Live-blogging the vice-presidential debate of 2020

I'll be live-blogging the only debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Sen. Kamala Harris.

Keep reloading this post for real-time updates!

Since I'm doing this live, the quotes might not be word for word. I don't have a pause or rewind button. But I'll try to keep it reasonably accurate, and I might make changes later.

My mom, Ann Althouse, is also live-blogging here.

9:09 — The moderator, Susan Page, asks what a Biden administration would do differently than a Trump administration on the coronavirus starting in January. Kamala Harris says we've seen "the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country." "They still don't have a plan. Well, Joe Biden does."

9:12 — Mike Pence emphasizes that Trump responded to the pandemic by banning travel from China, and says Biden called that "xenophobic." Pence says the Biden plan is a lot like what Trump has done: "It looks a little bit like plagiarism — which is something Joe Biden knows something about!"

9:18 — Pence is asked how we can trust them when they violated the rules in the Amy Coney Barrett announcement that seemed to be a "superspreader event." Pence dodges the question, and doesn't even try to justify what they did except misleadingly describing it as an "outdoor" event (not mentioning that they went indoors for part of it). "President Trump and I trust the American people to make choices in the best interests of their health. Biden talks about mandates."

9:20 — Harris on a future covid-19 vaccine: "If Donald Trump says to take it, I'm not taking it!" The moderator tells Pence not to respond, but he does anyway: "Your continuous undermining of confidence in a vaccine is just unacceptable."

9:23 — Pence doesn't answer a question about Trump's age.

9:24 — Harris is also asked a question about Biden's age, and Harris doesn't answer the question either. She somehow uses it as an opportunity to list her own accomplishments.

9:27 — Pence makes a point of being civil to Kamala Harris: "I want to congratulate you on the historic nature of your nomination."

9:28 — When asked about Biden's transparency, Harris pivots to attacking Trump over the report that he paid $750 in taxes in a recent year. She says that's because Trump is "in debt," and it would be "good to know who the President of the United States owes money to.… What is influencing his decisions?" Pence responds that Trump is "a businessman, a job creator, who's paid tens of millions of dollars in taxes." Pence flatly denies the tax report.

9:31 — Would Biden raise taxes in a way that would hinder our economic recovery? Predictably, Harris says he'll roll back tax cuts for the rich, and "invest it in the American people," including tuition-free public universities for people with income below a certain amount, and some student loan forgiveness.

9:33 — Will an "economic comeback" take a year or more? Pence reminisces about how good the economy was before this year during the Trump administration. 

9:36 — Harris fact-checks Pence: "This is supposed to be a debate based on facts and truth. Joe Biden will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000. Joe Biden will not end fracking." Pence quickly cuts into her answer, and Harris, with a big smile, says: "I'm speaking." While pointing at Pence, Harris warns: "If you have a pre-existing condition — heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer — they're coming for you."

9:39 — On fracking, Pence comes back with: "You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts." Harris mocks the cliche: "Good line!"

9:40 — Has "man-made climate change" made fires and hurricanes worse? Pence: "The climate is changing! But … what's the cause, and what are we going to do about it?" He says Biden is for "the Green New Deal," even though Biden said in the last debate: "The Green New Deal is not my plan." (See the 10:27 update in my last live-blog.) But the moderator says Biden's website calls the Green New Deal "a crucial framework."

9:45 — Pence is asked if climate change is "an existential threat," but he blandly dodges the question, saying only: "The climate is changing. We'll follow the science."

9:47 — Harris to Pence on Trump's "trade war with China": "Ya lost that trade war. Ya lost."

9:50 — The moderator asks Pence how he describes our relationship with China. Pence spends a while not answering the question, but eventually says: "China is to blame for the coronavirus." Pence falsely says Trump "made that decision to suspend all travel with China." No, not "all" — there were exceptions. (See my post from August: "Trump lies.")

9:53 — Harris says Trump has "a weird obsession ... with getting rid of every accomplishment President Obama and Vice President Biden had." She says Trump eliminated things Obama set up to deal with pandemics (I'd have to go back and relisten to get the details), but Pence interjects: "Not true."

9:59 — Pence emphasizes Trump's foreign policy record: "We destroyed the ISIS caliphate." Harris reminds us of the time Trump minimized soldiers' injuries as "headaches." Pence comes back by saying Biden was against President Obama's mission that killed Osama bin Laden.

10:05 — Pence says he hopes Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, gets "a fair hearing" — which he says would be different from what Harris, who's on the Senate Judiciary Committee, did to Brett Kavanaugh. Pence also raises the specter that Barrett will be attacked over her Catholic religion. Harris says that's "insulting" — "Joe Biden and I are both people of faith."

10:08 — Harris is asked what she'd do if Roe v. Wade were overruled. "I will always fight for the right of a woman to make a decision about her own body. It should be her decision, not that of Donald Trump and Mike Pence."

10:11 — Pence asks Harris a direct question (which I would've thought would be against the rules): "Are you and Joe Biden going to pack the court if Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed?"

10:12 — Harris gives us "a history lesson": Lincoln was president when a Supreme Court vacancy opened up 27 days before Election Day, and he said it was too close to the election to make the decision even though his party also controlled the Senate.

10:16 — Harris on police brutality: "We are never gonna condone violence, but we also must fight for the values we hold dear.… I'm a former prosecutor, I know what I'm talking about: bad cops are bad for good cops."

10:19 — Pence says that Harris and Biden's belief "that America is systematically racist" and "that law enforcement has an implicit bias against minorities … is a great insult" to the police.

10:20 — There's a bug on Pence's hair.

10:21 — The bug just flew off Pence.

10:27 — Harris is asked about the election. Her message: "Please vote!"

10:29 — Pence is asked what he'll do if Trump loses the election but won't accept the outcome. He doesn't answer the question; he says he thinks they will win.

10:32 — The moderator ends by reading a young person's question about how Americans can get along if our leaders can't get along. Pence cites the example of the late Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia, who were close friends even though one was "very liberal" and the other was "very conservative." 

10:34 — Harris answers the same question by focusing on Joe Biden's life: "Joe has known pain. He has known suffering. And he has known love.… I do believe the future is bright … because we fight for each person's voice."

That's all. I don't think any big news was made tonight.

Both candidates' spouses go up to them — Harris's husband is wearing a mask, but Pence's wife isn't.

Let's rewatch the most exciting moment of the debate:

Kamala Harris is Biden's running mate

Politico reports:

Joe Biden has selected Sen. Kamala Harris to be his running mate, elevating a charismatic blue-state senator, former prosecutor and onetime 2020 primary rival who has built a reputation as an unyielding antagonist of the Trump administration.

Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, was the wire-to-wire frontrunner for Biden’s No. 2 job. Her experience as a battle-tested presidential contender, her efforts leading major law enforcement offices and her political track record of three election wins in California helped her overcome a crowded list of contenders.

If Harris becomes vice president, she'll be the first woman, the first black person, and the first Asian American to hold the position. Wikipedia says she grew up going to a black church and a Hindu temple.

President Trump immediately released an ad framing Biden/Harris 2020 by saying:

Biden … is handing over the reins to Kamala while they jointly embrace the radical left.

So, if everyone’s hearing “Kamala’s a radical leftist” but also “Kamala’s a cop,” what will most voters take away from those mixed messages? Will she end up sounding like a moderate?


(Official Senate photo from the public domain.)

Why Biden will choose Klobuchar

I expect Joe Biden's running mate to be Amy Klobuchar, the 60-year-old Senator from Minnesota, which borders my home state of Wisconsin. Wisconsin was one of the 3 states that determined the 2016 election, all of which voted for Trump by a margin of less than 1% (the others were Michigan and Pennsylvania). And Wisconsin is said to be the one state in the country that's most likely to make the difference in who wins the presidency.

