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

Good evening, and wel­come to NPI’s live cov­er­age of the fifth Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial debate of the 2020 cycle.

NPI staff are watch­ing and shar­ing impres­sions of the debate as it progresses.

MSNBC and The Wash­ing­ton Post the media part­ners for this DNC-sanc­tioned debate, which is expect­ed to run two hours. The media part­ners have put togeth­er an all-female line­up of four mod­er­a­tors drawn from their newsrooms.

It con­sists of:

Rachel Mad­dow, host of “The Rachel Mad­dow Show” on MSNBC; Andrea Mitchell, host of “Andrea Mitchell Reports” on MSNBC and NBC News’ chief for­eign affairs cor­re­spon­dent; Kris­ten Welk­er, NBC News’ White House cor­re­spon­dent; and Ash­ley Park­er, a White House reporter for The Wash­ing­ton Post.

Tonight’s line­up of ten can­di­dates is as follows:

• Mass­a­chu­setts U.S. Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth Warren
• For­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden
• Ver­mont U.S. Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders
• New Jer­sey U.S. Sen­a­tor Cory Booker
• South Bend May­or Pete Buttigieg
• Cal­i­for­nia U.S. Sen­a­tor Kamala Harris
• Min­neso­ta U.S. Sen­a­tor Amy Klobouchar
• Entre­pre­neur Andrew Yang
• Bil­lion­aire Tom Steyer
• Hawaii U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tul­si Gabbard

Our live cov­er­age begins below.

UPDATE, 6:03 PM (Ruairi): The first ques­tion address­es the issue of impeach­ment, and today’s tes­ti­mo­ny by Gor­don Sondland.

War­ren is asked if she will try to con­vince Repub­li­cans on impeachment.

UPDATE, 6:04 PM (Ruairi): War­ren refers to the Mueller report, say­ing when there were no con­se­quences for Trump for invit­ing the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion to med­dle in Amer­i­ca’s elec­tions, he was embold­ened to hold up mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine to score assis­tance for his reelec­tion campaign.

UPDATE, 6:05 PM (Ruairi): War­ren points out that Gor­don Sond­land is unqual­i­fied to be an ambas­sador, and only got his job die to cor­rup­tion. She promis­es that no donor to her cam­paign would become an ambassador.

UPDATE, 6:05 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar believes that the Ukraine scan­dal rep­re­sents “impeach­able conduct…it’s real­ly our democ­ra­cy at stake.”

UPDATE, 6:06 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar quotes Wal­ter Mon­dale: “We told the truth, we obeyed the law, we kept the peace.”

She says that is the min­i­mum that Amer­i­cans should expect.

UPDATE, 6:07 PM (Ruairi): Bernie Sanders is asked how cen­tral the impeach­ment inquiry would be to his pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. He says “we can­not sim­ply be con­sumed by Don­ald Trump…or we’ll lose the election!”

UPDATE, 6:08 PM (Ruairi): Sanders says “we can deal with Trump’s cor­rup­tion, but we also have to stand up for the work­ing fam­i­lies of this coun­try.” He says the econ­o­my is rigged in the favor of the rich.

UPDATE, 6:09 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg is asked the same ques­tion. He says that impeach­ment should be “beyond pol­i­tics.” He says “we are going to have to uni­fy a nation that is divid­ed as ever.” He brings up the issues of mass shoot­ings, eco­nom­ic inequal­i­ty and climate.

UPDATE, 6:10 PM (Ruairi): Joe Biden is asked whether Repub­li­cans will be will­ing to work with him. He says that the next pres­i­dent must get a Sen­ate major­i­ty: “who is most like­ly to increase the num­ber …of Democ­rats in the House and the Senate.”

UPDATE, 6:11 PM (Ruairi): Biden says, based on the impeach­ment inquiry’s rev­e­la­tions show: “Don­ald Trump doesn’t want me to be Pres­i­dent… Vladimir Putin doesn’t want me to be president.”

UPDATE, 6:12 PM (Ruairi): Kamala Har­ris says that the Trump Admin­is­tra­tion is “a crim­i­nal enter­prise” and that the whole White House is corrupt.

UPDATE, 6:12 PM (Ruairi): “There are two dif­fer­ent sets of rules…for the pow­er­ful people…and for every­body else.”

Har­ris says that she wants to bring jus­tice for all Americans.

UPDATE, 6:13 PM (Ruairi): War­ren is asked if the divide in the coun­try is per­ma­nent. She wants to “talk about the things that unite us…an Amer­i­ca that works for the peo­ple, not just the rich folks.”

UPDATE, 6:14 PM (Ruairi): War­ren brings up her “two cent wealth tax” say­ing that it isn’t about pun­ish­ment, but about “pitch­ing in.”

UPDATE, 6:15 PM (Ruairi): Cory Book­er doesn’t agree with War­ren’s wealth tax, but wants to tax cap­i­tal gains and change oth­er tax­es. He wants to be able to increase wealth and give more peo­ple opportunities.

