Live-blogging the second 2020 Democratic debate (second night)

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

[Here's the debate transcript.]

It starts at 8 Eastern, and you can watch it online on CNN's website.

Again, I won't be able to pause or rewind when I'm blogging live, so the quotes in this post might not be verbatim, but I'll try to keep them fairly accurate. (I also might correct things later.)

My mom, Ann Althouse, is also live-blogging. (Maybe not very much, but she's doing it!)

These are the 10 candidates for tonight:

former Vice President Joe Biden
Sen. Kamala Harris
Sen. Cory Booker
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard
former Secretary Julián Castro
Mayor Bill de Blasio
Sen. Michael Bennet
Gov. Jay Inslee
Andrew Yang

8:04 - I didn't quite hear what Kamala Harris and Joe Biden said to each other when Harris came out to Biden (the first two to walk onto the stage), but it sounded like Harris said, "Are we good?" and Biden said: "We're good."

8:14 - Bill de Blasio brags about raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour — "Yes, it can be done!" Yes, it can be done in New York City, the most expensive city in the country. That doesn't make it a good idea to set the same wage in a poor area where that policy could take away jobs.

8:16 - Michael Bennet says in his opening statement: "Mister President, kids belong in classrooms, not cages."

8:18 - Kirsten Gillibrand seems to be implicitly responding to the candidates last night who focused on being pragmatic and having policies that are politically feasible: "When are civil rights ever convenient?"

8:21 - Castro: "We're not going back to the past. We're not going 'back where we came from.' We're moving forward."

8:22 - Andrew Yang: "We need to do the opposite of what we've been doing now. The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian math nerd. So let me share the math…" This segues into explaining how he'll give all Americans $1,000 a month.

8:25 - Something's wrong with the audio from Kamala Harris's microphone.

8:26 - Joe Biden focuses on the diverse group of candidates on the stage. "Mister President … we are stronger and great because of this diversity, not in spite of it."

8:28 - Kamala Harris is asked about the Biden campaign's attacks on her health-care plan for being "confusing." "They're probably confused because they've not read it."

8:29 - Biden on Harris's 10-year projections for her health plan: "If someone tells you something good will take 10 years, you should ask why it'll take 10 years.… You'll lose your health insurance." Harris says that's "simply inaccurate," and counterattacks: "Babies will be born into my plan.… Your plan, by contrast, leaves out 10 million Americans." When Biden emphasizes the costs of Harris's plan — $30 trillion, according to Biden — Harris shoots back: "The cost of doing nothing is far too expensive."

8:33 - Kirsten Gillibrand worries that the people watching right now will "lose the forest for the trees" on health care. Gillibrand calls out the candidates whose health-care proposals depend on private insurers: "I'm sorry, they're for-profit companies! … They have fat in the system that's real, and it should be going to health care." Kamala Harris takes Gillibrand's side against Biden: "I couldn't agree more."

8:36 - The moderator asks Cory Booker how he can square various different statements he's made about health care, but he doesn't answer the question. He just wants them all to get along: "The person who's enjoying this debate the most right now is Donald Trump, as we pit Democrats against each other."

8:39 - Kamala Harris says that Biden's health plan, which doesn't cover everyone, is "without excuse." Biden says: "It will cover everyone." But then he badly trips over his words — for a while there I wasn't sure he'd ever finish his sentence. Once he finally gets back to speaking coherently, he stops mid-sentence the instant the moderator cuts him off — the second time that's happened to Biden tonight.

8:42 - Kamala Harris raises a very serious problem: "I have met so many Americans who stick to a job they don't like … simply because they need the health care that employer provides." She and Bennet proclaim their friendship with each other and accuse each other of lying. Bennet says Harris would make private health insurance "illegal." Harris seems exasperated at Bennet: "You gotta stop!"

8:44 - Jay Inslee: "There's no reason we should distinguish between your physiological and your mental health."

8:45 - Yang says when he told his wife he wanted to run for president, her first question was: "What are we going to do about our health care?"

8:46 - Bill de Blasio: "I don't understand why Democrats on this stage are fear-mongering about universal health care."