Klobuchar's many debate performances showed that she has a command of the issues, strong rhetorical skills, and an ability to humanize herself and use humor effectively. Klobuchar wasn't considered a top-tier candidate while she was struggling to stand out among an unusually crowded Democratic field that included some flashier candidates, but she won't have that problem as running mate. Biden will be well aware that Klobuchar exceeded expectations when people started voting in the primaries, and at first seemed to be doing better than Biden (who is reportedly in the process of vetting Klobuchar).

The most commonly mentioned alternatives are Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Stacey Abrams, but Biden will have reasons to pass over them.

I don't believe the betting markets saying that Harris is the most likely running mate. Biden will look at her 2020 campaign as the best evidence of what she'd be like on the trail, and Harris did a remarkably bad job of campaigning. This isn't just 20/20 hindsight now that we know she lost. She started with one attention-getting debate moment which should have been a boon to her campaign — but instead of building on all that positive media attention, her support went steadily downhill. She flip-flopped, misrepresented her record, and failed to articulate a clear rationale for her campaign. When Tulsi Gabbard used a whole debate answer to launch a well-prepared attack on numerous aspects of Harris's record, Harris failed to come back with a strong defense of her career as a prosecutor. Considering how badly Biden needs assistance in the areas of communication and political skills, Harris isn't the running mate for Biden.

Warren's campaign proposals suggested that she would've been the most left-leaning president in generations, if not all of American history. Whatever her strengths, she would be ideologically incompatible with the relatively centrist Biden.

All other things being equal, Republicans would rather run against a Senator from Massachusetts (Warren) or California (Harris) than a Midwestern Senator like Klobuchar.

I don't know as much about Abrams, but a state legislature would seem to be weak experience for being president, since it's lacking in both executive experience (unlike a governor) and national experience (unlike a Senator).

When I wrote the above on Facebook, a commenter responded that Biden can't pick a white woman. The idea that Biden simply cannot choose a white woman implies that the running mate's race will be not just important, but so important as to overshadow all other factors. I've seen people implicitly making that assumption, but I haven't seen anyone make an argument for that view. (Even if my Klobuchar prediction is wrong and Biden ends up choosing a black woman, I still wouldn't be convinced that race was such an overwhelming factor; I'd assume he made the decision based on looking at many factors.)

More broadly, I've noticed that arguments that the presidential election will come down to one specific demographic group (e.g. race, gender, income) are often made before an election … but once the election happens, the most compelling analysis usually isn't limited to any one group of Americans. The analysis ends up involving a broader look at which candidate made the most compelling case to America as a whole. I expect Biden to think more in those terms, than in terms of persuading a specific group.




(Amy Klobuchar, her husband, and their daughter. Photo by Lorie Shaull, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Live-blogging the November debate of the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries

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

As always, I'll be doing this without being able to pause or rewind, so the quotes I write down might not be verbatim, but I'll try to keep them reasonably accurate (and I might go back later and correct some of them).

9:03 - Rachel Maddow lobs a softball to Elizabeth Warren: if President Trump is impeached, would she try to convince other Senators to convict him? "Of course!"

9:05 - Amy Klobuchar says Trump engaged in "impeachable conduct," but sounds more circumspect about how she'd proceed as a Senator if Trump is impeached.

9:06 - Bernie Sanders: "We cannot simply be consumed by Donald Trump, because if we are, you know what? We're gonna lose the election!"

9:08 - Pete Buttigieg on Trump's impeachable conduct: "The president's already confessed to it on television!"

9:10 - Joe Biden is asked about the impeachment investigation's focus on him and his son, Hunter Biden. He tries to turn this to advantage: "Donald Trump doesn't want me to be the nominee," and "Vladimir Putin doesn't want me to be president."

9:13 - Warren is asked how she'll bring people together, and she claims she'd somehow do that with a "2 cent" wealth tax. She oddly uses the word "cent" to mean "percent."

9:14 - Cory Booker is asked what he thinks of Warren's wealth tax, which he disagrees with. Instead he'd raise the estate tax and capital gains taxes. This gives Warren the right to give a long answer defending her policy. This seems like a setup by MSNBC to give extra time to Warren: the moderator's question essentially invited Booker to attack Warren by name. Then Booker has a right to respond to Warren, and that gives Warren a chance to talk for the 4th time tonight, while other candidates haven't gotten to speak at all.

9:19 - Buttigieg says his "Medicare for all who want it" plan would "unify the American people" in a way some of the other candidates' more extreme plans would not.

9:23 - Biden argues that "Medicare for all" (which is a misnomer — the Warren/Sanders plan would go much further than giving everyone Medicare) isn't even popular with Democrats — it couldn't pass the Democratic House. Biden points to Warren and Sanders and says if they get their way, "you have to give up your private insurance. 160 million people like their private insurance."

9:27 - After Tulsi Gabbard gives her standard line about being against "regime-change wars," Kamala Harris excoriates Gabbard at length, saying that Gabbard "buddied up to Steve Bannon to get a meeting with Donald Trump in Trump Tower." Gabbard responds that Harris is "continuing to traffic in lies … which makes me guess that as president, she will continue the status quo." Harris was apparently getting revenge on Gabbard for Gabbard's attack against Harris in the July debate (see 9:27 of my live-blog, including video). So, I'm not predicting that the Democratic ticket will be Harris/Gabbard or Gabbard/Harris 2020. [VIDEO.]

9:32 - Klobuchar quips about one of her Senate campaigns: "I raised $17,000 from ex-boyfriends … and it is not an expanding base!"

9:34 - Buttigieg boasts that according to Forbes magazine, he's "the least wealthy person on this stage." [VIDEO.]

9:36 - Amy Klobuchar stands by her past statement that a woman with Buttigieg's experience wouldn't be on the debate stage. Klobuchar broadens the questions by saying the president doesn't need to be "the tallest person on this stage, the skinniest person on this stage, or have the loudest voice on this stage." (Thought experiment: If a woman with Buttigieg's executive and military experience were running, would anyone be saying she didn't belong on the debate stage?)

9:40 - Sanders is asked about his supporters at his rallies chanting: "Lock him up!" Sanders says: "If in fact this president did break the law, he should be prosecuted like any other person who breaks the law." [VIDEO.]

9:42 - Maddow asks Biden if he'd prosecute former President Trump "even if it would further inflame the country." Biden: "I would not direct my Justice Department, like this president does.… I would not dictate who should be prosecuted or who should be exonerated.… I don't think it's a good idea that we model ourselves after Donald Trump and say: lock him up!" Then he starts a thought but, as usual, interrupts himself: "The next president who starts tweeting — anyway!"

9:45 - Yang: "There are only 2 countries that don't have paid family leave for new moms, and those are the United States and Papua New Guinea.… We need to get off that list as soon as possible!" Yang brings up the importance of young children hearing a large number of words, but he doesn't say whether he'd support Biden's proposal to address that need with record players.

9:50 - Kamala Harris repeats the old canards that "women are not paid equal pay for equal work," and "women are paid 80 cents on the dollar." (This 2013 article from the liberal Slate is one of the countless articles that's debunked that statistical misunderstanding over the years.)

9:55 - There's a fairly dry and brief discussion of housing policy among just 3 of the candidates. Warren calls out the old government policy of "redlining" to benefit white homeowners, excluding blacks. (It's also been used to exclude Jews, but you won't hear that in this debate!) Booker says if you rent an apartment, you should get a tax credit for any of your rent that exceeds a third of your income.

10:08 - Bernie Sanders says fossil-fuel industry executives have "lied and lied" about the harm their companies were doing — "maybe we should think about prosecuting them."

10:11 - Kamala Harris has a good if obvious line on Trump and North Korea: "He has traded a photo op for nothing!"

10:12 - Biden reminds us that Kim Jong Un of North Korea called Biden "a rabid dog who needs to be beaten by a stick." Sanders playfully jumps in: "But other than that, you like him!"

10:13 - Bernie Sanders is asked if he'd pull out of Afghanistan, and before answering that, he goes on a tangent to attack Biden: "He supported the terrible war in Iraq, and I helped lead the opposition against it."