UPDATE, 6:15 PM (Ruairi): He says that peo­ple want “an econ­o­my that pro­vides not just equal­i­ties of wealth but equal­i­ties of opportunity.”

UPDATE, 6:17 PM (Ruairi): War­ren says that her wealth tax can pro­vide free preschool and mas­sive­ly increase school qual­i­ty, can­cel stu­dent loan debt and pro­vide free col­lege: “We can invest in an entire generation.”

UPDATE, 6:17 PM (Ruairi): Book­er argues, with­out pro­vid­ing any evi­dence, that wealth tax­es are “cum­ber­some” in coun­tries that have tried it, but wants to focus on “path­ways to pros­per­i­ty” for more Americans.

UPDATE, 6:18 PM (Ruairi): War­ren says that her wealth tax is fair: “I’m tired of free­load­ing bil­lion­aires.” She points out that bil­lion­aires pay half as high a per­cent­age of their wealth in tax­es than ordi­nary people.

UPDATE, 6:20 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg believes that the Democ­rats have a major­i­ty on the issues “if we can gal­va­nize, not polar­ize, that majority.”

UPDATE, 6:20 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg argues his Medicare for those who want it plan is supe­ri­or, say­ing that “order­ing… com­mand­ing peo­ple to accept that option…is not the right approach to uni­fy the Amer­i­can people.”

UPDATE, 6:21 PM (Ruairi): War­ren is asked if her Medicare for All plans will cost the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty votes. She lays out the many ben­e­fits of her plan, and says it will build on the Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act.

UPDATE, 6:21 PM (Ruairi): War­ren says after a few years, “after we have seen it and tast­ed it, we’re gonna want it.”

UPDATE, 6:21 PM (Andrew): These Demo­c­ra­t­ic debates would ben­e­fit from bet­ter mod­er­a­tor ques­tions. It’s offen­sive and inap­pro­pri­ate for the pejo­ra­tive “Oba­macare” to appear in a debate ques­tion. It’s wrong for ques­tions to be framed around right wing talk­ing points.

UPDATE, 6:22 PM (Ruairi): Sanders is includ­ed, and says “Thank you, I wrote the damn bill,” (a line from the first debate that became pop­u­lar with his fans) get­ting a laugh. He says “the cur­rent sys­tem is not only cru­el, it is dysfunctional.”

UPDATE, 6:23 PM (Ruairi): Sanders points out that the Unit­ed States pays twice as much as oth­er coun­tries for health­care, but we still have a sys­tem when peo­ple can go bank­rupt because of med­ical expenses.

UPDATE, 6:24 PM (Ruairi): Biden is asked to respond to Sanders’ plan. He says that the vast major­i­ty of Democ­rats don’t sup­port Medicare for All. He wants to build on the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act, adding a pub­lic option.

UPDATE, 6:24 PM (Ruairi): Biden repeats his (dubi­ous) point that one hun­dred and six­ty mil­lion Amer­i­cans “like their pri­vate insurance.”

UPDATE, 6:24 PM (Andrew): Tul­si Gab­bard has received her first ques­tion. Entre­pre­neur Andrew Yang and bil­lion­aire Tom Stey­er have not spo­ken yet and have not been called on by the moderators.

UPDATE, 6:25 PM (Ruairi): The ques­tion Tul­si Gab­bard was asked con­cerned “the rot” she sees in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. She says that it is over­ly influ­enced by “the for­eign pol­i­cy estab­lish­ment… and oth­er greedy cor­po­rate interests.”

UPDATE, 6:26 PM (Ruairi): Gab­bard wants to “hear the voic­es of those who are strug­gling across this coun­try.” She repeats the “regime change wars,” say­ing that they have cost tril­lions of dol­lars and thou­sands of Amer­i­can lives.

UPDATE, 6:27 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris says “it’s unfor­tu­nate that we have some­one on stage…who spent four years full time on Fox News crit­i­ciz­ing Pres­i­dent Oba­ma.” She says Gab­bard, “bud­died up to Steve Bannon.”

UPDATE, 6:27 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris demol­ished Gabbard’s record, then says the Democ­rats need some­one who can “bring the Par­ty and the nation together.”

UPDATE, 6:28 PM (Ruairi): Gab­bard did­n’t much care for being crit­i­cized. She says that Har­ris is traf­fick­ing in “lies, smears and innu­en­does.” She says that means Har­ris will “con­tin­ue the destruc­tion” of for­eign wars.

UPDATE, 6:29 PM (Andrew): Tul­si Gab­bard seems obsessed with try­ing to repeat the phrase “regime change wars” as many times as she can in each one or two minute answer that she gives.

UPDATE, 6:29 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris says that the coun­try needs a nom­i­nee who can “speak to all peo­ple,”, cit­ing her record as a lawyer and Attor­ney Gen­er­al. She says her five most com­mon words were “Kamala Har­ris for the people.”

