Liveblogging the fourth 2016 Democratic presidential debate from the great Northwest

UPDATE, 5:36 PM (Andrew): We are present­ly about twen­ty-five min­utes away from the adver­tised start time.

UPDATE, 5:59 PM (Andrew): We’re just a few min­utes away from starting…

UPDATE, 6:01 PM (Andrew): NBC intro­duc­tion is playing

UPDATE, 6:02 PM (Andrew): NBC’s Lester Holt, a respect­ed news­man, is here to wel­come everyone.

UPDATE, 6:03 PM (Andrew): Off we go!

UPDATE, 6:04 PM (Andrew): In her open­ing state­ment, Clin­ton thanks the Con­gres­sion­al Black Cau­cus Insti­tute for co-host­ing the debate on the eve of MLK Day.

UPDATE, 6:04 PM (Andrew): “We need a Pres­i­dent who can do all aspects of the job… I hope to earn your sup­port to be the nom­i­nee,” Clin­ton says with a smile.

UPDATE, 6:06 PM (Andrew): Sanders uses his open­ing to rein­force his cam­paign themes, wast­ing lit­tle time remind­ing every­one that the sys­tem is rigged in favor of the mil­lion­aires and billionaires.

UPDATE, 6:07 PM (Andrew): O’Malley’s turn now. “We have urgent work to do, and the voic­es of anger and divi­sion that we’ve heard com­ing out of the Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial podi­ums are pret­ty loud,” he says.

UPDATE, 6:08 PM (Andrew): Our cam­paign is about think­ing big, Sanders declares. We should have health­care for every man, woman, and child, he says, and rebuild our crum­bling infra­struc­ture. We need a gov­ern­ment that works for all of us.

UPDATE, 6:08 PM (Andrew): Clin­ton says she would present plans to Con­gress plans to cre­ate more jobs, increase the min­i­mum wage, and require equal pay for equal work.

UPDATE, 6:10 PM (Andrew): O’Malley echoes Clinton’s eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty pri­or­i­ties, but adds col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights into the mix.

UPDATE, 6:11 PM (Andrew): Unique­ly, O’Malley also empha­sized tack­ling the cli­mate cri­sis and cre­at­ing a new agen­da for America’s cities.

UPDATE, 6:14 PM (Andrew): Clin­ton goes on the attack after Sanders defends his record on gun responsibility.

UPDATE, 6:15 PM (Andrew): “There is no oth­er indus­try in Amer­i­ca that was giv­en the total pass that the gun lob­by was,” Clin­ton says.

UPDATE, 6:15 PM (Andrew): O’Malley asserts that both Clin­ton and Sanders “have been incon­sis­tent on this issue.”

UPDATE, 6:16 PM (Andrew): “I’ve nev­er met a self-respect­ing deer hunter that need­ed an AR-15 to down a deer,” O’Malley says, com­plet­ing one of his strongest answers in the debates thus far.

UPDATE, 6:17 PM (Andrew): Can­di­dates now talk­ing about com­bat­ing sys­temic racism in the crim­i­nal jus­tice system.

UPDATE, 6:18 PM (Andrew): “Who in Amer­i­ca is sat­is­fied that we have more peo­ple in jail than any oth­er coun­try on Earth?” Sanders asks, not wait­ing for Holt to ask him a ques­tion after Sec­re­tary Clin­ton con­clud­ed her thoughts.

UPDATE, 6:20 PM (Andrew): Sanders stress­es his ascen­dan­cy in Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial polls after being asked about Clinton’s lead with minor­i­ty voters.

UPDATE, 6:22 PM (Andrew): Nice to see NBC is tak­ing ques­tions through YouTube ear­ly on.

UPDATE, 6:24 PM (Andrew): “We have got to de-mili­tiarize our police depart­ments so they don’t look like occu­py­ing armies,” Sanders says, when asked about police reform.

UPDATE, 6:24 PM (Essie): Sanders says that police offi­cers must be pros­e­cut­ed if they break the law, com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing should be encour­aged, and police depart­ments should reflect the com­mu­ni­ties they serve.

