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

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

[Here's the transcript.]

This is the first of two nights for the second 2020 Democratic debate (counting each two-night broadcast as one debate). The debate in Detroit starts at 8 Eastern, and you can watch it online on CNN's website.

As usual, I'll be doing this without the benefit of a pause or rewind button. So any quotes in this post might not be perfect word for word, but I'll try to keep them reasonably accurate. (And I might go back later and make corrections.)

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

These are the 10 candidates for tonight:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Sen. Bernie Sanders
Mayor Pete Buttigieg
former Rep. Beto O'Rourke
Sen. Amy Klobuchar
Gov. John Hickenlooper
former Rep. John Delaney
Rep. Tim Ryan
Gov. Steve Bullock
Marianne Williamson

The first two to walk onstage are Bernie Sanders and then Elizabeth Warren — she greets him very warmly: "Good to see ya!!!" This signals they won't be attacking each other tonight, as progressive frontrunners. Hickenlooper comes out a while later and has to walk around a lot to shake everyone's hands.

"The Star-Spangled Banner" is sung, and all the candidates put their hands on their hearts — except Tim Ryan. Amy Klobuchar looks like she's having fun singing along. Pete Buttigieg, the only military veteran on the stage, has an extremely serious expression.

8:14 - Steve Bullock, the only candidate on the stage who wasn't in the last debate, trashes "that last debate": the candidates were more interested in "scoring points" than in speaking to everyday Americans. "I won 3 elections in a red state" — Montana.

8:17 - John Delaney starts his opening statement with a direct attack on "Senator Sanders and Senator Warren" for their "bad policies" like "Medicare for All." "My platform is about real solutions, not impossible promises."

8:18 - Tim Ryan's opening statement does a twist on President Donald Trump's catchphrase: "America is great, but not everyone can access America's greatness."

8:19 - John Hickenlooper, like Delaney, starts his opening statement with an explicit attack on Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, saying their approach was not supported by any of the 40 Democrats who flipped House seats in 2018. "I share their progressive values, but I'm a little more pragmatic."

8:20 - Amy Klobuchar joins in the same tone as Hickenlooper: "Yes I have bold ideas, but they are grounded in reality. I can win this. I'm from the Midwest."

8:22 - Pete Buttigieg says the problem is bigger than Donald Trump — we have to ask how he even got "within cheating distance of the presidency."

8:23 - Elizabeth Warren says any of the Democratic candidates would be much better than Trump, and she promises to work her heart out to support whoever it is.

8:24 - Bernie Sanders: "Half of the American people are living paycheck to paycheck, and yet 49% of all new income goes to the top 1%."

8:26 - Bernie Sanders is asked what he says to Delaney, who says supporting Medicare for All will just reelect Trump. Sanders: "You're wrong!" Sanders notes that they're close to Canada (they're in Detroit), and "when you go to a hospital in Canada, you come out with no bill at all." Delaney's dry rebuttal: "It'll underfund the industry."

8:29 - Elizabeth Warren chimes in: "We are Democrats! We are not about trying to take away health care from anyone! That's what Republicans are trying to do, and we should stop using Republican talking points to talk to each other about what to do with health care."

8:31 - Warren sums up the problem with private health insurance: "Their model is: take as much money as you can in premiums, and pay as little as possible in health care coverage." Bullock dismisses Warren's policy as "wish-list economics."

8:32 - Buttigieg splits the difference, saying we don't need to "speculate" about which health-care policy is best, because "we can put it to the test with my Medicare for All Who Want It plan."

8:33 - Beto O'Rourke says Bullock is offering a "false choice," which hands Bullock a chance to talk more. I don't feel like Beto got much of a chance to speak to his views on health care, since moderator Jake Tapper constantly interrupted him.

8:36 - Klobuchar: "We need the public option. That's what Barack Obama wanted!" She says Bernie Sanders inconsistently called this immoral after supporting it last year, while CNN cuts to Bernie nervously gulping from a mug.

8:37 - Bernie Sanders attacks Jake Tapper for giving a "Republican talking point" to drug companies that they'll probably use in their ads during the debate tonight!

8:38 - Delaney boasts that he's the only candidate on the stage with experience in the health-care business, and "I don't think my colleagues understand the business." Bernie Sanders: "It's not a business!"

8:39 - The moderate Hickenlooper wants health-care reform to be "an evolution, not a revolution."

8:40 - Marianne Williamson says that while she admires Warren and Sanders on the health-care issue, she also hears what some of the more pragmatic candidates are saying: "I do have concern about what the Republicans would say." Buttigieg disagrees with Williamson: "It is time to stop worrying about what the Republicans are going to say," since Republicans are going to call the Democrats "a bunch of crazy socialists" even if they completely agree with Republicans.