UPDATE, 6:30 PM (Ruairi): Tom Stey­er is asked if he is “the embod­i­ment of a spe­cial inter­est.” He says he has a record of bring­ing move­ments togeth­er to take on cor­po­rate power.

UPDATE, 6:31 PM (Ruairi): Stey­er says he has built one of the largest move­ments in Amer­i­can his­to­ry: “I’ve tried to push pow­er down to the Amer­i­can peo­ple.” He wants term lim­its for mem­bers of Con­gress, which we don’t support.

UPDATE, 6:32 PM (Ruairi): Amy Klobuchar says she “doesn’t come from mon­ey” but she appre­ci­ates Steyer’s work. She wants to over­turn Cit­i­zens Cor­po­ra­tions Unit­ed. She also wants a bet­ter sys­tem of vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, espe­cial­ly in states like Georgia.

UPDATE, 6:32 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar invokes Stacey Abrams to point out that the coun­try suf­fers from racial vot­er suppression.

UPDATE, 6:33 PM (Ruairi): Andrew Yang says of Stey­er “you can’t knock some­body for hav­ing mon­ey and spend­ing it in the right way,” refer­ring to the cli­mate cri­sis. He says that his plans will help the U.S. catch up with China.

UPDATE, 6:34 PM (Ruairi): Yang wants to focus “on the true threats of tomor­row,” such as cli­mate change, AI and Chi­nese technology.

UPDATE, 6:35 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg is asked about his lack of expe­ri­ence. He says “we need some­thing very dif­fer­ent now.”

He also told view­ers: “I am lit­er­al­ly the least wealthy per­son on this stage…I know how to bring peo­ple togeth­er to get things done.”

UPDATE, 6:35 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg says his expe­ri­ence as a May­or can be scaled up to work in the nation’s capital.

UPDATE, 6:37 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar was asked about her com­ments on gen­der and Pete Buttigieg. She says that Buttigieg is qual­i­fied, but points out that Amer­i­ca has nev­er had a female pres­i­dent. She has the record to be able to win.

UPDATE, 6:37 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar declared: “If you think a woman can’t beat Trump, Nan­cy Pelosi does it every day.”

UPDATE, 6:37 PM (Andrew): That was one of Amy Klobuchar’s best answers by far in any Demo­c­ra­t­ic debate.

UPDATE, 6:38 PM (Ruairi): Biden says that he has “passed more major leg­is­la­tion than every per­son on this stage combined.”

He talked about every­thing from crim­i­nal jus­tice to the Yugol­sav wars (butcher­ing Milosevic’s name in the process).

UPDATE, 6:39 PM (Ruairi): Book­er was asked about Trump’s “unfil­tered com­mu­ni­ca­tion.” Book­er observed that Trump likes to breaks norms, but the next Pres­i­dent should bring the coun­try together.

UPDATE, 6:40 PM (Ruairi): Book­er sayid that his expe­ri­ence as a may­or (like Buttigieg) helps him to be ready for exec­u­tive experience.

UPDATE, 6:41 PM (Ruairi): Rachel Mad­dow asked about the “lock him up” chants against Trump. Sanders says that “the peo­ple of this coun­try are catch­ing on to the degree that this Pres­i­dent thinks he is above the law.”

UPDATE, 6:41 PM (Ruairi): Sanders says that if Trump did break the law, he should be pros­e­cut­ed like any­body else, but that bring­ing the nation togeth­er is more important.

UPDATE, 6:42 PM (Ruairi): Sanders reject­ed a lot of the sense of divi­sion in the coun­try: Amer­i­cans large­ly agree on the need for cli­mate jus­tice, an end to income inequal­i­ty, gun safe­ty, and progress on oth­er issues.

UPDATE, 6:43 PM (Ruairi): Asked about pros­e­cut­ing Trump after he leaves office, Biden says he would “not dic­tate who should be prosecuted…it’s the Attor­ney Gen­er­al of the Unit­ed States, not the President’s per­son­al attorney.”

UPDATE, 6:44 PM (Ruairi): Biden doesn’t want to mod­el the Democ­rats after Trump, say­ing that civil­i­ty is impor­tant to restor­ing “the soul of this country.”

UPDATE, 6:44 PM (Ruairi): Sanders declared: “Joe is right, it is the func­tion of the Attor­ney Gen­er­al.” How­ev­er, he says that increas­ing­ly, Amer­i­cans do believe that Trump has com­mit­ted crim­i­nal acts.

UPDATE, 6:45 PM (Andrew): A ques­tion about child­care? It’s. About. Time!

UPDATE, 6:46 PM (Ruairi): As men­tioned, the debate has turned to child­care and paid leave. Andrew Yang points out that the only coun­try that doesn’t have manda­to­ry paid fam­i­ly leave is Papua New Guinea: “We need to get off this list!”

UPDATE, 6:47 PM (Ruairi): Yang is mak­ing the case for “a Free­dom Dividend…from day one.” He says, “we should not be push­ing every­one to leave the home and going to the workforce.”

