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

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

PBS and Politi­co are the media part­ners for this DNC-sanc­tioned debate, which is expect­ed to run two and a half hours. The media part­ners have put togeth­er a line­up of sev­er­al mod­er­a­tors drawn from their news­rooms, led by Judy Woodruff.

Tonight’s line­up of sev­en can­di­dates is as follows:

• Mass­a­chu­setts U.S. Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth Warren
• For­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden
• Ver­mont U.S. Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders
• South Bend May­or Pete Buttigieg
• Min­neso­ta U.S. Sen­a­tor Amy Klobouchar
• Entre­pre­neur Andrew Yang
• Bil­lion­aire Tom Steyer

Our live cov­er­age begins below.

UPDATE, 5:02 PM: PBS and Politi­co are run­ning their intro­duc­to­ry mon­tage. This Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial debate is about to get underway.

UPDATE, 5:03 PM: Judy Woodruff going over the debate rules and format.

UPDATE, 5:04 PM: First ques­tion is about impeachment.

Joe Biden is asked to respond first.

UPDATE, 5:05 PM: Sanders is up now. Says Trump is “a patho­log­i­cal liar,” some­thing he’s said many times. (And he’s entire­ly correct.)

UPDATE, 5:09 PM: War­ren says that it’s imper­a­tive to go after Trump on the issue of cor­rup­tion. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee must pros­e­cute the case against Trump, demon­strat­ing that he broke his promis­es, she argues.

UPDATE, 5:11 PM: Klobuchar empha­sized the need to pres­sure Sen­ate Repub­li­cans to agree to rules for a fair process that will result in Trump’s cronies appear­ing before the Sen­ate for questioning.

UPDATE, 5:12 PM: Stey­er says he agrees with Klobuchar. “We need the admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials to tes­ti­fy on TV so we can judge,” he said.

UPDATE, 5:18 PM: The can­di­dates are being asked how they run in a strong econ­o­my. Biden points out the econ­o­my we have isn’t very inclu­sive. Many mid­dle income fam­i­lies are get­ting a raw deal.

UPDATE, 5:20 PM: Buttigieg says vot­ers in America’s heart­land are not mea­sur­ing the econ­o­my by how well the Dow Jones is doing. “The biggest prob­lem in our econ­o­my is sim­ple: Peo­ple are not get­ting paid enough,” he said.

UPDATE, 5:20 PM: Yang brings up stu­dent loan debt, drug over­dos­es, and sui­cides as con­se­quences of an inequitable economy.

UPDATE, 5:22 PM: War­ren says we have a gov­ern­ment that works great for the wealthy and the well-con­nect­ed, but not for the rest of us. “That is cor­rup­tion, pure and sim­ple, and we need to call it out for what it is,” she declares.

UPDATE, 5:23 PM: Sanders notes that many vet­er­ans are sleep­ing home­less in the streets while the wealthy amass ever more wealth.

UPDATE, 5:24 PM: “They’re just wrong,” War­ren declares after mod­er­a­tor Judy Woodruff asks her to respond to neolib­er­al econ­o­mist crit­ics who claim that increas­ing tax­es on the wealthy will sti­fle growth.

UPDATE, 5:25 PM: War­ren is real­ly on a roll here.

UPDATE, 5:26 PM: Stey­er says he agrees with many of Warren’s pro­pos­als, but claims he would be the best-suit­ed to go up against Trump because he’s wealthy.

UPDATE, 5:30 PM: Before the break, Buttigieg repeat­ed a lot of neoliberal/right wing frames that don’t belong on a Demo­c­ra­t­ic debate stage.

UPDATE, 5:32 PM: Back from the break. The mod­er­a­tors just offered an intrigu­ing ques­tion we haven’t heard before, which con­cerns the impact of cli­mate dam­age on cities like Mia­mi, Flori­da and Dav­en­port, Iowa, and whether peo­ple on the front lines of the cli­mate cri­sis should be relocated.

UPDATE, 5:33 PM: Stey­er says address­ing cli­mate dam­age in com­mu­ni­ties across Amer­i­ca would be his “num­ber one priority.”

UPDATE, 5:36 PM: Buttigieg says as some­one who lives along­side a riv­er that floods, he under­stands the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of the cli­mate cri­sis.  He also empha­sized his sup­port for a tax on pol­lu­tion to mit­i­gate cli­mate damage.

UPDATE, 5:38 PM: When it was turn to answer the cli­mate relo­ca­tion ques­tion, Biden used his time to advo­cate for elec­tri­fy­ing our trans­porta­tion system.

UPDATE, 5:39 PM: That was a very strong answer from Bernie Sanders on respond­ing to the cli­mate cri­sis with the urgency and bold­ness that the cri­sis demands. Time is not on our side — the ram­i­fi­ca­tions are already here.

UPDATE, 5:41 PM: “The way we tack­le cor­rup­tion is by win­ning big in this elec­tion,” said Klobuchar (who was called upon after War­ren fin­ished speak­ing), going on to add that in the Mid­west, the biggest cli­mate impact is riv­er flooding.