8:47 - Bennet says, "This has nothing to do with a Republican talking point," except he sounds like Bill Murray playing a drunk guy, so it really sounds more like: "This has nothing to do wih' Repu'lin talling poin'."

8:49 - Biden mocks Bill de Blasio and Harris Kamala: "I don't know what math you do in New York! I don't know what math you do in California!"

8:51 - Biden gets mad: "We should put some of the insurance executives who don't like my plan in jail for the millions of opioids they put out there!"

8:54 - Now we're in the immigration section, which I'm less interested in — not because I don't care about the issue, but because I don't expect them to say much new. But Kamala Harris has a strong moment describing what she saw when she and Castro went to a facility for children. The security guards wouldn't let her in, so she went across the street, climbed a ladder, and looked inside.

8:56 - Audience members have been yelling over the candidates. The moderator tells Biden to keep talking over them. But earlier, the moderator had Cory Booker stop until the loudmouths were done, and they went on a long time. I don't see why the policy about how to deal with these losers keeps changing.

9:00 - Yang says Democrats shouldn't only be talking about the most "distressed" immigration stories; they should talk about people like his dad, an immigrant who got a lot of patents in the US.

9:02 - Biden says America is so great because "we've been able to cherry-pick the best from every culture." He means that to be a strong pro-immigration statement, but it might not go over well with progressives to suggest that the US should "cherry-pick" the "best" people — that sounds restrictive.

9:04 - De Blasio asks Biden if when he was vice president, he resisted President Obama's massive numbers of deportations. Biden refuses to answer, making a procedural argument about confidentiality: "I keep whatever I said to him, private." Booker practically laughs in Biden's face for trying to "have it both ways": he talks about Obama more than any other candidate does, but won't answer de Blasio's question about Obama. Booker uses Trump's infamous phrase "shithole countries," without getting bleeped!

9:13 - Biden says people in prison "should be learning to read and write, not just learning how to be better criminals." Biden has a better habit of cutting off the ends of his own answers by saying things like: "Anyway!" He sometimes seems to be almost throwing his hands up at himself!

9:14 - Biden accidentally calls Cory Booker "the president," but catches himself, good-naturedly grabs Booker's arm, and says: "Excuse me, the future president here!" Booker looks delighted: "I'm glad he's already endorsed my presidency!"

9:16 - Biden criticizes Booker for his record on crime in New Jersey — "stop and frisk" and hiring a former Rudolph Giuliani staffer on crime. The way Booker starts out his response gets a big reaction from the audience: "If you want to compare records … and I can't believe you do …"

9:18 - Inslee says we "need to ban the box," meaning forbid employers from asking applicants about their criminal records. Does he know that this leads to more racial discrimination, because employers use people's race as a proxy for their criminal records?

I avoid writing on the internet about actual or alleged crimes in New York City.

9:23 - Moderator Jake Tapper asks Kamala Harris if Biden is right to say their position on federally mandated busing is "the same" — they're both against it. Harris says: "That is simply false.… On that issue, we could not be more apart."

9:26 - Biden tells us to Google: [a thousand people freed kamala harris].

9:27 - Tulsi Gabbard is "deeply concerned" about Kamala Harris's record on criminal justice. Gabbard says Harris put a lot of people in jail for marijuana but then laughed when asked if she had used marijuana, "blocked evidence" that could have freed wrongly accused people on death row, and "kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor." "When you were in a position to make a difference in these people's lives … you did not." Harris's response to this serious attack is weak; for instance, one of the things she says is that she's "personally" opposed to the death penalty, but that doesn't really respond to any of Gabbard's points. I'm interested to see if Harris's inability to respond to Gabbard's attack causes progressives to start rethinking Harris.



9:31 - Bennet, again, seems less like he's running for president and more like he's auditioning for the role of "drunk man."

9:33 - Yang is asked why he'd be the best president to heal racial divides. Shockingly, Yang's answer is … he'd give everyone $1,000 a month.

9:38 - Confession: I'm not really listening to Inslee. I don't take a candidate seriously when they make their campaign all about one issue. No matter how important that issue is, the presidency is about more than one issue.

