UPDATE, 5:24 PM (Andrew): Eliz­a­beth War­ren did a good job refram­ing when chal­lenged. She artic­u­late­ly summed up the prob­lems of the cur­rent sys­tem, which is not effi­cient or effec­tive. Every­one watch­ing who has employ­er-spon­sored health­care knows what the words “out of net­work” mean.

UPDATE, 5:25 PM (Ruairi): We’ve seen this movie before, so to speak. This debate, like the ones before it, began with a tus­sle over health­care, with Biden on on side, sup­port­ing his plan to build on the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act, and Sen­a­tors Sanders and War­ren mak­ing the case for their Medicare for All plans.

UPDATE, 5:26 PM (Ruairi): Biden defend­ed his plan, say­ing that any­one who likes their insur­ance can keep it. He repeat­ed­ly crit­i­cized his rivals’ plans on a cost basis. “It’s not a bad idea if you like it, I don’t like it!”

UPDATE, 5:27 PM (Ruairi): “I’ve nev­er met any­one who actu­al­ly likes their health insur­ance com­pa­ny!” Eliz­a­beth War­ren retort­ed. She point­ed out that the prob­lem is that insur­ance com­pa­nies make prof­its by say­ing no to health­care – her plan would guar­an­tee care for all.

UPDATE, 5:30 PM (Ruairi): Respond­ing to Klobuchar’s argu­ment that Medicare For All will take away pri­vate insur­ance options, War­ren stat­ed that Amer­i­cans will still have access to qual­i­ty health­care – because her plan cuts out the expen­sive mid­dle­men in the health­care industry.

UPDATE, 5:32 PM (Andrew): We’re about a half hour in and so far, this has been basi­cal­ly a debate over sin­gle-pay­er health­care (should we have it or not), with most of the time going to Biden, Sanders, and Warren.

UPDATE, 5:32 PM (Ruairi): Kamala Har­ris was asked about her chang­ing posi­tion on Medicare For All. She cred­it­ed both Barack Oba­ma and Bernie Sanders, say­ing that her plan makes Bernie’s plan bet­ter. Her plan does not elim­i­nate pri­vate health insurance.

UPDATE, 5:34 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris brought the con­ver­sa­tion back to Trump. She lam­bast­ed his efforts to destroy the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act, from the leg­isla­tive attempt thwart­ed by John McCain to the Depart­ment of Jus­tice’s refusal to defend the law against court challenges.

UPDATE, 5:35 PM (Caitlin): Sanders coun­tered Biden’s accu­sa­tion that the fund­ing need­ed for Medicare For All is unre­al­is­tic by argu­ing that one of the major rea­son Amer­i­cans file for bank­rupt­cy is because of dis­ease and illness.

UPDATE, 5:36 PM (Ruairi): Biden says he is offer­ing “Medicare for Choice,” that any­one can get. He again assailed Medicare For All on a cost basis. Bernie Sanders replied to Biden that the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act did­n’t go far enough to help peo­ple, like those who are strug­gling with bank­rupt­cy due to cancer.

UPDATE, 5:36 PM (Andrew): The ABC mod­er­a­tors have so far failed to steer this debate into new ter­ri­to­ry. They appar­ent­ly want­ed a clash that rehash­es the mer­its of sin­gle pay­er health­care. And they got that.

UPDATE, 5:36 PM (Ruairi): “I know about can­cer,” said Biden, not­ing he lost his son Beau (also an elect­ed offi­cial) to the dis­ease only four years ago. He says that his plan will cov­er those with ter­mi­nal illnesses.

UPDATE, 5:38 PM (Ruairi): Julián Cas­tro rec­og­nized Pres­i­dent Obama’s efforts on health­care. He said that Biden’s plan leaves ten mil­lion peo­ple uncov­ered. He described his grand­moth­er’s ill­ness, not­ing she was lucky to have Medicare.

