin O’Malley is the third can­di­date to speak. “After fif­teen years of exec­u­tive expe­ri­ence, I have learned how to be an effec­tive leader,” he says, sum­ma­riz­ing his accom­plish­ments as Gov­er­nor of Maryland.

UPDATE, 5:54 PM: “Our econ­o­my isn’t mon­ey, it’s peo­ple,” O’Malley says, mak­ing a cogent point.

UPDATE, 5:56 PM: And now, Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders is up. He wast­ed no time in point­ing out that our coun­try is suf­fer­ing from income inequal­i­ty and the influ­ence of big mon­ey in elections.

UPDATE, 5:56 PM: “We have a moral respon­si­bil­i­ty to trans­form our ener­gy sys­tem away from fos­sil fuels,” Sanders says.

UPDATE, 6:02 PM: Last but cer­tain­ly not least, for­mer Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clin­ton. As expect­ed, she intro­duced her­self as a grand­moth­er and an advo­cate for high­er wages for America’s work­ers. She used her time effec­tive­ly to talk about her cam­paign plat­form and values.

UPDATE, 6:02 PM: First ques­tion goes to Hillary Clin­ton — it’s a hos­tile ques­tion that boils down to, does Clin­ton change her polit­i­cal iden­ti­ty based on who she’s talk­ing to?

UPDATE, 6:03 PM: “I’m a pro­gres­sive who likes to get things done,” Clin­ton says, when asked a fol­low-up, “Are you a pro­gres­sive or are you a moderate?”

UPDATE, 6:04 PM: Coop­er turns to Bernie Sanders next, and asks how he expects to get elect­ed giv­en that he calls him­self a demo­c­ra­t­ic socialist.

UPDATE, 6:06 PM: Cooper’s fol­low-up is a joke: Do Sanders’ views give Repub­li­cans ammu­ni­tion for attack ads? Sanders piv­ots to talk­ing about vot­er turnout, and notes that Repub­li­cans win when peo­ple don’t vote.

UPDATE, 6:07 PM: Clin­ton and Sanders agree: our small and medi­um size busi­ness­es are the back­bone of our economy.

UPDATE, 6:09 PM: Turn­ing his atten­tion to Lin­coln Chafee, Coop­er asks why Chafee has changed par­ties. The for­mer gov­er­nor respond­ed by describ­ing him­self as a “block of gran­ite” on the issues.

UPDATE, 6:10 PM: Mar­tin O’Malley is the next can­di­date to be chal­lenged. Coop­er asks why Amer­i­cans should trust him to run the coun­try giv­en the prob­lems that the city of Bal­ti­more, which he pre­vi­ous­ly led, has had.

UPDATE, 6:11 PM: O’Malley says under his tenure as May­or of Bal­ti­more, polic­ing improved and peace was restored in trou­bled neigh­bor­hoods. “We saved a lot of lives,” O’Malley says.

UPDATE, 6:12 PM: Coop­er asks Webb about his past state­ments con­demn­ing affir­ma­tive action.

UPDATE, 6:12 PM: “I have always sup­port­ed affir­ma­tive action for African-Amer­i­cans,” Webb says.

UPDATE, 6:15 PM: Ander­son Coop­er moves on to the issue of gun vio­lence, and asks Sanders whether he wants to shield gun com­pa­nies from legal respon­si­bil­i­ty for mass shoot­ings? Sanders replies: Of course not.

UPDATE, 6:15 PM: “Is Bernie Sanders tough enough on guns,” Coop­er asks Hillary Clin­ton. “No,” she says.

UPDATE, 6:16 PM: Sanders responds to Clinton’s crit­i­cism, say­ing all the shout­ing in the world won’t stop gun vio­lence and keep guns out of the hands of peo­ple who shouldn’t have them.

UPDATE, 6:18 PM: O’Malley’s turn. He notes he’s actu­al­ly tough­ened gun respon­si­bil­i­ty laws as Gov­er­nor of Mary­land. Clin­ton nods as O’Malley decries the influ­ence of the Nation­al Rifle Association.

UPDATE, 6:20 PM: As Sanders and O’Malley get into a back and forth over gun respon­si­bil­i­ty, Hillary Clin­ton smiles broad­ly, posi­tioned in between.

UPDATE, 6:23 PM: Ander­son Coop­er shift gears to for­eign pol­i­cy, ask­ing what the can­di­dates’ response to Vladimir Putin would be.