10:15 - Yang is asked what he'd say in his first phone call to Putin. "I'd say: I'm sorry I beat your guy! And second, I'd say the days of meddling in American elections are over."

10:20 - Amy Klobuchar calls out Trump for failing to condemn Saudi Arabia for torturing and killing Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident who worked for "an American newspaper" (which she doesn't name — it was the Washington Post). "That sent a signal to the world that that was OK."

10:31 - Yang makes a powerful statement about the need to reach out to alienated young men so they don't turn to hate and violence.

10:34 - Biden talks about reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act: "We need to change the culture.… No man has a right to raise a hand to a woman in anger, except in self-defense.… And we have to keep punching at it, and punching at it, and punching at it!" I'm not sure that violent metaphor was the best choice of words to make his point about changing the culture.

10:36 - Harris reminds us of the Buttigieg campaign's gaffe of using a stock photo of a black woman and child who were actually in Kenya, and suggests that candidates like Buttigieg opportunistically show up at black churches shortly before Election Day. Buttigieg responds graciously: "I welcome the challenge of connecting with black voters in America who don't yet know me."

10:43 - Booker goes after Biden: "This week I heard him say we shouldn't legalize marijuana. I thought you might have been high when you said it! Marijuana is already legal for privileged people.… There are people in Congress who admit to smoking marijuana." Biden responds: "I think we should decriminalize marijuana, period." Biden doesn't explain why he wants to "decriminalize" it but not legalize it.

10:53 - Sanders says he's tired of Republicans who say, "Get the government off our backs," but want government to stop women from getting abortions. But as is often the case, the charge of hypocrisy is a double-edged sword: if Sanders wants government to get off our backs when it comes to abortion, why isn't he more skeptical about government intervening in our decision-making on other issues?

10:57 - Amy Klobuchar again compares her experience with that of Pete Buttigieg, who has a sharp response: "Washington experience is not the only experience that matters. There's more than 100 years of Washington experience on this stage — and where are we?"

10:58 -  Tulsi Gabbard says Buttigieg recently showed that he's "careless" on national security when he said he "would be willing to send our troops to Mexico to fight the cartels." Buttigieg scoffs: "That is outlandish, even by the standards of US politics! … I was talking about US/Mexican cooperation.… Do you seriously think anybody on this stage is talking about invading Mexico?!" After defending himself, Buttigieg also counterattacks by saying he wouldn't have done what Gabbard did when she met with Bashar al-Assad, the "murderous dictator" of Syria. Gabbard suggests that she was being "like Reagan, who met with Gorbachev."

11:06 - Booker uses his closing statement to give a very personal tribute to John Lewis, the House Representative who 50 years ago was beaten for his civil rights activism. Lewis is shown sitting in the audience. "I will cause what John Lewis says is 'good trouble.'"

11:15 - In his closing statement, Buttigieg reaches out to "moderates" and "future former Republicans."

11:16 - Bernie Sanders talks about his parents coming to the US without a nickel, and also remembers the time he spent a night in jail.

11:18 — Elizabeth Warren says near the end of the debate: "We should have talked about gun violence." But it's a problem if the moderators of every debate feel pressured to spend a long time talking about all the issues that are considered the most important. Then those issues are redundantly covered over and over, while other important issues get marginalized.

Thoughts:

• Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden didn't seem as dominant as they were in past debates.

• Two candidates tried to attack Pete Buttigieg, but I don't think any of that will stick. The attacks just highlighted that Buttigieg is now one of the frontrunners.

According to Mediaite, Cory Booker had the best night; Klobuchar and Buttigieg also did well; and the worst was Biden.

Biden’s answer about “punching at” violence against women (10:34) has got to be parodied on the next Saturday Night Live.

Live-blogging the biggest presidential debate ever

And I'm not exaggerating — CNN tells us this will be "the largest [debate] in modern history." I'm not sure I'll be able to take a whole 12 candidates on the stage at the same time, but I'll do any-live blogging in this post. Keep reloading for more updates.

[ADDED: You can watch the whole debate here, after it's aired. And here's the transcript.]

(I'll be writing down quotes on the fly, so they might not be perfect, but I'll try to keep them reasonably accurate.)

8:02 - Anderson Cooper points out that all the candidates support an impeachment inquiry, but asks why we shouldn't wait just one more year for the voters to decide whether Donald Trump should stay president. Elizabeth Warren responds: "Sometimes there are issues that are bigger than politics.… Impeachment is the way that we establish that this man will not be permitted to break the law over and over without consequences."

8:03 - Bernie Sanders says: "Trump is the most corrupt president in history."

8:05 - Joe Biden says the Trump administration is obstructing justice, and Congress has "no choice but to move."

8:06 - Kamala Harris quotes Maya Angelou: "Listen to somebody when they tell you who they are the first time." She also says impeaching Trump "won't take very long": "As a former prosecutor, I know a confession when I see it!"

8:09 - Amy Klobuchar: "I'm still waiting to find out from [Trump] how making that call to Ukraine … makes America great again. I'm waiting to hear how leaving the Kurds for slaughter … makes America great again."

8:11 - Pete Buttigieg: "A president 10 years, or 100 years from now will look back at this moment and conclude either that no one is above the law, or that the president can get away with anything."

8:12 - Tulsi Gabbard sounds the most skeptical of anyone about impeachment. She emphasizes that she supports an "impeachment inquiry" specifically into the Ukraine call, but complains about those who wanted to impeach Trump from day 1.

8:14 - Tom Steyer starts his first debate by saying: "Every candidate here is more decent and patriotic than the criminal in the White House."

8:15 - Andrew Yang dodges the impeachment question, and pivots to arguing that Ohio, the state they're in, voted for Trump by 8 percentage points because of manufacturing jobs disappearing.

8:18 - Biden is asked about the controversy swirling around his son Hunter. "I never discussed a single thing with my son about anything having to do with Ukraine." Biden adds that Trump "doesn't want me to be the candidate … because he knows that I will beat him like a drum."

[VIDEO of some of the candidates on impeachment.]

8:20 - Moving on from impeachment, Elizabeth Warren is asked if she'll raise taxes on the middle class to pay for her health care plan. She doesn't quite answer the question; she says that "costs" will go up for "the wealthy" and big corporations, but "costs" will go down for the middle class. Of course, "costs" and "taxes" are very different things.

8:23 - Buttigieg calls out Warren's failure to answer that question: "Your signature, Senator, is to have a plan for everything — except this!" Then Buttigieg pivots to arguing for "Medicare for all who want it." Warren comes back that Buttigieg's plan is really "Medicare for all who can afford it."

8:26 - Bernie Sanders on his bill: "Premiums are gone! Copayments are gone! Deductibles are gone! … We're gonna do better than the Canadians do, and that is what they've managed to do.… I do think it's appropriate to acknowledge that taxes will go up." But he argues that most people's taxes will go up less than their premiums will go down.

8:27 - Amy Klobuchar chimes in: "At least Bernie's being honest here and saying that taxes are going to go up. And I'm sorry, Elizabeth, but you are not saying that." [VIDEO.]

8:30 - Without mentioning Buttigieg, Biden suggests that Buttigieg's health care plan is really "the Biden plan."

8:31 - There's some visible tension between Sanders and Biden: Biden is talking while physically putting his finger on Sanders's arm, and Sanders keeps raising his hand to respond to Biden.

8:32 - Kamala Harris makes a strong statement that the health care discussions in all the debates have been failing to include women's access to abortion.

8:34 - Andrew Yang is asked, since he wants to give $1,000 a month to all Americans, whether he supports Bernie Sanders's "federal jobs guarantee." No, Yang says: "Most Americans do not want to work for the federal government." Yang imagines the Sanders plan will lead to "failed retraining programs and jobs that no one wants," while Yang's plan of simply handing out money would empower individuals to make the best choices for them. [VIDEO of that answer, in the middle of a clip of "everything Yang said" at the debate.]