9:43 - Gillibrand has possibly the weirdest line of the night: "The first thing I'm going to do if I am president is I will Clorox the Oval Office." Gillibrand is getting very peppy: "Why not have a green energy race with China?"

9:46 - Booker: "Nobody should get applause for rejoining the Paris climate accord. That is kindergarden!"

9:49 - Biden is asked how he'll energize progressives enough to get the turnout he'll need to win Michigan in the Electoral College. Biden lists things the Obama administration did for Michigan specifically, e.g. the bailout of car companies helped Detroit. He missed the opportunity to address the broader question about why progressives (in any state) should be excited about voting for him.

9:54 - Harris on Trump: "He has done nothing except beat people down instead of lift people up. And that's what we want in the next President of the United States." That was poorly worded!

9:59 - Dana Bash asks Castro: wage growth is up, and Castro proposes to raise taxes — how can he guarantee that won't hurt the economy? Castro says Trump shouldn't take credit because the same thing was happening under Obama. What he doesn't tell us that the trajectory has been better lately than under Obama:

employee compensation has increased by $150 billion more in the first six months of 2019 than all of 2016. Compensation increased 42% more during the first two years of the Trump Presidency than in 2015 and 2016. This refutes the claim by liberals that the economy has merely continued on the same trajectory since 2017 as it was before.

10:03 - The debate's been going on for 2 hours now. I don't know if I can keep paying attention enough to write this. It's been pretty boring.

10:08 - Kamala Harris tells a blatant lie that hurts women: that women are systematically paid only about 80 cents on the dollar. If people are tricked into believing that lie, that will encourage people to stick to traditional gender roles by deterring women from participating in the labor force. No matter how progressive a spin you put on it, you can't change the economic rule that if people think they're going to get less of a reward, they'll be less motivated to do it.

10:12 - Gillibrand accuses Biden of saying that women who leave the home and work in the labor force are harming society. Of course, Biden denies ever saying or thinking that.

10:15 - Booker on Trump: "I will not do foreign policy by tweet. A guy who tweets out that he's pulling troops out of Afghanistan, before his generals even know about it, is creating a dangerous situation for our troops in Afghanistan."

10:16 - Tulsi Gabbard has a particularly serious moment talking about what she saw when she was deployed to Iraq in 2005.

10:20 - Biden is asked about his vote to authorize the Iraq War. Predictably, he says: "I did make a bad judgment trusting the president…" Gabbard agrees: "We were all lied to."

10:22 - Kamala Harris on the Mueller report: "I've read it. There are 10 clear incidents of obstruction of justice by this president. I've seen people go to prison for much less."

10:23 - Booker and Castro call for impeachment proceedings against Trump. De Blasio suggests that if people keep hearing about impeachment whenever they turn on the TV, they'll feel like no one's talking about how to make the economy better. "The best impeachment is beating him in the election." Bennet argues that impeachment would "play into [Trump's] hands," since the Senate would be sure to acquit Trump, who'd then declare victory. Castro makes the opposite argument: if Trump isn't even impeached, he'll declare that as a victory.

10:32 - De Blasio uses his closing statement to talk to Trump: "Donald, you're the real socialist! The problem is: it's socialism for the rich."

10:36 - I don't know who the best candidate is, but I know who the boringest candidates are: Inslee and Bennet.

10:37 - Gillibrand asks us to reject the false choice of thinking we need either "a progressive with big ideas" or "a moderate who can win Obama voters." She'll be both.

10:41 - Yang goes meta: "We're up here with makeup on our faces, saying prepared attack lines, playing roles on a reality TV show."

10:43 - Booker: "People are saying the only thing they want is to beat Donald Trump. Well, that is the floor, not the ceiling!"

10:45 - Kamala Harris uses her closing statement go after Trump: "Donald Trump has a predatory nature… The thing about predators is: by their very nature, they prey on people they perceive to be weak … and predators are cowards." Her point is that as a former prosecutor, she's perceptive about bad guys and will be able to "prosecute" Trump in the election.

10:47 - Biden ends his closing statement by saying (while seeming confused as if he's struggling to read a cue card): "If you agree with me, go to Joe 30330." I don't know what that means.