UPDATE, 6:24 PM: “When you’re talk­ing about Syr­ia, you’re talk­ing about a quag­mire with­in a quag­mire,” notes Bernie Sanders.

UPDATE, 6:24 PM: Sanders calls Iraq “the worst for­eign pol­i­cy blun­der in Amer­i­can history.”

UPDATE, 6:27 PM: Clin­ton admirably field­ed a ques­tion about whether her judg­ment can be trust­ed, not­ing that Pres­i­dent Oba­ma chose her to be his first Sec­re­tary of State.

UPDATE, 6:30 PM: Mar­tin O’Malley says peo­ple remain angry about Iraq because they feel that Con­gress was rail­road­ed into mak­ing a ter­ri­ble deci­sion based on war hype and polls.

UPDATE, 6:32 PM: Clin­ton cheek­i­ly thanks O’Malley for his endorse­ment in 2008 and then pro­ceeds to defend her posi­tion in favor of a no-fly zone in Syria.

UPDATE, 6:39 PM: Webb says he is the can­di­date who is most qual­i­fied to be Commander-in-Chief.

UPDATE, 6:40 PM: Sanders: “I am pre­pared to take this coun­try into war if necessary.”

UPDATE, 6:42 PM: CNN heads to its first mid-debate com­mer­cial break.

UPDATE, 6:48 PM: Clin­ton calls the House Select Com­mit­tee on Beng­hazi an arm of the Repub­li­can Nation­al Com­mit­tee — which we all know is true.

UPDATE, 6:49 PM: “The Amer­i­can peo­ple are sick and tired of hear­ing about your damn emails,” Sanders says, get­ting a big smile out of Clinton.

UPDATE, 6:50 PM: Sanders and Clin­ton shake hands, smil­ing, after Sanders goes after the media for not talk­ing about the real issues. Many Democ­rats in the audi­ence jumped to their feet.

UPDATE, 6:53 PM: O’Malley refus­es to take Ander­son Cooper’s bait, and instead seizes an oppor­tu­ni­ty to crit­i­cize DNC Chair Deb­bie Wasser­man Schultz regard­ing the 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial debate.

UPDATE, 6:58 PM: Ander­son Coop­er asks Bernie Sanders about one of the issues he talks about often: income inequal­i­ty. What would Sanders do about income inequal­i­ty that Oba­ma hasn’t done? Sanders notes that when Oba­ma took office, he inher­it­ed a hor­ri­ble mess left by George W. Bush.

UPDATE, 6:59 PM: O’Malley cov­ers a pre­vi­ous cam­paign trail gaffe by show­ing his under­stand­ing for the need to bring atten­tion to insti­tu­tion­al racism in his response to the ques­tion “Do black lives mat­ter, or do all lives matter?”

UPDATE, 6:59 PM: Mar­tin O’Malley calls for the restora­tion of Glass-Stea­gall. We need a fire­wall between com­mer­cial and invest­ment banking.

UPDATE, 7:02 PM: Clin­ton says her plan to hold big banks account­able is more com­pre­hen­sive than that of the oth­er can­di­dates. She notes there are large finan­cial insti­tu­tions like AIG that need to be reined in as well.

UPDATE, 7:03 PM: “If you only look at the big banks, you may be miss­ing the for­est for the trees,” Clin­ton says. Sanders retorts by declar­ing, “Wall Street reg­u­lates Congress.”

UPDATE, 7:07 PM: Sanders clear­ly doesn’t regret his vote against the 2008 bank bailout.

UPDATE, 7:14 PM: Bernie Sanders calls for scrap­ping the cap on tax­able earn­ings for social secu­ri­ty, while Clin­ton avoids specifics on social secu­ri­ty expansion.

UPDATE, 7:16 PM: Sanders acquits him­self well in response to a ques­tion about why he vot­ed against a Bush error immi­gra­tion pro­pos­al in 2007, not­ing that he was opposed because the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter ana­lyzed the bill’s guest work­er pro­vi­sion to be equiv­a­lent to wage slavery.

UPDATE, 7:17 PM: “I am for a gen­er­ous, com­pas­sion­ate Amer­i­ca that says we’re all in this togeth­er,” Mar­tin O’Malley says, artic­u­lat­ing a strong pro­gres­sive posi­tion of immigration.