UPDATE, 5:43 PM: Stey­er says wind, solar, and bat­ter­ies are the tech­nolo­gies we need to act on cli­mate, point­ing out that nuclear ener­gy is risky and expen­sive. (NPI agrees; we do not sup­port build­ing new nuclear plants.)

UPDATE, 5:46 PM: Biden did an impres­sive job that ques­tion con­cern­ing his rhetoric about try­ing to find com­mon ground with Republicans.

UPDATE, 5:50 PM: The can­di­dates are talk­ing about racial jus­tice. Amy Klobuchar just cit­ed the need to pro­tect the right to vote and applaud­ed Stacey Abrams’ work with Fair Fight Action to com­bat vot­er suppression.

UPDATE, 5:51 PM: The debate has shift­ed to the top­ic of for­eign pol­i­cy. Bernie Sanders has made the case for the Unit­ed States to have a pro-Pales­tin­ian *and* pro-Israeli approach in terms of our pol­i­cy in the Mediterranean.

UPDATE, 5:53 PM: That was a real­ly strong, elo­quent answer from Buttigieg on Unit­ed States lead­er­ship in the world community.

UPDATE, 5:58 PM: Judy Woodruff asked Buttigieg about U.S.-Chinese rela­tions. Buttigieg vowed to iso­late Chi­na from the free world if it moved in mil­i­tar­i­ly on Hong Kong pro­tes­tors, who have tak­en a stand for democ­ra­cy and freedom.

UPDATE, 5:59 PM: Stey­er says we have to treat Chi­na as a “fren­e­my”.

UPDATE, 6:00 PM: Biden says we should be con­cen­trat­ing our naval pow­er in the Pacif­ic to counter China’s grow­ing influence.

UPDATE, 6:02 PM: “They’re in the process of leapfrog­ging us on AI [arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence],” Yang says of Chi­na, declar­ing we need to out-com­pete them and win, in part by set­ting inter­na­tion­al standards.

UPDATE, 6:06 PM: Buttigieg says Trump’s author­i­tar­i­an-style rhetoric is what both­ers him, not Trump’s intol­er­ance for crit­i­cism. Now head­ing to a break.

UPDATE, 6:14 PM: We’re back from the break. The can­di­dates are being asked about Pres­i­dent Obama’s recent com­ments about the ben­e­fit of women lead­ers in the world com­mu­ni­ty. Sanders was asked to respond first.

UPDATE, 6:15 PM: Sanders says the real issue is who has pow­er, and notes the Unit­ed States is slid­ing towards oligarchy.

UPDATE, 6:17 PM: Pressed about 2024 plans, Biden refus­es to com­mit to run­ning for a sec­ond term, say­ing that he wants to win this cam­paign before he con­tem­plates a reelec­tion cam­paign in four years.

UPDATE, 6:19 PM: Prompt­ed to answer an ageist ques­tion, War­ren quipped that she’d be the youngest woman ever elect­ed pres­i­dent if she wins, draw­ing a lot of laughs, smiles, and applause in the debate hall.

UPDATE, 6:22 PM: War­ren seems to have been wait­ing for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take on Pete Buttigieg and she’s tak­ing full advan­tage of her chance right now.

UPDATE, 6:27 PM: Amy Klobuchar jumped in to break up the Buttigieg/Warren exchange, which had got­ten pret­ty testy. Buttigieg and War­ren had been spar­ring at length about their cam­paigns’ fundraising.

UPDATE, 6:30 PM: Turn­ing now to immigration…

UPDATE, 6:34 PM: Sanders says on day one, he would pro­tect DREAM­ers by rein­stat­ing DACA, which Trump has tried to extin­guish. He’d also end the immoral prac­tice of sep­a­rat­ing kids from their fam­i­lies at the border.

UPDATE, 6:39 PM: In response to a mod­er­a­tor ques­tion, Buttigieg affirmed that he sup­ports finan­cial com­pen­sa­tion for chil­dren sep­a­rat­ed from their par­ents at the bor­der, along with a fast track to citizenship.

UPDATE, 6:42 PM: Klobuchar took an oppor­tu­ni­ty to take some swipes at Buttigieg, and draws lots of applause after defend­ing her­self and most of the oth­er can­di­dates on stage from one of his quips.

UPDATE, 6:44 PM: “I got­ta respond to that,” Buttigieg says in response, draw­ing out the exchange with Klobuchar.

UPDATE, 6:49 PM: Very inter­est­ing that Klobuchar end­ed up in a testy exchange of her own with Buttigieg after crit­i­ciz­ing War­ren and Buttigieg for spar­ring at length ear­li­er. It is a debate, of course, and Klobuchar’s ear­li­er attempt to project uni­ty looks even more oppor­tunis­tic now.

UPDATE, 6:50 PM: War­ren and Sanders elo­quent­ly unpacked the argu­ment that tuition-free col­lege should be avail­able for every­body, after Buttigieg tried to argue for the mer­its of a means-based approach.