UPDATE, 6:48 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar was asked about her pro­pos­al for three months fed­er­al­ly guar­an­teed paid fam­i­ly leave. “Look at my website…you can see my plans and how I’m gonna pay for it,” she responded.

UPDATE, 6:49 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar vowed, “I’m not gonna go for things because they sound good on a bumper stick­er,” refer­ring to the ambi­tious plans of her rivals. She cit­ed tuition free col­lege and Medicare for All.

UPDATE, 6:50 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris said her plan (for six months, not three) is rel­e­vant to the chang­ing nature of Amer­i­can par­ent­hood – peo­ple are hav­ing kids lat­er, and also often tak­ing care of their own parents.

UPDATE, 6:51 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris point­ed out that the bur­den of care often falls on women. She also points out that “women are not paid equal for equal work,” and points to her broad­er plans to address women in work.

UPDATE, 6:52 PM (Ruairi): Stey­er was asked about afford­able hous­ing. He says “when you look at inequality…you have to start with hous­ing.” He says that California’s lack of hous­ing affects mil­lions: home­less­ness and sky­rock­et­ing rents.

UPDATE, 6:53 PM (Ruairi): Stey­er wants to be build­ing new hous­ing in a sus­tain­able way, because hous­ing has a “dra­mat­ic effect on cli­mate and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.” He wants to force cer­tain munic­i­pal­i­ties o change hous­ing policy.

UPDATE, 6:54 PM (Ruairi): War­ren said that “the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment stopped build­ing years ago… I’ve got a plan for 3.2 mil­lion new hous­ing units.” She says “hous­ing is how we build wealth in Amer­i­ca,” empha­siz­ing the his­to­ry of racist red-lin­ing poli­cies that have dis­crim­i­nat­ed against mil­lions of people.

UPDATE, 6:55 PM (Andrew): This is a wel­come change of pace from past debates: an afford­able hous­ing ques­tion fol­lowed that child­care ques­tion. If the mod­er­a­tors keep ask­ing good ques­tions about top­ics that are rarely addressed, this could turn out to be the best Demo­c­ra­t­ic debate yet.

UPDATE, 6:55 PM (Ruairi): Book­er brought up his record as May­or of Newark. He cit­ed gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, which com­pounds racial seg­re­ga­tion. He promised a tax deduc­tion for renters who spend a large pro­por­tion of their income on rent.

UPDATE, 7:00 PM (Ruairi): The next ques­tion deals with farm­ers and the trade dis­pute with Chi­na. Would May­or Buttigieg con­tin­ue farm subsidies?

UPDATE, 7:00 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg said the sub­si­dies “aren’t even mak­ing farm­ers whole… I don’t think this pres­i­dent cares one bit for farmers.”

UPDATE, 7:01 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg said that con­sol­i­da­tion and monop­o­lies should be tak­en on to help farm­ers. He also says that farms are essen­tial to deal­ing with cli­mate change.

UPDATE, 7:02 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg said he would con­tin­ue sub­si­dies, but he would bring the trade dis­pute to an end to make them unnecessary.

UPDATE, 7:03 PM (Ruairi): The debate has shift­ed to the cli­mate cri­sis. Tul­si Gab­bard says “this is not a Democrat[ic] issue or a Repub­li­can issue,” a tired and mean­ing­less phrase which is on NPI’s Ban­ished Words List.

UPDATE, 7:04 PM (Ruairi): Gab­bard wants to wean the Unit­ed States off fos­sil fuels and invest­ing in sus­tain­able indus­try and agri­cul­ture. She claimed to want to be a world leader on the issue of cli­mate justice.

UPDATE, 7:05 PM (Ruairi): Stey­er says that cli­mate jus­tice is his num­ber one pri­or­i­ty. He would use the emer­gency pow­ers of the pres­i­den­cy, pri­or­i­tiz­ing cli­mate jus­tice in domes­tic and for­eign policy.

UPDATE, 7:05 PM (Ruairi): Stey­er thinks that there’s noth­ing bet­ter for bridg­ing the par­ti­san divide than “sav­ing the world!”

UPDATE, 7:05 PM (Andrew): With Jay Inslee not on stage, Tom Stey­er is real­ly try­ing to claim the cli­mate jus­tice cam­paign mantle.

UPDATE, 7:06 PM (Ruairi): Biden says he doesn’t need a lec­ture from Stey­er on tack­ling cli­mate dam­age: he says Stey­er invest­ed in the coal indus­try, while Biden was pur­su­ing cli­mate-friend­ly policies.

UPDATE, 7:07 PM (Ruairi): “Every­one in this room has lived in an econ­o­my based on fos­sil fuels,” Stey­er respond­ed. He argues that Con­gress has nev­er passed a major cli­mate jus­tice bill (the House has, but not the Sen­ate). Stey­er said wants to make cli­mate “the most impor­tant thing.”

UPDATE, 7:08 PM (Ruairi): Sanders points to leg­is­la­tion that he is putting for­ward right now. He says the U.S. needs to “get our act togeth­er right now,” as the world faces an unprece­dent­ed crisis.

