TAPPER: Good evening from Washington, D.C. And welcome to this unique event, the CNN-Univision Democratic presidential debate with the two leading candidates for the Democratic nomination, former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

Candidates, welcome, it's good to have you. I'm Jake Tapper, along with CNN's Dana Bash and Univision's Ilia Calderon.

BASH: We come together tonight at an extraordinary time in our country when people are worried about far more than just presidential politics. We're in a national emergency because of the devastating global pandemic of coronavirus. It has killed nearly 6,000 people around the world, and 65 dead and more than 3,300 known cases here in the United States. As a result, tonight's debate will focus heavily on the crisis.

CALDERON: The setting of this debate is also different. To reduce unnecessary risk of transmission of the virus, CNN, Univision, the Democratic National Committee, and the campaigns moved this debate from Phoenix, Arizona, to here at CNN studios in Washington, without any audience.

TAPPER: And all of this comes, of course, as four more states -- Florida, Arizona, Ohio, and Illinois -- prepare to vote on Tuesday, with Vice President Biden currently leading Senator Sanders in the race for delegates.

Here's what we're going to do tonight. Each of you will have 90 seconds to answer questions and 45 seconds for responses and rebuttals. As much as we can, we hope this will be a conversation between the two of you.

So let's begin with the most important issue right now: the coronavirus and what you would do as president in the face of it. Vice President Biden, let me start with you. We're in a reality right now that might have seemed unimaginable a week ago. Schools have been cancelled for more than 25 million students. Grocery store shelves have been cleared out. March Madness, NBA games, Disney parks, Broadway, small businesses all shut down, and just today, the CDC issued a new recommendation that for the next eight weeks events that consist of 50 people or more throughout the U.S. be cancelled or postponed.

What do you say to the American people who are confronting this new reality?

BIDEN: Well, first of all, my heart goes out to those who have already lost someone or those who are suffering from the virus. And this is bigger than any one of us. This calls for a national rallying to everybody move together.

And, you know, I laid out in detail what I would do were I president today. You can go to joebiden.com. I laid it out in significant detail.

But there are three pieces to this. First of all, we have to take care of those who, in fact, are exposed or likely to be exposed to the virus. And that means we have to do testing, we have to get the testing kits up and ready. I would have the World Health Organization, I'd take advantage of the test kits they have available to us, even though the president says a million or more are coming. Let's just get all the tests we can, done, as quickly as we can.

Secondly, I would make sure that every state in the union had at least 10 places where they had drive-thru testing arrangements. I would also at this point deal with the need to begin to plan for the need for additional hospital beds. We have that capacity in the Department of Defense, as well as with the FEMA. And they can set up 100-bed, 500-bed hospitals and tents quickly. We have to lay all that out.

But we have to deal with the economic fallout quickly. And that means making sure that people who, in fact, lose their job, don't get a paycheck, can't pay their mortgage, are able to pay it and pay them now. And do it now. Small businesses, be able to borrow interest- free loans.

I see my time is up here. Are you going to hold us tightly, I assume, but that's what I would do. Go to Joebiden.com. It lays out precisely what I would do were I were president today.

TAPPER: Senator Sanders, this morning, Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledged that it's possible that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans, could die from coronavirus in a worst-case scenario. If you were president right now, what's the most important thing you would do tonight to try to save American lives?

SANDERS: Well, firstly, we have to do -- whether or not I'm president, is to shut this president up right now, because he is undermining the doctors and the scientists who are trying to help the American people. It is unacceptable for him to be blabbering with unfactual information, which is confusing the general public.

Second of all, what we need to do -- and I'm glad that he has called a state of national emergency -- what we have got to do is move aggressively to make sure that every person in this country finally understands that when they get sick with the coronavirus, that they will -- that all payments will be made, that they don't have to worry about coming up with money for testing, they don't have to worry about coming up with money for treatment.

[20:05:00] This is an unprecedented moment in American history. Now, I obviously believe in Medicare for all. I will fight for that as president.

But right now, in this emergency, I want every person in this country to understand that when you get sick, you go to the doctor. When you get sick, if you have the virus, that will be paid for. Do not worry about the cost right now, because we're in the middle of a national emergency.

Second of all, we have to make sure that our hospitals have the ventilators that they need, have the IC units that they need. Right now, we have a lack of medical personnel. And I worry very much that if there is a peak, whether we have the capability of dealing with hundreds of thousands of people who may be in hospitals.

So we need unprecedented action right now to deal with the unprecedented crisis. And bottom line, from an economic point of view, what we have got to say to the American people, if you lose your job, you will be made whole. You're not going to lose income. If Trump can put -- or the Fed can president $1.5 trillion into the banking system, we can protect the wages of every worker in America.

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.

Vice President Biden, President Trump says he does not take any responsibility for the problems with coronavirus testing, in part because, he says, he inherited so many rules, regulations, and red tape. Did bureaucratic red tape hamper this response in any way?

BIDEN: No, look, the World Health Organization offered -- offered the testing kits that they have available and to give it to us now. We refused them. We did not want to buy them. We did not want to get them from them. We wanted to make sure we had our own. I think he said something like we have the best scientists in America, or something to that effect.

The idea that we are not prepared for this and not -- and the other thing I want to point out. And I agree with Bernie. We're in a situation where we have to now be providing for the hospitals that are going to be needed, needed now. The present system cannot handle the surge that is likely to come.

So we should already be sitting down and planning where we're going to put these temporary hospitals. And we can do that. We did that -- we've been through this before with the coronavirus. We've been through this -- I mean, excuse me, we've been through this before with dealing with the viruses that -- the H1N1 -- as well as what happened in Africa. We provided these hospitals dealing with these great pandemics, and we were able to do it quickly. And people would have a place to go. But we also have to provide the equipment to protect the first responders. And that's not being done, either.

TAPPER: Senator Sanders, on that note -- and both of you have addressed this -- but, obviously, another major health concern right now for officials is the potential surge in patients all at once, overburdening hospitals, the health care system. You've mentioned ICU beds, both of you, and ventilators.

We're already in the middle of flu season, so already a lot of those beds and ventilators are already being used. If you were president right now, what would you do to make sure every sick American is able to get treatment so the U.S. does not suffer the same fate as Italy, where doctors have to decide right now who gets life-saving treatment and who does not?

SANDERS: Jake, let's be honest and understand that this coronavirus pandemic exposes the incredible weakness and dysfunctionality of our current health care system. Now, we're spending twice as much per person on health care as the people of any other country. How in God's name does it happen that we end up with 87 million people who are uninsured or underinsured and there are people who are watching this program tonight who are saying, "I'm not feeling well. Should I go to the doctor? But I can't afford to go to the doctor. What happens if I am sick? It's going to cost thousands of for treatment. Who's going to feed my kids?"

We are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people. We're spending so much money and yet we are not even prepared for this pandemic. How come we don't have enough doctors? How come hospitals in rural areas are shutting down? How come people can't afford to get the prescription drugs they need because we have a bunch of crooks who are running the pharmaceutical industry, ripping us off every single day?

And I'll tell you something right now. In the midst of this epidemic, you got people in the pharmaceutical industry who are saying, oh, wow, what an opportunity to make a fortune.

So the word has got to go out, and I certainly would do this as president: You don't worry. People of America, do not worry about the cost of prescription drugs. Do not worry about the cost of the health care that you're going to get, because we are a nation -- a civilized democratic society. Everybody, rich and poor, middle class, will get the care they need. The drug companies will not rip us off.

BASH: Thank you, Senator. Vice President Biden, some medical experts are saying the only true way to control this virus is through a national quarantine, requiring every American, other than essential personnel, to stay home. Would you take that unprecedented step of a national lockdown?

BIDEN: What I would do is what we did in our administration.

[20:10:00]

I would call a meeting in the Situation Room of all the experts in America dealing with this crisis. I would sit them down and I would do exactly what we did then. What is it that we need? Listen to the experts. What do we need?