UPDATE, 5:38 PM (Andrew): Joe Biden seems shocked that Cas­tro is attack­ing him and his record so aggressively.

UPDATE, 5:39 PM (Ruairi): Cas­tro said the dif­fer­ence between his plan and Biden’s is that Biden’s require peo­ple to buy in. Biden dis­agreed. Cas­tro made what was per­ceived on social media and in the debate hall as a sub­tle jab at Biden’s age: “Are you for­get­ting what you said just two min­utes ago?”

UPDATE, 5:40 PM (Ruairi): Cas­tro says “I’m ful­fill­ing the lega­cy of Barack Oba­ma, and you’re not!” Biden retorts, “He’d be sur­prised to hear that.”

UPDATE, 5:40 PM (Ruairi): The can­di­dates, spurred by Yang, exchanged com­ments about whether the back and forth on health­care was use­ful or not.

UPDATE, 5:41 PM (Ruairi): Andrew Yang said: “I am Asian, so I know a lot of doc­tors.” He says the cur­rent sys­tem makes it too hard for doc­tors to get results.

UPDATE, 5:42 PM (Caitlin): Sen­a­tor Book­er closed out the health­care sec­tion. “I believe in Medicare For All,” he said, adding: “But there is an urgency in this nation.” He explained that while he wants to get to Medicare For All, Amer­i­cans need action now on health cov­er­age and he’ll work with fel­low Democ­rats to achieve progress, even if that means tak­ing incre­men­tal steps.

UPDATE, 5:42 PM (Andrew): The Demo­c­ra­t­ic field is for­tu­nate that Cory Booker’s elo­quence capped off that con­ver­sa­tion about health­care, smooth­ing over the rough exchange between Biden and Castro.

UPDATE, 5:42 PM (Ruairi): The mod­er­a­tors have end­ed the health­care seg­ment and moved on to the top­ic of sys­temic racism and social justice.

UPDATE, 5:44 PM (Caitlin): Beto O’Rourke was giv­en the first oppor­tu­ni­ty to weigh in. As pres­i­dent, he said he would sign into law a repa­ra­tions bill that would let us address sys­temic racism at its foun­da­tions. He fin­ished by say­ing that we must not for­get about the white suprema­cist in the White House.

UPDATE, 5:45 PM (Ruairi): Julián Cas­tro com­mend­ed Beto O’Rourke for his com­pas­sion at El Paso. He point­ed out that the El Paso shoot­er tar­get­ed “peo­ple who look like me.” He cit­ed his plan “to dis­arm hate,” and empha­sized his pro­pos­al to reform the police force.

UPDATE, 5:46 PM (Andrew): Cory Book­er once again shone in a debate answer with some pow­er­ful analy­sis about sys­temic racism. Good reframing.

UPDATE, 5:46 PM (Caitlin): Book­er declared that we know Don­ald Trump is a racist and it’s impor­tant to call out racism, but it’s also impor­tant to work against the sys­temic racism that is “erod­ing our coun­try.” He promised that as pres­i­dent, he would imple­ment an office that was specif­i­cal­ly designed to tack­le white suprema­cy and sys­temic racism that touch­es all aspects of Amer­i­can life.

UPDATE, 5:47 PM (Andrew): “Harms com­pound,” says Pete Buttigieg, nice­ly adding on to what Cory Book­er said about need­ing to dis­man­tle sys­temic racism.

UPDATE, 5:48 PM (Caitlin): Pete Buttigieg stat­ed that sys­temic racism pre­ced­ed Trump, so we need a sys­temic approach to com­bat it. He char­ac­ter­ized his plan as “the most com­pre­hen­sive vision to tack­le sys­temic racism in all areas.”

UPDATE, 5:49 PM (Ruairi): Kamala Har­ris is asked about how she has changed her views on crim­i­nal and social jus­tice issues. Har­ris described her­self as “born know­ing” about the racial injus­tices in the jus­tice sys­tem. She goes to her argu­ment that she want­ed to change the sys­tem from the inside.

