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Live Democratic debate coverage: Bernie Sanders faces onslaught in South Carolina

Bernie Sanders was the biggest target in a very bad-tempered presidential debate today - and even the crowd got involved.

Sam ClenchSam Clench
@SamClench
less than 2 min read
February 26, 2020 - 11:22AM
Democratic debate: Bernie calls out crowd for booing response to foreign affairs question

Bernie Sanders was the big target at today's Democratic debate.

Mr Sanders has become the overwhelming favourite for the party's presidential nomination  in the wake of his decisive victory in the Nevada caucuses over the weekend, and his earlier win in New Hampshire.

RELATED: Bernie Sanders surges to overwhelming win in Nevada

The debate was widely seen as his opponents' "last chance" to halt his momentum before a swathe of more than a dozen states vote next week.

And crucially, it was the last time he would appear on stage with the other Democratic candidates until mid-March.

Mr Sanders' rivals certainly tried to go after him, and the debate quickly turned bad-tempered, as they repeatedly spoke over each other, shouted and flouted the moderators' rules.

It was, in truth, quite farcical. And the moderators themselves offered up one last gaffe right at the end, just to top things off.

Read on for our coverage of all the key moments.

Updates

TV network panned: 'A trainwreck'

You will find no consensus about the political winners and losers of the debate – beyond, perhaps, the general sense that Tom Steyer had no reason to be there.

What we can say with absolute certainty is that CBS News, unfortunately, had a bit of a shocker.

Much of the reaction in the United States is focused on the "trainwreck" offered up by the moderators.

Trump gloats about 'hot mess' debate

Donald Trump's re-election campaign has released a statement about the debate. It doesn't seem too worried about what it saw.

"The Democrat Party is a hot mess and tonight's debate was further evidence that not one of these candidates is serious or can stand toe-to-toe with President Trump," said the campaign's press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

"The only thing that was clear in the chaos was that they're all still running on Bernie Sanders' big government socialist agenda. It doesn't matter who emerges from the carnage, President Trump will dominate in November."

Debate ends with embarrassing moment

The debate finished on a lighter note, as the moderators asked each candidate to identify the biggest misconception people have about them.

Amy Klobuchar: "The biggest misconception is that I'm boring."

Joe Biden: "I have more hair than I think I do."

Bernie Sanders: "That the ideas I'm talking about are radical. They're not."

Elizabeth Warren: "I don't eat very much. In fact, I eat all the time. I get teased about this."

Pete Buttigieg: "I think the biggest misconception is that I'm not passionate."

Michael Bloomberg: "That I'm six feet tall."

That last one was a little self-deprecating joke. Mr Bloomberg, of course, is an astonishingly short man.

I missed Tom Steyer's answer, but to be brutally honest, nobody cares anyway.

There was a horribly awkward moment at the end, as one of the CBS News moderators overruled the other.

"Thank you. That concludes our debate -" Nora O'Donnell began.

"No. No, we have time for one more break, Nora," interjected her colleague, Gayle King.

"One more break. Time flies when you're having fun."

Two minutes later, the pair were back to announce that this time, the debate really was over.

Not a great night for the moderators, it must be said.

'Really? Really?': Crowd boos Bernie

As the debate turned to foreign policy, Bernie Sanders was forced to defend his comments on a couple of authoritarian regimes.

He has praised the Chinese government for "lifting more people out of poverty" than any other country in history, and in a 60 Minutes interview over the weekend he praised the "literacy program" of the Cuban government under Fidel Castro.

"I have opposed authoritarianism all over the world," Mr Sanders said.

"What I said is what Barack Obama said in terms of Cuba, that Cuba made progress on education."

A section of the crowd started to boo him.

"Really? Really? Literacy programs are bad?" he said.

"Occasionally, it might be a good idea to be honest about American foreign policy, and that includes the fact that America has overthrown governments all over the world.

"When dictatorships do something good, you acknowledge that."

Joe Biden, who of course served as Mr Obama's vice president, took issue with Mr Sanders' characterisation of his comments.

"He did not in any way suggest that there was anything positive about the Cuban government," Mr Biden said.

"He went on and condemned the dictatorship.

"He in fact does not, did not, has never embraced an authoritarian regime and does not now. This man did not condemn what they did."

"That is not true," Mr Sanders replied.

"Authoritarianism of any stripe is bad. That is different than saying that some things governments do is good."