And with all due respect for Medicare for all, you have a single-payer system in Italy. It doesn't work there. It has nothing to do with Medicare for all. That would not solve the problem at all. We can take care of that right now by making sure that no one has to

pay for treatment, period, because of the crisis. No one has to pay for whatever drugs are needed, period, because of the crisis. No one has to pay for hospitalization because of the crisis, period. That is a national emergency, and that's how it's handled. It is not working in Italy right now, and they have a single-payer system.

SANDERS: Well...

BIDEN: Now, with regard to what else I would do, the fact is that we're in a position where I would bring together the leading experts in the world. Instead of doing this -- in the United States -- instead of doing this piecemeal, sit down and do what we did before with the Ebola crisis, what is needed and have one voice, one voice, like we did every day we met in that crisis in the Situation Room, laying out -- so we lay out overall, for all nation, what the best proposal is and how to move forward.

In the absence of that, governors are making some sound decisions. They're doing the best they can by going out and getting the health care experts is their communities and their states to move. But it should be directed from the White House, from the Situation Room, laying out in detail like we did in the Ebola crisis. And we beat it.

BASH: Thank you. Thank you. Senator Sanders, your response?

SANDERS: Well, first of all, the dysfunctionality of the current health care system is obviously apparent. As I said earlier, there are people who hesitate going to the doctor. You're going to have a maze of regulations -- well, if this is my income, if that's my income, can I get it, can I not get it? Clearly, we are not prepared. And Trump only exacerbates the crisis.

When we spend twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation, one might expect that we would have enough doctors all over this country. One might expect that we would have affordable prescription drugs. One might expect that we are preparing effectively for a pandemic that we were ready with the ventilators, with the ICUs, with the test kits that we need. We are not.

And bottom line here is, in terms of Medicare for all, despite what the vice president is saying, what the experts tell us is that one of the reasons that we are unprepared and have been unprepared is we don't have a system. We've got thousands of private insurance plans. That is not a system that is prepared to provide health care to all people.

In a good year, without the epidemic, we're losing up to 60,000 people who die every year because they don't get to a doctor on time. It's clearly this crisis is only making a bad situation worse.

BIDEN: That has nothing to do when you're in a national crisis. The national crisis says, we're responding. It's all free. You don't have to pay for a thing. That has nothing to do with whether or not you have an insurance policy. This is a crisis. We're at war with the virus. We're at war with the virus. It has nothing to do with co-pays or anything. We just pass a law saying that you do not have to pay for any of this, period.

SANDERS: That's not true.

BIDEN: Period.

SANDERS: As a matter of fact, that's not true. That law has enormous loopholes. I understand that Nancy Pelosi did her best, Republicans prevented it.

BIDEN: No, I'm...

SANDERS: What -- what you're talking about, Joe, here is enormous loopholes within that, that, in fact, it is not necessarily covering treatment for all people in America, and that people are going to be stuck with the bill unless we change that. And we're going to offer legislation to, in fact, change that.

BIDEN: If I may, I offered legislation. I laid out on my plan that it would cover exactly what is not covered by the House. I laid out in the plan that I laid out for how we would deal with this crisis. Nobody -- nobody will pay for anything having to do with the crisis.

This is a national emergency. There isn't a question of whether or not this is something that could be covered by insurance or anything else. We, out of the Treasury, are going to pay for this. It's a national emergency.

SANDERS: But you see...

BIDEN: That's what my plan calls for.

SANDERS: But the weakness of this -- let's just do a hypothetical. Family member's diagnosed with the virus. Terrible tragedy, massive anxiety. The wife has the virus, the husband is a wreck, wants to go to a psychologist, wants to get counseling, doesn't have the money to do that.

Maybe their kid breaks a leg. They don't have the money to go to health care. So you're saying right now, in the middle of a crisis, but, you know what, last year at least 30,000 people died in America because they didn't get health care when they should, because we don't have universal coverage.

I think that's a crisis. One out of five people in America cannot afford the prescription drugs they need. They suffer. Some die. I consider that a crisis.

[20:15:00]

Bottom line is, we need a simple system, which exists in Canada, exists in countries all over the world, and that is, if you are an American, you get the health care you need, end of discussion. We can save huge sums of money doing that. The trick is, do we have the guts to take on the health care industry, some of which is funding the vice president's campaign? Do we have the courage to take on the executives at the prescription drug industry, some of which -- some of whom are funding his campaign?

BASH: Thank you, Senator.

Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: Look, I -- this is a national crisis. I don't want to get this into a back and forth in terms of our politics here. I've laid out a plan, building on Obamacare, providing a public option of Medicare, it would cover everyone the same way. This idea that this is his only answer is a mistake in notion.

But regardless of whether my plan was in place or his, this is a crisis. This is like we are being attacked from abroad. This is something that is of great consequence. This is like a war. And in a war, you do whatever is needed to be done to take care of your people.

And what you do is you -- and I have proposed it, laid it out in detail -- everything that you need in terms of dealing with this crisis would be free. It is paid for by the taxpayers generally. Generally. It has nothing to do with Bernie's Medicare for all.

And by the way...

BASH: Vice President Biden, thank you.

SANDERS: Let me just...

BASH: If I may, the vice president just mentioned war. Would you deploy the U.S. military in an effort to contain the virus? And if so, how?

SANDERS: Well, I think we use all of the tools that make sense. And if using the National Guard, which is folks I think in New York state are already using the National Guard, that is something that has to be done.

This is clearly, as the vice president indicated, a national emergency. And what I worry about is not only how we respond aggressively to the virus, but also how we respond aggressively to the economic fallout of a global recession.

So right now, in Illinois and Ohio, if my memory is correct, the governor there has said they're closing down bars, they're closing down restaurants. What happens to the workers who are there? What happens to the millions of workers who may end up losing their jobs?

So what I think we have got to do right now is, if Trump can provide or the Fed can provide a trillion and a half to -- for liquidity for the banks, what we've got to say to every worker in America, you know what, don't panic. You're not going to -- you'll be able to pay your mortgage, because you're going to get a check.

BASH: Senator...

SANDERS: You're going to be made whole.

BASH: Senator, we're going to talk about the economic -- oh, go ahead, Mr. Vice President.

BIDEN: The answer is I would call out the military.

BASH: OK.

BIDEN: Now. They have the capacity to provide this surge, help that hospitals need, and that is needed across the nation. I would make sure that they did exactly what they're prepared to do. They've done it. They did it in the Ebola crisis. They've done it. They have the capacity to build 500-bed hospitals and -- and tents that are completely safe and secure, and provide the help to get it done to anybody -- this overflow. So it is a national emergency. I would call out the military.

SANDERS: Well, the Ebola crisis is one thing. This is, obviously, a pandemic, which is far more severe and impactful to this country. And I think one of the things that we want to remember here is that we got a lot of elderly people in this country who are told stay home, don't leave your house. Who's going to get food to them? How do we get food to them?

You got schools all over this country now being shut down. OK? How are we going to make sure that the kids do well in this crisis, not become traumatized? What do we do about the parents now who have to stay home with kids and can't go to work?

So I think what -- bottom line here is that, in this crisis, we have got to start paying attention to the most vulnerable. That includes people who are in prison right now, people who are in homeless shelters right now. What about the half-a-million people who are homeless tonight? Who's going to respond to them?

Now, in 2008, when we had the Wall Street bailout, they did very well for the people on top. They bailed out the crooks on Wall Street. They forgot about the suffering of ordinary Americans. This time around, let us learn that lesson. Let us pay attention to the working families of this country...

BASH: Thank you, Senator.

SANDERS: ... and to the most vulnerable.

BIDEN: We have -- we have learned that lesson. And again, I lay out in detail what we should be doing now is we should be surging help to those places which are the most vulnerable. We should have every single person that's in a nursing home being able to be tested. We should be moving forces in to do that. We should move in the capability to do that.