8:40 - Elizabeth Warren reaches out to Andrew Yang supporters by saying her plan to expand Social Security is similar to his $1,000 a month plan, and would help Yang's wife, who Yang mentioned earlier is taking care of their two sons full time.

8:41 - Tulsi Gabbard: "I agree with my friend Andrew Yang. I think universal basic income is a good idea."

8:43 - Cory Booker claims that raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would give workers more money than giving everyone $1,000 a month.

8:45 - Bernie Sanders is asked about his statement that "billionaires should not exist." Does he want to "tax billionaires out of existence?" Sanders says: "We cannot afford a billionaire class whose greed and corruption has been at war with the working class for 45 years."

8:48 - A moderator points out that Steyer is the only billionaire on the stage. But Steyer says Bernie Sanders is right: "There have been 40 years when corporations have bought this government, and those 40 years have meant an attack on working people.… It's absolutely wrong."

8:50 - Biden goes meta: "These debates are kind of crazy, because everybody tries to squeeze everything into every answer!"

8:52 - Elizabeth Warren goes very negative about everyone else except Bernie Sanders, saying the rest of them won't support a wealth tax but want to protect billionaires. This gets a lot of pushback: Biden and Klobuchar both say none of them want to protect billionaires; Klobuchar adds that she's open to a wealth tax; and Buttigieg says: "I'm all for a wealth tax!"

8:57 - Yang says Warren's principles are right, and a wealth tax sounds good in theory — but numerous countries that have tried it (including Germany, France, and Sweden) have repealed it because it didn't work.

8:58 - Beto O'Rourke goes after Elizabeth Warren: "Sometimes I think that Senator Warren is more interested in being punitive and putting different parts of the country against each other than in coming up with solutions." (Not sure if I got the end of that quote right — I should go back later.) Warren responds: "I'm really shocked at the notion that anyone thinks I'm punitive!"

9:02 - Cory Booker worries about "how we talk about each other in this debate." He suggests that "tearing each other down because we have a different plan" will prevent them from making Trump a one-term president.

9:11 - Tulsi Gabbard is asked about Trump's movement of troops in Syria in a way that allowed Turkey to invade. "Donald Trump has the blood of the Kurds on his hands — but so do many politicians from both parties, who supported this regime-change war which started in 2011."

9:13 - Buttigieg says Gabbard is "dead wrong": "The slaughter in Syria is not a consequence of American presence." Buttigieg gets impassioned as he talks about being deployed to Afghanistan and knowing that the American flag on his uniform was keeping him safe because our friends and allies knew we kept our word, which Trump has undermined. "You might as well take away their body armor next."

9:20 - Kamala Harris says there are 4 winners from Trump's Syria policy: "Russia, Assad, Iran, and ISIS."

9:21 - Castro might have the line of the night: "Think about how absurd it is that Donald Trump is caging kids on the border, and effectively letting ISIS go free."

9:24 - Another touchy-feely moment between Biden and Sanders: Biden says Trump is saying comforting words to Vladimir Putin while pointing directly at Sanders, who says: "Are you saying I'm Putin?" Biden says, "No!" — and they hug each other.

9:31 - Anderson Cooper asks Beto how he'd enforce his promise from the last debate that he'll confiscate Americans' AR-15s and AK-47s, given that he's admitted the government isn't going to be "going door to door" looking for these guns. So … what's Beto's response? He'd ban guns and … hope everyone follows the law? Is that supposed to be based on the honor system or what? Buttigieg points out that Beto just admitted he doesn't know how his promise can be put into action. This leads to an extended, heated back and forth between Buttigieg and Beto. Buttigieg stares at Beto and tells him: "I don't need lessons from you on courage — political or personal." [VIDEO.]

9:38 - Klobuchar is asked why she supports a "voluntary buyback" instead of a "mandatory buyback." She brushes aside that question and speaks to the broader issue of guns: "The American people are with us.… Let's not mess this up!"

9:41 - Kamala Harris reruns a line she already used in an earlier debate: "I have looked at more autopsy photos than I care to tell you."

9:42 - Biden says he's the only person on the stage who's "taken on the NRA and won." This should be a good moment for him in the debate, but he goes on to mangle his words so much it's hard to listen to him.

9:44 - Castro argues that we shouldn't have a mandatory buyback because it would mean "police officers going door to door" and using violence against people in their own homes.

9:45 - Klobuchar quotes an email by a pharma company executive on opioids: "Keep pumping them out — they're eating them like Doritos!"

9:51 - Kamala Harris would criminally prosecute pharma executives who've sold opioids: "They are nothing more than some high-level dope dealers!"

9:55 - Moderator Erin Burnett asks Biden about the fact that he'll turn 80 in his first term if he's elected. "One of the reasons I'm running is because of my age and experience. With it comes wisdom.… I know what has to be done. I've done it before.… I will not need any on-the-job training."

9:57 - Similarly, Burnett points out that Elizabeth Warren would be the oldest president ever to take office. "I will out-work, out-organize, and outlast anyone — and that includes Donald Trump, Mike Pence, or whoever the Republicans get stuck with!" [VIDEO.]

9:59 - 38-year-old Tulsi Gabbard is asked about how she'd be the youngest president ever. She talks about her military experience and that she's on various foreign-policy-related House committees. Then she pivots to asking Elizabeth Warren about "her experience to serve as Commander-in-Chief," but the moderator cuts to a commercial. (My understanding is that candidates aren't usually allowed to ask each other direct questions in the debates.)

10:06 - Yang suggests that there are good reasons why certain tech companies are so dominant: "There's a reason no one's using Bing today. Sorry, Microsoft, it's true!"

10:09 - Beto says he'd treat social-media companies as "publishers" — but he won't call out a particular company to be broken up, as Trump has done.

10:13 - Kamala Harris calls for Twitter to ban Trump's account, and calls on Elizabeth Warren to join her on this. Warren: "No!" [VIDEO.]

10:18 - Yang says we should be getting money back for the data we give to companies like Facebook.

10:23 - Tulsi Gabbard sounds relatively conservative on abortion, endorsing the Clinton-era line that it should be "safe, legal, and rare," and saying it should be illegal in the third trimester "unless the life or severe health consequences of the woman are at risk."

10:25 - Pete Buttigieg suggests various reforms to "depoliticize" the Supreme Court, including term limits, or adding judges who can be added only by the unanimous agreement of the existing 9.

10:30 - Biden makes a shocking statement: "I'm the only person on this stage who's gotten anything really big done!" Then he botches one of his examples when he starts to say, "I ended Roe…"

10:31 - The 3 top-polling candidates use up a lot of time talking amongst each other, maybe as a tactic to prevent lesser candidates from getting too much time. Biden decides that now is the time to go back to his disagreements with Sanders on health care (I thought that was hours ago!), and then Sanders brings up Biden's position on the Iraq War. Biden repeatedly jabs his hand at Warren and shouts at her: "I got you votes!" [VIDEO.]

10:35 - Buttigieg quips that if he had a dollar for every "argument like this" he's heard, he could pay for college for everyone. I guess he's referring to the bickering among the top 3 candidates, but I don't know if he's the best person to be calling out other candidates for fighting too much, after his tiffs with Warren, and Gabbard, and Beto…

10:45 - As the last question, Anderson Cooper asks every candidate to tell us about a friendship they had with someone surprisingly different from themselves. (This was prompted by Ellen DeGeneres defending her friendship with George W. Bush.) Amy Klobuchar says "it's John McCain, and I miss him every day." She remembers seeing McCain near the end of his life, when he could hardly speak, pointing to a written sentence: "There is nothing more liberating in life than fighting for a cause larger than yourself." What Klobuchar learned from this: "We need to not just change our policy, but change the way we talk to each other."

11:05 - Biden gives the last answer of the night, and he's the 3rd person to name John McCain as a friend he had strong differences with. Biden says he told McCain: "You never saw a war you didn't want to fight." McCain came back: "You never saw a problem you didn't want to solve."

Thoughts:

• Was this the first debate where Biden didn't make some huge blunder? He still has trouble getting through an answer, but he's stopped cutting himself off mid-sentence or seeming to dismiss what he just said.