And that's the end of the debate — after almost 3 hours! Yeesh, that was a long slog.

My mom's take:

The best of the night? Tulsi Gabbard. A brutal attack on Kamala Harris. Excellent deep, strong voice. Well-grounded seriousness.

I agree that Gabbard was good.

Now, who wasn't good? Joe Biden.

Biden doesn't have the passion, the fire, the relentless drive you need to run for president. He kept stumbling over his words and cutting off his own answers before he was done. He's the only candidate who instantly stops himself mid-sentence as soon as the moderator signals his time is up. He couldn't manage to deliver his prepared closing statement telling people where to go to support his campaign. He looked tired and defeated. Biden simply isn't up to the task.

Winners: Tulsi Gabbard, Cory Booker

Losers: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, CNN (your debates are too damn long!)

Live-blogging the first night of the first 2020 Democratic debate

I'll be live-blogging the first 2020 Democratic debate here. Keep reloading this post for more updates.

I'll be doing this live, without the benefit of a pause or rewind button, so I'll be writing quotes on the fly which might not be verbatim, but I'll try to keep them reasonably accurate. (It's also possible I'll go back later and make some corrections.)

[Interactive transcript of the whole debate.]

Ann Althouse (my mom) is also live-blogging.

These are the 10 out of 20 candidates who are debating tonight (from Politico):

9:06 — Sen. Elizabeth Warren gets the first question. "You have many plans…" But most Democrats say "the economy is doing well." Warren says it's "doing great for a thinner and thinner slice at the top" — private prisons companies, drug companies, etc. — but not for people who want to get their drug prescriptions filled.

9:08 — Sen. Amy Klobuchar is asked about her comment that "free college" is "a magic genie," and she suggests that Warren's plan would be "paying for college for rich kids." Still, Klobuchar would "make community college free."

9:10 — Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke answers the first question in both English and Spanish! [ADDED: He apparently made several grammatical errors in Spanish, including that he "used masculine adjectives to describe 'economy' and 'democracy,' which are feminine nouns in Spanish."] After all that, the moderator offers him an extra 10 seconds "if you want to answer the question" about if he supports a 70% marginal tax rate. He says we should raise corporate taxes.

9:12 — Sen. Cory Booker uses his first answer to remind us, "I live in a low-income black and brown community," and he sees that they're not benefiting from the economy.

9:15 — Julián Castro is asked: "What would you do to ensure that women are paid fairly in this country?" He accepts the dubious implication of that question, and says we should "pass legislation" to make sure that happens (even though that's already the law). Here's a 2013 piece from the liberal Slate debunking the idea that “women make $.77 to every dollar men make on the job.”

9:17 — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is asked about the fact that his city has the most severe income inequality in the country. He says Democrats are "supposed to be for" 70% income taxes and "free college" — an obvious call-out of the candidates who wouldn't clearly take those positions: Beto and Klobuchar.

9:19 — Former Rep. John Delaney says he's different from everyone else on the stage because he's been an entrepreneur, not just a politician. "I know how to create jobs." He smartly supports improving the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

9:20 — Washington Governor Jay Inslee: President Trump "says wind turbines cause cancer. We know they cause jobs!"

9:22 — Elizabeth Warren says the country's "industrial policy" is: "Let giant corporations do whatever they want to do." "Giant corporations have exactly one loyalty: to profit. If they can profit by sending jobs to Canada or China, they will."

9:23 — Moderator Lester Holt asks all the candidates who would "abolish" private health insurance in favor of a government program. Only Elizabeth Warren and Bill de Blasio raise their hands.

9:24 — Amy Klobuchar says Trump's policy on health-care prices is "all foam and no beer."

9:25 — Elizabeth Warren says she spent much of her career "studying why families go broke" — including people who do have health insurance. She describes the perverse incentives of health insurers, and says: "Medicare for All solves that problem."

9:28 — Beto O'Rourke confirms that he wouldn't get rid of private insurance. He starts to explain: "Choice is fundamental to…" But Bill de Blasio immediately interrupts and lambastes Beto: "It's not working! … Why are you defending private insurance?!"