We should be sitting down -- the president should be sitting down in the Situation Room right now and do what we did before and asking the question, OK, you're going to close everything. Well, if you close everything, how do you get prescriptions that have to be filled?

[20:20:00] How do you make sure, when you close that school, those children are going to be able to get the school food program? How do you make sure that you're going to be able to see to it that you get your mortgage paid?

I propose that all of the be covered, and it's going to take a multi- multi-billion dollar program to do that.

But first things first, the first thing is take care of the immediate needs we have now relating to surging the kind of capability that we have to prevent this great bump in terms of this -- how it's going to cause such pain as well as moving in the direction of making sure we have a long-term plan to make sure it's...

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. We're going to talk in a moment a lot more about the economic impact.

But first, Senator Sanders, I want to ask about China. When this outbreak first started in China, the government there censored the whistleblower doctor who sounded the alarm and downplayed the true gravity of the the virus.

SANDERS: Right.

BASH: What consequences should China face for its role in this global crisis?

SANDERS: Well, one of the consequences is we have got to learn that you cannot lie to the American people. You cannot be less than frank about the a nature of the crisis. And what bothers me very much is you have a president of the United States today, Mr. Trump, who is praising China for the good work that they are doing when, in fact, as you indicated, they were lying to their own people and allowing that virus to move much more aggressively than should have been the case.

Look, I don't think this is the time for recrimination, to be punishing people. Now is the time, by the way, to be working with China. They are learning a lot about this crisis. And, in fact, they -- you know, we have got to work with them. We have got to work with the World Health Organization. We have got to work with Italy. We have got to work with countries around the world.

If there was ever a moment when the entire world is in this together, got to support each other, this is that moment.

BIDEN: That's right. And if I may respond, that's why I insisted the moment this broke out that we should insist on having our experts in China, in China to see what was happening and make it clear to China there would be consequences if we did not have that access.

And we have to lead the world. We should be the ones doing what we did during the Ebola crisis, bringing the whole world together and saying, this is what we must do. We have to have a common plan. All nations are affected the same way by this virus depending on exposure. And so this is -- we need world leadership. We need international

leadership. We need someone who knows how to bring the world together and insist on fundamental change in the way in which we're approaching this.

CALDERON: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: Well, the bottom line here is that in the midst of this crisis, we have got to act in an unprecedented way. And that means every country on Earth is going to be affected. Every country on Earth has got to work together. It also means that we tell the pharmaceutical industry, we tell the big money interests that this is not a time for profiteering. This is a time for all of us working together.

The World Health Organization is a very, very strong organization. It is sad that we have a president that has ignored the international community in so many ways, including in terms of international health crises.

CALDERON: Thank you, Senator Sanders.

Obviously, another part of this story is the economy, which is reeling from this pandemic. Many economies are warning of a recession. Just hours ago the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to near zero percent, which has not happened since the financial crisis in 2008.

Vice President Biden, what would you do?

BIDEN: What I would do is make it clear to the world and make it clear to the United States that we are going to have to have a major, major, major, major bailout package that we do not reward corporations. We reward individuals who in fact are really put to the test here.

The problem is the policies of this administration economically have -- we've eaten a lot of our seed corn here. The ability for us to use levers that were available before have been used up by this godawful tax cut of $1.9 trillion, by the fact that we have used -- the Fed will be of little consequence now. They have already used what leverage they have.

And so we're going to have to just level with the American people. And here's the deal, we're going to have to not only deal with the immediate crisis, economic crisis, which is the most critical now, to let people know their mortgage is going to be paid. Their rents are going to be paid. They are going to have child care. They are going to make sure that all their medical bills are cared for relating to this, et cetera.

We have to go beyond that. And we're going to have be in a situation where we're meeting on a daily basis like we did in the middle of the financial crisis to decide how we are going to find the wherewithal and the money to be able to see to it we hold all these folks harmless.

[20:25:00]

But not, not do what Trump wants to do. He's -- for example, he came along and said, I've got a great idea, let's -- well, you're going to tell me...

CALDERON: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: The Ebola crisis, in my view, exposes the dysfunctionality of the health care system and how poorly prepared we are despite how much money that we spend. And the Ebola crisis is also, I think, exposing the cruelty and the unjustness of our economy today.

We have more income and wealth inequality in America today than any time in 100 years. And what that means that in the midst of this crisis, you know, if you're a multimillionaire, no one is happy about this crisis, you're going to get through it. You're going to get everything you need. You're not worried about health care. You're not worried about income coming in.

Half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. We've got people who are struggling working two or three jobs to put food on the table. What is going to happen to them? So the lesson to be learned is we have got to move aggressively right now to address the economic crisis as a result of Ebola -- as a result -- keep talking about Ebola, you've got Ebola in my head here right now.

As a result of the virus here, the coronavirus, what we have got to do also is understand the fragility of the economy and how unjust and unfair it is that so few have so much and so many have so little.

BIDEN: People are looking for results, not a revolution. They want to deal with the results they need right now. And we can to that by making sure that we make everybody whole who has been so badly hurt. In terms of their -- they lose the job, in terms of not having the ability to care for their children, in terms of the health care costs that they have relating to the crisis, we can make them whole now, now, and put in process a system whereby they all are made whole.

That has nothing to do with the legitimate concern about income inequality in America. That's real. That's real. But that does not affect the need for us to act swiftly and very thoroughly and in concert with all of the forces that we need to bring to bear to deal with the crisis now so no one is thrown out of their home. No one loses their mortgage. No one is kicked out of their house. No one loses their paycheck. No one is in a position where they have a significant financial disability as a consequence of this SARS (ph) -- of this particular crisis.

CALDERON: Thank you, Vice President.

Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: Well, I think it goes without saying that as a nation we have to respond as forcefully as we can to the current crisis. But it is not good enough not to be understanding how we got here and where we want to go into the future. So how does it happen that today in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, half of our people are scared to death?

Good, I agree. In fact, that was my idea originally to make sure that every person in this country is made whole as a result of this crisis. But, God willing, this crisis is going to end. And we're going to have to develop an economy in which half of our people are not living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to put food on the table.

BIDEN: I don't disagree with that. Let's -- you were asking about the crisis. What are we going to do about the crisis now, which is incredibly consequential to millions and millions of Americans? And it's not going to be solved by a change in tax policy now. It's not going to be solved by a change in how we deal with health care.

It has got to be solved with an emergency need right now. Right now, what do we do? First thing we do is we make sure that health care is available by us having the tools to be able to deal with it. And that requires us to go out and do much more than this president has done in terms of planning.

Secondly, it requires us to be in a position where we're anticipating what will happen in the next month or weeks in terms of the flow into the health care system by bringing the military along, more hospital beds, more training, more equipment, more equipment to save the first responders as well.

In addition to that, we then have to also look at what are the immediate needs right today. How about that person who has been laid off today? How about that person who doesn't have an income today? They have to know that tomorrow that when the paycheck comes due, you will get that paycheck.

And thirdly, we have to think long-term about how we deal with making all those who have been badly damaged right again. And then we move on. Then we move on to change the economy in ways that are more profoundly necessary than people think, but do not respond to the immediate needs we have now. First things first.

CALDERON: Thank you, Vice President.

Senator Sanders, you voted against bailouts following the 2008 financial crisis.

SANDERS: Yes.

[20:30:00]

CALDERON: Many believe those spending bills were a crucial part of stabilizing the economy back then. Would you support bailouts for industries that are being crushed by the coronavirus outbreak now?

SANDERS: I did, you're quite right. I voted against the bailout because I believed that the illegal behavior being done by the people on Wall Street should not be rewarded by a bailout. And today, by the way, those banks are more prosperous and own more assets, by and large, than they did back then. They are bigger now than they were then. I thought at the time that in the midst of massive income and wealth

inequality the people on top, through a surtax on the very wealthy, should bail out. And it's not just the TARP bailout. We gave trillions of dollars in zero interest loans to large banks.

