We’re watching the fourth 2020 Democratic presidential debate. Join us!

UPDATE, 4:55 PM (Ruairi): Ander­son Coop­er has begun intro­duc­ing the twelve can­di­dates. Joe Biden cameo ut on stage first.

UPDATE, 4:58 PM (Ruairi): With Sec­re­tary Julián Cas­tro present, the twelve can­di­dates who qual­i­fied for this debate are all on stage.

UPDATE, 5:03 PM (Ruairi): The CNN/New York Times debate, live from Ohio, has begun. There will be no open­ing state­ments, owing to the large num­ber of can­di­dates who are shar­ing the same stage tonight.

UPDATE, 5:03 PM (Ruairi): The debate starts with the issue of impeach­ment. Eliz­a­beth War­ren is asked why it shouldn’t be the vot­ers who decide Trump’s fate.

UPDATE, 5:04 PM (Ruairi): “Some issues are big­ger than pol­i­tics,” War­ren said. She argued that the fail­ure to hold an impeach­ment vote after the release of the Mueller report led to Trump com­mit­ting fur­ther crimes.

UPDATE, 5:06 PM (Ruairi): Bernie Sanders says Democ­rats have no choice but to impeach: “Trump is the most cor­rupt Pres­i­dent in the his­to­ry of this coun­try.” Besides the Ukrain­ian inci­dent, Sanders also points to Don­ald Trump’s vio­la­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion’s Emol­u­ments Clause.

UPDATE, 5:06 PM (Andrew): Very strong answers so far from Eliz­a­beth War­ren and Bernie Sanders on impeachment.

UPDATE, 5:06 PM (Andrew): “I agree with Bernie… Sen­a­tor Sanders,” Joe Biden says, call­ing Trump the most cor­rupt pres­i­dent in history.

UPDATE, 5:07 PM (Ruairi): Biden is asked about his sup­port for Pres­i­dent Clin­ton dur­ing his impeach­ment. Biden says that Trump’s stonewalling of Con­gress gives the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives no choice but to impeach.

UPDATE, 5:07 PM (Ruairi): Biden points to Trump’s unprece­dent­ed hos­til­i­ty towards the con­gres­sion­al investigations.

UPDATE, 5:09 PM (Ruairi): Kamala Har­ris: “Our framers imag­ined this moment…and right­ly designed our sys­tem of democ­ra­cy.” She says ” I know a con­fes­sion when I see it,” from Trump’s ongo­ing behavior.

UPDATE, 5:09 PM (Ruairi): Book­er was asked if he can be fair in a Sen­ate tri­al of Trump. He argued that the coun­try is fac­ing “a moral moment and not a polit­i­cal one!” He said that he will do his duty, even if Trump has vio­lat­ed his.

UPDATE, 5:10 PM (Andrew): Impeach­ment seems to unite this field like no oth­er issue. The mes­sage dis­ci­pline we’ve seen so far tonight is remarkable.

UPDATE, 5:11 PM (Ruairi): Amy Klobuchar said “we can do two things at once,” in response to the argu­ment that Democ­rats will dis­tract from big­ger issues with impeach­ment. Klobuchar demol­ished Trump’s recent for­eign pol­i­cy moves: cod­dling up to Putin, betray­ing the Kurds and the Ukraine scandal.

UPDATE, 5:12 PM (Ruairi): Julián Cas­tro said that Democ­rats “can walk and chew gum at the same time,” lay­ing out the ways Trump is both fail­ing in his promis­es to the vot­ers and betray­ing the country.

UPDATE, 5:13 PM (Ruairi): Pete Buttigieg said that Repub­li­cans are betray­ing “their own sup­posed val­ues” by sup­port­ing Trump. He said that politi­cians of the future will look to this moment to see if they can get away with ter­ri­ble behavior.

UPDATE, 5:14 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg then piv­ot­ed to the argu­ment that a Buttigieg pres­i­den­cy can unite a divid­ed, post-Trump America.

UPDATE, 5:15 PM (Ruairi): Tul­si Gab­bard steered a more cau­tious course on impeach­ment, but she says she does believe that Trump should be impeached.

UPDATE, 5:15 PM (Ruairi): Tom Stey­er remind­ed every­body that he start­ed the Need to Impeach move­ment. He said that the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives has to impeach Trump as a mat­ter of principle.

UPDATE, 5:17 PM (Ruairi): Andrew Yang point­ed out that impeach­ing Trump won’t solve the prob­lems that led him into office. He returned to his trade­mark mes­sage of poli­cies that help peo­ple in the face of the fourth indus­tri­al revolution.

UPDATE, 5:17 PM (Ruairi): Beto O’Rourke said that vet­er­ans brave­ly defend the coun­try against ene­mies, and Con­gress has to show brav­ery in tak­ing on Trump’s criminality.

UPDATE, 5:19 PM (Ruairi): Biden was asked about his son’s for­eign busi­ness ties while he was Vice Pres­i­dent. “My son did noth­ing wrong, I did noth­ing wrong,” said Biden. He wants to focus on the impor­tance of remov­ing Trump from office.

UPDATE, 5:19 PM (Ruairi): Biden recalled that George Wash­ing­ton him­self warned about for­eign inter­fer­ence in elec­tions. “The Pres­i­dent and his thugs have already proven that they are flat lying.”

UPDATE, 5:20 PM (Ruairi): Biden promised that, if nom­i­nat­ed by the Democ­rats, he will beat Trump “like a drum” in the election.

UPDATE, 5:20 PM (Ruairi): Biden said he is proud of his son’s judg­ment in how he is deal­ing with the President’s false accusations.

UPDATE, 5:21 PM (Ruairi): Bernie Sanders brought up the oth­er cru­cial issues the coun­try faces, point­ing out that vot­ers can’t be led to believe that the Democ­rats only want to take on Trump.

UPDATE, 5:22 PM (Ruairi): Eliz­a­beth War­ren was asked about Medicare for All – will she raise tax­es on mid­dle income fam­i­lies? War­ren respond­ed: “For hard-work­ing mid­dle class fam­i­lies, costs will go down.”

