We’re watching the second night of the second 2020 Democratic presidential debate. Join us!

UPDATE, 5:16 PM (Ruairi): Bill de Bla­sio offers “a mes­sage of hope.” He argues that he brought “bold change” to New York City with pro­gres­sive poli­cies that “can be done.” He imme­di­ate­ly attacks Biden and Har­ris’ more mod­er­ate approach­es. De Bla­sio promis­es to “tax the hell out of the wealthy!”

UPDATE, 5:18 PM (Ruairi): Michael Ben­net imme­di­ate­ly draws atten­tion to the sign “Amer­i­ca: Love it, or leave it.” He says he loves Amer­i­ca. Speak­ing very slow­ly, he talks about under­priv­i­leged kids in his home area who share his hopes. He direct­ly attacked Trump – “kids belong in class­rooms, not cages…we have a bul­ly in the White House.” He promis­es to defeat Don­ald Trump.

UPDATE, 5:19 PM (Andrew): Washington’s own Jay Inslee was the third to speak tonight, which meant he got to talk about defeat­ing the cli­mate cri­sis almost right off the bat.

UPDATE, 5:19 PM (Ruairi): Washington’s Jay Inslee calls the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial con­tenders “the last best hope” to save the planet’s cli­mate. He wants a pro­gram of “nation­al mobilization…a big, bold, ambi­tious plan…for a big, bold, ambi­tious nation.” He argues, “we can defeat the cli­mate cri­sis, let’s get to work!”

UPDATE, 5:20 PM (Ruairi): Kirsten Gilli­brand argues that “if you want to get some­thing done, tell ME it’s impos­si­ble!” She described her record on women’s rights and the ⁹⁄₁₁ health bill. She wants a nom­i­nee that “doesn’t know the mean­ing of impossible.”

UPDATE, 5:21 PM (Andrew): That was a skill­ful open­ing by Kirsten Gilli­brand, empha­siz­ing what can be accom­plished even in dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances. Mak­ing the impos­si­ble pos­si­ble is, indeed, the Amer­i­can way.

UPDATE, 5:21 PM (Ruairi): Tul­si Gab­bard described her record in the mil­i­tary and the U.S. Con­gress. She promis­es to bring her patri­o­tism to the White House. She promis­es to bring the found­ing prin­ci­ples of the USA back to the White House.

UPDATE, 5:22 PM (Andrew): Props to Julián Cas­tro for invok­ing Puer­to Rico in his open­ing statement.

UPDATE, 5:23 PM (Ruairi): Juliàn Cas­tro talks about the inspi­ra­tional protests in Puer­to Rico. He promis­es to give oppor­tu­ni­ties to vot­ers, their chil­dren and their grand­chil­dren. He says that the USA is great, but “too many peo­ple are strug­gling.” Instead of “mak­ing Amer­i­ca great again,” he wants to, “make it bet­ter than any­thing it’s ever been.”

UPDATE, 5:24 PM (Ruairi): Andrew Yang imme­di­ate­ly brings up his flag­ship plan, Uni­ver­sal Basic Income. He argues that , “the oppo­site of Don­ald Trump is an Asian man who likes math!” He argues that his plan can deal with the loss of automa­tion jobs in cities like Detroit.

UPDATE, 5:24 PM (Andrew): Andrew Yang appears much more pre­pared for this debate than the first one. He’s tak­ing advan­tage of the for­mat cho­sen by CNN, which is more favor­able to less­er known can­di­dates like him.

UPDATE, 5:25 PM (Andrew): Cory Book­er paused his open­ing state­ment due to chant­i­ng from a fac­tion of peo­ple in the audience.

He has now resumed speaking.

UPDATE, 5:26 PM (Ruairi): Cory Book­er is inter­rupt­ed by pro­test­ers in the the­atre, mid­way through his mes­sage of anti-racist rhetoric. He argues that Trump is using “tired old lan­guage” to “divide this coun­try against itself.”

He wants to ask Amer­i­cans, “who are we as a peo­ple?” He wants to heal the nation’s deep wounds and move for­ward to America’s “com­mon destiny…common cause and com­mon destiny.”

UPDATE, 5:27 PM (Ruairi): Kamala Har­ris calls this “an inflec­tion moment in the his­to­ry of our coun­try.” She also asks who the USA as a coun­try, answer­ing, “we are bet­ter than this.” She recalls the his­tor­i­cal fights for Amer­i­can ideals, includ­ing her civ­il rights-activist par­ents. She wants to “pros­e­cute the case of four more years of Pres­i­dent Trump, against him.”

UPDATE, 5:27 PM (Andrew): “I’m run­ning for Pres­i­dent to restore the soul of this coun­try,” Joe Biden says.

UPDATE, 5:28 PM (Andrew): Smart choice by Biden to speak direct­ly to Trump in his open­ing statement.

UPDATE, 5:28 PM (Ruairi): Joe Biden wants to “restore the soul of this coun­try.” He argues that no one man can destroy the coun­try on his own, that Amer­i­ca is too strong. He looks at the diverse can­di­dates sur­round­ing him, say­ing direct­ly to Trump, “this is our country…we’re not going to leave it to you!”