Pete Buttigieg took the chance to have a swing at Mr Sanders as well.

"This is not about coups that were happening in the 1970s or 80s, this is about the future. This is about 2020," he said.

"We're not going to win these critical House and Senate races if people in those races have to explain why the nominee of the Democratic Party is telling people to look on the bright side of the Castro regime."

That comment sparked about 30 seconds of crosstalk between the pair, which was productive for precisely no one.

Debate descends into farce

It's worth noting just how bad-tempered and, frankly, quite farcical this debate has been. All the candidates have spoken over each other and exceeded their allotted time – such rebels, I know.

A few of them have also done a fair bit of shouting.

I'll give a particular, honorary mention to former vice president Joe Biden, who has repeatedly complained about other candidates jumping in to the conversation at will instead of waiting for the moderators to go to them.

I'm not calling him a cranky old man. I'm just saying he is an old man who happens to be cranky today.

"I know how you cut me off all the time, but I'm not going to be quiet anymore!" he said in frustration at one point.

To be clear, the moderators have tried to cut off everyone, but none of the other candidates are actually shutting up when asked.

I doubt Mr Biden was too happy a little while after that when the TV network went to an ad break, playing its outro music over him, while he trying to jump in to the conversation.

As literally everyone on Twitter has already said, it was a bit like watching a long-winded celebrity's speech at the Oscars.

After the break one of the moderators, Gayle King, implored – maybe begged would be a better word – the candidates to keep to their time.

"Good idea," Mr Biden quipped.

"We'll come to you," King said.

"You keep promising me that, but you haven't done it yet," he shot back.

Candidates discuss gun control

During a discussion on gun control, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg each pressed Bernie Sanders on his opposition to changing the Senate's filibuster rule.

Without going into detail, it's a rule that allows the Republican Party to block a lot of legislation, including on gun control. Instead of requiring a simple majority, major legislation can only be passed with the support of 60 senators out of 100.

“The filibuster is giving a veto to the gun industry. It gives a veto to the oil industry. It’s going to give a veto on immigration," Ms Warren said.

"Until we’re willing to dig in and say that if Mitch McConnell is going to do to the next Democratic president what he did to President Obama."

After a brief interlude, during which Mr Sanders was grilled on his record of voting five times against background checks on gun sales in the early 1990s – "I have cast thousands of votes, including bad votes. That was a bad vote," – Mr Buttigieg brought it back to the filibuster rule.

“I want to come back to the question of the filibuster because this is not some long-ago bad vote that Bernie Sanders took,” he said.

“This is a current bad position that Bernie Sanders holds.

"How are we going to deliver a revolution if you won't even support a rule change?

"It has got to go, because otherwise Washington will not deliver."

Mr Sanders got the last word on the subject.

"It is my view that the time is now, at the end of the day, we need to rally the American people," he said.

"Because of all these disgusting and horrific mass shootings, the American people now understand that we must now be aggressive on gun safety."

Sanders' spending plans slammed

The focus shifted back to Bernie Sanders, and the total cost of his policy platform, which is something like $50 trillion. The numbers are a little hazy though.

"Can you do the math for the rest of us?" the moderators asked.

"How long do you have?" Mr Sanders said.

He dodged the question, instead talking specifically about his Medicare for All plan, arguing it would lower health care costs.

"The math does not add up," Amy Klobuchar interjected.

"I'll tell you exactly what it adds up to," said Pete Buttigeig.

"It adds up to four more years of Donald Trump, Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House, and an inability to get the Senate into Democratic hands."

He argued Mr Sanders would hurt down-ballot races in November – the Democrats running for Congress and Senate.

"The time has come for us to stop acting like the presidency is the only office that matters. Not only is this a way to get Donald Trump re-elected, we've got a House to worry about. We've got a Senate to worry about," said Mr Buttigieg.

"If you want to keep the House in Democratic hands, you might want to check with the people who actually turned the House blue. Forty Democrats who are not running on your platform – they are running away from your platform as fast as they can."

Billionaire candidate Tom Steyer had a go at Mr Sanders as well, though he tied in a critique of Michael Bloomberg as well.

"This conversation shows a huge risk for the Democratic Party. We are looking at a party that has decided that we're either going to support someone who is a democratic socialist, or someone who has a long history of being a Republican," Mr Steyer said.

"I am scared. If we cannot pull this party together, if we go to one of those extremes, we take a terrible risk of electing Donald Trump."