• Elizabeth Warren seemed weaker than in past debates; she was constantly under fire.

• Pete Buttigieg was getting into fights with everyone.

• I'm not a big fan of Kamala Harris, but I'd say it was her best debate. Amy Klobuchar was also strong.

• Bernie Sanders accomplished his main goal: convince us that he hasn't lost any energy after his heart attack.

• Andrew Yang often seemed to be in his own world focused on tech issues, and not interested in talking about the major topics like impeachment. But he was good at calling out some of the more questionable policies: Warren's wealth tax and Sanders's federal jobs guarantee.

• Tulsi Gabbard very much seemed to stand apart from the others, most obviously when she emphasized her support for some abortion restrictions.

• I'm not sure what Beto is still doing in this race; I usually tuned him out. Castro got very little time and largely seemed irrelevant, except for his one great line (see 9:21).

• Cory Booker mentioned being vegan almost as much as he usually mentions living in a lower-income neighborhood. Those are great things to talk about, but I think he'll need something more to give new life to his campaign.

UPDATE: CNN gave Elizabeth Warren far more time than any other candidate last night. Even with a dozen candidates on the stage, she spoke for about 23 minutes. If every candidate got that much, the debate could have lasted around 5 hours instead of 3 (with moderators taking some time to ask questions).

Tulsi Gabbard and Julián Castro each got about 8 and a half minutes. Those 2 candidates combined got about 6 minutes less than Warren. If CNN had limited everyone’s time so strictly, the debate could have taken more like 2 hours instead of 3.

UPDATE: After watching the debate, Daniel Henninger writes in the Wall Street Journal that "Joe Biden Isn't Going to Make It":

With Mr. Trump’s decision to pull American troops away from the Syrian Kurds, he opened one of the most significant political vulnerabilities of his presidency. It was an opportunity for Mr. Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to show some foreign-policy smarts and president-like leadership. Instead we got this:

“What I would do is I would be making it real clear to Assad that, in fact, where he’s going to have a problem—because Turkey is the real problem here. And I would be having a real lockdown conversation with Erdogan and letting him know that he’s going to pay a heavy price for what he has done now. Pay that price.”

It fell to Pete Buttigieg, the mayor from South Bend, to produce the night’s most stinging critique of President Trump: “What we were doing in Syria was keeping our word. Part of what makes it possible for the United States to get people to put their lives on the line to back us up is the idea that we will back them up, too.”

That was good. Joe Biden somehow couldn’t figure out how to say anything like it.

Then during the health-care segment, Mr. Biden said, “The plan we’re hearing discussed is the Biden plan.” Then he said, “The plan is going to cost at least $30 trillion over 10 years,” with no indication that now he was talking about Elizabeth Warren’s plan, not his.

Here’s a single Biden sentence from the debate: “I would eliminate the capital gains tax—I would raise the capital gains tax to the highest rate, of 39.5%.” …

Mr. Biden’s supporters say he did fine, but fine isn’t going to be good enough. With apologies, a sports metaphor is apt. Joe Biden looks like a pro in training camp—running at half speed, joshing with teammates, showing brief flashes of former skills. Democrats who think Mr. Biden will get better than this training-camp competence are deluding themselves.

Live-blogging the first one-night Democratic debate of the year

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

Tonight is the first 2020 Democratic debate that will be done on only one night. The earlier debates had 10 candidates on each of 2 nights, but now there are only 10 candidates for the whole thing.

[Here's the transcript.]

The debate is in Houston, so it's possible the crowd will respond especially well to the Texas candidates: Beto O'Rourke and Julián Castro.

(I'll be writing down quotes on the fly, so they might not be verbatim but I'll try to keep them reasonably accurate.)

Here goes:

8:06 - Amy Klobuchar offers herself for people who "feel stuck in the middle of the extremes." "I may not be the loudest person up here, but we already have that in the White House."

8:10 - Andrew Yang makes a splash with his opening statement: "In America today, everything revolves around the almighty dollar.… We have to see ourselves as owners and shareholders of this democracy, rather than as inputs into a giant machine." He offers to give $1,000 a month to 10 families who go to his website and submit essays about how they could use the money. [VIDEO.]

8:11 - The next up to give an opening statement is Pete Buttigieg, who stares straight ahead without talking for a long time, as if he's trying to think of how he can say anything after Yang. Finally, Buttigieg breaks his silence and tells Yang: "That's original — I'll give you that!"

8:13 - Kamala Harris speaks directly to Trump, and ends by saying: "And now, President Trump, you can go back to watching Fox News." Elizabeth Warren applauds.

8:14 - Bernie Sanders ignores the first time a moderator asks him for his opening statement. He finally perks up when his name is called a second time.

8:16 - Elizabeth Warren humanizes herself by talking about how she grew up in the neighboring state of Oklahoma, and she went to college "down the road from here," at the University of Houston, for just $50 a semester.

8:17 - Joe Biden's pitch: we need to get rid of Trump so Biden can … cure cancer?

8:18 - Biden on Elizabeth Warren's views on health care: "The Senator says she's for Bernie. I'm for Barack." Biden says Warren hasn't explain how she'll pay for her plan, while Bernie Sanders has only explained half of it.

8:20 - Elizabeth Warren tries to neutralize Biden's strategy of associating himself with Obama: "We all owe a huge debt to President Obama, who fundamentally transformed health care in America.… The question is how we can best improve it."

8:22 - Bernie Sanders says that while "Medicare for All" will cost $30 trillion in 10 years, the "status quo" will cost $50 trillion. We can't afford not to elect Bernie!

8:24 - Biden says under Bernie Sanders's plan, a family making $60,000 a year will pay $5,000 more. "It's not a bad idea if you like it. I don't like it!"

8:25 - Bernie Sanders points out that Americans spend twice as much for health care as Canadians or Europeans. Biden responds with confidence in his voice, standing next to Sanders with a commanding stance: "It's America!" I felt like Biden should have been a character in a Western just then.

8:27 - Klobuchar says under Warren's plan, "149 million Americans will no longer be able to have their current insurance … in 4 years. I don't think that's a bold idea, I think that's a bad idea." Instead, she's for the public option — "that's a bold idea!"

8:29 - Buttigieg strikes an almost libertarian note in explaining why he's against the Bernie Sanders bill: "The problem … is that it doesn't trust the American people. I trust you to decide what works for you, not 'my way or the highway.'" He'd have the public option, and if people like that, they'll choose it.

8:32 - Kamala Harris seems to realize that all this policy-wonk discussion may be making our eyes glaze over: "This conversation is giving the American people a headache!"

8:33 - Joe Biden to Bernie Sanders: "For a socialist, you have a lot more confidence in corporations than I do!"

8:35 - After some fiery back-and-forths among leading candidates, Beto O'Rourke emphasizes the agreement among all of them of the urgency of universal health care.

8:37 - Castro suggests that Biden's health-care plan is defective because it requires people to opt in, while Castro's would enroll people by default. When Biden disputes that point, Castro gets very personal against Biden, as if to suggest doubts about the septuagenarian's mental condition: "Are you forgetting, already, what you said just 2 minutes ago? … You're forgetting that! … I'm fulfilling the legacy of Barack Obama, and you're not." Buttigieg calls out the negativity: "This is why presidential debates have become unwatchable!" Klobuchar agrees: "A house divided cannot stand." [VIDEO.]

8:43 - They move on to race. Beto says: "We have a white supremacist in the White House, and he poses a mortal threat to people of color all across this country."

8:44 - Cory Booker seems unimpressed by Beto: "We know Donald Trump is a racist; there's no red badge of courage for pointing that out! The question isn't whether you're a racist; it's what you're doing about it." He says we don't talk enough about "environmental injustice."

8:46 - Buttigieg: "It's not enough to just take a racist policy, replace it with a neutral one, and expect things to get better on their own." That's a weird argument, because abolishing racist policies and replacing them with a non-racist ones isn't expecting things to improve "on their own"; it's expecting things to improve because of better policies.