UPDATE, 5:51 PM (Ruairi): “Was I able to get enough done, absolute­ly not!” Har­ris lays out the basic tenets of her new jus­tice plan, which are pop­u­lar with activists. She says she can do the job as an insider.

UPDATE, 5:52 PM (Andrew): The ques­tions com­ing from the mod­er­a­tors in this sec­ond seg­ment are bet­ter than the first seg­ment. Props to ABC for cre­at­ing ques­tions that chal­lenge the can­di­dates on their social & crim­i­nal jus­tice records.

UPDATE, 5:53 PM (Caitlin): Sen­a­tor Klobuchar was asked about her record. She spoke about her time as pros­e­cu­tor, work­ing the com­mu­ni­ty groups, to ensure those who mur­dered black chil­dren in her com­mu­ni­ty were brought to jus­tice. She spoke about how her office went after white col­lar crimes and worked with the inno­cence project around the accu­ra­cy of eye wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. She fin­ished by promis­ing to reform the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in a holis­tic way.

UPDATE, 5:54 PM (Ruairi): Biden was asked about his crim­i­nal and social jus­tice plan. Biden recalled his ear­ly days as a lawyer, dur­ing the Civ­il Rights era. He says that “the whole mod­el should change.” He points to the Oba­ma administration’s release of tens of thou­sands of non­vi­o­lent offenders.

UPDATE, 5:55 PM (Ruairi): In one of his bet­ter lines of the night, Biden declared: “When you fin­ish your term in prison, you should not only be able to vote, you should have access to Pell grants,” and oth­er benefits.

UPDATE, 5:57 PM (Caitlin): Book­er opened with a quote that stat­ed our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem “treats you bet­ter if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent.”Booker argued that every can­di­date on the stage should promise that as pres­i­dent, they would release those who are behind bars unjust­ly, which he says is rough­ly 7000 peo­ple. He spoke of his record in the Sen­ate to work to grant clemen­cy to as many as possible.

UPDATE, 5:57 PM (Ruairi): Turn­ing to the top­ic of gun vio­lence, the mod­er­a­tors point­ed out that sur­vivors from El Paso are in the audi­ence tonight.

UPDATE, 5:57 PM (Andrew): It’s always nice when a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date offers attri­bu­tion before or after bor­row­ing a good quote. “We have a sys­tem of jus­tice that treats you bet­ter if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and inno­cent,” is one of Bryan Stevenson’s best quips.

UPDATE, 5:58 PM (Ruairi): Biden is asked why he failed to secure stronger gun safe­ty laws in the wake of the hor­rif­ic Sandy Hook mas­sacre. He respond­ed by say­ing that he is the only can­di­date to “ever beat the NRA,” with the Brady Bill. He says that gun safe­ty has gone from “a cause to a movement.”

UPDATE, 5:59 PM (Ruairi): Biden quot­ed the sta­tis­tics to make the case for stronger gun safe­ty laws. Biden com­ple­ment­ed that the way O’Rourke han­dled the mas­sacre in El Paso, call­ing it “mean­ing­ful”, to huge applause.

UPDATE, 6:00 PM (Ruairi): Kamala Har­ris was asked about her plans to issue exec­u­tive orders to address gun vio­lence. Joe Biden (who was quot­ed in the ques­tion) inter­rupt­ed to say: “You can do that for some things!”

UPDATE, 6:00 PM (Andrew): Kamala Har­ris neat­ly invoked the Oba­ma campaign’s mot­to “Yes, we can!” to argue that exec­u­tive action is a real­is­tic means of cur­tail­ing civil­ian access to weapons of war.

UPDATE, 6:00 PM (Caitlin): Beto O’Rourke was com­pli­ment­ed by for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden for the way he respond­ed to the recent shoot­ing in El Paso, when he left the cam­paign trail and met with the vic­tims’ families.