UPDATE, 6:25 PM (Essie): Sanders empha­sized the de-mil­i­ta­riza­tion of the police.

UPDATE, 6:26 PM (Essie): Clin­ton says that Emer­gency Med­ical per­son­nel should have anti­dotes to hero­in overdose.

UPDATE, 6:26 PM (Andrew): We need a rev­o­lu­tion in this coun­try in terms of men­tal health treat­ment, Sanders says.

UPDATE, 6:26 PM (Andrew): Time for our first com­mer­cial break!

UPDATE, 6:27 PM (Essie): Sanders empha­sizes uni­ver­sal health­care, and includ­ing men­tal health. He says that much of the respon­si­bil­i­ty should fall on the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal companies.

UPDATE, 6:31 PM (Andrew): We’re back, and we’re talk­ing about Medicare For All.

UPDATE, 6:31 PM (Andrew): Clin­ton asked if her attacks on Sanders’ health­care plan are fair (they’re not).

UPDATE, 6:33 PM (Essie): “Is it real­ly fair to say that Sanders wants to kill Oba­macare?” Clin­ton says we have a path but the Repub­li­cans can repeal his solu­tions. Sanders says that Clin­ton didn’t answer the question.

UPDATE, 6:33 PM (Essie): Sanders says that health­care is a right and should be avail­able to everyone.

UPDATE, 6:33 PM (Essie): Sanders says that 29 mil­lion peo­ple still have no health­care and are pay­ing too much for prescriptions.

UPDATE, 6:33 PM (Andrew): “I’m on the com­mit­tee” that wrote the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act,” Sanders says, not­ing he helped make it bet­ter. But we shouldn’t be rest­ing on our lau­rels. Not every­one has coverage.

UPDATE, 6:34 PM (Essie): Sanders says his vision is to low­er costs for every­one. Clin­ton says that she doesn’t know which plan he is refer­ring to and that the ACA act is working.

UPDATE, 6:34 PM (Andrew): The Patient Pro­tec­tion Act would have been a greater accom­plish­ment had it con­tained a pub­lic option, @HillaryClinton.

UPDATE, 6:35 PM (Andrew): We shouldn’t be afraid of hav­ing con­tentious debates.

UPDATE, 6:35 PM (Andrew): “The vision from FDR and Tru­man was health­care for all peo­ple,” Sanders says.

UPDATE, 6:36 PM (Essie): Clin­ton says that the con­tentious debate is too risky to tear it up and start over. We should build on what we have. Sanders says he does not want to tear up the ACA, but build on it by expand­ing Medicare to all.

UPDATE, 6:37 PM (Essie): Clin­ton says that a whole new debate on health­care would set us back, that Repub­li­cans will con­tin­ue to attack it. Thank good­ness Oba­ma vetoed it.

UPDATE, 6:37 PM (Andrew): Clinton’s “con­tentious debate” talk­ing point is ridicu­lous and repetitive.

UPDATE, 6:38 PM (Essie): Sanders says the real point is that our cam­paign finance struc­ture. Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies give too much mon­ey to politi­cians. He says that politi­cians need to stand up for what is right for the Amer­i­can People.

UPDATE, 6:39 PM (Andrew): We could have got­ten the votes for the pub­lic option, but we didn’t try hard enough.

UPDATE, 6:39 PM (Essie): Clin­ton says that she is accus­tomed to stand­ing up to health insur­ance com­pa­nies. She says this has been the fight of the Democ­rats for decades and that we should build on what is work­ing, and get indi­vid­ual costs down.

UPDATE, 6:41 PM (Essie): How will you bring the coun­try togeth­er? Pres­i­dent Obama’s com­ment on his inabil­i­ty to bring peo­ple togeth­er was his biggest fail­ing. Clin­ton says she will meet with any­one any­where to find com­mon ground.

UPDATE, 6:41 PM (Andrew): Clin­ton touts her record of bipar­ti­san­ship when asked how she would uni­fy the coun­try, high­light­ing her work on New START and sev­er­al oth­er pieces of legislation.