Finally, Joe Biden – who had not said much of anything until this point – jumped in to launch an entirely different attack on Mr Steyer, who is competing directly with him for African-American support in South Carolina.

Mr Biden said Mr Steyer "bought a system that was a private prison system after he knew that they hog-tied young men in prison, here in this state".

The allegation infuriated Mr Steyer.

"I get to answer that. You're out of time," he said.

"I'm not out of time, and I'm going to talk!" Mr Biden shouted back.

"I bought stock in a prison company, thinking they'd do a better job, and I investigated, and I sold it," Mr Steyer said.

"You knew when you bought it that they'd done that," said Mr Biden.

"No, no, stop. Since then I've worked to end the use of private prisons in my own state, and we've ended it," Mr Steyer said.

"I have worked tirelessly on this, and you know I'm right.

"That is an absolute unfair statement."

'Oh come on': Debate blows up

The discussion turned to racism in the criminal justice system as Mike Bloomberg defended his "Stop-and-Frisk" policy in New York, which resulted in African Americans being disproportionately targeted by police.

"There's seven white people on this stage talking about racial justice," Pete Buttigieg pointed out.

"None of us have the lived experience of walking down the street and feeling eyes on us, as though we're dangerous, just because of the colour of our skin.

"Not having that experience, the next best thing we can do is actually listen to those who do."

Mr Bloomberg acknowledged the reality of racism.

"I know that if I were black, then my success would have been harder to achieve," he said.

"That's just a fact and we've got to do something about it."

The moderators then turned to Elizabeth Warren, who took the chance to reprise her attacks on Mr Bloomberg from a week ago.

She accused him of donating significant sums of money to elect Republicans over Democrats.

"Who funded Lindsey Graham's campaign for re-election last time? It was Mayor Bloomberg," Ms Warren said.

"In 2016, he dumped $12 million to help re-elect an anti-choice, right-wing Republican challenger.

"In 2012, he scooped in to try to defend another Republican challenger against a woman senator. That was me. It didn't work, but he tried hard.

"The core of the Democratic Party will never trust him. He has not earned their trust, I will."

"I have been training for this job since I stepped on the pile that was still smouldering on 9/11," Mr Bloomberg responded.

"I know what to do. I've shown I know how to run a country – I've run a city that is larger than some countries."

Ms Warren hit back again, alleging Mr Bloomberg had told a pregnant female employee to get an abortion.

"Kill it," she accused him of saying.

"I never said that. Oh, come on," Mr Bloomberg said.

"I'm sorry if she heard what she thought she heard, or whatever," he said of the employee.

"I never said it."

Everyone gangs up on Bernie

Bernie Sanders got the first question of the debate. The moderators pointed out that the American unemployment rate was at a historically low level.

"The economy is doing really great for people like Mr Bloomberg, and other billionaires," Mr Sanders replied.

"For the ordinary American, things are not so good. Last year, real wages increases for the average worker were less than 1 per cent. Half of our people are living pay cheque to pay cheque.

"We're going to create an economy for all, not just the wealthy."

Michael Bloomberg jumped in, bringing up the recent news that Russia is trying to help Mr Sanders win the nomination – and using it to suggest Mr Sanders would lose to Donald Trump.

"That's why Russia is helping you get elected, so you will lose to him," Mr Bloomberg said.

"Hey Mr Putin, if I'm President of the United States, trust me, you won't be interfering in any election," Mr Sanders said.

Elizabeth Warren was next, pitching herself as a more effective progressive than Mr Sanders.

"Bernie and I agree on a lot of things, but I think I would make a better president than Bernie," she said.

"Getting a progressive agenda passed is going to be really hard.

"I dug in, I did the work and then Bernie's team trashed me for it," she added, referring to her time in the Senate.

Pete Buttigieg suggested Mr Sanders would be a divisive candidate in a general election.

""If you think the last four years have been chaotic, divisive, toxic, exhausting, think about what it will be like to spend most of 2020 with Donald Trump versus Bernie Sanders," Mr Buttigieg said.

"Think about what that will be like for this country.

"There is an American majority that wants to see real change … but also there's a majority of the American people who just want to be able to turn on the TV and actually see their blood pressure go down instead of through the roof."

Candidates take the stage

The candidates have taken the stage, and they're all furiously writing some last-minute notes.

I'd like to think they are scrawling: "Don't screw up."

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