Biden referred to him as “Beto,” before apol­o­giz­ing and call­ing him “Con­gress­man.” O’Rourke laughed and told him usage of his first name was fine.

UPDATE, 6:01 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris recalls her time as a pros­e­cu­tor, look­ing at mur­der cas­es, deal­ing with vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. She points out that chil­dren are being drilled to be ready for mass shootings.

UPDATE, 6:02 PM (Ruairi): “Beto, God love you for stand­ing so coura­geous­ly in the midst of that tragedy,” says Har­ris. Turn­ing to Trump, she says that the Pres­i­dent is “tweet­ing out the ammu­ni­tion” for mass shootings.

UPDATE, 6:03 PM (Andrew): For­mer U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Beto O’Rourke is show­ing Amer­i­ca what courage looks like as he makes the case that no civil­ian needs (or should pos­sess) an AR-15 or sim­i­lar weapon.

UPDATE, 6:05 PM (Caitlin): Beto exclaimed, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15 and your AK-47s” after explain­ing the hor­rif­ic sto­ries he heard recent­ly in Texas after the shoot­ing. He said that he also went to a gun show recent­ly and was able to find com­mon ground with those who sell these guns.

UPDATE, 6:07 PM (Andrew): Cory Book­er is tru­ly hav­ing a great debate so far. His com­ments about the need for empa­thy are so impor­tant and wel­come. Empa­thy is a core pro­gres­sive value.

UPDATE, 6:08 PM (Caitlin): Klobuchar was asked about her views on address­ing gun vio­lence. She declared that what unites us is big­ger than what divides us. She stat­ed that every­one on the stage believes in com­mon sense gun reform. She point­ed out that there is a bill she’s worked on sit­ting on Mitch McConnell’s desk that keeps guns out of the hands of domes­tic abusers. 

She stat­ed that she sup­ports an ini­tial volun­tary gun buy­back pro­gram, but if we want action now, we have to send a mes­sage to Mitch McConnell. We have to pass the gun con­trol bills that are sit­ting on his desk right now.

UPDATE, 6:08 PM (Caitlin): Book­er spoke pas­sion­ate­ly about the gun vio­lence epi­dem­ic in his neigh­bor­hood. He argued that we need “more coura­geous empa­thy” and that he would lead change on this issue with a per­son­al passion.

UPDATE, 6:09 PM (Ruairi): Eliz­a­beth War­ren is asked “what can you get done on guns” when work­ing with Repub­li­cans. She reframed the issue as “a gun vio­lence prob­lem,” cit­ing sui­cides and acci­den­tal shoot­ings, which don’t get the press that mas­sacres do, but cer­tain­ly con­tribute to loss of life in our country.

UPDATE, 6:11 PM (Ruairi): War­ren: “When we’ve got this much sup­port across the coun­try… why doesn’t it hap­pen, and the answer is cor­rup­tion, pure and sim­ple.” She wants to “roll back the fil­i­buster” in the Senate.

UPDATE, 6:11 PM (Ruairi): War­ren declared that she wants a pol­i­tics that “works for the peo­ple,” rather than big companies.

UPDATE, 6:11 PM (Andrew): Spot-on com­ments from Eliz­a­beth War­ren about tack­ling cor­rup­tion and elim­i­nat­ing the fil­i­buster in order to take action on gun vio­lence and oth­er issues. Smart reframing.

UPDATE, 6:12 PM (Ruairi): Sanders echoed War­ren, say­ing “what we are look­ing at is a cor­rupt polit­i­cal sys­tem,” offer­ing a holis­tic argu­ment that the Amer­i­can pol­i­tics is being held hostage by pow­er­ful interests.

UPDATE, 6:13 PM (Caitlin): Sanders was asked about end­ing the fil­i­buster. He while he doesn’t sup­port end­ing the fil­i­buster, he argued that we would not wait for six­ty votes to pass anti-cor­rup­tion ini­tia­tives. He said that in terms of gun issues, what we are look­ing at is a cor­rupt polit­i­cal sys­tem, echo­ing Eliz­a­beth Warren’s state­ments. He again tout­ed his “F rat­ing” from the NRA.