UPDATE, 7:08 PM (Ruairi): Sanders says “the fos­sil fuel indus­try is prob­a­bly crim­i­nal­ly liable…they lied and lied and lied when they had the evidence!”

UPDATE, 7:08 PM (Andrew): That’s the end of the cli­mate jus­tice dis­cus­sion? Already? Bad choice, moderators.

UPDATE, 7:09 PM (Ruairi): Kamala Har­ris was asked about North Korea. She says that “Don­ald Trump got punked,” by Kim Jong Un. She says he fails to under­stand the role of Com­man­der in Chief.

UPDATE, 7:10 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris wants to ensure that the Unit­ed States not only has a strong mil­i­tary, but is respect­ed in the world com­mu­ni­ty, which sim­ply isn’t the case right now. Trump’s break­ing of inter­na­tion­al agree­ments makes him “the great­est threat to the nation­al security.”

UPDATE, 7:11 PM (Ruairi): On North Korea, Har­ris said: “There are no con­ces­sions to be made.” She demon­strat­ed com­pre­hen­sive knowl­edge of the region.

UPDATE, 7:12 PM (Ruairi): Biden was asked what he would do that Oba­ma didn’t do. Biden said he would first recre­ate the alliances that Trump has degrad­ed. He wants to work with Chi­na and South Korea to pres­sure North Korea.

UPDATE, 7:13 PM (Ruairi): Biden point­ed out that “this guy [Trump] has no idea what he’s doing.”

UPDATE, 7:13 PM (Ruairi): Bernie Sanders was asked if he would nego­ti­ate a deal with the Tal­iban in Afghanistan. To but­tress his argu­ment that he has bet­ter judg­ment than Biden, Sanders point­ed out that Biden vot­ed to autho­rize the occu­pa­tion of Iraq, while he vot­ed against it.

UPDATE, 7:14 PM (Ruairi): Sanders wants to have a for­eign pol­i­cy that “under­stands who our ene­mies are,” and he would bring troops out of Afghanistan. He would do it “work­ing with the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty” and would talk to the Taliban.

UPDATE, 7:15 PM (Ruairi): Andrew Yang was asked what he would say to Vladimir Putin. Yang paused before answer­ing, then declared: “First I would say, ‘I’m sor­ry I beat your guy.’” He would say that any Russ­ian inter­fer­ence in elec­tions would be viewed as aggression.

UPDATE, 7:16 PM (Ruairi): Yang quot­ed James Madi­son: “The more you spent on diplo­ma­cy, the less you spend on ammu­ni­tion.” He also wants to address China’s treat­ment of minori­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly Uyghur Muslims.

UPDATE, 7:17 PM (Ruairi): Cory Book­er was asked about the if he would help demon­stra­tors in Hong Kong. He reeled off some of the human rights vio­la­tions Chi­na is guilty of and not­ed: “There is a larg­er bat­tle going on on plan­et Earth.”

UPDATE, 7:18 PM (Ruairi): Book­er sees a glob­al con­flict between democ­ra­cies and author­i­tar­i­an regimes. Book­er wants to call out Chi­nese human rights abus­es, but would bring Amer­i­can abus­es (such as on the bor­der or in Yemen) to heel.

UPDATE, 7:19 PM (Ruairi): Biden was asked about Jamal Kashog­gi and oth­er Sau­di abus­es. Biden declared that he would not sell weapons to Sau­di Ara­bia and make them an inter­na­tion­al pariah.

UPDATE, 7:19 PM (Ruairi): Biden says the Saud­is have to be held account­able. “We are clear that we stand for human rights.”

UPDATE, 7:20 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar said “we need a new for­eign pol­i­cy,” includ­ing reassert­ing Amer­i­can val­ues, strength­en­ing alliances. She says that Trump’s reac­tion to the Kashog­gi killing “sent a sig­nal” to dictators.

UPDATE, 7:21 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar said she, like the Chi­nese regime, sees in the long term, because “they are in it for the long game.”

UPDATE, 7:22 PM (Ruairi): Sanders tout­ed his strong record on crit­i­ciz­ing Sau­di Ara­bia. He wants to say to Iran, Sau­di Ara­bia, Israel and the Pales­tini­ans that the Unit­ed States is sick of fund­ing their wars with each other.

UPDATE, 7:23 PM (Ruairi): War­ren is asked if more Amer­i­cans should serve in the mil­i­tary. “I think it’s an impor­tant part of who we are as Americans…it’s how we help bring our nation together.”

UPDATE, 7:23 PM (Ruairi): War­ren wants to see even more ser­vice oppor­tu­ni­ties for Amer­i­cans, such as in nation­al forests and nation­al parks.

UPDATE, 7:25 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg was asked if he would cut mil­i­tary bud­gets. He wants to repri­or­i­tize spend­ing, such as increased fund­ing for Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence. “There is no con­cept of strate­gic plan­ning” in the Trump regime.