But to answer your question where we are right now, we need to stabilize the economy, but we can't repeat what we did in 2008. Joe voted for that. I voted against it. Because we have got to do more than save the banks or the oil companies. Our job right now is to tell every working person in this country, no matter what your income is, you are not going to suffer as a result of this crisis of which you had no control.

CALDERON: Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: Had those banks all gone under, all those people Bernie says he cares about would be in deep trouble. Deep, deep trouble. All those little folks, we would have gone out of business. They would find themselves in position where they would lose everything they had in that bank, whether it was $10 or $300 or a savings account.

This was about saving an economy. And it did save the economy. And the banks paid back. And they paid back with interest. I agree with Bernie. Someone should have gone to jail. That was the big disagreement I had in terms of bailing out. But the question was, they paid back.

In addition to that, it also -- part of that was bailing out the automobile industry. Saving thousands of jobs. Tens of thousands of jobs over time. He voted against that as well.

SANDERS: No. I did not vote against that. That bailout money was used later on by Bush to protect the automobile industry.

But here's the point.

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: One minute, one minute. Here's the point here, is that in terms of that bailout, there are ways that you can bail out. When you have a handful of people who have incredible wealth who have prospered off of the illegal behavior of individuals, in this case on Wall Street, you know what you say to them? And I did. I said this to the secretary of treasury. You want a bailout? That's fine. Have your friends pay for it, not working people.

The other point is, Joe should know, it wasn't just the $700 billion TARP program. The Fed gave trillions and trillions of dollars in zero interest loans to every financial institution in this country and central banks all over the world. That was essentially a grant. Because they then could sell that -- they could then bring in interest rates much greater than the zero interest loans that they got.

CALDERON: Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: Look, the fact of the matter is that if, in fact, the banks had all been -- gone under, we would be in a great depression. We would have not -- how do you get out of that? Now Bernie is saying that I guess he's going to do a wealth tax or something, that the top 1 percent could pay for everything. And they should pay for everything that occurred.

We were talking about tens and hundreds of billions of dollars. That's what this was about. And the fact was that it saved the economy from going into a depression. After we passed the Recovery Act, which I was the one that went out and got the three votes to get it changed, that had $900 billion in it and was the thing that kept us from going into a great depression.

CALDERON: Vice President Biden, I'm going to stay with you. Many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants and now even many legal immigrants in the United States are afraid to seek medical help. How do you ensure they feel safe enough to get treatment to help stop the spread of coronavirus?

BIDEN: Anyone who shows up to be tested for coronavirus or gets coronavirus and is treated would be held harmless. Just like I have argued all along. Any woman who crosses the border or is here and being beaten by her husband but she's undocumented, she cannot be deported because she reports.

There are certain things you cannot deport an undocumented alien for -- an undocumented person for. And that would be one of them. We want them -- it's in the interest of everyone. And those folks who are the xenophobic folks out there, it's even in their interest that that woman come forward or that man come forward because it deals with keeping the spread from moving more rapidly.

They will not, should not under any circumstances be held accountable and be deported for that purpose, period.

[20:35:00]

SANDERS: I have been criticized because the proposal for Medicare for All that I introduced includes making sure that undocumented people are also covered.

And right now, we have the absurd situation where undocumented people who try to do the right thing -- they're sick; they want to go to the doctor; they don't want to spread this disease -- are now standing and thinking about when ICE is going to deport them.

So one of the things that we have to do is to make sure that everybody feels comfortable getting the health care that they need. That should be a general principle, above and beyond the coronavirus.

Second of all, we've got to end these terrible ICE raids, which are terrorizing communities all over this country.

And thirdly, to answer your question, the time is long overdue for this country to move to comprehensive immigration reform and a path towards citizenship for those 11 million undocumented. And furthermore, on day one as president, I would restore the legal status of the 1.8 million...

BASH: Senator -- Senator thank you...

SANDERS: young people of DACA.

BASH: We're going to talk about immigration in a minute. But first I want to ask about something that's going on right now, again, back to this crisis.

We know that people over the age of 60 and those with underlying medical conditions, especially heart disease, lung disease and diabetes, are the most vulnerable to coronavirus and are being asked to change their behavior to protect themselves.

So Senator Sanders, I'll start with you. You're 78 years old. You had a heart attack. What are you doing to protect yourself?

SANDERS: Well, a great deal. I mean, last night we had a -- a fireside chat, not a rally. I love doing rallies and we bring many thousands of people out to our rallies. I enjoy it very much. We're not doing that right now. In fact, our entire staff is working from home.

So on a personal level, what we're doing is I'm not shaking hands. Joe and I did not shake hands.

(LAUGHTER)

And I am very careful about the people I am interacting with. I'm using a lot of soap and hand sanitizers to make sure that I do not get the infection. And I have to say, you know, thank God, right now, I do not have any symptoms and I feel very grateful for that.

BASH: Vice President Biden, you're 77. What are you doing to protect yourself?

BIDEN: Well, fortunately, I don't have any of the underlying conditions you talked about that I have to worry about, number one.

Number two, thank God, for the time being -- anything can happen, as my mother would say, knock on wood, that I'm in good health.

Number three, I'm taking all the precautions anyone would take, whether they are 30 years old or 60 years old or 80 years old. And that is I'm going to make sure that I do not -- I do not shake hands any longer; I do not engage -- we did the same thing. Our staff is all working from home. We are not doing rallies any longer. We're doing virtual rallies. We're doing virtual town hall meetings.

We're in a situation where now I do not -- as I said, when we encounter people, we're not going into crowds. And so I'm taking all the precautions everyone else should be taking. I wash my hands God knows how many times a day with hot water and soap. I carry with me -- as a matter of fact, I have it in my bag outside here -- hand sanitizer. I don't know how many times a day I use that. I make sure I don't touch my face, and so on. So I'm taking all the precautions we're told for everybody else to take.

TAPPER: Let's turn to the race more broadly now. Throughout this campaign, you have each laid out starkly different visions for how to bring about change.

Vice President Biden, Senator Sanders is calling for a political revolution. You said people want results, not a revolution. Make the case for why a revolution is not what the country needs or wants.

BIDEN: We have problems we have to solve now -- now. What's a revolution going to do, disrupt everything in the meantime?

Look, Bernie talks about -- excuse me -- the senator talks about his Medicare For All. He still hasn't told you how he's going to ever get it passed. He hasn't told you how in fact there's any possibility of that happening. He hasn't told you how much it's going to cost. He hasn't told you how it's going to apply. It doesn't kick in for four years even after it passes.

We want a revolution, let's act now. Pass the Biden health care plan, which takes Obamacare, restores all the cuts made to it, subsidizes it further, provides for lower drug prices, makes sure that there's no hidden bills, makes sure that we invest -- what I want to invest, $50 billion in dealing with underlying diseases that are of great consequence, diabetes, Alzheimer's and cancer. Make sure that we have a Medicare option that's in a -- a public option providing Medicare for us.

We can do that now. I can get that passed. I can get that done, if I'm president of the United States of America. That will be a fundamental change, and it happens now.

I can tell you from experience, being a significant consumer of health care, with my sons, my family, all the things we've gone through, what people want is hope, and they need it now, not four years from now. And Bernie still hasn't cost -- told us how he's going to pay for it. We're talking about a...

SANDERS: Not quite true.

BIDEN: ... 30-plus trillion dollar plan.

SANDERS: Not quite true.

TAPPER: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: Look, let's do something that is very rarely done in the Congress.

[20:40:00]

BIDEN: OK.

SANDERS: Let's do something that the media doesn't do. Let's talk about the reality of American life. Why is it that, over the last 45 years, despite the huge increase in productivity and technology, the average worker today is not making a nickel more in real dollars?

Why is it that, over the last 30 years, the richest 1 percent have seen a $21 trillion increase in their wealth; the bottom half of America, a $900 billion decline in their wealth?

Why is that we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people as a human right?

Why are we the only major country not to have paid medical and family leave?

Why do we give tax breaks to billionaires when half a million people are homeless today?