9:30 — Rep. Tulsi Gabbard points out that every other country with universal health care still has "a role for private insurers."

9:31 — Cory Booker again brings up his own low-income neighborhood, this time to underscore that he gets how the health-care system holds back kids from getting an education.

9:32 — Jay Inslee says he's "the only candidate here who's passed a law protecting women's reproductive rights and a public option." Amy Klobuchar shoots back: "There are 3 women up here who have fought pretty hard for a woman's right to choose!"

9:34 — Julián Castro is asked if he wants his government health-care program to cover abortion, and he says yes: "I don't believe only in reproductive freedom; I believe in reproductive justice."

9:35 — Elizabeth Warren says on the right to an abortion, we shouldn't "just depend on the courts"; Roe v. Wade should be codified in "federal law."

9:36 — Asked about the opioid crisis, Beto O'Rourke points out that 2.3 million Americans are behind bars, including for possession of marijuana despite the trend toward decriminalization — yet not one person from Purdue Pharma has done any jail time.

9:40 — Castro is asked about the tragic story of the father and his infant daughter who both drowned on their way to America. "Watching that image is heart-breaking. It should also piss us all off." My mom says this must be the first time any presidential candidate has said the word "piss" in a debate.

9:41 — Booker responds to the same question — in Spanish first, and then in English. Castro says he was the first candidate to propose a comprehensive immigration plan, and he's glad Booker "agrees" with him.

9:45 — De Blasio attributes that tragedy to Americans' political views about immigrants, and he passionately tells people who've been "left behind": "The immigrants didn't do that to you! Big corporations did that to you! The 1% did that to you!"

[The libertarian Reason magazine responds: "It's almost as though de Blasio's role in this race is to just say the harshest, most unacceptable position against private property ownership to make candidates like Warren seem more reasonable."]

9:46 — Castro attacks Beto's record as too harsh on immigrants, and says Beto would understand this "if you did your homework on this issue." [VIDEO.]

9:50 — Klobuchar emphasizes how much immigrants contribute to economic growth. She's positioning herself as a progressive yet relatively moderate candidate who makes arguments that can appeal to swing voters and Republicans.

9:54 — Who would go back to President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran? Everyone but Booker raises their hands. He clarifies that Trump shouldn't have pulled out of the deal — but he wouldn't "unilaterally" say the old deal should be reinstated. He'd try to re-negotiate a better deal. (Klobuchar and Gabbard agree the deal was "imperfect"; for instance, Klobuchar says there should have been "longer sunset periods.")

9:56 — Gabbard says Trump has "led us to the brink of war with Iran," which would be even worse than the Iraq War. "Trump and his chickenhawk cabinet" "are creating a situation where just a spark would get us into war."

10:05 — Technical issues create an embarrassing situation for new moderators who take over halfway through — Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow. Todd keeps trying to ask his first question (about guns), but he and the candidates keep laughing about weird chatter in the background. Apparently some microphones were still on, but Todd can't seem to decide if it's an "audience" mic or the mics for the moderators who have left the stage! Todd tells the control room to turn off the mic, but that doesn't work, so they take another commercial break before any candidates can get a chance to answer. This was especially awkward since it led to candidates like Klobuchar cracking up while Todd was talking about the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.

10:10 — Warren says the hardest question out of 2,000 she's been asked while running for president was "one from a little girl and one from a little boy": "How are you going to keep us safe?"

10:12 — Booker says he's gotten the same questions as Warren, but "what's even worse is I hear gunshots in my neighborhood." He mentions the shooting of "someone I knew at the top of my block."

10:16 — Rep. Tim Ryan (who might have spoken the least of anyone so far) cuts in without being asked a question to talk about the need for mental health care to address school shootings, because kids feel "shamed, traumatized, or bullied."

10:17 — Beto says the gun issue "must be led by young people." So he's no Dianne Feinstein!

10:19 — Booker says not all the candidates agree with him about this even though 70% of Americans do: "If you need a license to drive a car, you should need a license to buy a firearm."

10:20 — De Blasio points out: "I've been raising a black son in America." He talks about the conversations he's had to have with his son about race. (De Blasio is a white man married to a black woman.)