8:48 - Kamala Harris is asked about her flip-flops on criminal justice issues, including being for marijuana legalization after she was against it. She starts out: "There have been many distortions of my record…" But she never tells us what those distortions are. She says we should "deincarcerate women and children" — without mentioning men, who of course are the vast majority of incarcerated people. [VIDEO.]

8:52 - When asked about his record on criminal justice, Biden talks about how after law school, he left his job at a big law firm to become a public defender. "When you get out of prison, you should be able to not only vote, but have access to Pell grants, and housing, and so much more."

8:54 - Booker (quoting someone else) has a chilling line: "We have a justice system that treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent."

8:58 - Kamala Harris is asked about Biden's past suggestions that there are constitutional problems with her proposals to use executive orders to change gun laws, and she seems to be trying to disarm him with her casual approach: "I would just say: Hey, Joe! Instead of saying no we can't, let's say yes we can!" Harris's response to someone who asked her if she blamed Trump for the El Paso shooting: "He didn't pull the trigger, but he's tweeting out the ammunition!"

9:08 - Elizabeth Warren points out that "mass shootings get all the attention," but they're just a small part of the real problem, which is all gun violence.

9:10 - Warren talks about a time when she got a gun bill passed by 54 votes in the Senate, but it failed because of the filibuster. Yet Bernie Sanders says he doesn't want to end the filibuster.

9:13 - Biden on the differences between the Obama and Trump administrations on deportations: "We didn't lock people up in cages. We didn't separate families." Let's have a fact check on that!

9:14 - Biden seems uncomfortable answering a question about whether he stands by Obama's millions of deportations. He says Obama did the best he could. But what about Biden himself? All he says is: "I was the vice president!" Castro ridicules Biden for trying to have it both ways: he wants all the credit for the good things Obama did, but he ducks any tough questions about Obama by saying he was just the vice president.

9:19 - Yang seems like he's trying to buck up Biden by saying: "I would return the level of legal immigration to what it was under the Obama/Biden administration."

9:30 - After a break, they're talking about trade. Yang says he wouldn't repeal Trump's tariffs "on day 1," but he'd tell China we need to "make a deal."

9:32 - Buttigieg dodges a question about whether he'd repeal the tariffs: "I would have a strategy that would include tariffs as leverage."

9:38 - Kamala Harris: "I am not a protectionist Democrat. We need to sell our stuff!"

9:39 - Harris on Trump: "He reminds me of the Wizard of Oz: when you pull back the curtain, it's a really small dude!" Moderator George Stephanopoulos says he won't take that personally, but Harris says it wasn't about him. (They're both short.)

9:41 - Booker has a good line: "Trump's 'America First' policy is really … an 'America Alone' policy."

9:47 - Buttigieg, who served in the Afghanistan war, points out that today, September 12, 2019, people are eligible to enlist in the military who hadn't been born on September 11, 2001. "We have got to end endless war." He wants any authority to use military force to have a 3-year sunset.

9:54 - The moderator asks Yang why he's "the best" candidate on the stage to be "commander in chief," after listing some of the other candidates' foreign-policy credentials. Yang doesn't really answer the question. He doesn't say anything about his experience; he just lists some of his policy proposals, which don't seem to distinguish him from any other candidate.

9:59 - Booker is asked if he's going to call for more Americans to go vegan like him. "No. I want to translate that into Spanish: No."

10:01 - We're more than 2 hours into the debate … which is supposed to go for 3 hours! I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. They're on climate change now, and I'm wondering if I'm going to hear anything from them that I haven't heard before. All the other debates have also had long segments on climate change.

10:07 - Yang points out that every candidate has proposed to solve climate change by curbing the influence of money. "But money finds a way! … The answer is to wash the money out with people-powered money."

10:12 - Harris says that a black child has a better chance of going to college if they have at least one or two black teachers by third grade. I'd like to see more about that study — what are the full statistics about all races, and what are the theories about why we see those outcomes?

10:15 - The moderator says she's going to ask Biden a question about "inequality in schools and race," and as soon as she says that phrase, Biden chuckles. That didn't go over well, and that was right before the moderator asked him about a quote from 40 years ago where Biden made some not-so-progressive-sounding comments about not wanting to pay for something his ancestors did 300 years ago. In response, Biden stumbles over a lot of his words, but doesn't explain that quote. Then he talks about … Venezuela! Not sure what the connection is there.

[ADDED: I missed when Biden told parents to "play the radio" and "make sure you have the record player on at night." Yikes.] [VIDEO.]

10:30 - The candidates are asked how they stayed "resilient" after their biggest setbacks. Biden talks about losing his first wife and some of his children. Warren talks about being fired as a teacher because she was pregnant. Buttigieg talks about coming out as gay while he was a mayor in a socially conservative state, and says: "Part of how you can win … is to know what's worth more to you than winning." Yang talks about his first business failing and remembers "how isolating it was — it feels like your friends no longer want to spend time with you." Booker talks about a political fiasco that ended up being the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary: "My tires were slashed, our campaign office was broken into, our phones were tapped!" Klobuchar tells a heart-breaking story about her daughter being born with a severe illness that made it hard for her to breathe, when the hospital kicked them out after 24 hours under a law that allowed that. She got the law changed.

Finally, it's over. And what did we learn from all that? Everyone likes Beto. Castro doesn't like Biden. Booker won't force you to go vegan. And not only will Yang give you $1,000 a month if he's president, but he might even give you $1,000 a month before the election!

ADDED: Biden said: "I have a bold plan to deal with making sure we triple the money for at-risk schools that are Title I schools, from 15 to $45 billion a year." In 2015, I blogged a mini-documentary about the time we tested the idea that giving lots of money to a school in a poor area can make it better. We need to look at the results of our past experiments, or we'll be making policy blindly.

Ann Althouse (my mom) reacts to the debate the morning after:

3. Bernie was awful. His voice had acquired a new raspiness that made his angry, yelling style outright ugly. I couldn't believe I needed to listen to him. I cried out in outrage and pain. The stabbing hand gestures — ugh! This is the Democrats second-most-popular candidate? I loved Bernie when he challenged Hillary 4 years ago. The anger was a fascinating mix of comedy and righteousness. But the act is old, and the socialism — did Joe call him a "socialist" more than once? — is scary. We can't be having a raving crank throwing radical change in our face.

4. Elizabeth Warren was there on the other side of Biden. She and Bernie were double-teaming Joe, and that worked... for Joe. He linked Warren to Bernie: She's for Bernie/I'm for Barack. I remember Warren reacting to every question with "Listen..." Like we're the slow students in her class and we haven't been paying attention and she's getting tired of us. We should already know what she's been saying on whatever the question happens to be.... [B]ut we're not in her class, and our responsibilities are to people and things in our own lives, not in keeping track of whatever her various policies and positions are. Warren seems to have the most potential, but she got yoked to Bernie, and the impression from a distance is: 2 radicals who want to make America unrecognizably different. MAUD!

My mom's comments sum up how I felt about Klobuchar and Harris:

9. ... I remember nothing [Klobuchar] said. I want to like her. She's in reserve as a normal person who might be okay. I remember her getting excited while talking. I guess she was hoping to make an impression.

10. Kamala Harris wore a silk shell under her suit jacket. The glossiness caught the light and shadow in a mesmerizing display of undulation. What did she say? I don't know but she said it in that voice that I can easily imitate simply by holding my nose. She seems unsteady, shaky... like that silk shell is a metaphor. I almost feel sorry for her. I don't understand why she's there and I don't believe she understands. Writing that makes me remember something she said: Her mother told her she needs to be her own person and not let anyone else tell her who she is. That's very inward. Running for the presidency is not a journey of self-exploration. But I don't believe that's what she's really doing. I think she's been told — maybe by a hundred or a thousand people — that she's got what it takes to be President and she's accepted their idea of her. That's the opposite of what her mother said.

