Buttigieg Mostly Gets Pass as Rivals Skirmish: Debate Takeaways

(Bloomberg) -- After several debates in which the entire field took aim at the front-runner, the Democratic presidential candidates on Wednesday fought a series of skirmishes against one another.

Speaking on stage at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, California Senator Kamala Harris went after Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard on foreign policy. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker took on former Vice President Joe Biden over marijuana. And Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar characterized South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg as inexperienced.

The squabbles occurred as polls show the slots at the top have largely been occupied by the same four candidates – Biden, Warren, Buttigieg and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders – leaving those further down in the surveys struggling for a path with just weeks to go before the Iowa Caucuses.

Biden Gaffes on Black Senators

Biden’s poor choice of wording undercut his argument on one of his policy achievements, the Violence Against Women Act.

After arguing that he would make one of his first goals to pass a reauthorization of the law, currently stalled in Congress, Biden said that “no man has the right to raise a hand to a woman in anger” adding “unless it’s in self defense.”

He went on to say that domestic violence was an issue that Americans must keep confronting. “We have to keep punching at it, and punching at it, and punching at it,” he said.

Later, he made another gaffe when describing his support among African-American leaders, especially “the only African-American woman ever elected to the Senate.”

Biden was referring to former Illinois Senator Carol Moseley Braun, who was the first African-American woman in the Senate, but is not the only one.

As Harris quickly pointed out, laughing, “the other one is right here.”

Biden quickly corrected himself. “The first one,” he said.

Harris Laces Into Gabbard

Lagging in fifth place in most polls, Harris singled out a candidate even further down in the pack.

Early in the debate, she blasted Gabbard for meeting with President Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon and her past statements supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, among other things.

Harris said that Democrats did not need a nominee who “spent four years on Fox News full-time criticizing President Obama” and other Democrats, who “buddied up to Steve Bannon to get a meeting with Trump in the Trump Tower” and “fails to call a war criminal what he is, a war criminal.”

Gabbard responded by arguing that Harris was “continuing to traffic in lies and slander and innuendo” because she supports the “Bush-Clinton-Trump foreign policy of regime change wars,” citing her experience in the Army National Guard in Iraq to say they are “deeply destructive.”

Biden Touts North Korean Jab

Some candidates flaunt their endorsements. Biden went the opposite route.

At several points in the debate, he cited opposition to him not only from Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin but also North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

“He’s a thug who recently pointed out that I’m a rabid dog who needs to be beaten with a stick,” he said, citing a recent statement from the North Korean government.

“But other than that, you like him,” quipped Sanders.

North Korea’s statement went too far even for Trump, who tweeted that Biden “may be Sleepy and Very Slow,” but he is “actually somewhat better than” a rabid dog.

On a separate question on foreign policy, entrepreneur Andrew Yang was asked what he would say on his first call with Putin as president.

“First, I’d say I’m sorry I beat your guy,” he said, adding after a beat, “or not sorry.”

Impeachment Becomes a Talking Point

Democratic presidential candidates used Wednesday’s explosive testimony in the U.S. House impeachment inquiry to make the case for their own campaigns.

Biden said revelations that Trump had tried to get the Ukraine government to investigate his son Hunter showed that he is the most electable candidate.

Biden said the testimony taught him “Number One, that Donald Trump doesn’t want me to be the nominee,” adding that Putin also “doesn’t want me to be president.”

Klobuchar argued that the impeachment inquiry shows that Trump is putting his own interests before the country’s, putting her own twist on his slogan to say that America needs a president who will “put our country first.”

“This is a pattern with this man, and it goes from everything to how he has betrayed our farmers and our workers to what he has done with foreign affairs, leaving the Kurds for slaughter, sucking up to Putin every minute of the day,” she said.

‘I Thought You Might Have Been High’

Booker used one of his few turns on stage to criticize Biden, who recently said at a town hall in Nevada that there is “not nearly been enough evidence” on whether marijuana is a “gateway drug.”

“I thought you might have been high when you said it,” Booker said. “Because marijuana in our country is already legal for privileged people, and it’s why the war on drugs has been a war on black and brown people.”

He went on to argue that “there are people in Congress right now that admit to smoking marijuana while our kids are in jail” for the same thing.

Biden responded by noting that he supports decriminalization of marijuana, and that he supported releasing people in jail for marijuana convictions and expunging their records. He added, however, that the long-term effects of the drug should be studied.

Still, the former vice president remains a throwback in the current Democratic field, where candidates as diverse as Klobuchar, Buttigieg, Harris and Sanders have endorsed legalizing recreational marijuana use.

Buttigieg Is Largely Unscathed

Buttigieg is the front-runner in an important Iowa poll, but you wouldn’t know that from the way other candidates treated him on the debate stage.

Harris was given a wide-open opportunity to repeat criticism of his campaign’s use of a stock image of a Kenyan woman on a section of its website on plans to empower black Americans.

Asked about it earlier this week, she said she didn’t “have words to describe that” and that “someone agrees that was a big mistake.”

But given an opportunity to repeat her criticism from the debate stage, Harris demurred.

“I believe the mayor has made apologies for that,” she said, pivoting to a discussion of how black voters’ concerns have often been taken for granted by Democrats.

Later, though, Klobuchar dinged Buttigieg, calling him “a local official” who “has said the right words,” contrasting his experience with her record as a senator. “I have actually done this work,” she said.

There Will Be No Invasion of Mexico

Toward the end of the evening, Buttigieg got the better of Gabbard after an extended back and forth over foreign policy that began when she claimed he had said he would send troops into Mexico to fight drug cartels.

“I think the most recent example of your inexperience in national security and foreign policy came from your recent careless statement about how you as president would be willing to send our troops to Mexico to fight the drug cartels,” she said.

“That is outlandish, even by the standards of today’s politics,” he responded. “Do you seriously think anybody on this stage is proposing invading Mexico?”

He then also hit her on meeting with Assad, saying he had “enough judgment that I would not have sat down with a murderous dictator.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Teague Beckwith in New York at rbeckwith3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, John Harney

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