UPDATE, 6:42 PM (Essie): Sanders says that a few years ago we found out that vet­er­ans were not get­ting what they need­ed, he worked with John McCain. He says the real issue is that Con­gress is owned by Big Mon­ey and refus­es to do what the peo­ple want to do. We need to raise the min­i­mum wage, equal pay for women, and the needs of the peo­ple need to be thought of first.

UPDATE, 6:43 PM (Andrew): “We’ve got to make Con­gress respon­sive to the needs of the peo­ple,” Sanders says.

UPDATE, 6:43 PM (Andrew): Bernie will not be interrupted!

UPDATE, 6:44 PM (Essie): To a ques­tion of his “Demo­c­ra­t­ic-Social­ist” label, Sanders says that small donors need to be what can­di­dates should have to work for.

UPDATE, 6:44 PM (Andrew): O’Malley saw an open­ing and jumped in.

UPDATE, 6:45 PM (Essie): Sanders says we have to deal with the hand­ful of bil­lion­aires who con­trol this country.

UPDATE, 6:45 PM (Andrew): Great ques­tion about get­ting young vot­ers engaged.

UPDATE, 6:47 PM (Essie): To a ques­tion about engag­ing young peo­ple: Clin­ton says, this elec­tion is about the future and it is a great urgency for young peo­ple. She says that stu­dent debt is a prob­lem, and com­mu­ni­ty col­lege should be free, and tuition should be debt free. She says that young peo­ple val­ue their civ­il lib­er­ties, and that peo­ple of all ages need to work together.

UPDATE, 6:47 PM (Essie): Clin­ton says that Sanders young sup­port­ers are pas­sion­ate, but she will con­tin­ue to work to engage them.

UPDATE, 6:48 PM (Andrew): “I think this is an elec­tion where we have to pull young peo­ple and old peo­ple togeth­er,” Clin­ton says. Asked why Sanders has so many young sup­port­ers, Clin­ton smiled, demurred, and said she would con­tin­ue work­ing to gain as many sup­port­ers as she could.

UPDATE, 6:48 PM (Andrew): We’re tak­ing anoth­er break.

UPDATE, 6:50 PM (Andrew): O’Malley has been hav­ing a real­ly good debate so far. Clin­ton and Sanders have been, for the most part, sol­id. They’ve gone after each oth­er on their gun safe­ty and health­care posi­tions, but oth­er­wise, have most­ly sound­ed notes of agreement.

UPDATE, 6:53 PM (Essie): Sanders says that he does not take mon­ey from big banks. He says that the Glass-Ste­gal leg­is­la­tion needs to come back. He says that the trust-busters need to come back. They should not be too big to fail.

UPDATE, 6:55 PM (Essie): Clin­ton says that the crit­i­cism toward Pres­i­dent Oba­ma for tak­ing Wall Street. Clin­ton defends the Pres­i­dent. She says the Dodd-Frank bill was the most impor­tant bill since the 1930’s.

UPDATE, 6:55 PM (Andrew): “Can you real­ly reform Wall Street when they are spend­ing mil­lions of mil­lions of dol­lars on cam­paign con­tri­bu­tions?” asks Bernie Sanders.

UPDATE, 6:56 PM (Essie): Sanders says, “Can you real­ly reform Wall Street when they pro­vide speak­er fees to indi­vid­u­als, and give mil­lions to cam­paigns.” Sanders says that he will rely on the mid­dle class for his cam­paign contributions.

UPDATE, 6:56 PM (Andrew): Mar­tin O’Malley takes advan­tage of his live mic to say “That’s not true” and “Oh, come on” when Clin­ton claims her Wall Street reform plan is the smartest and toughest.

UPDATE, 6:57 PM (Essie): Clin­ton says that his com­ments toward the Pres­i­dent are con­fus­ing. She says that Wall Street is run­ning ads against her right now, and she is the one they don’t want.

UPDATE, 6:58 PM (Essie): O’Malley says that that there is a dif­fer­ence between all three of them, and says that she would not go as far as he would to pro­tect the Amer­i­can peo­ple from Wall Street. He says what she says is just not true.

UPDATE, 6:58 PM (Andrew): “I sup­port rein­sti­tut­ing a mod­ern ver­sion of Glass-Stea­gall,” O’Malley says, going on to crit­i­cize Clinton’s Wall Street reform plans as inadequate.