I’ve never understood why Kamala or Beto decided to run for president, except that they heard from many people who were excited about the idea of them running for president.

It isn't "way too early" to think about who the Democratic running mate will be

People say it’s “way too early to be thinking about” [NYT link] who’ll be the vice-presidential nominee when we haven’t even started voting for the person who’ll make that decision. But wait, shouldn’t we think about what the ticket might be before choosing the nominee, while it could still inform our votes in the primaries? I don’t like the idea that we must follow a certain schedule about which questions to think about when, or that we can’t think more than one step into the future.

Those who say the choice of running mate doesn’t matter very much are wrong. It can matter a lot. A good running mate can smooth over some of the nominee’s weaknesses (that’s been true of at least the last 3 running mates to win, who all eased concerns about the future president’s experience and competence). A weak choice can raise serious questions about the nominee’s judgment (Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle); it’s our only chance to see what kind of person the president would hire for their administration before we cast our votes.

So, what are some of the plausible Democratic tickets for 2020? Any nominee will want a ticket with diversity. We can assume it won’t be two Straight White Men; it’s highly unlikely that the ticket will be, say, Biden/Bennet or Bernie/Beto.

If Elizabeth Warren is the nominee, I could see her choosing Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, or Julián Castro. Each would add a different and significant kind of diversity. All of them have been generally performing well in the debates. I can’t see any glaring, irreconcilable differences that would stop her from choosing them — they’re not Delaney, who Warren ridiculed as running for president just to say what he “won’t fight for.”

Buttigieg and Castro would love us to think they’d flip their states in the Electoral College (as unlikely as it might seem for Trump to lose his vice president’s state of Indiana or deep-red Texas). But a successful running mate generally isn’t picked as a tactic to win just one state. Obama didn’t choose Biden to win Delaware; same with Dick Cheney’s two states of Wyoming and Texas; Paul Ryan didn’t manage to win Wisconsin for Romney, etc. Warren surely knows all this.

The running mate could be someone who isn’t running now; for instance, Warren might choose Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio. But there are so many Democratic presidential candidates that it would be surprising if they all got passed over for VP.

If Pete Buttigieg wins the nomination, it’s easy to see him going for gender diversity by choosing Elizabeth Warren or Tulsi Gabbard, who were both outstanding debaters this week. Warren would excite progressive voters, but the last thing Buttigieg needs is more race-related concerns about his campaign, and he could count on Trump to make a big issue out of Warren’s past representations of being Native American. This couldn’t be dismissed just by calling out Trump’s crude word choice in bringing it up.

Buttigieg and Gabbard would be two young veterans who both speak compellingly about their military experience. Buttigieg might want to accentuate this side of his background, along the lines of Bill Clinton choosing Al Gore to emphasize that they’re a new kind of Democrat. Journalists would have their work cut out for them just listing all the ground Tulsi Gabbard could break as a 30-something, Hindu, American Samoan, vegetarian, surfing martial-arts instructor who took her congressional oath of office on the Bhagavad Gita instead of the Bible.

Buttigieg/Booker could also be appealing, but they’re both male. And unfortunately, Buttigieg has to worry about bias against him as a gay man, so even if this shouldn’t matter, he probably wants a running mate with a relatively traditional personal life; Booker has never been married and doesn’t have kids. Kamala Harris also doesn’t have kids, but more importantly, I don’t expect any nominee to choose Harris with all the questions about her record, in these days of increased interest in criminal justice reform.

I have a harder time speculating about who Joe Biden would choose, since he seems generally unpredictable and erratic. So I have no guess for him — and even if I did, I’d expect him to choose someone else!

That leaves 2 other candidates in the top 5, but I don’t expect them to be nominated so I’m less interested in guessing who their running mates would be. Kamala Harris’s image as a tough prosecutor is ill-suited to the current political moment, and her response to Gabbard’s attack last night wasn’t confidence-inspiring on that front. Self-proclaimed socialist Bernie Sanders, who’d be in his 80s for most of his presidency, is even more of a long shot now than last time.

No one else seems likely to win the nomination, but that could change. Almost every presidential race gives us at least one huge surprise . . .

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 top-tier night of the first 2020 Democratic debate

The first 2020 Democratic debate continues tonight, with four of the five leading candidates on the stage, starting at 9 Eastern.

As I did last night, I'll be live-blogging the second night of the debate. Keep reloading this post for more updates!

Again, since I'll be doing this without a pause or rewind button, any quotes I write down might not be correct word-for-word, but I'll try to keep them reasonably accurate. (I also might go back later and make corrections.)

[Interactive transcript of the debate.]


My mom, Ann Althouse, is also live-blogging it.

You should be able to watch the debate live online at MSNBC.

Here are the 10 out of 20 candidates who are debating tonight (and here are the Wikipedia pages of all the candidates):

9:07 — Sen. Bernie Sanders is asked if taxes will go up under his administration. Without answering the question, he says the "vast majority" of Americans will be paying less for health care, and student debt will be relieved. "Every program I have put forward is fully paid for." The moderator asks again, and Sanders says "yes" — but it'll be made up for with health savings.

9:09 — Vice President Joe Biden is asked about his recent comments to rich donors that "we shouldn't demonize the rich," and "nothing would fundamentally change" in his administration. Biden says he'd "eliminate Donald Trump's tax cuts for wealthy."

9:12 — The moderator points out that Bernie Sanders is the only candidate on the stage who's called himself a "democratic socialist." Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper says Democrats should "clearly define that we are not socialists," so Republicans can't label them as socialists. "You can't promise everyone a government job! … You can't eliminate private health insurance for 180 million people, many of whom don't want to give it up."

9:13 — When asked about Hickenlooper's answer, Bernie Sanders points out that he's ahead of President Trump in the polls.

9:14 — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand cuts in without being asked a question, and seems to be trying to bridge the divide between the Bernie Sanders side and the more moderate (Hickenlooper) side.

9:15 — Sen. Michael Bennet says we need to enhance Obamacare with a public option, but looks at Bernie Sanders while pointing out that "Vermont rejected Medicare for All!"

9:17 — Pete Buttigieg, Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, says he's for "free college for low- and middle-income students" — but poor people shouldn't need to subsidize "the children of billionaires."

9:18 — Rep. Eric Swalwell jumps in without being asked a question, to say we need "a new generation" to address the student debt issue.

9:18 — Andrew Yang — wearing no tie! — is asked how he'd pay for his plan to give a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every American adult. He says companies like Amazon are paying no taxes, and he'd fix this by creating a value-added tax (VAT), creating "a trickle-up economy." [VIDEO.]

9:21 — Swalwell talks about being 6 years old when Biden came to his school to say we need to "pass the torch" to a new generation. Biden comes back: "I'm still holding onto that torch!"

9:22 — After Biden answers a question about education, there's some wild, extended cross-talk among Buttigieg, Sanders, and Gillibrand. Finally, Kamala Harris plays the role of the parent stepping in to break up the fight: "America does not want to witness a food fight — they want to know how we're going to put food on their table!"

9:24 — They're all asked the same question from last night about whether they'd replace private health insurance with a government plan. Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris raise their hands. Kirsten Gillibrand says she wouldn't do that right away, but she expects that we'd quickly transition to "single-payer" because government would out-compete private insurers.

9:27 — Biden says we need to "build on what we did with Obamacare," cleverly reminding us that he was Obama's veep. He talks about how important health care was to his family when "my wife and daughter were killed in an automobile accident," and his sons were seriously injured; and he talks about his late son's cancer.

9:29 — Bernie Sanders promises to cut the costs of prescription drugs "in half."

9:31 — Marianne Williamson says she generally agrees with the other candidates on health care — but: "If you think we're going to beat Donald Trump with all these plans, you've got another think coming, because he didn't win by having plans; he won by saying make America great again!"

9:33 — Bennet mocks Bernie Sanders for saying private health insurance would be allowed only for "plastic surgery."