10:22 — Todd asks what the plan is if Mitch McConnell is still Senate Majority Leader and blocks the Democratic president's Supreme Court nominee. Warren passionately but vaguely says she would "make this Congress reflect the will of the people."

10:24 — Delaney positions himself as a pragmatic uniter: "All the big transformative things we've ever done in this country have only happened when big majorities of the American people get behind them." So we shouldn't aim for "impossible promises" like getting rid of private health insurance.

10:26 — Rachel Maddow asks Inslee, who has said that climate change is "all the issues," if he would "save Miami." He says he would; his climate plan has been called "the gold standard."

10:28 — Beto, who's been taking a consistently earnest and concerned tone throughout the debate, answers a climate change question by saying he'll "put farmers and ranchers in the driver's seat" with renewable and sustainable energy.

10:31 — Tim Ryan is asked how we "pay for climate mitigation." He glosses over that question briefly, then reels off a list of issues that he wasn't asked about (guns, etc.), and says the Democrats need to change their image from "coastal elites" to a "working-class," "blue-collar party" that represents "the forgotten communities." (Ryan is from Ohio.)

10:32 — Delaney chimes in to give a stronger answer to the question that was posed to Ryan: we need to "put a price on carbon, and give a dividend back to the American people."

10:33 — Chuck Todd asks Gabbard why Americans should trust her on gay rights after she made anti-gay statements years ago. She says many Americans can "relate to" her as someone who "grew up in a conservative community" and had views about gays that she no longer holds.

10:34 – Klobuchar sums up her whole life and career as being "about economic opportunity," including better child care. In what she calls "a first" on the debate stage, she touts her own legislation that Trump signed.

10:38 — John in New York (not me!) asks if the US has a "responsibility to protect" victims of genocide, even when it doesn't implicate our national interests. Beto says: "Yes," but always with "our allies." "When the United States presents a united front, we have a much better chance of achieving our foreign-policy ends."

10:40 — De Blasio jumps in and stresses "the War Powers Act," which requires the president to get congressional approval before going to war. De Blasio talks about how his dad lost his leg in war, leaving "physical and emotional scars"; "he did not recover, he took his own life."

10:43 — Ryan makes a rather dull statement on how the US needs to be "engaged" against terrorism, but Gabbard says that answer is "unacceptable" to military families. Ryan mentions September 11, but Gabbard says "al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11; the Taliban didn't." Ryan says the Taliban was supporting al Qaeda.

10:45 — Everyone is asked to name the biggest geopolitical threat to the United States. Many candidates say "climate change" along with something else, especially nukes and China. Only one candidate says "Russia" — de Blasio.

10:48 — Rachel Maddow points out that "no US President has ever been prosecuted for crimes after leaving office." Delaney says: "There's always a first!" But he quickly pivots away from that topic, saying it isn't what Americans have been asking him about.

10:54 — Now they're doing closing statements. Delaney: "I don't just want to be your president to be your president. I want to do the job." Um, OK, but how does that distinguish you from any of the other candidates?

10:55 — In his closing statement, de Blasio notes that he passed a $15 minimum wage, "universal health care," and "universal pre-K."

10:55 — Inslee decided to run for president so that on his "last day on earth," he could look his kids in the eye and say he "did everything possible" to fight climate change.

10:58 — Gabbard says we have "government of, by, and for the rich and powerful," and this "must end."

10:59 — Castro talks about his grandmother coming to the US from Mexico at age 7.

10:59 — Klobuchar admits she doesn't have the most progressive platform — "I don't make all the promises everyone up here makes" — but she'll get things done.

11:02 — Warren makes the last closing statement. She paints a picture of her upbringing in Oklahoma, when she never expected to run for president. "My dream was to be a public school teacher."

What was the most striking thing about this debate? The top candidate in the polls, Elizabeth Warren, seemed to do what she wanted to do — and no other candidate ever attacked her. It was Warren's night.

Winners: Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Julián Castro

Losers: Beto O'Rourke, Tim Ryan, NBC

Check back at this blog tomorrow for the other 10 candidates!