And it comes down to something, Jake, we don't talk about, the power structure in America. Who has the power?

And I'll tell you who has the power. It's the people who contribute money, the billionaires who contribute money to political campaigns, who control the legislative agenda. Those people have the power.

And if you want to make real changes in this country; if you want to create an economy that works for all, not just the few; if you want to guarantee quality health care to all, not make $100 billion in profit for the health care industry, you know what you need?

You need to take on Wall Street; you need to take on the drug companies and the insurance companies and the fossil fuel industry. You don't take campaign contributions from them. You take them on and create an economy that works for all.

BIDEN: You want to do that, do what I proposed over 30 years ago. Federally fund all elections, no private contributions in the election process. If you want to do that, join me. Join me and my constitutional amendment that I've been proposing. Maybe you and I can work on that together. Because that would fundamentally change it.

And the complication is I'm getting these -- I've not accepted a contribution from anybody over $2,800, number one. My average contribution is $44. Just this month I've raised $33 million, average contribution, $51. The idea that this is -- Bernie's implication is somehow I'm being funded by millionaires.

Bernie, look, in the last -- in Super Tuesday and before that, Bernie outspent me two, three, four, five, six to one. And I still won. I didn't have any money. And I still won.

TAPPER: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: It's good that you had an idea 30 years ago. I don't want to join you. Why don't you join me?

Why don't you get rid of the SuperPAC that you have right now -- which is running very ugly negative ads about me, by the way...

(LAUGHTER)

SANDERS: Don't laugh, Joe. That's just the truth.

(LAUGHTER)

And they've got two other SuperPACs runnings ads against us.

Why don't you just say, right now -- go on television and say, "Hey, you know what" -- I think, in the past, Joe, if I'm not mistaken, you condemned SuperPACs. Is that correct?

BIDEN: You get rid of the nine Super PACs you have?

SANDERS: I don't -- nine...

(LAUGHTER)

I don't have any SuperPACs.

BIDEN: You have nine. Do you want me to list them?

SANDERS: No -- yeah. You go ahead and list them.

BIDEN: OK. Come on. Give me a break. Come on.

SANDERS: No, I won't give you a break on this one, Joe. You condemn SuperPACs. You've got a SuperPAC is running negative -- but here's the point. This is the point. In the richest country in the history of the world, half of our people should not be struggling to put food on the table.

And the reason for that is you have a political structure in which big money interests not only dominate the political system but dominate our economy as well. Somebody makes a decision we're going to shut down a factory in America; we're going to move to China; we're going to move to Mexico, pay people starvation wages there.

This is an issue that has got to be ultimately deal with. Who has the power in America? Are we content with so few exercising so much power when so many people have given up on the political process?

BIDEN: I proposed a significant change in the tax code and I've been proposing it for a long, long time, number one.

Number two, it's not just about taxing the super-wealthy. It's about making sure everybody pays their fair share. For example, I can pay for my whole health care plan by changing the way in which we deal with capital gains. People should pay their capital gains based on what their income tax is and not 20 percent.

That would raise $800 billion, pay for my entire medical health care plan, which would cover everyone.

The fact of the matter is, everything I call for, I pay for. And I do not believe, and I have not supported these exorbitant tax cuts for the wealthy. I strongly opposed the -- the tax cut that this president has put through of $1.9 trillion. And I said at the time this was all about trying to eliminate the safety net.

Look, the idea that Bernie implies, the way he says things, speaking of negative ads, my Lord, Bernie, you're running an ad saying I'm opposed to Social Security, that Politifact says is a flat lie, and that The Washington Post said is a flat lie.

SANDERS: Oh, well, let me ask you a question, Joe.

BIDEN: Yeah.

SANDERS: You're right here with me.

BIDEN: Yeah.

SANDERS: Have you been on the floor of the Senate -- you were in the Senate for a few years...

BIDEN: Yep.

[20:45:00]

SANDERS: ... time and time again talking about the necessity -- with pride -- about cutting Social Security, cutting Medicare, cutting veterans' programs.

BIDEN: No.

SANDERS: You never said that?

BIDEN: No.

SANDERS: All right. America, go to the website right now. Go to the YouTube right now. Time after time -- you were not a fan of Bowles- Simpson?

BIDEN: I was not a fan of Bowles...

SANDERS: You were not a fan of the Balanced Budget Amendment, which called for cuts in Social Security?

Come on, Joe, you were.

BIDEN: Look, here's the deal.

SANDERS: You're an honest guy. Why don't you just tell the truth here? We all make mistakes.

BIDEN: No, I am telling the truth. You said that I in fact -- why am I rated 96 percent by the Social Security organizations?

Why am I viewed as a strong supporter...

SANDERS: All that I said...

BIDEN: I have laid out how I will increase Social Security.

SANDERS: Well, that's good. I laid that out...

BIDEN: I have laid out how I'm going to make sure...

SANDERS: OK, let me...

BIDEN: ... that it is in fact paid for.

SANDERS: Jake...

BIDEN: Go to joebiden.com, look at my exchange with Paul Ryan on his desire to try to privatize and/or cut Social Security...

SANDERS: OK.

BIDEN: ... and understand how he manipulated an ad.

SANDERS: No -- all right. Let me repeat it again. I want you just to be straight with the American people. I am saying that you have been on the floor of the Senate, time and time again, talking about the need to cut Social Security, Medicare and veterans' programs. Is that true or is that not true?

BIDEN: No, it's not true.

SANDERS: That is not true?

BIDEN: That is not true.

What is true is, in terms of the negotiations that are taking place, how to deal with the deficit, everything was on the table. I did not support any of those cuts, in Social Security or in veterans' benefits...

SANDERS: Whoa -- whoa -- you -- everything was on the table. All right. You're right. You just said it -- including, in your judgment, cuts to Social Security and veterans...

BIDEN: In order to get the kinds of changes we need on other things related...

SANDERS: Joe, then you just...

BIDEN: But we didn't -- but we did not cut it. I did not vote for it.

SANDERS: I know, because people like me helped stop that.

BIDEN: Oh, come on, Bernie.

SANDERS: But, Joe, you just contradicted yourself.

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: Joe, you just contradicted yourself. One minute...

(CROSSTALK) BIDEN: Excuse me. One minute you said "I was not on the floor." The next minute you say, "Well, yes, there was a reason why I was worried about the deficit."

Maybe that's good reason, maybe it's not. All that I am saying is you were prepared to cut and advocated for the cuts of programs...

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: So let me...

BIDEN: I did not. I never voted to cut Social Security.

SANDERS: I'm not talking about voting, Joe. That's not what I said.

BIDEN: I never voted -- well, look, I voted to protect it. I was -- just go look at the debate with Paul Ryan for the vice presidency. Look at what I did.

And, Bernie, will you acknowledge your campaign took out of context that whole exchange between Paul Ryan. Are you saying Politifact is wrong? Are you saying...

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: Well, believe me, The Washington Post, Politifact is wrong a whole lot of times. But...

BIDEN: Are they wrong on that, Bernie? Are they wrong on that, Bernie?

SANDERS: Joe...

BIDEN: Bernie, did you...

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: Did -- Joe, wait a minute. I'll answer your question. You answer mine.

BIDEN: I answered yours.

SANDERS: No, you didn't.

BIDEN: All right.

SANDERS: One more time. Were you on the floor, time and time again, for whatever reason, talking about the need to cut Social Security and Medicare and veterans' programs?

BIDEN: No, I did not talk about the need to cut any of those programs.

SANDERS: OK. All that I would say to the American people, go to YouTube. It's all over the place. Joe said it many, many times. And I'm surprised -- you know, you can defend or change your mind on it, but you can't deny the reality.

BASH: So, Senator, because you brought up Social Security and you have been talking about it, I want to ask you about something that you wrote in 1996. You were a member of the House and you wrote an op-ed that said, quote, "It is clear we will have to make incremental adjustments in Social Security taxes and benefits."

SANDERS: Yeah.