9:34 — Kamala Harris tells a moving story about a parent in the familiar situation of taking their child to the hospital with a high fever, but waiting in the car and thinking about the thousands of dollars they'll need to pay if they go through the hospital doors.

9:36 — All the candidates raise their hands to say their health-care programs would cover illegal immigrants.

9:41 — Kamala Harris is asked what "specifically" she would do with people trying to enter the US to apply for asylum. "I will release children from cages! I will get rid of private detention centers."

9:43 — Hickenlooper says ICE is "kidnapping" children. Williamson agrees and says it's "child abuse." "These are state-sponsored crimes."

9:46 — Gillibrand talks about how she'd reform immigration enforcement to be more "community-based."

9:47 — They're all asked if illegally crossing the border should be a "civil, not a criminal offense." I think everyone but Bennet raises their hands (though I might have missed someone else). Buttigieg points out that the criminal nature of the offense isn't just a technicality, but the basis for family separations. Buttigieg adds that Republicans give up any claim to be the party of religion if they think "God smiles upon" the family separations.

9:49 — Biden is asked about Obama's millions of deportations. He says "they should be deported" if they "committed a major crime." He doesn't directly address the millions of deportations, but simply asserts that Obama "did a heck of a job" and it's ridiculous to compare him to Trump. [Added: Reason rakes Biden over the coals for this.]

9:51 — Sanders would take his "executive-order pen" and "rescind every damn thing on this issue Trump has done."

9:52 — Swalwell flatly says that if someone's only offense is being in the country without documents, they shouldn't be deported. Biden hedged his answer to that question, saying that kind of person "shouldn't be a focus of deportation."

9:53 — Kamala Harris talks about how she resisted Obama's deportation policy when she was Attorney General of California. "I want a rape victim to be able to run out into the street and flag down a police officer without fear of being deported."

9:55 — Bennet starts his answer to a question on China in an unexpected way: "The president's been right to push back on China … but he's done it in the wrong way." Similarly, Yang says it's a "massive" problem that "China pirates our intellectual property," but "the tariffs and the trade war are the wrong way to go."

9:57 — Buttigieg tries to make his opposition to Trump's tariffs more personal by talking about how they're especially hurting soy farmers near him in the Midwest.

10:04 — Buttigieg is asked about a white police officer who shot a black man in South Bend. He admits he tried to fix police bias but didn't get the job done. "I have to look into his mother's eyes, and nothing that I say will bring him back." "I am determined to bring about a day when a black person driving a vehicle and a white person driving a vehicle, when they see a police officer approaching, feels the exact same thing: a feeling not of fear, but of safety." [VIDEO.]

10:07 — Swalwell tells Buttigieg: "The officer's body camera wasn't on? You should fire the chief of police." [Added: Mediaite's verdict on the debate sees this as a crucial moment:]

Mayor Pete Buttigieg, like Biden, did not get the job done. He not only didn’t shine, the pall over him regarding the events in his hometown over racial tensions and the police was noticeable. When Eric Swalwell, otherwise unremarkable in the debate, landed a blow saying Buttigieg should fire his police chief, he basically lost the whole night.

10:08 — Harris cuts in and says: "As the only black person on this stage, I would like to speak on the issue of race." She goes after Biden: "I do not believe you are a racist … but … it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two Senators who built their careers on the segregation of race in this country. You also worked with them to oppose busing." Biden calls this "a mischaracterization of my position across the board." He says busing decisions, including that Harris was bused, would have been made at the local level. "I did not oppose busing in America. What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education." Harris scoffs at this, saying the feds had to step in when the states weren't integrating schools when they should. No matter who you agree with on substance, Harris seemed to win this back-and-forth on theatrics: she seemed personal and impassioned, while Biden looked dazed and kept falling back on what must seem to most viewers like procedural details. [VIDEO.]

[Added: My mom says: "Kamala Harris is doing pretty well, but I didn't like her yelling at Biden. She did kind of get under his skin though." I'm not sure if that's about the same thing as my 10:08 update.]

10:14 — Why voters should believe that with a new president, "gridlock will magically disappear," as candidates always promise. Bennet: "Gridlock will not magically disappear as long as Mitch McConnell is still the Senate Majority Leader." But Biden comes back: "I got Mitch McConnell to raise taxes, $600 billion!"

10:19 — Sanders makes the kind of statement about the Supreme Court that presidential candidates usually shy away from: "My litmus test is I will never nominate any Justice to the Supreme Court unless that Justice is clear that she or he will defend Roe vs. Wade."

10:22 — Gillibrand seems to be trying to have her moment with an impassioned speech on abortion rights: "I have been the fiercest advocate for women's reproductive rights for over a decade."

10:23 — Harris on climate change: "I don't call it 'climate change'; it's a climate crisis. This president has embraced science fiction over science fact."

10:24 — Buttigieg, who hasn't talked for a while now, gets specific on climate change: "I had to activate the emergency operation center of our city twice. The first time was a 1,000-year flood; the second time was a 500-year flood." (I'll have to check that quote for exact accuracy later.)

10:25 — Hickenlooper on climate change: "I'm a scientist, so I recognize that we're 10 or 12 years away from suffering irreversible damage."

10:27 — Rachel Maddow asks Biden if he can address climate change without any support from Congress. He lists the Obama administration's accomplishments: "We built the largest wind farm in the world.…"

10:29 — Biden cringes when Swalwell repeats his mantra: "Here's the solution: pass the torch!"

10:38 — Swalwell is asked about his "unique" proposal for a mandatory federal buy-back of every "assault weapon" in America. "I propose this as a parent, in a generation where we look at what our children are wearing as they go to school, in case we have to identify them later."

10:39 — Rachel Maddow asks Sanders about a past quote where he seemed to say guns should be decided by the states. Sanders: "That's a mischaracterization." Maddow: "It's a quote of you!"

10:41 — Harris makes it sound like she could adopt Swalwell's plan.

10:42 — Buttigieg talks about how being the only candidate with military experience informs his view of guns: "We trained on some of these kinds of weapons.… There are weapons that have absolutely no place in American cities in peacetime, ever."

10:44 — Biden: "We should have smart guns," with biometric measures on the trigger.

10:45 — Bennet seems to be vying to be the boringest, slowest candidate. "I appreciate … the candidates who are up here tonight."

10:46 — Chuck Todd asks which alliance has been most harmed by President Trump and which one they'd work on restoring first. Buttigieg: "We have no idea which are the most important allies he will have pissed off between now and then!"

10:48 — Biden is asked why we should trust him after he recanted his vote for the Iraq War. As usual, he focuses on what he did as Obama's Vice President. Biden also says Bush abused the congressional authorization Biden voted for … and I'm having flashbacks to John Kerry's 2004 campaign.

10:53 — Now they're doing closing statements. Swalwell: "I'm a father of a 2-year-old and an infant. When I'm not changing diapers, I'm changing Washington. Most of the time, the diapers smell better."

10:54 — Williamson: "Donald Trump is not going to be beaten just by insider politics talk.… He's reached into the psyche of the American people, and he's harnessed fear for political purposes.… I'm going to harness love for political purposes … and love will win."

10:55 — Hickenlooper seems to have saved up his whole pitch till the end: "We expanded reproductive health to reduce teenage abortion.… We were the first state [Colorado] to legalize marijuana.… We got to near universal health care coverage."

10:56 — Gillibrand: "Women are on fire!"

10:57 — Yang says he'll build "a broad coalition" including "libertarians" — the only time they're mentioned by any of the Democratic candidates.

10:58 — Harris tries to convince us that she should be the nominee based on her prosecutorial background, saying she'll "prosecute the case against 4 more years of Donald Trump."

10:59 — I missed Buttigieg's closing statement because the dumb NBC News Roku channel interrupted to ask if I'm still watching.

11:00 — Sanders, seeming to draw inspiration from President Eisenhower, says he'll fight "the military-industrial complex."

11:01 — Biden goes last. He promises to "restore the soul of this country — the president has ripped it out." "This is the United States of America! We can do anything if we're together — together."