The intense national debate taking place in the U.S. over who should challenge President Donald Trump in the 2020 election descended upon Central Ohio on Tuesday when 12 of the 19 Democratic candidates took to the stage at Otterbein University in Westerville.
Early in the debate, the 12 candidates fielded questions about the impeachment inquiry but after each gave their take and expressed their support of the inquiry, 11 of the candidates quickly leveled their attacks on a new target: Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Warren, who is largely seen as an emerging front runner, faced criticism throughout the night on her promises to bring what she terms as a “big structural change” to American government and society.
The debate showed the primary is entering a new phase. Rather than just a single front runner in former Vice President Joe Biden, who has led in the polls since he first entered the race, the Democratic electorate and the candidates are taking notice of Warren. While her rise has been beneficial to her own campaign, it was evident throughout the night that Biden also benefits in a way because the attacks by other candidates are largely taken off him and directed at her.
After asking each candidate about their support for the impeachment of Trump, moderators Anderson Cooper and Erin Burnett of CNN and Marc Lacey of The New York Times questioned Biden about his son’s involvement in a foreign company. This was the only time Biden was really pressed on an issue during the night.
Trump’s fixation on Hunter Biden’s position on the Ukrainian energy company’s board is the main reason why U.S. House of Representative Democrats were able to gain enough support to start the inquiry. Trump’s phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, asking the country to investigate Biden and his son is under intense scrutiny.
“Look, my son did nothing wrong,” Biden said. “I did nothing wrong. I carried out the policy of the United States government in rooting out corruption in Ukraine. And that's what we should be focusing on.”
Biden also mentioned his son’s press conference which took place right before the debate. During the conference Hunter Biden admitted he was wrong and made a mistake by being on this board at the same time as his father’s vice presidency.
“My son made a judgment. I'm proud of the judgement he made. I'm proud of what he had to say. And let's focus on this. The fact of the matter is that this is about Trump's corruption. That's what we should be focusing on,” Biden said.
Biden’s democratic colleagues offered very little criticism of him on this topic and the moderators were quick to move on to other pressing issues including healthcare, foreign policy and the economy.
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar made their voices heard throughout the night. The two midwesterners saw an opening to speak up while Biden sat back and watched them attack Warren.
Warren, who was constantly on the defense, said, “I have made clear what my principles are here, and that is costs will go up for the wealthy and for big corporations, and for hard-working middle class families, costs will go down,” when criticized about Medicare For All.
Even other candidates who are lower in the polls, such as California Senator Kamala Harris, Andrew Yang and former Texas Representative Beto O’Rourke spoke up against Warren.
Yang said Warren is correct when she talks about the U.S. living in a “winner-take-all economy” but criticized her position on implementing a wealth tax to pay for things like universal Pre-K and universal childcare.
“The problem is that it's been tried in Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, and all those countries ended up repealing it, because it had massive implementation problems and did not generate the revenue that they'd projected,” Yang said.
Klobuchar was increasingly critical of Warren throughout the night, but also established herself as an alternative to Biden for moderate voters. On Medicare For All, a plan Warren sides with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders on, Klobuchar began her attacks by assessing how Warren would pay for the plan.
“At least Bernie's being honest here and saying how he's going to pay for this and that taxes are going to go up,” Klobuchar said. “And I'm sorry, Elizabeth, but you have not said that, and I think we owe it to the American people to tell them where we're going to send the invoice.”
Sanders offered little support to Warren who he has teamed up with in previous debates to fend off attacks on their own progressive platforms. The self-described Democratic Socialist, instead, spent the night defending the plans by himself and trying to gain back ground he lost to Warren in polls.
Despite taking heavy hits from all the candidates on stage, the debate showed Warren’s presence as a front runner is not being taken lightly by anyone. Warren was able to fight back and use her additional speaking time to advocate for her ideas.
Sanders, who recently suffered a heart attack on the campaign trail, also faced questions about his health. He was quick to reassure the audience and his fellow candidates of his health and said he would prove it through mounting a vigorous campaign.
Sanders, 78, wasn’t the only candidate to face questions on how health and age play into their fitness for office. Biden, 76, Warren, 70, and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, 38, were also questioned about how experience weighs against a candidates age.
Gabbard was a newcomer to the stage after missing the last debate because she didn’t meet the polling and donation thresholds set by the Democratic National Convention. If elected, she would become the youngest president to be inaugurated in American history.
One of the key moments from the night came when the moderators shifted the focus of the debate to foreign policy in the context of Turkey’s recent invasion of Syria and Trump’s choice to withdraw U.S. forces who are allied with the Kurdish militia in the region.
All of the candidates expressed their disdain for the president’s foreign policy choices, but they also couldn’t all agree on how the situation needs to be handled to eventually pull troops out of the region. Gabbard and Buttigieg, both U.S. military veterans, disagreed on how the U.S. can go about pulling out of what was termed as an “endless war” in the Middle East.
“Well, first of all, we've got to understand the reality of the situation there, which is that the slaughter of the Kurds being done by Turkey is yet another negative consequence of the regime change war that we've been waging in Syria,” Gabbard said.
Gabbard, who has been accused of being an apologist for the dictator of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, was then criticized by Buttigieg.
“The slaughter going on in Syria is not a consequence of American presence. It's a consequence of a withdrawal and a betrayal by this president of American allies and American values,” Buttigieg said.
Buttigieg asserted himself as a moderate alternative to voters, as well. He also sparred with O’Rourke on gun control and whether mandatory buybacks are an achievable policy position.
O’Rourke, who in a previous debate said, “Hell yes, we will take your AR-15s,” is one candidate calling for assault weapon buybacks to be mandatory rather than voluntary, an issue which is splitting the field.
Buttigieg claimed this position is unachievable and puts at risk the possibility of passing more moderate gun control policies like expanded background checks and red flag laws. O’Rourke and Buttigieg quickly hashed out an argument they’d been having on the campaign trail in front of the national audience.
“If someone does not turn in an AR-15 or an AK-47, one of these weapons of war, or brings it out in public and brandishes it in an attempt to intimidate, as we saw when we were at Kent State recently, then that weapon will be taken from them,” O'Rourke said. “If they persist, there will be other consequences from law enforcement.”
While many of the candidates on stage spent the night fighting with each other, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker spent the night trying to keep a focus on Trump.
“The only person sitting at home enjoying that was Donald Trump,” Booker said, criticizing the moderators for their questions on Biden’s son.
Tom Steyer, a billionaire and a leading voice on calling for Trump’s impeachment, was also a newcomer to the debate stage and didn’t make much of a mark. The candidate struggled to assert himself and often faced criticism for his vast wealth by candidates like Warren and Klobuchar.
Other issues that were brought up during the night included foreign election interference, the opioid crisis, income inequality, increased automation and abortion.
The next Democratic primary debate is scheduled to take place Nov. 20 in the Atlanta area. The amount of candidates on stage is expected to shrink as the DNC qualifying rules get more strict.