UPDATE, 6:14 PM (Ruairi): Jorge Ramos asked Biden about immi­gra­tion. In 2008, Biden sup­port­ed bor­der fenc­ing. He asked if Biden and the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion “made a mis­take” with respect to their pol­i­cy on deportations.

UPDATE, 6:15 PM (Ruairi): Biden strong­ly defend­ed Obama’s record, point­ing to DACA and Obama’s attempts to cre­ate a path to cit­i­zen­ship. Biden said he wants to change Trump’s repul­sive bor­der poli­cies on asy­lum seekers.

UPDATE, 6:15 PM (Ruairi): Ramos pressed on, ask­ing: “Did you make a mis­take?” Biden opt­ed not to direct­ly answer the ques­tion. Ramos then turned to Cas­tro, who also served in Obama’s admin­is­tra­tion as part of the Cabinet.

UPDATE, 6:16 PM (Ruairi): Cas­tro says that, unlike Oba­ma, Trump has “a dark heart” con­cern­ing immi­gra­tion. He crit­i­cized Biden for try­ing to take cred­it for Obama’s work, while dis­tanc­ing him­self from oth­er aspects of Oba­ma’s record.

UPDATE, 6:17 PM (Ruairi): Cas­tro said his admin­is­tra­tion would “not give up pro­tec­tions for any­body.” Biden said that he stands with Oba­ma, “all eight years.”

UPDATE, 6:18 PM (Ruairi): War­ren was asked about her desire to get rid of Immi­gra­tion & Cus­toms Enforce­ment (ICE). She empha­sized the impor­tance of offer­ing a path to cit­i­zen­ship. She added that the cur­rent immi­gra­tion sys­tem does not keep Amer­i­cans safer, or serve Amer­i­can values.

UPDATE, 6:19 PM (Ruairi): War­ren stressed help­ing the nations of Cen­tral Amer­i­ca. She blamed the cur­rent bor­der cri­sis express­ly on Don­ald Trump.

UPDATE, 6:20 PM (Ruairi): Andrew Yang was asked about legal immi­gra­tion – would he increase the num­ber of peo­ple admit­ted to the coun­try from one to two mil­lion? Yang point­ed to the val­ue of immi­grants to the U.S., includ­ing his father.

UPDATE, 6:21 PM (Ruairi): Yang wants to “com­pete for tal­ent” with oth­er coun­tries, say­ing that the Unit­ed States is a “mag­net for human cap­i­tal,” and chang­ing that dynam­ic would irrepara­bly change the country.

UPDATE, 6:22 PM (Caitlin): May­or Buttigieg was asked about Trump’s racist rhetoric and poli­cies around immigration.

“Any­one who sup­ports these is sup­port­ing racism,” said Buttigieg.

He argued that those who sup­port these poli­cies most­ly just are not famil­iar with immi­grants per­son­al­ly. He stat­ed that we need to being engag­ing the Amer­i­can major­i­ty on our val­ues of wel­come and faith.

UPDATE, 6:24 PM (Caitlin): O’Rourke was then asked about those who over­stay their visas and he argued we have rewrite our immi­gra­tion laws in the image of El Paso, Texas, one of the most diverse and safe cities in the Unit­ed States. He said both Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans need to face the fact that both vot­ed for inef­fec­tive and inhu­mane immi­gra­tion laws. He cit­ed the need to give DREAM­Ers cit­i­zen­ship now and that under his admin­is­tra­tion, the Unit­ed States would nev­er lock up undoc­u­ment­ed chil­dren again.

UPDATE, 6:25 PM (Andrew): The debate has paused for a lengthy, mul­ti-minute com­mer­cial break. ABC is teas­ing that the next top­ics will be “Amer­i­can jobs” and “for­eign pol­i­cy”. What about cli­mate justice?