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Democrats Duck Big Fights in Atlanta Debate, Focus on Trump

Trump Impeachment Hearings Loom Over Fifth Democratic Debate

(Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidates largely avoided lengthy battles over the biggest fault lines in the primary on the Atlanta debate stage, instead arguing over a variety of issues and competing to prove how much better they would run the country than President Donald Trump.

The 10 Democrats took stabs Wednesday at each other’s policy differences on climate change and health care but were fairly united on their approaches to foreign policy and race relations -- and on the impeachment hearings that dominated the news in the 12 hours before the debate started.

From the first question on, Trump’s leadership was the focus.

Democrats Duck Big Fights in Atlanta Debate, Focus on Trump

Elizabeth Warren used the impeachment hearings to renew her pledge not to appoint ambassadors from the donor class, describing European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who offered damning testimony Wednesday about the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine, as a man whose only qualification was that “he wrote a check for $1 million” in support of Trump.

The candidates quickly pivoted to asserting that the Trump administration is a symbol of inequality in America. Kamala Harris said it was about unequal justice; Elizabeth Warren made it about economic inequality.

Asked if he would support a criminal investigation against Trump, Joe Biden said he “would not direct my Justice Department like this president does” and would allow his attorney general to make “an independent judgment.”

But Bernie Sanders warned Democrats of being “consumed by Donald Trump,” even as he called Trump “ likely the most corrupt president in the modern history of America.”

Democrats Duck Big Fights in Atlanta Debate, Focus on Trump

Pete Buttigieg, the new front-runner in Iowa, was widely expected to be the brunt of attacks throughout the debate, but instead heated exchanges were spread across the stage.

Kamala Harris said Democratic candidates had to stop taking black voters for granted, answering a question designed to make her challenge Buttigieg, who has struggled to connect with that critical constituency.

As the first openly gay major presidential candidate, Buttigieg reflected on discrimination, speaking more bluntly about his sexual orientation than he had at any earlier debate.

Buttigieg said he knows the pain of discrimination even as a white man.

Democrats Duck Big Fights in Atlanta Debate, Focus on Trump

“I do have the experience of sometimes feeling like a stranger in my own country,” he said, “turning on the news and seeing my own rights come up for debate, and seeing my rights expanded by a coalition of people like me and people not at all like me, working side by side shoulder to shoulder, making it possible for me to be standing here wearing this wedding ring in a way that couldn’t have happened” decades ago.

That, he added, “lets me know just how deep my obligation is to help those whose rights are on the line every day even if they are nothing like me in their experience.”

As Biden continues to lead in national polls, he was the target of a handful of attacks from lower-polling candidates.

Billionaire investor Tom Steyer, who entered politics to fight climate change, singled Biden and Warren out for not prioritizing the issue in their campaigns.

Democrats Duck Big Fights in Atlanta Debate, Focus on Trump

“Climate is the number one priority for me. Vice President Biden won’t say it. Senator Warren won’t say it. It’s a state of emergency,” Steyer said.

Biden responded with a swipe at Steyer’s holdings in fossil fuel companies.

“I think it is the existential threat to humanity,” Biden said of climate change. “It’s the number one issue. And, I might add, I don’t really need a kind of lecture from my friend,” he continued, citing the climate legislation he authored in the 1980s and that Steyer invested in the coal industry.

Steyer still has holdings in fossil fuel companies, according to the financial disclosure he filed with the Federal Election Commission. In an appearance at an MSNBC climate forum, he said, “There’s probably some dregs left,” and added that he donated income from the investments to charity.

Cory Booker laced into Biden’s opposition to outright legalization of marijuana. Biden said last weekend that research needed to be done over whether marijuana could be a “gateway drug.”

“I thought you might’ve been high when you said it,” Booker said, going on to cite the racial inequities in the policing of marijuana.

Democrats Duck Big Fights in Atlanta Debate, Focus on Trump

Biden shot back that he supports decriminalization of the drug and said people convicted of using it should be released from prison and their records expunged.

The candidates struck a universal theme of bashing Trump’s approach to foreign policy. Booker criticized Trump’s dealings with China. Biden said that he would make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for their human rights violations, specifically mentioning the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

“We have to speak out and speak loudly about violations of human rights,” said Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who has staked much of his candidacy on his foreign policy experience.

Many of the candidates also stressed the importance of rebuilding alliances and repairing relationships that they say Trump damaged.

Warren faced some criticism for her proposals to remake the federal government with large programs to provide free health care, free public college, student debt forgiveness and universal child care. Those critiques were bolstered by remarks from former President Barack Obama who said last week that Americans don’t want to see the system dismantled.

“We don’t have to tear down the system but we do have to do what the American people want,” Bernie Sanders said. “I think now is the time” for government-funded health care.

Biden repeated Obama’s theme.

“The fact is that right now the vast majority of Americans do not support Medicare for All,” he said, as Sanders muttered “not true.”

“It couldn’t pass the United States Senate right now with Democrats. It couldn’t pass the House. Nancy Pelosi is one of those people who doesn’t think it makes sense,” Biden continued, arguing for his plan to add a public option to the Affordable Care Act. “They get to choose. I trust the American people to make a judgment what’s in their interest.”

The debate was moderated by journalists from MSNBC and the Washington Post. The Democratic National Committee chose to hold the debate in Atlanta in a nod to Georgia’s increasingly Democratic electorate as the party hopes to at least make Republicans spend significant time and money on the presidential election and two Senate races in the state next year.

Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick entered the race last week without time to qualify for the debate. He was scheduled to speak at Morehouse College in Atlanta but canceled the appearance after just two people showed up for the event, CNN reported. Wednesday is also the first debate in which former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro did not meet the requirements to join his rivals and the first since former Texas Representative Beto O’Rourke dropped out of the race.

--With assistance from Bill Allison.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Atlanta at jepstein32@bloomberg.net;Tyler Pager in Atlanta at tpager1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Craig Gordon

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