UPDATE, 7:25 PM (Andrew): This is a good dis­cus­sion about reform­ing defense pro­cure­ment and chang­ing up our for­eign pol­i­cy, but we’re run­ning out of time to tack­le the top­ic of vot­ing rights and com­bat­ing vot­er suppression.

UPDATE, 7:30 PM (Ruairi): The mod­er­a­tors are now ask­ing about white supre­ma­tism and domes­tic terrorism.

Gab­bard claims she wants cor­rect racial injus­tices, begin­ning with the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and “the failed war on drugs.”

UPDATE, 7:31 PM (Ruairi): Gab­bard added that she wants to “cor­rect the fail­ures of the past…we have to treat each oth­er with respect… that kind of lead­er­ship starts at the top.”

UPDATE, 7:31 PM (Ruairi): Andrew Yang said he wants to des­ig­nate white suprema­cist ter­ror­ism as domes­tic ter­ror­ism so that the Depart­ment of Jus­tice can track it. He recounts talk­ing to a for­mer white supremacist.

UPDATE, 7:32 PM (Ruairi): Yang also said he wants to “get into the roots of our communities…for men in par­tic­u­lar who are falling through the cracks.” He wants to find ways to “turn our boys into healthy and strong young men.”

UPDATE, 7:33 PM (Ruairi): Biden was asked about the #MeToo Move­ment. He wants to reau­tho­rize the Vio­lence Against Women Act, and “fun­da­men­tal­ly change the cul­ture of how women are treat­ed… it’s everyone’s responsibility.”

UPDATE, 7:34 PM (Ruairi): Biden referred to efforts he led on col­lege cam­pus­es, cit­ing the need to get men involved. “It’s a gigan­tic issue and we have to make it clear from the Pres­i­dent on down that we will not tol­er­ate it.”

UPDATE, 7:35 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris was asked about her crit­i­cism of Pete Buttigieg’s attempts to bridge racial divides. She side­stepped the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cri­tique Buttigieg, and tried instead to speak to big­ger issues.

UPDATE, 7:36 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris said she wants the Democ­rats to be there for peo­ple of col­or, and not just show­ing up in elec­tion years. “Show up for me!” She says that black peo­ple are more like­ly to die in child­birth or violence.

UPDATE, 7:36 PM (Andrew): Kamala Har­ris is real­ly find­ing her groove as she gets fur­ther into her answer on this crit­i­cal question.

UPDATE, 7:36 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris said that, on race, the “ques­tion has to be ‘where you been, and what are you gonna do?’”

UPDATE, 7:37 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg agreed. He said his city is racial­ly diverse, he has “lived and breathed” the racial issues with­in South Bend. He brought his Chris­t­ian faith to the answer, say­ing he is oblig­ed to help the oppressed.

UPDATE, 7:38 PM (Ruairi): As a gay man, Buttigieg says he some­times feels like “a stranger in my own country.”

He saw peo­ple fight for gay rights even if they were noth­ing like him, and he wants to sup­port peo­ple who are noth­ing like him.

UPDATE, 7:39 PM (Ruairi): Har­ris wants to rebuild the Oba­ma coali­tion to win the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. She says that that coali­tion was built on a leader who had worked in diverse communities.

UPDATE, 7:40 PM (Ruairi): War­ren talked about the mas­sive racial inequal­i­ty in stu­dent loan debt. “Stu­dent loan forgiveness…will help close the racial gap.”

UPDATE, 7:41 PM (Ruairi): War­ren was asked if she would use tax­pay­er mon­ey to take down Trump’s wall. She says the bor­der is “a man-made cri­sis” because of Trump’s policies.

UPDATE, 7:42 PM (Ruairi): War­ren empha­sized her vis­its to bor­der facil­i­ties and described her sad­ness at see­ing peo­ple being oppressed, includ­ing chil­dren in cages. “A great nation does not sep­a­rate chil­dren from their families.”

UPDATE, 7:42 PM (Andrew): Sen­a­tor War­ren just offered the answer of the night, emphat­i­cal­ly and elo­quent­ly denounc­ing the inhu­mane, immoral sep­a­ra­tion of chil­dren and their par­ents at the border.

UPDATE, 7:42 PM (Ruairi): Cory Book­er said the wall “is just wrong” and returns to the issue of black vot­ers: “I’ve been one since I was eigh­teen!” He says that black vot­ers are “pissed off and worried.”

UPDATE, 7:43 PM (Ruairi): Book­er crit­i­cized Biden for say­ing that mar­i­jua­na should not be legal­ized: “I thought you might have been high when you said it!”

UPDATE, 7:44 PM (Ruairi): Book­er point­ed out the mas­sive inequal­i­ties when it comes to pros­e­cut­ing mar­i­jua­na users. He points out that the Democ­rats lost Michi­gan because of “a mas­sive dimu­ni­tion in the African-Amer­i­can vote.”

