Live-blogging the first 2020 presidential debate after the Iowa caucuses

I'll be live-blogging the debate here. Keep reloading this post for more updates!

Any quotes I write down might not be word-for-word, since I'm doing this live without a pause or rewind button. But I'll trying to keep them reasonably accurate, and I might fix them later.

8:06 — Joe Biden is asked why he said Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg are too big of a risk. He dodges the question and instead says: "I took a hit in Iowa, and I'll probably take a hit here" in New Hampshire. I know candidates try to manage expectations, but it's odd for the former frontrunner to predict an outright loss in the first primary!

8:10 — George Stephanopoulos asks if anyone is worried about having a "democratic socialist," Bernie Sanders, "at the top of the ticket." Amy Klobuchar seems to be the only one who says yes. "We are not going to be able to out-divide the divider-in-chief."

8:13 — Andrew Yang says the whole "dichotomy" between capitalism and socialism is "out of date."

8:17 — Pete Buttigieg says we need to reject "a politics that says, 'If you don't go all the way to the edge, it doesn't count' — a politics that says, 'It's my way or the highway.'" Stephanopoulos asks if he's "talking about Bernie Sanders." Buttigieg doesn't dance around it: "Yes!"

8:19 — Buttigieg says there's finally a majority of Americans in favor of covering everyone's health care — "just so long as we don't command people to accept a public plan if they don't want it."

8:20 — Biden goes after Sanders on Medicare for All: "Bernie says he wrote the damn thing, but he isn't willing to show us what the damn thing costs! … It would cost more than the entire federal budget that we pay now! … When you ask Bernie what it'll cost, he says … we'll find out later!"

8:23 — Amy Klobuchar mockingly quotes Buttigieg saying, years ago, "Henceforth, forthwith, affirmatively, indubitably, I am for Medicare for All, for the ages!" (Here's the real tweet from 2018.)

8:28 — Klobuchar brings up the impeachment trial which recently ended, and strikes a bipartisan note by praising the 2012 Republican nominee: "There was courage from Mitt Romney, who took a very, very difficult vote." Then Klobuchar pivots to attacking someone from her own party, Buttigieg, for saying on the trail that he was "exhausted" from watching the impeachment news and felt like changing the channel to "cartoons." Buttigieg clarifies what he meant: "The American people from outside Washington, we feel exhausted watching the division and dysfunction there.… The reason I bring up exhaustion is because I see the temptation to walk away."

8:39 — Yang on prosecuting Trump administration officials: "If you look around the world, the countries that throw their past leaders in jail are usually developing countries. And once you start doing that, it's a hard pattern to break."

8:42 — Tom Steyer on President Trump: "Is he a crook? I knew that 2 years ago. Is he going to be more of a crook now that he knows he can get away with things? Of course he is!"

8:44 — Klobuchar is asked about Hillary Clinton's comments about how "nobody likes" Bernie Sanders. Klobuchar says: "I like Bernie just fine!" Biden walks over and hugs Sanders to show how much he likes him.

8:50 — Buttigieg is asked if Soleimani would still be alive if Buttigieg had been president in the same situation. Buttigieg doesn't give a yes or no answer: "It depends on the circumstances." Biden is more decisive: "No… There is no evidence yet of an imminent threat."

8:56 — I'm not a big fan of Elizabeth Warren, but she has a strong moment talking about how much she's traveled through the Middle East, including with Republicans like John McCain and Lindsey Graham: "No one can describe what winning looks like. All they can describe is endless war."

9:02 — Buttigieg: "President Trump's imagination of national security is a big wall and a moat full of alligators. It's a 17th-century idea of national security." This is a power move by Buttigieg: he's focusing on how he would attack Trump in the general election, while we haven't heard him attacking any of the other Democratic candidates, even with a crucial primary coming up in a few days.

9:15 — Buttigieg is asked if he supports the "decriminalization of all drugs." He says "no," he wouldn't use "incarceration" to punish possession of drugs, but he wouldn't legalize selling drugs like heroin and cocaine. The moderator pushes back against his answer, saying his website does say he supports decriminalizing all drugs. ADDED: This fact check says Buttigieg "was right, and the debate moderator was wrong" about what's on his website. I don’t understand why the moderator kept arguing with Buttigieg over that, interrupting his answer. Do all the candidates get that kind of treatment?

9:17 — The moderator says Yang has called for "treatment" as a solution to the opioid crisis — but "there aren't enough beds" to hospitalize everyone.

9:24 — Warren points out that there are many gun deaths in "communities of color," but "there are no headlines about those." Later, Steyer falsely claims that no one has said anything about race in tonight's debate.

9:38 — Buttigieg is asked about the fact that the disparity between black and white people being incarcerated for marijuana was more severe while he was Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and increased while he was in office. He admits there was "systemic racism" in his administration. But he emphasizes that marijuana arrests overall were lower in South Bend than the national and statewide averages. And he says he made drug enforcement more focused on gang violence. Then the moderator asks Elizabeth Warren if Buttigieg just gave a "sufficient answer." That's like telling the audience there’s some kind of problem with Buttigieg's answer — moderators shouldn’t tip their hands about which answers they find satisfactory or unsatisfactory.

9:41 — Yang to Warren: "You can't regulate away racism with a patchwork of laws that are race-specific."

9:52 — Warren snarks: "I'm glad to stand on this stage with my fellow Democrats who talk about how much they care about the African-American community — at least at election time…"

Haven't been updating this post in a while, and I can just repeat what I said in the last debate: "I've been zoning out on the rather dry discussion of who's for what trade deals."

Stephanopoulos prompts each candidate to give a canned statement on child poverty. This debate hasn't had any drama for a while now.

And it's over. Not the most exciting debate, and I'd be hard-pressed to say anyone "won" or "lost" tonight.