8:43 - After Bernie Sanders lists specific things that'll be covered for "senior citizens," including "hearing aids," Tim Ryan cuts in: "You don't know that!" Bernie shoots back: "I do know it! I wrote the damn bill!!!"

8:45 - Tim Ryan has another dry criticism of Bernie Sanders's health-care plan: "His math is wrong. That's all I'm saying. It's been well-documented." Then Ryan goes for the jugular: "I'm starting to think this is not about health care — this is an anti-private-sector strategy!"

8:47 - After a long discussion of health care, onto immigration. Buttigieg says he wants illegally crossing the border into the US to be a crime only "if fraud is involved."

8:48 - Beto strikes a conservative note on immigration: "I expect that people who come here follow our laws, and we reserve the right to criminally prosecute them if they do not."

8:49 - Warren would "decriminalize" border crossings "to take away the tools that Donald Trump has used to break up families."

8:50 - At one point Klobuchar slurs her words so much I can't understand what she's saying. This is unfortunate given how little time she's getting to speak.

8:52 - Bullock says: "The biggest problem that we have with immigration is Donald Trump." Even if that's true, it seems like a weak argument for a candidate to make, since that doesn't tell us how he'd be better than any other Democratic president — none of them would be Donald Trump. Oh, I see when he gets another chance to clarify: he's saying that's why we don't need to decriminalize border crossings. Elizabeth Warren comes back: "So what you're saying is: ignore the law!"

8:55 - Tim Ryan stakes out the center on immigration: "If you want to come into the country, you should at least ring the doorbell!"

8:56 - Bernie Sanders brings back health care in the immigration context: "When I talk about health care as a human right, that applies to all people in this country."

8:59 - Onto guns. After Buttigieg's answer, Hickenlooper makes a seemingly bold statement — "This is the fundamental nonsense of government!" — but I'm not clear on what he's referring to. I don't know if he's attacking Buttigieg or agreeing with him.

9:02 - Gov. Bullock of Montana is asked how we can trust him on gun control when he just flip-flopped to a more liberal position last year. "Like 40% of American households, I'm a gun owner." But his nephew was shot to death on a playground.

9:04 - Bernie Sanders: "Nobody up here is going to tell you they have a magical solution to the crisis" of shootings. But didn't Beto just say he ... has a magic solution?

9:06 - On guns, Marianne Williamson says "we need a constitutional amendment," presumably to repeal the Second Amendment. And she doesn't trust the other candidates on the stage — we need to "start over with people who have not taken donations from any of these corporations."

9:12 - After a commercial break, Hickenlooper is saying Bernie Sanders's platform would be like Fed Ex-ing the election to Trump. Instead, the focus should be on Trump's incompetence: "Donald Trump is malpractice personified." Bernie Sanders points out that he won the 2016 primaries in Michigan and Wisconsin — 2 of the 3 states that ended up being decisive in electing Trump.

9:15 - Beto tries to shift the focus in the electability discussion: "There's a new battleground state: Texas."

9:17 - Elizabeth Warren denies that when she says she's "a capitalist," she means to imply she'd be more electable than Bernie Sanders.

9:19 - Elizabeth Warren has a memorable retort to Delaney's pragmatic line: "I don't understand why anybody goes to the trouble of running for the President of the United States just to talk about what we can't do and shouldn't fight for!" [ADDED: The New York Times asks if that's the "line of the night."]

9:20 - Bernie Sanders is the only one talking about the city they're in: "Detroit was almost destroyed by awful trade policy."

9:22 - Klobuchar: "We are more worried about winning an argument than winning an election."

9:24 - Delaney seems to have been getting more time to talk than the more popular Beto O'Rourke. Are the moderators feeling sorry for Delaney because of rumors his campaign is on the verge of collapse?

9:30 - I hope when I'm 77 years old, I'm vigorous and energetic enough to be yelling at the top of my lungs for 2 hours like Bernie Sanders. (When I was in the middle of writing that, Tim Ryan told Bernie: "You don't have to yell!")

9:33 - Bernie Sanders gets down to earth: "Ain't nobody in Congress who's more pro-worker than I am!"

9:35 - Amy Klobuchar on water contamination in Flint, Michigan: "I was just in Flint, and they are still drinking bottled water, and that is outrageous." On infrastructure, "you need a voice from the heartland."

9:39 - Beto calls out President Trump for racial rhetoric: "It is changing this country. Hate crimes are on the rise."