UPDATE, 5:23 PM (Ruairi): War­ren recalled con­ver­sa­tions with peo­ple who have had ter­ri­ble ill­ness­es and declared that their insur­ance com­pa­nies “pulled the rug from under­neath them.” She said that peo­ple shouldn’t wor­ry about the costs of health­care when fac­ing illness.

UPDATE, 5:24 PM (Ruairi): War­ren dodged a ques­tion framed around tax­es, say­ing that “costs” will not go up. Buttigieg went on the offen­sive, say­ing that War­ren doesn’t have a plan for Medicare for All, and doesn’t have an answer.

UPDATE, 5:25 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg said that his plan, “Medicare for All Who Want It”, avoids “a giant, mul­ti-tril­lion dol­lar hole.” War­ren slapped him down: “Under­stand what that tru­ly means – Medicare for All Who Can Afford It.”

UPDATE, 5:26 PM (Andrew): Real­ly bad fram­ing here from Pete Buttigieg. Not a good look for him at all. Going after War­ren was­n’t a good choice.

UPDATE, 5:26 PM (Ruairi): “Costs are what peo­ple care about,” argued War­ren. Buttigieg declared that he believes that giv­ing peo­ple a choice is bet­ter than pass­ing leg­is­la­tion that he believes would “oblit­er­ate pri­vate plans.”

UPDATE, 5:28 PM (Ruairi): Bernie Sanders retort­ed that under his plan, “pre­mi­ums are gone, co-pay­ments are gone…we’re going to do bet­ter than the Cana­di­ans have done.” He does think “it is appro­pri­ate to acknowl­edge that tax­es will go up,” and says that the drop in costs will com­pen­sate for tax increases.

UPDATE, 5:29 PM (Ruairi): Despite hav­ing been giv­en a great argu­ment by Sanders, War­ren again declined to answer a ques­tion framed around tax­es. Amy Klobuchar pounced, cit­ing War­ren’s refusal to accept that fram­ing, and argued that what the coun­try needs is an expand­ed Patient Pro­tec­tion Act.

UPDATE, 5:29 PM (Ruairi): Strange­ly, Klobuchar just offered up the crazy argu­ment that sup­port­ing Medicare for All is “a Repub­li­can talk­ing point.”

UPDATE, 5:30 PM (Ruairi): War­ren said “the problem…is the over­all cost of health­care.” She recalls her record of study­ing the caus­es of bank­rupt­cy in the Unit­ed States. Klobuchar snaps back that there’s a dif­fer­ence “between a plan and a pipe dream.” Health­care for all is a pipe dream?

UPDATE, 5:31 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar then piv­ot­ed to admon­ish­ing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies for their bot­tom­less greed.

UPDATE, 5:32 PM (Ruairi): Biden was asked about health­care. He says that an expand­ed Patient Pro­tec­tion Act is “the Biden plan.” He con­ced­ed that costs will go down under War­ren and Sanders’ plans, but argued that tax­es would go up.

UPDATE, 5:33 PM (Ruairi): Sanders says that he is tired of peo­ple defend­ing a sys­tem that is “dys­func­tion­al and cru­el.” He argues that Democ­rats need “the guts” to fol­low through on last­ing health­care reform.

UPDATE, 5:33 PM (Andrew): Kamala Har­ris took the ini­tia­tive to steer this health­care con­ver­sa­tion in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion by talk­ing about repro­duc­tive health. The can­di­dates should do this kind of piv­ot­ing more often.

UPDATE, 5:34 PM (Ruairi): As men­tioned, Kamala Har­ris chose to change the sub­ject. She brought up the attack on repro­duc­tive rights in the Unit­ed States “Women will die… because these Repub­li­can leg­is­la­tures who are out of touch with Amer­i­ca are telling women what they can do with their bodies.”

UPDATE, 5:35 PM (Ruairi): Bernie Sanders was asked about the threat of automa­tion to Amer­i­can jobs. “Damn right we will…” have enough jobs to fill the gaps left by automa­tion, Sanders said. He argued in favor of mas­sive infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment to pro­vide jobs to Americans.

UPDATE, 5:36 PM (Ruairi): Sanders argued that a Green New Deal will cre­ate twen­ty mil­lion new jobs for Amer­i­cans: teach­ers, doc­tors, den­tists, car­pen­ters. He also point­ed out that can­celling stu­dent debt will give peo­ple opportunities.

UPDATE, 5:37 PM (Andrew): Andrew Yang just uttered the words “trick­le up econ­o­my”. Um, what? There’s no such thing.

UPDATE, 5:37 PM (Ruairi): Yang argued that a fed­er­al jobs guar­an­tee will trap peo­ple in jobs they do not work. He says that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment will not han­dle resources as well as indi­vid­u­als will under his Uni­ver­sal Basic Income plan.

UPDATE, 5:38 PM (Ruairi): Cory Book­er is feeling”déja vu all over again” with respect to the for­mat, pac­ing, and top­i­cal mat­ter in this debate.

UPDATE, 5:39 PM (Ruairi): War­ren argued that “bad trade pol­i­cy” and multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions are to blame for job loss­es, not automa­tion. War­ren declared that she wants “account­able cap­i­tal­ism,” where forty per­cent of board seat in com­pa­nies are elect­ed by work­ers (a sim­i­lar sys­tem to Germany).

UPDATE, 5:40 PM (Ruairi): Cas­tro was asked about Warren’s state­ment. He says automa­tion “is only part of the issue,” and that he would be will­ing to pilot U.B.I. poli­cies. He wants invest­ment in infra­struc­ture and a Green New Deal.

UPDATE, 5:42 PM (Ruairi): Yang clashed a bit with War­ren – he point­ed to the mil­lions of truck dri­vers and the indus­tries rely­ing on such work­ers, who could find them­selves replaced by autonomous trucks.

UPDATE, 5:42 PM (Ruairi): War­ren com­pares Uni­ver­sal Basic Income to Social Secu­ri­ty, a decades-old deferred pay­ment sys­tem she is plan­ning to expand. She addressed many of Yang’s cri­tiques direct­ly, point-by-point.