BASH: Why are your past comments any less relevant than the vice president's?

SANDERS: Incremental adjustments. What I advocated -- adjustments that I advocated and have advocated for years is among other things increasing the cost of living assistance.

No, you're not going to find me ever calling for cuts to Social Security. Right now, for example, we determined (inaudible) looking at inflation for the general population rather than segregating the higher costs that seniors are paying for prescription drugs and for health care. That's what I was talking about.

I have -- in fact, when Joe and others were enamored with the so- called Bowles-Simpson, which included cuts to Social Security or raising the retirement age, I formed, along with people like Barbara Boxer, the Defending Social Security Caucus to say, no, when 20 percent of our seniors are trying to get by on $13,000 a year or more, we are not going to cut Social Security.

CALDERON: Vice President Biden, yesterday you endorsed an Elizabeth Warren plan that would undo key parts of the bankruptcy law you helped pass in 2005. A few hours ago, you announced support for making public college tuition-free for families who make less than $125,000 a year, something Senator Sanders has supported. What changed?

BIDEN: Two things. Number one, let's talk about the bankruptcy bill.

[20:50:00]

The bankruptcy bill was passing overwhelmingly, and I improved it. I had a choice, it was going to pass, Republican president, Republican Congress, and I offered two amendments to make sure that people under $50,000 would not be affected and women and children would go to the front of the line on alimony and support payments. That's what I did. It passed overwhelmingly. I did not like the rest of the bill, but I improved it, number one.

Number two, I've talked with Senator Warren about her proposal. This is the first opportunity we've had to make substantial change in what we couldn't get done in a Republican administration. That's why we talked last -- two nights ago, and I supported her proposal. And it's a good proposal, it's a solid proposal. And she should get credit for having introduced it.

With regard to what we're talking about in terms of college education, I've been saying for a long time that we're in a position where 12 years of education is not enough, is not enough for the 21st century. We need 16 years of education. The exact bill that the -- that Senator Sanders introduced of -- I guess a little over a year ago, capping it off at $125,000 in income, you could get free up to that point, after that, you'd have to pay for your college education, it'd only work for public schools and it would work for public universities in your state. I support that idea.

It was a good idea. And I support it. And so that's -- that's what it is. And I'm not saying everything Bernie said has been wrong. He happens to be right on that one.

CALDERON: Senator Sanders, I assume you welcome these changes?

SANDERS: Look, this is a little bit about leadership, as well. Joe talked about bankruptcy. Joe, if I memory is correct, you helped write that bankruptcy bill.

BIDEN: I did not.

SANDERS: All right.

BIDEN: I did not.

SANDERS: And that bankruptcy bill -- by the way, we talk about education, we've got 45 million people in America struggling with student debt. Some of them really struggling with student debt. And that bankruptcy bill made it impossible or very difficult for people to escape from that student debt. It was a very, very bad bill.

You said, Joe, that a majority of the people in the Senate voted for it. You're right.

BIDEN: Overwhelming majority.

SANDERS: Overwhelmingly. Well, I voted against it in the House and I was right. And I don't have to rethink my position, because that's what leadership is about, having the guts to take an unpopular vote.

But it's not just bankruptcy. The difference between Joe and I on higher education is, four years ago, it was not a popular idea, Joe. Glad you're coming around now. Four years ago, when I said that public colleges and university should be tuition free, people were saying, Bernie, that's a radical idea. Well, you got states and cities and counties all over the country that are moving in that direction.

And I'm glad that Joe is on board. But what leadership is about is going forward when it's not popular, when it's an idea that you get criticized for. So I'm proud of that fact, and I'm proud of my leadership on many issues. Joe, since the campaign, has come around. I talked about raising that minimum wage $15 bucks an hour four years ago, Joe.

BIDEN: So did I. And I went out and campaigned for it.

SANDERS: Fifteen dollars an hour? BIDEN: Fifteen dollars an hour. New York City. Go talk to the governor.

SANDERS: I will talk to the governor.

BIDEN: All right?

SANDERS: I am not aware of that. I am not aware of that.

BIDEN: You should be aware. Look...

SANDERS: Four years ago, it was a radical idea. Very few people in Congress were talking about it.

BIDEN: I wasn't in...

CALDERON: Go ahead, Vice President.

BIDEN: Well, here, look. Let's get something straight about the bankruptcy bill. The bankruptcy bill already -- it did not affect student debt for 90 percent, because the law had already been passed. You could not declare bankruptcy for those loans that were from private institutions. You couldn't do it. And so the bankruptcy bill didn't affect that. It affected 10 percent of the people, the first bankruptcy bill, 10 percent of the student loans, number one.

Number two, now we're in a position where we're able to correct that problem. The fact is if I hadn't stepped up and changed the law as it relates to people making less than $50,000, those for alimony and child support, then, guess what, they would have been in the bucket, too. It was going to pass anyway. I made it -- let me finish. I made it incrementally better. I did not like the bill. I did not support the bill. And I made it clear to the industry I didn't like the bill.

Number two, this bill now calls for the opportunity to fundamentally change the mistakes we couldn't correct in the bill the first time around. And that is why I support Elizabeth Warren's idea. And it's a very good idea.

CALDERON: Senator Sanders, go ahead.

SANDERS: Well, this is kind of circular logic. We're going to reform the bill that I voted for. Well, if you hadn't voted for it, and if you had rallied other people, as I tried to do in the House voting against it, we might not have the problems with it we have today.

You know, what leadership is about, Joe, and it deals with -- you know, whether your opposition -- or your support, I should say, for legislation -

[20:55:00]

for legislation regarding gay communities in the so-called Defense of Marriage Act. You remember that bill, right? You remember the Defense of Marriage Act? BIDEN: I sure do.

SANDERS: It was -- you know, gay marriage today is considered a Little bit differently than it was 25 years ago. I remember that vote. It was a very hard vote. I voted against the Defense of Marriage Act. You voted for it. I voted against the bankruptcy bill. You voted for it. I voted against the war in Iraq, which was also a tough vote. You voted for it.

I voted against disastrous trade agreements like NAFTA and PNTR with China, which cost this country over 4 million good-paying jobs. You voted for it. I voted against the Hyde amendment, which denies low- income women the right to get an abortion. You have consistently voted for it. I don't know what your position is on it today, but you have consistently voted for it.

In other words, all that I'm saying here, we can argue about the merits of the bill.

CALDERON: Vice President Biden...

SANDERS: It takes courage sometimes to go do the right thing.

BIDEN: You can argue about the past or the future. This man voted against the Brady bill five times, background checks, background checks, five times, number one.

Number two, this man is the only -- one of the few Democrats I know who voted to exempt the gun industry from being able to be sued. Talk about a special, special interest. We can sue -- we should be able to sue drug companies. We should be able to sue tobacco companies. We cannot sue the gun manufacturers because he voted for that years ago. He says it was a mistake now. I'm prepared to accept he says it's a mistake. The question is, what do we do from this point on?

And by the way, I might add, I'm the first person to go on national television in any administration and say I supported gay marriage. I supported gay marriage when asked. And I -- so -- and it started a ripple effect. I'm not taking all credit for it, but I'm the first major player to say I support gay marriage on national television.

SANDERS: All that I'm saying here is...

BIDEN: Leadership.

SANDERS: ... we can argue, you know, this or that bill. But what I'm suggesting is that, in this time of crisis, when we're living in a really, really unsettling world, economically, from a health care with the coronavirus, the people of America know my record, OK? For 30 years, I have stood with the working families of this country. I have taken on every special interest there is out there. And that is what I will do in the White House. That's a very different record than Joes.

BIDEN: That is not a different record than mine. SANDERS: That is a totally different record than yours, all right? I mean, it's manifested in this campaign when you're, you know, getting all this money from, you know, wealthy people and billionaires. So I think if -- if you want somebody who will take to the White House what I have done for my whole life...

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator Sanders.

SANDERS: ... and that is take on special interests, I think I'm that candidate.