UPDATE, 6:53 PM: Yang tout­ed his free­dom div­i­dend while answer­ing a ques­tion about secur­ing a future for peo­ple with spe­cial needs.

UPDATE, 6:54 PM: The ques­tions in this sixth Demo­c­ra­t­ic debate have been much bet­ter than ques­tions in pre­vi­ous Demo­c­ra­t­ic debates.

UPDATE, 6:58 PM: After the mod­er­a­tors steered to the debate to the top­ic of the courts, Buttigieg says he would expect his judi­cial nom­i­nees to demon­strate a grasp of vot­ing rights and civ­il rights in addi­tion to repro­duc­tive rights.

UPDATE, 7:00 PM: War­ren says as Pres­i­dent, she’ll go to the Rose Gar­den once a year to read the names of trans­gen­der peo­ple who have been killed.

UPDATE, 7:04 PM: The debate has veered back to for­eign pol­i­cy with a ques­tion about Afghanistan. Biden stressed that while in Pres­i­dent Obama’s admin­is­tra­tion, he opposed the esca­la­tion of America’s mil­i­tary pres­ence there.

UPDATE, 7:05 PM: Sanders took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to then crit­i­cize Biden for sup­port­ing the occu­pa­tion of Iraq, some­thing he has done in past debates. But this time, he was prompt­ly remind­ed that he vot­ed to autho­rize the use of force in Afghanistan. Sanders acknowl­edged that vote was a mistake.

UPDATE, 7:06 PM: Buttigieg salut­ed the work of Bar­bara Lee to revoke the indef­i­nite, open-end­ed autho­riza­tion for the use of mil­i­tary force from 2001.

UPDATE, 7:08 PM: Chal­lenged by Tim Alber­ta, Sanders expressed con­fi­dence that a bold Medicare For All plan could pass Con­gress in 2021 with strong sup­port from the Amer­i­can people.

UPDATE, 7:09 PM: It is real­ly unfor­tu­nate that Joe Biden con­tin­ues to refer to the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act using a Repub­li­can pejo­ra­tive. Words mat­ter. Biden needs to change his vocab­u­lary and reframe.

UPDATE, 7:10 PM: “Put your hand down, Bernie,” Biden says as he attempts to con­clude his answer on healthcare.

UPDATE, 7:14 PM: Peo­ple who vote for mas­sive defense bud­gets have no busi­ness com­plain­ing about the esti­mat­ed costs of pro­pos­als to pro­vide uni­ver­sal health­care to all Americans.

UPDATE, 7:20 PM: Weird ques­tion to close out the debate: would you like to ask for­give­ness of your fel­low can­di­dates on the stage or give a gift?

UPDATE, 7:26 PM: Fol­low­ing Tom Steyer’s answer on the forgiveness/gift ques­tion, PBS and Politi­co opt­ed to head to a break.

When they return, we’ll hear clos­ing statements.

UPDATE, 7:29 PM: Clos­ing state­ments are underway.

Stey­er says he’s dif­fer­ent from every­one on stage, but only hints at his wealth instead of explic­it­ly acknowl­edg­ing it. He men­tions he’s for con­gres­sion­al term lim­its, an idea NPI doesn’t support.

UPDATE, 7:29 PM: It is Yang’s turn to deliv­er a clos­ing statement.

He draws laugh­ter by declar­ing: “I know what you’re think­ing, Amer­i­ca: How I am still up here on stage with them?”

UPDATE, 7:32 PM: In her clos­ing, Klobuchar declared that any­one who wants a big tent Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and long coat­tails would be best served by embrac­ing her cam­paign. She has repeat­ed­ly point­ed out dur­ing this debate that she has run and won statewide in a state far away from either of Amer­i­ca’s salt­wa­ter coasts.

UPDATE, 7:33 PM: Buttigieg used his clos­ing to talk about uni­fy­ing the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty around its even­tu­al nom­i­nee and invit­ed peo­ple to cau­cus for him in the new year. (The first nom­i­nat­ing event will be in Iowa.)

UPDATE, 7:35 PM: Warren’s turn.

In her clos­ing, she talked about expand­ing Social Secu­ri­ty and aggres­sive­ly fight­ing cor­rup­tion, again men­tion­ing her three brothers.

UPDATE, 7:35 PM: “Real change takes place from the bot­tom up, not the top down,” Bernie Sanders declared in his clos­ing statement.

“Let’s defeat Trump, let’s trans­form this country.”

UPDATE, 7:37 PM: Biden got the last word.

“Who has the best chance, the most like­ly chance of defeat­ing Don­ald Trump?” he asked. “Who can help elect Democ­rats to the Unit­ed States Sen­ate?” He con­clud­ed: “I’m the most qual­i­fied to answer those questions.”

UPDATE, 7:37 PM: And with that, we are done!

PBS and Politi­co did a pret­ty good job with their ques­tions… a much bet­ter job than oth­er media out­lets have in past debates.