UPDATE, 5:44 PM (Ruairi): Tul­si Gab­bard said she wants to “get to the heart of the fear.” She real­izes that many peo­ple are afraid of the uncer­tain­ty that eco­nom­ic changes bring. She doesn’t believe in a fed­er­al jobs guarantee.

UPDATE, 5:44 PM (Ruairi): Cory Book­er was asked about the UAW work­ers’ strike – how would he con­vince Gen­er­al Motors to return jobs to the Unit­ed States? Book­er says that Yang’s UBI plan wouldn’t put the dig­ni­ty back in work.

UPDATE, 5:45 PM (Ruairi): Book­er wants Amer­i­can work­ers to be “at the cen­ter of every trade deal.” He point­ed to his long­stand­ing sup­port of trade unions, and promis­es to help unions spread in his pres­i­den­cy. He also argued for a liv­ing wage.

UPDATE, 5:47 PM (Andrew): One of the themes of tonight so far has been a focus on ele­vat­ing the role of unions in this coun­try. A lot of can­di­dates have talked about strength­en­ing the labor move­ment and bol­ster­ing col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights. That is refresh­ing to hear and great to see!

UPDATE, 5:47 PM (Ruairi): Beto O’Rourke was asked the same ques­tion. He said that Ohio has been “dec­i­mat­ed by [GM’s] malfea­sance.” He called for fair­er trade deals that help Mex­i­can work­ers to join unions, increased invest­ment in school edu­ca­tion and col­lege, union membership.

UPDATE, 5:48 PM (Ruairi): Sanders was asked about income inequal­i­ty, and his wealth tax – will he “tax bil­lion­aires out of exis­tence.” He imme­di­ate­ly point­ed to the mil­lions of home­less, unin­sured peo­ple, those strug­gling with stu­dent debt. He said that the bil­lion­aire class has been at war with the work­ing class for forty-five years. He wants “a nation and a gov­ern­ment that works for all of us.”

UPDATE, 5:50 PM (Ruairi): Tom Stey­er, the bil­lion­aire on stage, starts by emphat­i­cal­ly agree­ing with Sanders about the inequal­i­ty in Amer­i­ca. He would undo Trump’s tax poli­cies and intro­duce a wealth tax.

UPDATE, 5:50 PM (Ruairi): Stey­er argued that “our gov­ern­ment has failed” and that cor­po­ra­tions have bought the gov­ern­ment. Shock­ing­ly, the bil­lion­aire is try­ing to out-Bernie Bernie Sanders! Stey­er is no John Delaney.

UPDATE, 5:51 PM (Ruairi): Biden wants to reward work, not wealth. He promis­es to change the tax sys­tem to ben­e­fit work­ers rather the wealthy. He wants to elim­i­nate bil­lions of dol­lars that escape tax­es through loopholes.

UPDATE, 5:52 PM (Andrew): Tom Stey­er made it very clear he’s in align­ment with Bernie Sanders on tack­ling income inequal­i­ty and achiev­ing fair tax­a­tion, offer­ing a pow­er­ful com­men­tary on what’s hap­pened dur­ing the past forty years.

UPDATE, 5:52 PM (Ruairi): Biden said “the fact is that every­body is right” on stage about many of the issues. War­ren said “show me your bud­get, show me your tax plan, and we’ll know where your val­ues are.”

UPDATE, 5:54 PM (Ruairi): War­ren point­ed to the many ben­e­fits of her wealth tax – mas­sive rais­es in invest­ment in edu­ca­tion across the board. She won­dered aloud: ”Why does every­one else on this stage [except Bernie Sanders] think it is more impor­tant to pro­tect bil­lion­aires than an entire gen­er­a­tion of Americans?”

UPDATE, 5:54 PM (Andrew): The CNN/NYT mod­er­a­tors real­ly need to stop cut­ting off the can­di­dates in a lame attempt to enforce time limits.

UPDATE, 5:55 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg recalled grow­ing up in the Mid­west, see­ing indus­tri­al decay as he grew up. He says that Democ­rats are pay­ing atten­tion to the wrong things, and pos­si­bly let­ting Trump win again.

UPDATE, 5:56 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar snapped back at War­ren, say­ing ”not even the bil­lion­aire wants to help the bil­lion­aires” on stage (a ref­er­ence to Stey­er). She then turns to attack­ing Trump’s tax plans. “Tax­ing income is not going to get you where you want to be,” argues Warren.

UPDATE, 5:57 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar says she wouldn’t even be on the stage if it weren’t for unions. “Just because we have dif­fer­ent ideas,” does­n’t mean she and oth­er can­di­dates do not sup­port a lev­el play­ing field for workers.

UPDATE, 5:57 PM (Ruairi): Kamala Har­ris was asked about her plan to give tax breaks to work­ing fam­i­lies. She recalled how, grow­ing up, her moth­er strug­gled to “make it work” for their family.

UPDATE, 5:59 PM (Ruairi): Yang said that Warren’s wealth tax “makes a lot of sense in prin­ci­ple,” but that Euro­pean coun­tries that have imple­ment­ed wealth tax­es have repealed them because they were unworkable.

UPDATE, 6:00 PM (Ruairi): Beto O’Rourke argued that War­ren is focused on “being puni­tive” rather than bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er. He promised to not increase tax­es on work­ing families.

UPDATE, 6:02 PM (Ruairi): “I don’t have a beef with bil­lion­aires,” argued War­ren, but she says “all of us helped pay for” the top 1%’s suc­cess. She point­ed again to the essen­tial ser­vices that her plans would fund – pre‑K, rais­ing child­care work­ers’ wages, uni­ver­sal col­lege, and so on.

UPDATE, 6:03 PM (Ruairi): Cas­tro said that he grew up in a sin­gle-par­ent house­hold that strug­gled to get by. He sees peo­ple strug­gling to cope across the Unit­ed States. He pro­pos­es a wealth inequal­i­ty tax and rais­ing the top tax rate.