UPDATE, 7:45 PM (Ruairi): Biden said that mar­i­jua­na offend­ers should be released and that mar­i­jua­na should be stud­ied. He points to his “long­stand­ing con­nec­tion to the black com­mu­ni­ty” as “part of the Oba­ma coalition.”

UPDATE, 7:46 PM (Ruairi): Biden says that his large degree of sup­port from the black com­mu­ni­ty comes from the fact that “they know me” thanks to his years in the Oba­ma White House as Vice President.

We’re head­ing to a break.

UPDATE, 7:50 PM (Andrew): We’re back from the break and Rachel Mad­dow has a ques­tion about women’s repro­duc­tive rights.

UPDATE, 7:51 PM (Ruairi): As men­tioned, the debate has shift­ed to the top­ic of abor­tion and women’s rights. Klobuchar remind­ed every­one of the restric­tive laws being passed, adding that Democ­rats can­not for­get “that the peo­ple are with us.” She point­ed out that over 70% of Amer­i­cans sup­port Roe v. Wade.

UPDATE, 7:52 PM (Ruairi): War­ren said she believes that abor­tion rights are human rights and eco­nom­ic rights. “Rich women will still get abor­tions… it’s still going to fall hard on poor women and girls.”

UPDATE, 7:53 PM (Ruairi): When peo­ple decide whether to get an abor­tion, “the one enti­ty that should not be in that equa­tion is the government.”

UPDATE, 7:53 PM (Ruairi): Bernie Sanders says that “the men of Amer­i­ca must stand with the women.” He crit­i­cizes con­ser­v­a­tives who “want small gov­ern­ment” but don’t want women to con­trol their own bodies.

UPDATE, 7:54 PM (Ruairi): Book­er brought up vot­er sup­pres­sion, tying it to the dis­cus­sion over repro­duc­tive rights. The con­nec­tion is that the anti-free­dom bill being pushed in Geor­gia is opposed by over 70% of Georgians.

UPDATE, 7:54 PM (Andrew): Rachel Mad­dow has squeezed in a ques­tion about vot­ing rights here at the end of the debate. This top­ic should have been addressed ear­ly on, in hour one.

UPDATE, 7:55 PM (Ruairi): How would Buttigieg ensure access to the bal­lot? “This affects every oth­er issue we care about.” He says that elec­tion day could be made a fed­er­al hol­i­day. He talked about using a “car­rots and sticks” approach to build a con­sen­sus for elec­tion reforms among state and local leaders.

UPDATE, 7:56 PM (Ruairi): “Right now we have politi­cians pick­ing out their vot­ers, not the oth­er way around.” Buttigieg wants to reform the elec­tion process, includ­ing elim­i­nat­ing the Elec­toral College.

UPDATE, 7:57 PM (Andrew): Giv­en the first oppor­tu­ni­ty to talk about vot­ing rights and access to the bal­lot, Pete Buttigieg made the most of it. He cov­ered a lot of ground in a short amount of time. His best answer of the night by far.

UPDATE, 7:57 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar tout­ed her expe­ri­ence in the Sen­ate of press­ing for bills that improve con­fi­dence in gov­ern­ment and vot­ing rights. “I have also actu­al­ly done this work,” she said, a com­ment direct­ed at Buttigieg.

UPDATE, 7:58 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg respond­ed by say­ing that “Wash­ing­ton expe­ri­ence is not the only expe­ri­ence that counts!” He recount­ed out his expe­ri­ence in the mil­i­tary and local government.

UPDATE, 7:59 PM (Ruairi): Gab­bard tout­ed her bill that man­dates paper bal­lots. She attacked Buttigieg for say­ing that he would send troops to Mex­i­co to fight car­tels. She cit­ed her expe­ri­ence in the House for­eign affairs and armed ser­vices committees.

UPDATE, 8:00 PM (Ruairi): “That is out­landish, even by the stan­dard of today’s pol­i­tics,” says Buttigieg. Gab­bard took his state­ment out of con­text: “Do you think any­one on this stage is seri­ous­ly propos­ing invad­ing Mexico?”

UPDATE, 8:01 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg brought up the ele­phant in Gabbard’s room – her meet­ings with Syr­i­an dic­ta­tor Bashar al Assad. “I wouldn’t meet with a mur­der­ous dic­ta­tor like that,” Buttigieg told Gabbard.

UPDATE, 8:01 PM (Andrew): It’s Pete Buttigieg vs. Tul­si Gab­bard: not a debate dynam­ic many were expecting.

UPDATE, 8:01 PM (Ruairi): Gab­bard cit­ed past pres­i­dents who met with Sovi­et dic­ta­tors. (Of course, she is not the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States.)

“Like Trump, who met with Kim,” snaps Buttigieg.

UPDATE, 8:02 PM (Ruairi): Sanders brought the con­ver­sa­tion back to vot­er sup­pres­sion, and point­ed out that Cit­i­zens Cor­po­ra­tions Unit­ed “allows bil­lion­aires to buy elec­tions.” He wants pub­lic fund­ing of elections.