BIDEN: The average campaign contribution, $44 dollars.

TAPPER: Let's talk about the future, Vice President Biden. If you become the Democratic presidential nominee, how will you appeal to supporters of Senator Sanders when you do disagree on so many issues?

BIDEN: He's making it hard for me right now. I was trying to give him credit for some things. He won't even take the credit for things he wants to do.

Look, I think that -- I want to make it clear. If Bernie is the nominee, I will not only support him, I will campaign for him. And I believe the people who support me will do the same thing, because the existential threat to the United States of America is Donald Trump. It's critical. I would hope that Bernie would do the same thing if I'm the nominee and encourage all of his followers to, in fact, support me, as well, because it's much bigger than either of us.

Character of the nation is on the ballot. It goes well beyond whether or not -- Senator Sanders and I both agree we need Medicare -- health care should be a right, not a privilege. We both agree we have to give -- deal with student debt. We both agree we have to deal with education and access to education. We both agree that we deal -- we have a new green deal to deal with the existential threat that faces humanity.

We disagree on the detail of how we do it. But we don't disagree on the principle. We fundamentally disagree with this president on everything. This is a man who wants to cut Social Security, cut Medicare, not -- not Bernie, the president of the United States.

So this is much bigger than whether or not I'm the nominee or Bernie is the nominee. We must defeat Donald Trump. He is the -- four more years of Donald Trump will fundamentally change the nature of who we are as a nation. We've got to restore this country's soul. That's essential. And as long as this president is there, we're not going to be able to do it.

TAPPER: Senator Sanders, if...

SANDERS: Can I just say a word, then I'll respond to your...

TAPPER: Well, it's just a quick question, which is, if he is the nominee, Vice President Biden, you've already said you would support him. SANDERS: Of course.

TAPPER: But will you campaign for him?

SANDERS: Sure.

TAPPER: Will you urge supporters to support him?

SANDERS: Look, on day one, when I announced my candidacy, what I said is this country

[21:00:00]

cannot deal with a president who is a pathological liar, who is running a corrupt administration and obviously doesn't know the Constitution of the United States, who believes is above the law, who is a racist and a sexist and a homophone. He is the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country.

And what I said on day one, Joe, day one, that obviously I hope to win the nomination, but if I don't win the nomination, I -- and I think every over Democratic candidate -- is prepared to come together to do everything humanly possible to defeat Donald Trump.

But let me respond to something that Joe said. You know, we talk about the Green New Deal and all of these things in general terms, but details make a difference. What I have said throughout this campaign -- and I don't think I've heard you say this, Joe, is that if we're going to -- if we're going to save this planet for our kids and future generations, we need to have the courage to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry and make it clear to them that their short-term profits are not more important than the future of this planet. And we have a very detailed planet -- detailed proposal. Happy to get the endorsement of the Sunrise Movement, the young people...

TAPPER: We're -- we're going to get into the Green New Deal.

SANDERS: OK.

TAPPER: We're going to talk about climate change. We have to squeeze in a quick break. When we come back, the CNN-Univision presidential debate will return. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:07:10]

BASH: Welcome back to the CNN-Univision Democratic presidential debate, live from Washington, D.C. And as we noted, Arizona will vote on Tuesday. We solicited questions from undecided Democratic voters there. One is from Amy Langenfeld, who is a law professor from Chandler, Arizona, with a question for Senator Sanders.

QUESTION: Women are the canaries in the coalmine of the conservative agenda. Our access to health care is at risk from the Federalist Society's remaking of the courts. Our lives are threatened by abusive partners' access to guns. Women are disproportionately affected by bail requirements (ph), Social Security cuts, and cuts to public education. How will your cabinet ensure the best advice on issues that affect women's physical and financial health? Thank you.

SANDERS: My cabinet, my administration will look like America. Last I heard, over half of the people in America are women. And that will be the representation in my cabinet and my administration.

And in terms of policies, unlike Joe, I have consistently believed and have a 100 percent lifetime voting record from groups like NARAL, that it is a woman's right to control her own body, not the government.

I have believed that we have got to move aggressively to deal with domestic violence in this country. I have aggressively -- and I think effectively -- made the case that we cannot have women in America earning 80 cents on the dollar compared to men. And if you're a minority woman, it's 50 or 60 cents on the dollar.

We need to have universal, affordable, high-quality childcare, so women who are single or married can go off to work and know that their kids are going to be well taken care of. So I think if you look at my agenda, which is on berniesanders.com, what you will find, it is a very strong agenda in fighting for the rights of women who today are under incredible political assault by Trump and Republican governors all across this country.

BASH: Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: Am I able to respond to that?

BASH: Please.

BIDEN: Yes, thank you. Number one, I agree with -- with the question of the -- the underlying premise of Amy's question. Number one, I committed that if I'm elected president, have an opportunity to appoint someone to the courts, will be -- I'll appoint the first black woman to the courts. It's required that they have representation now. It's long overdue.

Secondly, if I'm elected president, my -- my cabinet, my administration will look like the country. And I commit that I will, in fact, appoint a -- I'll pick a woman to be vice president. There are a number of women who are qualified to be president tomorrow. I would pick a woman to be my vice president.

Number three, I'm the guy that wrote the domestic violence law. And I'm the guy that put in the prohibitions that no one who abuses someone else should be able to own a gun, period. They should not be able to own a gun. I would get the boyfriend exception amended now. I've gotten it passed that if you are -- got a stay away order from a court, you have a child with someone, that you cannot own a gun. No one should be able to own a gun who has abused a woman, period.

BASH: Mr. Vice President, if I could just follow up, just to be clear, you just committed here tonight that your running mate, if you get the nomination, will be a woman? BIDEN: Yes.

SANDERS: Let me...

BASH: Senator Sanders, will you make that same statement?

SANDERS: May I just respond and ask Joe a question?

BASH: Please.

SANDERS: Right now, a woman's right to control her own body is under massive assault, unpredictable assault.

BIDEN: It is.

SANDERS: Joe, you have in the past on more than one occasion voted for the

[21:10:00]

Hyde amendment, which says that a woman, low-income woman, could not use Medicaid funding for an abortion. Is that still your view? Or have you modified it?

[21:10:00]

BIDEN: It's not my view. And by the way, everybody who has been in the Congress voted for the Hyde Amendment at one point or another because it was locked in other bills.

The reason why I affirmatively came out opposed to the Hyde Amendment was that if we're going to have public funding for all health care along the line, there's no way you could allow for there to be a requirement that you have Hyde Amendment, a woman who doesn't have the money could not have coverage under health care.

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: Well, I'm glad...

BIDEN: Number two -- and I've done that -- I did that a while ago, OK? Number one.

Number two, I would send immediately to the desk of the United States Congress, when I'm elected president -- if I'm elected president, a codification of Roe v. Wade amended by Casey, because I think it is a woman's right to choose. I think it's a woman's opportunity to be able to make that decision. And, in fact, I have gotten 100 percent rating from NARAL as well.

BASH: Senator Sanders, before we move on, I just want to get you to respond.

SANDERS: Excuse me, you have a lifetime 100 percent voting record from NARAL?

BIDEN: I know my record of late from NARAL has been 100 percent. I don't know whether it was 25 years ago.

SANDERS: Well, all right. I mean, I think one of the differences, not to, you know, pick a bone here, is I have been consistent. All right? I have always believed in that. And you have not. I'm glad you have changed your views.

BASH: Senator, just to be clear, the vice president committed to picking a woman as his running mate. If you get the nomination, will you?

SANDERS: In all likelihood, I will. For me, it's not just nominating a woman, it is making sure that we have a progressive woman and there are progressive women out there. So my very strong tendency is to move in that direction.

CALDERON: Let's turn now to immigration. Vice President Biden, you have recently said for the first time that the Obama-Biden administration made a big mistake in deporting millions of immigrants, but you didn't publicly speak out against it at the time. What commitment will you make tonight that as president you won't deport millions again?