9:42 - Buttigieg is asked about the perception that he has problems with racial issues. He starts with what seems to be a carefully prepared line: "As an urban mayor serving a diverse community, the racial divide lives within me."

9:45 - Beto gets energized on the issue of race. He talks about how America has the world's strongest economy because it was "built on the backs of slaves who were brought here against their will," and he says he supports "Sheila Jackson Lee's reparations bill."

9:47 - Marianne Williamson, who supports reparations, is asked how she'd figure out what "assistance" should be given. She rejects that framing: "It is not 'assistance.' It is payment of a debt that is owed."

9:53 - Tim Ryan says the problem with Trump's approach to China is Trump has a "tactical" approach while China has a "strategy." China thinks 20 or 30 years in advance, while we're focused on a 24-hour news cycle.

9:57 - Beto says Trump's tariffs are "a huge mistake — they constitute the largest tax increase on the American consumer, hitting the working class and the working poor especially hard."

9:59 - Hickenlooper: "There is not a single example where a trade war had a winner. Trade wars are for losers." It seems like he has a plan for if he ever gets to debate Trump: tell Trump his policies are for "losers."

10:01 - I don't like when Buttigieg frames his policy views in terms of Christianity. He suggests Republicans are being un-Christian to oppose raising the minimum wage. That isn't the way to think rationally about economic policy.

10:04 - I'm inclined to agree with John Delaney that it would be better to increase the capital gains tax than to follow Elizabeth Warren's plan for a new "wealth tax." Delaney says the wealth tax would be challenged by lawsuits for years, and countries that have tried a similar policy have abandoned it. Warren has a weak response: she merely says it would be just a 2% tax on rich people's wealth over $50 million, which doesn't address Delaney's concerns about how it would actually work (or not work) in practice.

10:11 - Klobuchar is against some of the more extreme proposals to forgive student debt, which "would pay for wealth kids, for Wall Street kids, to go to college." She'd let people refinance their student debt.

10:12 - Bernie Sanders is asked how he's different from President Trump when they both say the US "shouldn't be the policeman of the world." Sanders on how he's different: "Trump is a pathological liar — I tell the truth!"

10:17 - Pete Buttigieg promises to leave Afghanistan in the first year of his presidency. "We are close to the first casualty in Afghanistan who was not yet born on September 11."

10:20 - Elizabeth Warren says we should announce a policy that the US will never be the first to use a nuclear weapon. Steve Bullock disagrees: "I wouldn't want to take that off the table." Warren looks stunned! Bullock then makes an emotional appeal to the city they're in: "I don't want to say, well, Detroit has to be gone before we would ever use that."

10:23 - Don Lemon asks Pete Buttigieg about the fact that he's the youngest candidate at age 37, and he's standing next to the oldest candidate, Bernie Sanders. (What about 89-year-old Mike Gravel?) The question is: "Does age matter?" Buttigieg has often talked about how we need "generational change," but he dodges the question: "I don't care how old you are. I care about your vision." For his part, Sanders says he'd help younger generations by making their student debt go away.

10:30 - Now onto the closing statements. Bullock seems a little drunk.

10:32 - Delaney says he has "big ideas like national service." Delaney has talked so much about being pragmatic and avoiding policies that are so extreme they'll turn off voters in the general election, but then he proposes this horrible idea.

10:36 - Hickenlooper's closing argument: "I'm as progressive as anybody up on this stage, but I'm also pragmatic. And I've done these things that other people have just talked about."

10:39 - Buttigieg says he has "good news and bad news." "First the bad news": "GDP is going up, and life expectancy is going down." Wait, is it bad that GDP is going up?

10:41 - Elizabeth Warren uses her closing statement to talk about going to a $50-a-semester college, which she ends up connecting to how her campaign is based on small donations.

10:42 - Bernie Sanders tells us about an unusual experience he had just two days ago: he took 15 people with diabetes from Detroit to Canada, and they bought insulin for a tenth the price they had been paying.

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!

Presidential candidate Tim Ryan's weak response to Bill Maher on the economy

Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio in this video seems to be positioning himself as one of the more moderate Democratic presidential candidates, and that's the kind of candidate I'm hoping will emerge as the nominee.

But Tim Ryan doesn't have a decent answer to Bill Maher's predictable question about how well the economy seems to be doing. In fact, Ryan repeatedly says that wages have been increasing! He says they should be increasing even more — but still, how did that make it into his talking points?

Democrats will have to do better than this shaky performance by Tim Ryan (on what should be favorable terrain) if they want to stop Donald Trump from being reelected.