UPDATE, 6:04 PM (Ruairi): Book­er went back to his theme of bring­ing the can­di­dates togeth­er and mak­ing sure that Trump can’t win again – get­ting a big  round of applause from the audience.

UPDATE, 6:05 PM (Ruairi): Book­er then brought up the “moral obscen­i­ty” of Amer­i­can child pover­ty, not­ing it does­n’t get much attention.

UPDATE, 6:11 PM (Ruairi): The debate has turned to Trump’s aban­don­ment of the Kurds in north­ern Syr­ia. Biden was asked if he would send Amer­i­can troops back into the region of Syr­ia where they pre­vi­ous­ly were. Biden points out that the Amer­i­cans who are still in Syr­ia are under attack because of Trump’s decision.

UPDATE, 6:12 PM (Ruairi): Biden sounds a lit­tle inco­her­ent about the lead­ers of Syr­ia and Turkey (Assad and Erdo­gan). He promis­es to find the way back to a sit­u­a­tion where the Kurds would be protected.

UPDATE, 6:13 PM (Andrew): “Regime change wars.” Tul­si Gab­bard is try­ing real­ly, real­ly hard here to dri­ve home her fram­ing on the con­flict in Syria.

UPDATE, 6:13 PM (Ruairi): Gab­bard says that the slaugh­ter of the Kurds is a ram­i­fi­ca­tion of the “regime change war” in Syr­ia. She is shame­ful­ly describ­ing the Syr­i­an Rev­o­lu­tion, which was bru­tal­ly sup­pressed by Bashar al Assad as a West­ern-led effort to end the Assad regime.

UPDATE, 6:14 PM (Ruairi): Gab­bard asked War­ren to call for an end to “regime change war.” War­ren said that she wants to get U.S. troops out of the Mid­dle East, but wants to do it respon­si­bly, not dis­as­trous­ly as Trump has done.

UPDATE, 6:15 PM (Ruairi): War­ren added: “we need to get out, but we need to do this through a nego­ti­at­ed solution.”

UPDATE, 6:16 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg took Gab­bard to task on the caus­es of the Syr­i­an War. He argues that Amer­i­can forces were “the only thing” between the Kurds and “the begin­ning of a geno­cide and the resur­gence of ISIS.”

UPDATE, 6:17 PM (Ruairi): Gab­bard accused Buttigieg of desir­ing to con­tin­ue the “regime change war” and under­min­ing the Unit­ed States’ nation­al security.

UPDATE, 6:18 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg said that Don­ald Trump is “tak­ing away the hon­or of Amer­i­can soldiers.”

UPDATE, 6:19 PM (Ruairi): Sanders said that “Turkey is not a U.S. ally when they invade anoth­er coun­try and engage in mass slaugh­ter.” Sanders recalled that 11,000 Kur­dish troops died fight­ing ISIS on Amer­i­ca’s behalf.

UPDATE, 6:19 PM (Andrew): Pete Buttigieg is far­ing much bet­ter in this for­eign pol­i­cy seg­ment than in the pre­vi­ous segments.

UPDATE, 6:19 PM (Ruairi): Sanders assert­ed that “[Trump] has wrecked our abil­i­ty to do for­eign policy…because nobody in the world will believe this patho­log­i­cal liar.”

UPDATE, 6:20 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg assessed that Don­ald Trump’s fail­ure to pro­vide lead­er­ship in the world com­mu­ni­ty has caused coun­tries like Turkey and Sau­di Ara­bia (both autoc­ra­cies) to behave irresponsibly.

UPDATE, 6:21 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar said she wants to work with US allies to call on Turkey to reverse course. She cit­ed oth­er Unit­ed States allies who feel threat­ened by Trump’s untrustworthiness.

UPDATE, 6:22 PM (Ruairi): Kamala Har­ris says that Trump has “sold out the Kurds.” She says Trump has giv­en “10,000 ISIS fight­ers a get-out-of-jail-free card.” She says “this is a cri­sis of Don­ald Trump’s mak­ing… I will stop this madness!”

UPDATE, 6:23 PM (Ruairi): Cas­tro said he wants peo­ple to think about how Trump “cages kids on the bor­der and effec­tive­ly lets ISIS fight­ers run free.” Cas­tro brought up the ter­mi­na­tion of the Joint Com­pre­hen­sive Plan of Action with Iran as anoth­er exam­ple of Trump’s failed leadership.

UPDATE, 6:24 PM (Andrew): Props to Cory Book­er for bring­ing up Trump’s dis­as­trous pol­i­cy of enabling Sau­di Ara­bia to inflict may­hem in Yemen.

UPDATE, 6:24 PM (Ruairi): Cory Book­er was asked about check­ing Russ­ian pow­er. He said that Trump is turn­ing the “moral lead­er­ship of this coun­try into a dump­ster fire.” He says that Rus­sia will grow in influ­ence if the Unit­ed States aban­dons its respon­si­bil­i­ties and lead­er­ship role.

UPDATE, 6:25 PM (Andrew): Biden accu­rate­ly described Trump as some­body “who knows not a damn thing about for­eign policy.”

UPDATE, 6:25 PM (Ruairi): Book­er argued that the Rus­sians under­stand strength, and that Trump shows “moral weak­ness.” Trump is “part­ner­ing more with Putin than he is with Merkel and Macron.”

UPDATE, 6:26 PM (Ruairi): Biden declared that he knows Erdo­gan per­son­al­ly, and says that the Turk­ish Pres­i­dent “knows that if he’s out of NATO, he’s in real trou­ble.” Biden attacked Gabbard’s “regime change” rhetoric, say­ing the U.S. pol­i­cy under Oba­ma was to save lives from a mur­der­ous dictator.

UPDATE, 6:28 PM (Ruairi): O’Rourke was asked about Putin’s cor­rup­tion. He says that the Unit­ed States must be “unafraid of hold­ing Rus­sia account­able for invad­ing the world’s great­est democ­ra­cy.” He says that the coun­try needs to renew alliances to take on Russia.

UPDATE, 6:29 PM (Ruairi): “The Kurds are a case in point,” O’Rourke elab­o­rat­ed. He says that the betray­al of the Kurds ensures that anoth­er gen­er­a­tion of Amer­i­can troops will have to defend against ISIS.