UPDATE, 7:18 PM: Hillary Clin­ton notes that there’s a huge dif­fer­ence between what the Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­dates are say­ing on immi­gra­tion ver­sus the Republicans.

UPDATE, 7:19 PM: O’Malley slams Trump as “a car­ni­val bark­er in the Repub­li­can Par­ty”. Was hop­ing some­body was going to do that.

UPDATE, 7:21 PM: Asked about the Patri­ot Act, Lin­coln Chafee replies, “That was anoth­er 1999–2001 vote…” He’s not doing very well tonight.

UPDATE, 7:23 PM: Con­tin­u­ing a dis­cus­sion about the Patri­ot Act, Sanders says he would absolute­ly shut down the NSA’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al mass sur­veil­lance pro­grams, which vio­late the Fourth Amendment.

UPDATE, 7:27 PM: “I think being the first woman pres­i­dent would be quite a change,” Hillary Clin­ton says with a broad smile, when asked if she is run­ning for Obama’s third term.

UPDATE, 7:29 PM: Sanders explains that by rev­o­lu­tion, he means peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ing in our democracy.

UPDATE, 7:35 PM: Ander­son Coop­er veers away from the issues again and asks why Democ­rats should embrace an insid­er like Clin­ton. Stu­pid question.

UPDATE, 7:36 PM: “I would not ask any­one to vote for me based on my last name,” Clin­ton says, deliv­er­ing a great response to Mar­tin O’Malley.

UPDATE, 7:37 PM: “I think there is pro­found frus­tra­tion all over this coun­try with estab­lish­ment pol­i­tics… I do not have a Super PAC,” Bernie Sanders notes, men­tion­ing that his cam­paign has orga­nized thou­sands of watch par­ties all over the country.

UPDATE, 7:38 PM: In response to a ques­tion about com­bat­ing the cli­mate cri­sis, Mar­tin O’Malley says he has a plan to move Amer­i­ca to a com­plete­ly clean elec­tric grid by 2050.

UPDATE, 7:39 PM: James Webb par­rots a talk­ing point from the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion and starts talk­ing about an “all of the above ener­gy strat­e­gy”. An old and tired phrase.

UPDATE, 7:41 PM: Sanders says he agrees with Pope Fran­cis that com­bat­ing the cli­mate cri­sis is a moral issue. He notes that fos­sil fuel com­pa­nies are financ­ing Repub­li­can can­di­dates, and that mon­ey in pol­i­tics is thus a relat­ed problem.

UPDATE, 7:45 PM: Clin­ton hits a home run with her answer defend­ing paid fam­i­ly leave.

UPDATE, 7:45 PM: O’Malley, Sanders, and Clin­ton all agree: We should have paid fam­i­ly leave.

UPDATE, 7:46 PM: It’s time to rethink the failed “war on drugs”, Bernie Sanders says.

UPDATE, 7:47 PM: Sanders offers luke­warm endorse­ment of recre­ation cannabis when asked about Nevada’s legal­iza­tion ini­tia­tive. Clin­ton declines to take a stance.

UPDATE, 7:54 PM: Final ques­tion: Which polit­i­cal ene­my are you most proud of? Chafee: The coal lob­by. O’Malley: The Nation­al Rifle Asso­ci­a­tion. Hillary Clin­ton: The drug com­pa­nies, the Ira­ni­ans, the Repub­li­cans. Sanders: Wall Street and the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal industry.

UPDATE, 7:55 PM: Chafee reminds us again how proud he is that he has had no scandals.

UPDATE, 7:56 PM: In his clos­ing remarks, Webb says he’s always been will­ing to take com­pli­cat­ed, dif­fi­cult issues and work them through to find a solution.

UPDATE, 7:58 PM: O’Malley says he’s grate­ful for the chance to stand on a stage with oth­er qual­i­fied and dis­tin­guished can­di­dates for President.

UPDATE, 8:00 PM: Sanders says there’s no way just one per­son can address the tough chal­lenges fac­ing Amer­i­ca… it’s going to take a move­ment. And he’s cor­rect on that score.

UPDATE, 8:02 PM: “My mis­sion as Pres­i­dent will be to raise incomes for mid­dle Amer­i­can fam­i­lies,” Clin­ton says in her clos­ing remarks.

UPDATE, 8:10 PM: And we’re done with all the clos­ing state­ments! Thanks for fol­low­ing along with us tonight for the first Demo­c­ra­t­ic debate of 2016.