UPDATE, 6:59 PM (Andrew): Some crosstalk between Hillary and Bernie.

UPDATE, 6:59 PM (Essie): All three of them are argu­ing over each oth­er to con­test who would be the tough­est on Wall Street.

UPDATE, 7:00 PM (Essie): Sanders says Clin­ton has received over 600,000 in speak­ing fees from Gold­man Sachs.

UPDATE, 7:01 PM (Essie): Clin­ton says that in 2000 Sanders is the only one on the stage to vote to de-reg­u­late the sys­tem and ulti­mate­ly caused the col­lapse of the finan­cial system.

UPDATE, 7:01 PM (Andrew): Quite the feisty exchange over Wall Street reform…

UPDATE, 7:01 PM (Essie): Clin­ton says at least we are hav­ing a debate about this, because Repub­li­cans want to de-regulate.

UPDATE, 7:03 PM (Essie): Sanders has been asked how he will pay for all of the pro­grams that he wants. Sanders says that our infra­struc­ture needs to be rebuilt by keep­ing invest­ments and tax­es on invest­ments here in the States. Sanders says that a tax on Wall Street spec­u­la­tion. Its time for Wall Street to bail out the mid­dle class.

UPDATE, 7:04 PM (Andrew): “I want to raise incomes, not tax­es,” Clin­ton says, adopt­ing some con­ser­v­a­tive framing.

UPDATE, 7:04 PM (Essie): Clin­ton says that she has doc­u­ment­ed how she would pay for every­thing she wants to do, and that her web­site has that doc­u­men­ta­tion. She has says that she wants to raise incomes not tax­es, and that paid fam­i­ly leave, stu­dent debt, and that the finan­cial ser­vices indus­try should pay for it. She says that the mid­dle class should not.

UPDATE, 7:05 PM (Andrew): Sanders: Do away with pri­vate health insur­ance, slight­ly raise tax­es… it’s a pret­ty good deal.

UPDATE, 7:06 PM (Essie): Will you raise tax­es on the mid­dle class? Sanders says that the crit­i­cism for this comes from Clin­ton. He says that what we have to acknowl­edge that we have to do away with mid­dle class family’s neces­si­ty to pay for health care costs. That will save a fam­i­ly ‚000.00 a month. Pri­vate health insur­ance pre­mi­ums will go away. The mod­est tax increase would be far less.

UPDATE, 7:07 PM (Essie): O’Malley says that he is the only one on the stage that has done these things. Sanders says that he was may­or for 8 years, and that’s not true.

UPDATE, 7:07 PM (Andrew): We can make the invest­ments we need to make by rais­ing tax­es on the wealthy, O’Malley says.

UPDATE, 7:07 PM (Andrew): Ah, good. A ques­tion about fight­ing the cli­mate crisis.

UPDATE, 7:09 PM (Andrew): Sanders blasts the Repub­li­can Par­ty for deny­ing cli­mate science.

UPDATE, 7:09 PM (Essie): Sanders talks about the cli­mate change issue is real and is caus­ing major issues and if bold action is not tak­en, major issues will result. He says that the Repub­li­can Par­ty is so owned by the fos­sil fuel indus­try they will not work on the issue. The ener­gy sys­tem needs to be changed and his leg­is­la­tion on the issue is the most comprehensive.

UPDATE, 7:10 PM (Essie): O’Malley says that we need to be on a 100% elec­tric grid based on solar and green energy.

UPDATE, 7:10 PM (Essie): Iran, ISIS ene­my cri­sis is up next.

UPDATE, 7:11 PM (Andrew): O’Malley chal­lenges Clin­ton and Sanders to join him in com­mit­ting to a 100% renew­able ener­gy grid by 2050. Clin­ton want­ed to respond, but NBC went to commercial.

UPDATE, 7:15 PM (Essie): Com­men­ta­tors call the next set of ques­tions: “The Com­man­der in Chief Test”

UPDATE, 7:17 PM (Andrew): We’re back and talk­ing for­eign policy.