UPDATE, 6:30 PM (Ruairi): Tom Stey­er would work to reveal the cor­rup­tion of Vladimir Putin. He said that Trump’s “Amer­i­ca First” diplo­ma­cy has “proved to be a dis­as­ter.” He also brought up the need for cli­mate justice.

UPDATE, 6:31 PM (Ruairi): Andrew Yang wants to look at the chain of events, from Trump’s elec­tion to the dis­as­trous for­eign poli­cies. In pass­ing, he acknowl­edged that the Unit­ed States, as well as Rus­sia, has inter­fered in elections.

UPDATE, 6:32 PM (Ruairi): Yang says that Rus­sia is a per­fect case exam­ple of the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry prob­lems the Unit­ed States faces.

UPDATE, 6:32 PM (Ruairi): Amy Klobuchar says that the Unit­ed States can’t be moral­ly com­pared to Rus­sia – but she cit­ed exam­ples of Russ­ian actions that the U.S. could also be accused of (like inter­fer­ing in elec­tions and shoot­ing down planes car­ry­ing civilians).

UPDATE, 6:34 PM (Ruairi): Beto O’Rourke was asked how his plan to round up assault weapons would work. He wants to ban the sale of assault weapons, refer­ring to mas­sacres in Day­ton and El Paso. He says every sin­gle assault weapon is “a poten­tial weapon of terror.”

UPDATE, 6:36 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg said that “we can’t wait” for uni­ver­sal back­ground checks, red-flag laws or oth­er poli­cies. He says we have “to just get some­thing done,” although he didn’t say what he meant by that.

UPDATE, 6:37 PM (Ruairi): O’Rourke says we can do more than one thing. He doesn’t want to be “lim­it­ed by the polls or the con­sul­tants.” Buttigieg, a vet­er­an, retort­ed: “I don’t need lessons from you on courage,” before argu­ing that the Pres­i­dent needs to take on the NRA.

UPDATE, 6:38 PM (Ruairi): O’Rourke argues that Buttigieig’s descrip­tion of an assault weapon ban as “a shiny object” is “a slap in the face” to sur­vivors. The exchange between O’Rourke and Buttigieg has become quite ill-tempered.

UPDATE, 6:40 PM (Ruairi): Cory Book­er recalls a per­son­al con­nec­tion who was mur­dered with an assault weapon. He doesn’t want to attack his rivals, but says that gun vio­lence is “a dai­ly night­mare” for many Americans.

UPDATE, 6:40 PM (Ruairi): Book­er then point­ed out that there are more mass shoot­er drills in schools than fire drills.

UPDATE, 6:41 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar was asked about her vol­un­tary buy­back pro­pos­al: “The major­i­ty of Trump vot­ers want to see uni­ver­sal back­ground checks.” She points to the bills that are already in the leg­isla­tive process. She doesn’t want the fight to “mess up” the Democrats.

UPDATE, 6:42 PM (Ruairi): War­ren wants to iden­ti­fy the huge spread of gun vio­lence: mass shoot­ings, sui­cides, domes­tic vio­lence, etc. She wants to know “why hasn’t it hap­pened?” War­ren also wants to get rid of the fil­i­buster so we can deal with gun vio­lence, oth­er­wise the NRA will have “a veto” over legislation.

UPDATE, 6:42 PM (Andrew): Huge props to Eliz­a­beth War­ren for say­ing we need to repeal the fil­i­buster. That’s essen­tial to mak­ing the Sen­ate work again.

UPDATE, 6:44 PM (Ruairi): Kamala Har­ris recalled her record as a pros­e­cu­tor deal­ing with the vic­tims of gun vio­lence. She said she has a strong plat­form, and will give Con­gress one hun­dred days to adopt the platform.

UPDATE, 6:45 PM (Ruairi): Biden claimed he is the only one on stage who “beat the NRA twice,” with gun leg­is­la­tion in the 1990s.

“I’ve done this, and I know how to get it done.”

UPDATE, 6:42 PM (Andrew): Too bad that 1990s-era assault weapons ban had an expi­ra­tion date. How about we don’t make that same mis­take next time?

UPDATE, 6:46 PM (Ruairi): Sec­re­tary Cas­tro recalled gun vio­lence inci­dents in his ear­li­er life. He argued that manda­to­ry buy­backs are a recipe for increased police killings, declar­ing: “I am not going to give police anoth­er rea­son to go door-to-door in cer­tain communities.”

UPDATE, 6:47 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar was asked about the opi­oid epi­dem­ic in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties. “This should nev­er have hap­pened to begin with… it’s got­ten  worse and worse,” the Sen­a­tor said.

UPDATE, 6:48 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar wants the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies to pay for rehab and treat­ment, with a num­ber of tax­es she has pro­posed. She recalled her father, who strug­gled with alco­holism for decades.

UPDATE, 6:49 PM (Ruairi): Tom Stey­er calls the epi­dem­ic a “heart­break­ing expe­ri­ence” for Amer­i­ca. He wants to treat it as a pub­lic health cri­sis. He argued that the opi­oid epi­dem­ic is anoth­er facet of the dom­i­nance of large cor­po­ra­tions in Amer­i­can government.

UPDATE, 6:51 PM (Ruairi): Yang argued that “this is a dis­ease of cap­i­tal­ism run amok.” He says that the fines on phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies are not near­ly suf­fi­cient. He wants to give peo­ple coun­sel­ing and treat­ment, not a prison term.

UPDATE, 6:52 PM (Ruairi): Yang said he wants to open safe injec­tion cen­ters because they save lives. O’Rourke agrees that decrim­i­nal­iza­tion is nec­es­sary, and sup­ports legal­iz­ing mar­i­jua­na, which is far less addic­tive than opioids.

UPDATE, 6:53 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris said she wants to send phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal exec­u­tives to jail: “They are noth­ing more than some high-lev­el dope deal­ers.” She says the bil­lion in phar­ma prof­its are “on the backs” of vic­tims of the epidemic.