UPDATE, 5:29 PM (Ruairi): The first ques­tion address­es Har­ris’ health­care plan, ask­ing her about the Biden campaign’s crit­i­cism that it is a “have it every which way plan.”

UPDATE, 5:29 PM (Andrew): CNN’s Dana Bash wast­ed no time try­ing to man­u­fac­ture con­flict between Kamala Har­ris and Joe Biden.

UPDATE, 5:30 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris talks about deductibles, co-pays and pre­mi­ums that vot­ers com­plain to her about. She designed a plan that would offer a pub­lic plan and a pri­vate plan for the peo­ple. She agrees with pro­gres­sives that health­care is a right, not a privilege.

UPDATE, 5:31 PM (Andrew): Giv­en the chance to bash Har­ris’ plan, Biden took it. “You can’t beat Don­ald Trump with dou­bletalk,” Biden declared. Har­ris respond­ing now.

UPDATE, 5:31 PM (Ruairi): Biden points to the length of time Har­ris’ plan takes to imple­ment and the great cost of the plan. He says “you can’t beat Trump with dou­ble-talk on this plan.”

UPDATE, 5:33 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris promis­es to ensure that every Amer­i­can is cov­ered, say­ing that Biden’s plan would leave almost ten mil­lion out. He sim­ply says that Har­ris’ plan would cost three tril­lion dol­lars. Har­ris says, “the cost of doing noth­ing is far too expensive…we are NOW pay­ing three tril­lion dol­lars a year.” She sim­ply makes the moral argu­ment that all Amer­i­cans should have access.

UPDATE, 5:34 PM (Ruairi): Bill de Bla­sio argues that even Amer­i­cans with insur­ance are often dis­sat­is­fied with their pri­vate insur­ance plans. He points out that many plans don’t cov­er men­tal health or den­tal care. Biden respond­ed that the U.S. needs to “build on Obamacare.”

UPDATE, 5:34 PM (Andrew): Every time Joe Biden says “Oba­macare”, he’s invok­ing a right wing frame. Bad move, Mr. Vice Pres­i­dent. Why not call the law by its cor­rect name — the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act?

UPDATE, 5:36 PM (Ruairi): Biden promis­es to insure “the vast major­i­ty” but notably, not all. Gilli­brand is then asked about her own sup­port for Medicare for All, com­pared to Kamala Har­ris’ own plan which includes pri­vate insur­ance options. Gilli­brand told the sto­ry of her own child’s aller­gic reac­tion, fol­low­ing with the point that insur­ance com­pa­nies are for prof­it and skim­ming off the cost of healthcare.

UPDATE, 5:37 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris points out that the archi­tect of Oba­macare has endorsed her own plan, and says that Biden’s plan will ensure “busi­ness as usu­al” for insur­ance com­pa­nies abus­ing their cus­tomers. Biden replies that “no one has to keep their own insurance…they can but into the Biden plan.”

UPDATE, 5:38 PM (Andrew): It’s real­ly, real­ly dis­ap­point­ing that Joe Biden is using his time on this debate stage to crit­i­cize Medicare For All.

UPDATE, 5:38 PM (Ruairi): Cory Book­er is asked about pub­lic-pri­vate con­tra­dic­tions in his own plan. He responds that Don­ald Trump and the Repub­li­cans are enjoy­ing the debate while they try to destroy health­care. He wants to “keep his eyes on the prize.” He points out that the USA spends more than any oth­er coun­try on healthcare.

UPDATE, 5:39 PM (Ruairi): Book­er is wor­ried about demor­al­iz­ing the Par­ty in the face of “the real enemy.”

UPDATE, 5:40 PM (Ruairi): Tul­si Gab­bard argues that Har­ris’ plan would prof­it health insur­ance coun­tries. Gab­bard wants to “shut out” pri­vate coun­tries from the sys­tem. Instead of going after Gab­bard, Har­ris’ response imme­di­ate­ly turns to strik­ing at Biden for his plan’s lack of uni­ver­sal coverage.

UPDATE, 5:41 PM (Ruairi): Biden argues that his plan can help by con­trol­ling drug prices. He wants reform that forces phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies to set the price in coop­er­a­tion with the government.

UPDATE, 5:42 PM (Andrew): Gov­er­nor Inslee hasn’t yet got­ten to say any­thing apart from his open­ing state­ment. Why haven’t the CNN mod­er­a­tors asked him about health­care? He has real world expe­ri­ence to share.

UPDATE, 5:42 PM (Ruairi): Sen. Ben­net believes that Medicare for All will get Don­ald Trump re-elect­ed. Like Biden, he wants to build on Oba­macare. He argues that pro­gres­sive plans would raise tax­es on the mid­dle class by tril­lion and abol­ish pri­vate insurance.

UPDATE, 5:43 PM (Ruairi): Juliàn Cas­tro recalled his grand­moth­er who had dia­betes, and was cared for under Medicare. He doesn’t believe that prof­it motives for com­pa­nies should deter­mine people’s health­care. Har­ris, strik­ing back at Ben­net, points out that too many Amer­i­cans stick to employ­ers they do not like because of their insurance.