UPDATE, 7:18 PM (Essie): Sanders says we need to move aggres­sive­ly to adjust the behav­ior of Iran. He says that man­ag­ing to reach an agree­ment with Iran is  pos­i­tive. He says that rela­tion­ship should con­tin­ue to become pos­i­tive and we should move to warm rela­tion­ships with them.

UPDATE, 7:19 PM (Essie): Clin­ton says she helped to work on the sanc­tions with Iran, and they have so far been fol­low­ing agree­ments. She says that we have to be very care­ful, their bad behav­ior in the region should be addressed.

UPDATE, 7:20 PM (Essie): Clin­ton says that ground forces in Syr­ia should not be a solu­tion. Iraq army and Sun­ni fight­ers and Kur­dish fight­ers should be mobi­lized and sup­ply chain for mon­ey and online space should be inter­rupt­ed. She says that the air forces should be used.

UPDATE, 7:22 PM (Essie): Sanders says that we need to learn the les­son of Iraq, and the quag­mire of Syr­ia should be avoid­ed. We should learn from King Abdul­lah, who said that this is a war for the soul of Islam and that Mus­lim troops should be on the ground. Not Amer­i­can troops in per­pet­u­al warfare.

UPDATE, 7:23 PM (Essie): O’Malley says that we need a proac­tive secu­ri­ty strat­e­gy. He com­ple­ments the Democ­rats on the stage for not using the brava­do of the Repub­li­can party.

UPDATE, 7:23 PM (Andrew): Excel­lent point by O’Malley about remem­ber­ing the real and sober­ing human costs of war.

UPDATE, 7:24 PM (Andrew): It’s easy to get rid of a two-bit dic­ta­tor like Sad­dam Hus­sein, but there wasn’t thought giv­en to what need­ed to hap­pen next when we invad­ed Iraq, Sanders notes.

UPDATE, 7:24 PM (Essie): Sanders says that he led the oppo­si­tion to the war in Iraq. He says that there was not a lot of thought about what hap­pens after remov­ing a dic­ta­tor. Sanders says that we need to train and sup­port the Mus­lim nations in the region. He says the wealthy coun­tries need to start putting some “skin in the game” and stop depend­ing on America.

UPDATE, 7:27 PM (Essie): Should the Pres­i­dent have stuck to his “red line” on chem­i­cal weapons. Clin­ton says that we were able to get the chem­i­cal weapons out and the issue result­ed in a pos­i­tive out­come. She says that the sur­round­ing States could have been ter­ri­bly affect­ed. She says that as a com­man­der in chief has to crit­i­cal­ly think about the out­come of actions. The US had a very big inter­est in keep­ing the sta­bil­i­ty of the region.

UPDATE, 7:28 PM (Essie): Sanders says our first pri­or­i­ty should be on get­ting rid of ISIS, and that all of the inter­ests need to be brought togeth­er in order to make it happen.

UPDATE, 7:29 PM (Andrew): O’Malley jumps in and makes a cru­cial point about a lack of human intel­li­gence. The U.S. intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty is addict­ed to sig­nals intel­li­gence, and it’s def­i­nite­ly a problem.

UPDATE, 7:32 PM (Andrew): Well, this is a first… a strong tech­nol­o­gy question!

UPDATE, 7:32 PM (Andrew): O’Malley says the gov­ern­ment should need a war­rant, whether that’s to come through the front door or a back door.

UPDATE, 7:33 PM (Essie): O’Malley says that the Fed­er­al Gov should have to get a war­rant weath­er they go through a front or back door. We need secu­ri­ty, but our pri­va­cy should not be infringed upon. We need a pub­lic advo­cate to help with the Patri­ot Act.

UPDATE, 7:34 PM (Andrew): We need a body of law that pro­tects Amer­i­cans in the dig­i­tal age, O’Malley says, con­clud­ing a strong answer in which he called for cur­tail­ing pri­va­cy abus­es and one-sided secret courts.

UPDATE, 7:35 PM (Essie): Sanders says that he vot­ed against the Patri­ot Act, and that we have to wor­ry about the pri­vate infor­ma­tion that the pri­vate com­pa­nies have regard­ing the Amer­i­can pub­lic. Sanders says that we have to have Sil­i­con Val­ley help with ISIS with­out vio­lat­ing the civ­il lib­er­ties of the Amer­i­can people.