UPDATE, 8:03 PM (Ruairi): Stey­er said he wants the Democ­rats to not only beat Trump, but win across the coun­try. He wants to talk turnout: “Up to half the peo­ple don’t vote at all!”

UPDATE, 8:03 PM (Ruairi): Stey­er point­ed to his expe­ri­ence with NextGen Amer­i­ca in increas­ing turnout in areas where his group campaigned.

UPDATE, 8:05 PM (Ruairi): In his clos­ing state­ment, Cory Book­er gives a shout-out to Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John Lewis, the civ­il rights icon.

“We all owe a debt that we can­not repay, we all drink from wells of free­dom and lib­er­ty that we did not dig.”

UPDATE, 8:05 PM (Ruairi): Book­er promised to cause “good trou­ble”, in the words of John Lewis.

UPDATE, 8:06 PM (Ruairi): Tom Stey­er said he is “dif­fer­ent from every­body else on this stage… I’ve spent decades putting togeth­er coali­tions of ordi­nary vot­ers” to beat corporations.

UPDATE, 8:07 PM (Ruairi): Stey­er tout­ed his busi­ness expe­ri­ence, say­ing that he can use it to take Trump to task on the economy.

UPDATE, 8:09 PM (Ruairi): Tul­si Gab­bard promised to treat every­one with “respect and com­pas­sion.” She referred to Mar­tin Luther King’s admi­ra­tion of Hawaii’s racial har­mo­ny. She told view­ers she wants to “ush­er in a twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry of racial har­mo­ny, of racial justice.”

UPDATE, 8:09 PM (Ruairi): Andrew Yang referred to his two kids: “Our kids are not all right…we are leav­ing them a future that is far dark­er.” He says that the fourth indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion is push­ing fam­i­lies aside.

UPDATE, 8:10 PM (Ruairi): Yang said his first reac­tion to the cri­sis was not run­ning for pres­i­dent – “because I am not insane!” He says “like many of you, I am a par­ent and a patri­ot,” and that’s why he is run­ning for the White House.

UPDATE, 8:12 PM (Ruairi): Amy Klobuchar talked about the impeach­ment hear­ings: “In this coun­try, you can tell the truth, and you will be fine.” This is not just an elec­tion about every­one’s eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty, “this is a patri­ot check.”

UPDATE, 8:12 PM (Ruairi): Klobuchar said she wants to win inde­pen­dents and Repub­li­cans “who can­not stom­ach this guy any more.” She added her win won’t be “a per­son­al vic­to­ry, it will be a nation­al victory.”

UPDATE, 8:13 PM (Ruairi): Kamala Har­ris start­ed by declar­ing: “So we’re in a fight.” She wants a nom­i­nee who “can go toe-to-toe with Trump,” and tout­ed her ques­tion­ing of Bill Barr, Jeff Ses­sions and Brett Kavanaugh.

UPDATE, 8:14 PM (Ruairi): “My entire career has been spent hav­ing one client and one client only: the peo­ple.” Har­ris said that “jus­tice is on the bal­lot in this elec­tion.” She wants to unlock the poten­tial and promise of America.

UPDATE, 8:15 PM (Ruairi): Pete Buttigieg said that Atlanta is the heart of the black mid­dle class because of great local lead­ers. He is run­ning to pre­pare for “the era that must come after Trump.”

UPDATE, 8:15 PM (Ruairi): Buttigieg said he can unite pro­gres­sives, bicon­cep­tu­al vot­ers, and “future for­mer Republicans…everybody is wel­come in this move­ment we’re creating.”

UPDATE, 8:17 PM (Ruairi): Bernie Sanders point­ed out that he is the son of an immi­grant. He tout­ed his record in the civ­il rights move­ment, protest­ing as a stu­dent. Sanders said he wants to not only beat Trump but change Amer­i­ca, with­out the help of the rich, cor­po­ra­tions, or super PACS.

UPDATE, 8:18 PM (Ruairi): Eliz­a­beth War­ren said “we know what we need to do…the major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans are with us on it, yet we don’t make change.”

She declared the prob­lem is corruption.

UPDATE, 8:19 PM (Ruairi): War­ren argued she has authored the “biggest anti-cor­rup­tion bill since Water­gate” that will “end lob­by­ing as we know it.” She wants to start by “attack­ing the cor­rup­tion” that is the source of so many problems.

UPDATE, 8:20 PM (Ruairi): Joe Biden imme­di­ate­ly men­tioned Barack Oba­ma when it was time for his clos­ing. The coun­try needs a leader who believes that Amer­i­ca leads “not by the exam­ple of our pow­er, but by the pow­er of our exam­ple,” a mem­o­rable line from a past Bill Clin­ton speech.

UPDATE, 8:21 PM (Ruairi): Biden says “get up, let’s take back this coun­try and let’s lead the world again!” He says that Amer­i­ca has nev­er failed to achieve some­thing it has set its mind to. And that’s the final word in this debate!

Good night, and thank you for fol­low­ing along with us.