UPDATE, 6:54 PM (Ruairi): Cas­tro is also in favor of impris­on­ing phar­ma exec­u­tives, as well as Wall Street exec­u­tives who caused the finan­cial crisis.

UPDATE, 6:55 PM (Ruairi): Bernie Sanders point­ed to the extreme wealth of phar­ma exec­u­tives, who knew that their prod­ucts were killing peo­ple. “This is what unfet­tered cap­i­tal­ism is doing to this country…we need a polit­i­cal revolution!”

UPDATE, 6:56 PM (Ruairi): Sanders was asked about his recent heart attack. He invites the audi­ence to a ral­ly in Queens, New York City. He plans to reas­sure the Amer­i­can peo­ple with the vig­or of his con­tin­u­ing pres­i­den­tial campaign.

UPDATE, 6:56 PM (Andrew): The Wash­ing­ton Post is report­ing that Alexan­dria Oca­sio-Cortez will endorse Sanders’ cam­paign at that ral­ly in Queens.

UPDATE, 6:57 PM (Ruairi): Sanders offered a heart­felt thanks to the many who have sup­port­ed him through his health scare. He was applaud­ed by the oth­er can­di­dates onstage, as well as by mem­bers of the audience.

UPDATE, 6:58 PM (Ruairi): Biden argued that his age brings wis­dom. He says that he has the expe­ri­ence as Vice Pres­i­dent to do the job of pres­i­dent “on day one…I know what has to be done, I’ve done it before.”

UPDATE, 6:58 PM (Ruairi): Biden said he doesn’t need any on-the-job train­ing. He promised to release his med­ical records before the Iowa cau­cus­es to reas­sure voters.

UPDATE, 7:00 PM (Ruairi): War­ren was also asked about her age. She said she will “out work, out orga­nize or out last any­one, and that includes Don­ald Trump.” She piv­ots to her key mes­sage – tak­ing on the cor­po­rate cor­rup­tion and big issues.

UPDATE, 7:00 PM (Ruairi): War­ren added: “Democ­rats will win when we give peo­ple a rea­son to get in the fight.”

UPDATE, 7:01 PM (Ruairi): Gab­bard would be the youngest pres­i­dent in his­to­ry. She is asked: “Does age mat­ter?” She turned the ques­tion around, ask­ing: “Who is fit to serve?” She argued that Trump is unfit to be president.

UPDATE, 7:02 PM (Ruairi): Gab­bard argued that her expe­ri­ence in Con­gress and the mil­i­tary has pre­pared her to be Commander-in-Chief.

UPDATE, 7:02 PM (Andrew): Gab­bard, try­ing to start a con­ver­sa­tion on her own terms, real­ly got cut off there as the mod­er­a­tors head­ed to a com­mer­cial break. The oth­er can­di­dates prob­a­bly don’t mind in the slightest.

UPDATE, 7:08 PM (Ruairi): Back from the break. Andrew Yang was asked about break­ing up big tech prob­lems. He says that increased com­pe­ti­tion will not nec­es­sary solve the prob­lems caused by the tech companies.

UPDATE, 7:09 PM (Ruairi): Yang argued that the exist­ing anti-trust frame­work won’t work to solve twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry prob­lems. War­ren coun­tered that she is not will­ing to give up so eas­i­ly. She described the process by which Ama­zon is increas­ing­ly dom­i­nat­ing ecom­merce in the U.S. and oth­er countries.

UPDATE, 7:11 PM (Ruairi): Tom Stey­er agreed with War­ren about deal­ing with monop­o­lies and monop­o­lis­tic behav­ior. He point­ed out that Trump will be run­ning on the econ­o­my – Stey­er says that, “as a real busi­ness­man,” he can take on Trump’s argu­ments by show­ing him to be “a fraud and a fail­ure” as president.

UPDATE, 7:12 PM (Ruairi): Book­er point­ed out that tech com­pa­nies are under­min­ing democray itself. He wants to strict­ly enforce anti-trust laws.

UPDATE, 7:13 PM (Ruairi): Beto O’Rourke described the con­trol that Face­book has over people’s lives – he wants to treat Face­book as a pub­lish­er, not a util­i­ty com­pa­ny. He then expressed cau­tion about using the pow­er of gov­ern­ment to dic­tate busi­ness practices.

UPDATE, 7:14 PM (Ruairi): Bernie Sanders, dis­cussing the”rigged econ­o­my,” point­ed to the mas­sive monop­o­lies devel­op­ing in every indus­try. He wants to appoint an attor­ney gen­er­al who will take on monopolies.

UPDATE, 7:14 PM (Andrew): Kudos to Bernie Sanders for bring­ing up the issue of mass media own­er­ship. Media con­cen­tra­tion is an issue that *almost nev­er* gets dis­cussed in the mass media, for obvi­ous reasons.

UPDATE, 7:15 PM (Ruairi): Kamala Har­ris was asked if break­ing up tech com­pa­nies would increase elec­tion inter­fer­ence. No, she said. On monop­o­lies, she said that “the rules that apply to the pow­er­less don’t apply to the powerful.”

UPDATE, 7:16 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris argued that Twit­ter should sus­pend Trump’s account due to his vio­lent, anti­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic and threat­en­ing rhetoric. She asked War­ren why she has not tak­en the same stance.

UPDATE, 7:17 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris sought to tie her stance on Trump’s Twit­ter account to Warren’s stance on big tech com­pa­nies. War­ren brought the con­ver­sa­tion back to cor­po­rate cor­rup­tion in Amer­i­can politics.

UPDATE, 7:18 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar argued that “we have anoth­er Gild­ed Age going on.” She wants to break down con­sol­i­da­tion in key indus­tries and empow­er reg­u­la­to­ry enforce­ment of the rules.

UPDATE, 7:19 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar lament­ed a “start-up slump” in the USA.

UPDATE, 7:20 PM (Ruairi): Cas­tro lam­bast­ed Ama­zon for destroy­ing small busi­ness­es and mis­treat­ing its work­ers. Andrew Yang said he wants to change how data is treat­ed – peo­ple should be paid by com­pa­nies for their data.