UPDATE, 7:35 PM (Andrew): Sor­ry, Sec­re­tary Clin­ton, but we have to go to break…

UPDATE, 7:38 PM (Andrew): Lester Holt is the best mod­er­a­tor we’ve seen in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic debates thus far.

UPDATE, 7:39 PM (Andrew): NBC has also done a real­ly good job putting ques­tions togeth­er for this debate.

UPDATE, 7:40 PM (Andrew): Clin­ton slams the Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates for their big­ot­ed com­ments against Muslims.

UPDATE, 7:40 PM (Essie): Clin­ton says that we need bet­ter intel­li­gence and our coun­try needs to be uni­fied. We need to work with Mus­lim Americans.

UPDATE, 7:41 PM (Essie): O’Malley speaks against the vil­i­fi­ca­tion of Amer­i­can Muslims.

UPDATE, 7:42 PM (Andrew): Sanders makes a good point — much of our mil­i­tary bud­get goes towards con­ven­tion­al forces and weapons.

UPDATE, 7:42 PM (Essie): Sanders says that we have a mil­i­tary bud­get that con­tin­ues to fight the old cold war. Lit­tle of it goes to fight­ing ISIS. We need to make fun­da­men­tal changes to the priorities.

UPDATE, 7:43 PM (Essie): Clin­ton on the “kitchen table” role of Bill Clin­ton on the eco­nom­ic advi­so­ry role. She says that Bill will be a good will emis­sary to get more ideas on how to address the eco­nom­ic issues.

UPDATE, 7:44 PM (Essie): Sanders says that if Clinton’s advi­so­ry body on eco­nom­ics is stacked with Wall Street peo­ple they are not going to help very much.

UPDATE, 7:46 PM (Essie): Sanders says to a ques­tion relat­ed the trans­gres­sions on Bill Clin­ton: He says that he is annoyed by the ques­tion because it is not rel­e­vant to the issues fac­ing the Amer­i­can people.

UPDATE, 7:51 PM (Andrew): O’Malley cites sev­er­al issues that didn’t get talked about in depth tonight, like immi­gra­tion reform and what’s hap­pen­ing to Puer­to Rico.

UPDATE, 7:51 PM (Essie): O’Malley says that he wish­es we had dis­cussed immi­gra­tion issues had been cov­ered more. He says that the belief that we are on the thresh­old of a new era of Amer­i­can progress.

UPDATE, 7:51 PM (Andrew): Clin­ton says she’s out­raged by what is hap­pen­ing in Flint, Michi­gan. Was hop­ing this would be mentioned.

UPDATE, 7:52 PM (Andrew): #Arrest­Gov­S­ny­der

UPDATE, 7:52 PM (Essie): Clin­ton says she is out­raged by what is hap­pen­ing in Flint Michi­gan. She crit­i­cized the Gov­er­nor for not act­ing on the issue. She says that it is out­ra­geous that she wants to be a Pres­i­dent who acts on our issues at home.

UPDATE, 7:53 PM (Andrew): Sanders: We have got to get rid of Super PACs and Cit­i­zens Unit­ed… we need a polit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion to revi­tal­ize Amer­i­can democracy.

UPDATE, 7:54 PM (Essie): Sanders says that he calls for the res­ig­na­tion of the Gov­er­nor. Sanders says that he wants to see the super PACs gone and Cit­i­zens Unit­ed repealed. He says that he wants more young peo­ple involved in the polit­i­cal process. The wealthy should not be in charge of Amer­i­can policy.

UPDATE, 7:55 PM (Andrew): And with that, we’re done. It was a spir­it­ed, live­ly, and enjoy­able debate with the only real adults in the pres­i­den­tial race.

UPDATE, 7:57 PM (Essie): Anoth­er great debate. I trust the peo­ple on this stage to lead the Amer­i­can peo­ple more than any of the Repub­li­can can­di­dates. They are far more thought­ful, and car­ing of the peo­ple in this coun­try. Repub­li­cans are focused on dri­ving vot­ers by fear.