Democrats Spar in Debate That Puts Buttigieg in Crosshairs
Bernie Sanders Says No to USMCA Trade Deal at Sixth Democratic Debate
(Bloomberg) -- The Democratic presidential candidates turned on each other in a feisty and wide-ranging debate that frequently put Pete Buttigieg, who’s been rising in polls, in the middle of attacks from both the party’s moderate and progressive wings.
Joe Biden, who has enjoyed front-runner status despite numerous gaffes and at times uninspiring campaign, gave one of the strongest performances of his third presidential run. But Buttigieg drew more attention as the target of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren from the left and Amy Klobuchar from the right.
Thursday’s debate in Los Angeles, sponsored by PBS NewsHour and Politico, featured just seven candidates instead of the usual 10. Because of that, it covered a broader range of issues -- from climate change to trade to judicial appointments and the war in Afghanistan -- and gave candidates more freedom to engage with each other than the five previous debates.
The issue of wealthy donors sparked some of the most heated exchanges of the night, with Buttigieg the most frequent target. Last weekend, Buttigieg attended a Napa Valley fundraiser in a wine cave that charged $1,000 for a photo.
“People who can put down $5,000 to have a picture taken don’t have the same priorities” as everyday American families, Warren said.
“I can’t help but to feel that might have been directed at me,” Buttigieg said.
He said he was the only one on stage who isn’t a millionaire or billionaire, and accused Warren of imposing a “purity test” she herself couldn’t pass.
“We’re in the fight of our lives,” he said. “We shouldn’t do it with one hand tied behind our back.”
Klobuchar, who like Buttigieg needs a strong performance in Iowa to launch her campaign for the nomination, joined the attacks on the South Bend, Indiana mayor. After Buttigieg dismissed the Washington experience of other candidates, she questioned whether Buttigieg has enough experience for the presidency.
“While you can dismiss committee hearings, I think this experience works,” the Minnesota senator said. “And I have not denigrated your experience as a local official. I have been one. I just think you should respect our experience when you look how you evaluate someone who can get things done.”
“You actually did denigrate my experience,” Buttigieg interjected, mentioning a comment she’d made during a previous segment and invoking his experience in the military. “It counts, senator, it counts.”
Buttigieg and Warren, both jockeying for well-educated voters, also clashed over broader policy.
Without naming her, Buttigieg criticized Warren’s expansive and expensive policy proposals, saying voters are being offered a false choice between extreme ideas or the status quo.
“Yes we must deliver big ideas and yes, taxes on wealthy individuals and on corporations are going to have to go up,” Buttigieg said. “We can also be smart about the promises we’re making, make sure they’re promises that we can keep without the kind of taxation that economists tell us can hurt the economy.”
Warren said economists who say that her proposed taxes on the wealthy would stifle the economy are “just wrong.” She argued that spending those revenues on programs such as early childhood education would boost the economy in the short- and long-term.
One subject that figured into most of the discussion was Trump, the man they all want to challenge in November.
The candidates repeatedly scored Trump on his dealings with China, as well as allies. They said that despite his tough public stance on trade with the world’s second biggest economy, the president hasn’t followed through, nor has he stood up for human rights in China.
Biden and several other Democratic presidential said the U.S. must confront China over oppression of Muslim Uighurs and pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong as well as their trade policies.
“We have to be firm,” Biden said. “We don’t have to go to war but we have to make it clear: this as far as you go, China.”
The debate featured one of the broadest discussions about climate change, something that environmental advocates have been pushing for.
The candidates acknowledged addressing climate change will cause both economic disruption and opportunities, but they all said they would make it a priority because of the urgent threat it poses.
Biden said he would be willing to sacrifice some jobs in the oil and gas industries to promote wider use of clean energy because they would be shifted into new areas of work.
“The opportunity for those workers to transition to high-paying jobs, as Tom said, is real,” he said, making reference to an earlier answer from billionaire Tom Steyer, who has made climate change one of his central issues. “We’re the only country in the world that’s ever taken great, great crises and made them into enormous opportunities.”
Sanders said that instead of spending trillions on “weapons of destruction” that the U.S. should “pool our resources” and fight the “common enemy” of climate change.
Tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang broke with the Warren and Steyer on nuclear energy. Warren said she would keep existing reactors in place but would not build new nuclear plants; Steyer said the long-term costs of nuclear waste make it too expensive.
“We need to have everything on the table in a crisis situation,” Yang said. “Other countries have had success with nuclear power, and the next generation thorium reactors have potential. Thorium is not radioactive the way radium is, it doesn’t last as long, and you can’t make a weapon out of it. We have to have nuclear on the table.”
Warren, Sanders’s Senate colleague and his closest competitor for progressive voters, said the U.S. energy mix would also have to include existing nuclear power plants, though she would not build more.
At the opening of the debate, Sanders said he won’t vote for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact when it’s considered by the Senate, calling it an improvement over Nafta but falling far short of what’s needed to protect American jobs.
“It is not going to stop outsourcing, it is not going to stop corporations from moving to Mexico,” Sanders said.
The accord that replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement was approved by the House Thursday on a 385-41 vote, after it drew broad support from Republicans, Democrats, many labor groups and businesses.
Klobuchar, who is running as a centrist alternative to the progressive Sanders, said she would vote for the pact. Warren, the only other member of the Senate on the stage in Los Angeles, didn’t get to answer the question.
Before Thursday, the candidates had largely avoided weighing in on the trade agreement known as USMCA. The deal was supported by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, but would also give Trump a big win even as he fights the House impeachment.
The debate was the final gathering of the top-polling Democratic candidates before the 2020 calendar year begins, but there’s still one more debate -- set for Jan. 14 in Des Moines -- before the Iowa caucus on February 3. There will be three more debates in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, before California, Texas and more than a dozen other states hold their primaries on Super Tuesday, March 3.
The candidates on stage Thursday were less diverse than the groups at previous debates, now that Kamala Harris -- one of California’s two senators -- has dropped out and Cory Booker failed to qualify for the December debate’s more stringent polling thresholds. Julian Castro has failed to qualify for the last two debates and Deval Patrick, the former Massachusetts governor who entered the race last month, failed to meet either polling or fund-raising metrics to make it on stage.
Also in the race but not qualifying for the debate are Michael Bennet, John Delaney, Marianne Williamson and Michael Bloomberg, who is not accepting campaign donations, one of the Democratic National Committee’s requirements to get on stage. Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Washington at jepstein32@bloomberg.net;Gregory Korte in Washington at gkorte@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Joe Sobczyk
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