UPDATE, 7:21 PM (Ruairi): The debate turned to the issue of repro­duc­tive rights. Har­ris plans to take on states that vio­late Roe v. Wade. Her Depart­ment of Jus­tice would stop anti-free­dom laws being enact­ed through pre-clearance.

UPDATE, 7:22 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris point­ed to her famous inter­ro­ga­tion of Brett Kavanaugh. Char­ac­ter­iz­ing the need ro pro­tect a wom­an’s right to obtain an abor­tion, she said: ”It is her body, it is her right, it is her decision.”

UPDATE, 7:22 PM (Ruairi): Amy Klobuchar point­ed to the fact that Don­ald Trump argued that women should go to jail for abor­tions – he has been try­ing to defund Planned Par­ent­hood, while she would fund it properly.

UPDATE, 7:23 PM (Ruairi): Book­er sees the attack on abor­tion as anoth­er exam­ple of an assault on pover­ty, since lim­i­ta­tions on abor­tion hit the poor­est hard­est. Book­er would cre­ate a White House office of repro­duc­tive freedom.

UPDATE, 7:25 PM (Ruairi): Tul­si Gab­bard sees abor­tion being used as a divi­sive polit­i­cal weapon. She quot­ed Hillary Clin­ton in say­ing “abor­tion should be safe, legal and rare.” She does sup­port some restric­tions on abor­tion. That posi­tion is unlike­ly to go over well with pro­gres­sive activists.

UPDATE, 7:26 PM (Ruairi): Biden was asked if he would add jus­tices to the Supreme Court to off­set the seat Mitch McConnell stole. Biden argued that “court-pack­ing” would under­mine the legit­i­ma­cy of the Supreme Court. He says that he would cam­paign against peo­ple throw­ing up bar­ri­ers to con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

UPDATE, 7:27 PM (Ruairi): Biden said he sup­ports the right to pri­va­cy, on which a woman’s right to choose an abor­tion is based. Biden says that he would rec­om­mend using McConnell’s tac­tics against him by hold­ing up any new Supreme Court nom­i­na­tions until the next election.

UPDATE, 7:28 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg sug­gest­ed that maybe the Supreme Court should be increased to a total size of fif­teen mem­bers, with a process to ensure bipar­ti­san­ship and depoliticization.

UPDATE, 7:28 PM (Ruairi): Cas­tro said he thinks Buttigieg’s ideas are inter­est­ing. He is more interesed, though, in Supreme Court term lim­its to ensure “a replen­ish­ment of perspective.”

UPDATE, 7:30 PM (Ruairi): War­ren said she lived before the Roe v. Wade deci­sion – rich peo­ple still got abor­tions in those days! She says that three fourths of Amer­i­cans believe Roe v. Wade should be upheld. “We should not leave this to the Supreme Court, we should do it with democ­ra­cy because we can!”

UPDATE, 7:31 PM (Ruairi): Biden was asked about the big visions of his clos­est rivals, War­ren and Sanders. He claimed that he is the only can­di­date who has ever got­ten any­thing big done (refer­ring to the Oba­ma years and his time in the Sen­ate). “Who’s gonna be able to get it done?”

UPDATE, 7:32 PM (Ruairi): Biden said that War­ren and Sanders are “being vague” on the issue of Medicare for All. Sanders had a retort ready. He reeled off a list of things that Biden got done that weren’t pos­i­tive for the coun­try, like the dis­as­trous occu­pa­tion of Iraq, bad trade deals, and a revi­sion to the Unit­ed States bank­rupt­cy laws request­ed by corporations.

UPDATE, 7:33 PM (Ruairi): Sanders said that the Amer­i­can peo­ple pay twice as much as peo­ple in every oth­er devel­oped coun­try for health­care. Biden claimed that we can do that with­out Medicare For All. Sanders replied: “No, you can’t.”

UPDATE, 7:34 PM (Ruairi): On the issue of get­ting some­thing done, War­ren brought up her work to cre­ate the Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau.

UPDATE, 7:36 PM (Ruairi): Biden assert­ed to War­ren that “I went on the floor and got you votes” for the Dodd-Frank bill, which enact­ed the CFPB. War­ren paused before reply­ing, then said she is “deeply grate­ful” for every­one who fought for her plan. She says, “dream big, fight hard.”

UPDATE, 7:37 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg was asked about the vision for Democ­rats to beat Trump. He says that Biden, War­ren and Sanders’ plans are “a false choice.” He says that Biden’s idea of “back to nor­mal” won’t work for a changed America.

UPDATE, 7:38 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg also decried the idea of “infi­nate par­ti­san strug­gle” that he says the bold­est plans of Democ­rats would bring. Klobuchar said that her ideas can win the “fly­over states,” and that she has a record of win­ning in red areas (specif­i­cal­ly, Repub­li­can con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts in Minnesota).

UPDATE, 7:39 PM (Ruairi): War­ren said peo­ple who are strug­gling with health­care or stu­dent loans or racism “are in a fight today.” Any­one who doesn’t under­stand that there is already a fight going on for most peo­ple will not win their votes.

UPDATE, 7:40 PM (Ruairi): Bernie Sanders jus­ti­fied his man­i­festo of a polit­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion by declar­ing: “It is what the Amer­i­can peo­ple want!” He points to the mas­sive sup­port for his plans. “You have to inspire peo­ple, you have to excite peo­ple… because they know you stand for them, not cor­po­rate America.”

UPDATE, 7:42 PM (Andrew): Sanders and War­ren did a good job mak­ing the case that if you want to win a nation­wide elec­tion, you cam­paign effec­tive­ly with bold ideas that actu­al­ly address the scale of the prob­lems we face.

Ideas that inspire people.

UPDATE, 7:42 PM (Ruairi): Beto O’Rourke point­ed to his record of help­ing vet­er­ans in El Paso as a Rep­re­sen­ta­tive. Just because issues are not nation­al emer­gen­cies, it doesn’t mean they are unim­por­tant. He point­ed to his Senae cam­paign as a mod­el for win­ning over vot­ers to beat Trump.

UPDATE, 7:47 PM (Ruairi): The final ques­tion from the mod­er­a­tors (Ander­son Coop­er in par­tic­u­lar) con­cerned Ellen DeGeneres’ friend­ship with George W. Bush. Coop­er asked the can­di­dates to describe a “sur­pris­ing” friendship.

UPDATE, 7:48 PM (Ruairi): Julián Cas­tro said he has had many friend­ships with peo­ple who are extreme­ly dif­fer­ent. He agreed with Ellen’s “being kind to peo­ple” ethos, but stressed that we should hold peo­ple account­able for their actions.

UPDATE, 7:50 PM (Ruairi): Tul­si Gab­bard point­ed to her Hawai­ian her­itage, explain­ing the real mean­ing of “Alo­ha!”. She said that she and for­mer U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Trey Gowdy, a Repub­li­can, have devel­oped a rela­tion­ship based on mutu­al respect. She says she “doesn’t see deplorables.”

UPDATE, 7:51 PM (Ruairi): Amy Klobuchar said she miss­es John McCain “every day.” She vis­it­ed the sen­a­tor and war vet­er­an when he was dying of can­cer. She wants to remem­ber that what unites Amer­i­cans is big­ger than what divides us. She wants to bring inde­pen­dents and rea­son­able Repub­li­cans into her tent.

UPDATE, 7:53 PM (Ruairi): Tom Stey­er thought of Dean­na Berry, an activist who he said reminds him of his par­ents. He con­nect­ed his par­ents’ exam­ples of tak­ing on prob­lems direct­ly to why he start­ed tack­ling the cli­mate cri­sis, and start­ed the Need to Impeach campaign.

UPDATE, 7:53 PM (Andrew): The cli­mate cri­sis and relat­ed issues like defor­esta­tion and ocean pol­lu­tion once again got short shrift tonight, which is why there ought to be a DNC-sanc­tioned #Cli­mat­eDe­bate.

UPDATE, 7:54 PM (Ruairi): Beto O’Rourke recalled bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er to achieve: in his busi­ness, in the El Paso City Coun­cil, as a Rep­re­sen­ta­tive. He remem­bers dri­ving 1,600 miles with Repub­li­can Will Hurd, who is retir­ing from the U.S. House as part of the “Tex­o­dus”. At the end of the trip, they had devel­oped a friend­ship and trust. They then worked togeth­er in the House often.

UPDATE, 7:56 PM (Ruairi): Cory Book­er has often been oblig­ed by his polit­i­cal offices to make unusu­al friend­ships, whether that entailed to going to Bible stud­ies with James Inhofe or going to restau­rants with Ted Cruz. He says that rugged indi­vid­u­al­ism is noble, but there is so much more to America’s great legacy.

UPDATE, 7:56 PM (Ruairi): Book­er said he wants to “revive civic grace…patriotism is love of coun­try. You can­not love your coun­try unless you love your neigh­bors.” He wants to restore hon­or to the high­est office in the country.

UPDATE, 7:58 PM (Andrew): Oth­er issues that could and should have been dis­cussed at greater length tonight: Vot­ing rights and the need for secure elec­tions, afford­able hous­ing and land use poli­cies, and childcare.

UPDATE, 7:58 PM (Ruairi): Andrew Yang said he knows “a guy name Fred,” who is a truck­er, a Trump sup­port­er and a for­mer felon. Yang man­aged to per­suade Fred to join his cam­paign and move away from sup­port­ing Trump. He says that peo­ple suf­fer­ing from the fourth indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion don’t real­ly care about par­ty affil­i­a­tion. “It is not left, it is not right, it is for­ward” he said.

UPDATE, 8:00 PM (Ruairi): Kamala Har­ris said she and Rand Paul worked togeth­er in the Sen­ate to end mon­ey bail. She wants to be a leader that uni­fies the coun­try. She recalls her mother’s extra­or­di­nary life, hat con­vinced her that she could do any­thing. If Don­ald Trump had his way, her sto­ry would not be possible.

UPDATE, 8:00 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris said she is “unique­ly able” to see the com­mon­al­i­ties between the peo­ple of America.

UPDATE, 8:02 PM (Ruairi): Pete Buttigieg recalled his com­rades in the mil­i­tary who had dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences, eth­nic­i­ties and pol­i­tics, but who trust­ed him with their lives and vice ver­sa. Buttigieg believes that “only the pres­i­dent can build a sense of belong­ing and pur­pose for the entire­ty of America.”

UPDATE, 8:03 PM (Ruairi): Bernie Sanders recalled work­ing with John McCain. He also cit­ed his work with Utah Repub­li­can Mike Lee on end­ing Amer­i­ca’s involve­ment in Sau­di Ara­bi­a’s awful war in Yemen.

UPDATE, 8:04 PM (Ruairi): Sanders said he wants to end the divi­sive­ness of the Trump regime. He also wants to bring peo­ple togeth­er around a “pro­gres­sive agen­da that stands for all.”

UPDATE, 8:05 PM (Ruairi): Eliz­a­beth War­ren thought of George Freed, a deeply prin­ci­pled Repub­li­can, who made sure she got a job that let her help peo­ple strug­gling with bank­rupt­cy. Two of her own broth­ers are Repub­li­cans, but she and they agree on so many things, she told the audience.

UPDATE, 8:06 PM (Ruairi): War­rren said that “peo­ple across this coun­try are ready to say no more, we want an Amer­i­ca that works for everyone…I know what’s bro­ken, I know how to fix it.”

UPDATE, 8:07 PM (Ruairi): Joe Biden is reas­sured that all the can­di­dates acknowl­edged the neces­si­ty of work­ing with Repub­li­cans to improve peo­ple’s lives. John McCain was a close friend of Biden. Biden not­ed that he gave a eulo­gy for McCain. Biden said that Trump has “ripped the soul out of this country.”

UPDATE, 8:08 PM (Ruairi): Biden con­clud­ed by say­ing that he wants vot­ers to remem­ber that “this is America…there’s noth­ing we’ve been unable to do when we decide to do it!” And with that, the debate ended.

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