BIDEN: Number one, I said that it took much too long to get it right. And the president did get it right by DACA as well as making sure that he tried to protect parents as well, and, by the way, moving on an immigration bill as well. The fact is that we already had a vote on an immigration bill, by the way, and Bernie voted against it, the immigration bill. Had he voted for it and it had passed, we would already have 6 million undocumented would be citizens as I speak right now.

But I will send to the desk immediately a bill that requires the access to citizenship for 11 million undocumented folks, number one. Number two, in the first 100 days of my administration, no one, no one will be deported at all. From that point on, the only deportations that will take place are commissions of felonies in the United States of America.

CALDERON: So to be clear, only felons get deported and everyone else gets to stay?

BIDEN: Period, yes. Yes, and the reason is...

CALDERON: Senator Sanders?

BIDEN: ... it's about uniting families, it's about making sure that we can both be a nation of immigrants as well as a nation that is decent.

SANDERS: Let me respond and I'll answer your question, respond to what Joe's comments about the 2007 immigration bill. That bill was opposed by LULAC, the largest Latino organization in America. The Southern Poverty Law Center called its guest worker programs akin to slavery.

There wasn't really a vote on the bill. It was killed because there was a vote on the Doggett Amendment, I think it was 49-48, and you know who voted with me on that one, Joe? Barack Obama. He understood that that proposal was a bad idea. We don't need slavery in America where workers -- guest workers are forced to stay with their employers.

But in terms of immigration in general, let me outline some of the things that we do. Day one, we restore the legal status of 1.8 million young people and their parents in the DACA program. Number two, immediately, we end these ICE raids which are terrorizing communities all over this country. Three, we change the border policy. Under my administration, no federal agent will ever grab little babies from the arms of their mothers. And, fourth, I think we can pass what the American people want and that is comprehensive immigration reform, a path towards citizenship for the 11 million undocumented.

CALDERON: Senator Sanders, critics suggest positions like this send a message that when a Democrat is in the White House, the border is open. Do they?

SANDERS: No, that's just -- I mean, that's what Trump says. And that is a total lie. What we're talking about is a humane, sensible policy supported by the American people. Nobody is talking about open borders. And, of course, Trump lies a about that.

But the bottom line is right now you have in this country people who have been here for decades.

[21:15:00]

They are working hard. They are raising their kids. They are an important part of our agricultural economy, our construction economy. These are good people. And yet they are living in terror. And we have got to end that terror and end the ICE raids and move toward a path towards citizenship.

BIDEN: Let me set the record straight on something that was said. You know, the idea that it was slavery, Barack Obama supported that bill -- that immigration bill. Teddy Kennedy supported that immigration bill. I supported it. I doubt whether those people think it's slavery.

SANDERS: Well...

BIDEN: And by the way, right after his vote against that, he went on the Lou Dobbs show and continued the canard that they're taking jobs, these immigrants are taking jobs from Americans, which is one of the Republican canards, right after that vote -- that no vote.

And so, come on, this is -- you think Ted Kennedy is for slavery? Think I was for slavery? You think...

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: ... voted for it for slavery? And with regard to your issue -- your question relative to whether or not I would deal with supporting the border. Look, we can deal with securing the border by national technical means. All the bad things are coming through ports of entry right now. We don't need a wall.

And by the way, I would immediately as president surge to the border. I would end this notion for the first time in history that people seeking asylum have to be in squalor on the other side of the river, and in just desperate situation. They should be able to come to the United States and have a judgment made as to whether or not they qualify.

I would also surge to the border immigration judges to make decisions immediately. And no one, no one would be put in jail while waiting for their hearing.

CALDERON: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: Well, it's kind of what I have been saying throughout the entire campaign.

BIDEN: So have I.

SANDERS: What we need is, at the border, hundreds of administrative judges. We need to deal with people who are seeking asylum based on international law. We need not to be dividing children from their parents and dividing families up. We need a humane border policy.

And I'll tell you what else we need. And I speak as the son of an immigrant. My father came to this country from Poland at the age of 17 without a nickel in his pocket, couldn't speak English, didn't have much of an education. I will end on day one the demonization, the ugly demonization from the White House of the immigrant community in this country. We have got a president who is trying to divide us up. My administration brings our people together, black and white and Latino, Native American, Asian-American.

CALDERON: Thank you, Senator Sanders.

Vice President Biden, you opposed sanctuary cities as a presidential candidate in 2007. Where do you stand now? Should undocumented immigrants, arrested by local police, be turned over to immigration officials?

BIDEN: No.

CALDERON: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: Of course not. Look, and one of the things that goes on when you have that process is that not only the psychological terror, and I have talked to these kids, kids are scared to death in America when they come from school that their mom or dad may not be there, maybe deported.

What we need to do is to end, and I will end this on day one, the ICE raids that have been so harmful to so many people. And we need to do again what the American people want us to do. I'm the son of an immigrant. This is a country significantly built by immigrant labor, built by slave labor. And what we have got to do is appreciate each other and end this demonization and divisiveness coming from the Trump administration.

TAPPER: Senator Sanders...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Go ahead.

BIDEN: Look, we are a nation of immigrants. Our future rests upon the Latino community being fully integrated. Twenty-four out of every 100 children in school today from kindergarten through high school is a Latino. Right now, today. The idea that any American thinks it doesn't pay for us to significantly invest in their future is absolutely a bizarre notion, because if we do not invest, everything that the very wealthy are concerned about and the xenophobes are concerned about will, in fact, get worse, not better.

We should be embracing, bringing them in, just like what happened with the Irish immigrants after the famine, just what happened with the Italians, et cetera. We have been through this before. Xenophobia is a disease.

TAPPER: Thank you, Vice President Biden.

Let's move now to the climate crisis. I'm coming right to you, Senator Sanders. The World Health Organization calls the climate crisis a "health crisis" and warns that climate change could fuel the spread of infectious diseases. Can you point to specific measures in your climate plan that address that threat?

SANDERS: Well, of course we do. I mean, we -- look,

[21:20:00]

this is what the scientists are telling us, the same scientists who make your point there, Jake. What they are telling us is if we don't get our act together in the next seven or eight years, there would be irreversible damage done to this planet. We're talking about cities in America from Miami to New Orleans to Charleston, South Carolina, being under water.

We are talking about severe droughts, which will prevent farmers in the Midwest from growing the food that we need. We're talking about extreme weather disturbances, which hit Houston, Texas, Venice, Italy, just a few months ago. We are talking about the absolute need, and I want to hear Joe's position on this, this is not a middle of the ground thing. This is not building a few more solar panels or a few more wind turbines.

What this is about is transforming our energy system as quickly as we humanly can away from fossil fuel. It is insane that we continue to have fracking in America. It is absurd that we give tens of billions of dollars a year in tax breaks and subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. This has got to end and end now if we love our kids and future generations. TAPPER: Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: First thing that President Obama and I were summoned to the State Department -- excuse me, the Defense Department for was to meet with all the chiefs. The single greatest threat to our national security, they said, is climate change, the single greatest threat to our national security. Because as populations have to move because they can no longer live where they are, because their islands are sinking, because you saw what happened in Darfur with the change in weather patterns and the desert there. It causes war. It causes great migrations, great migrations. They said that's the single biggest problem.

Number two, there's an awful lot of people today who are, in fact, getting ill because of the changes in the environment, particularly up where Bernie lives, I'm not -- it has nothing to do with him, but having -- up in the Northeast because you have everything from beetle infestation and a whole range of things that are causing diseases as well in addition to eliminating foliage.

TAPPER: So, Vice President Biden, let me ask you then that the -- you talk about this being the number one crisis, they told you at the Pentagon.

BIDEN: Yes.

TAPPER: The price tag for your climate plan is about $1.7 trillion. That's about $14 trillion less than Senator Sanders wants to spend on this. Is your plan ambitious enough to tackle this crisis?

BIDEN: Yes, it is ambitious enough to tackle the crisis because what -- you go to joebiden.com, I lay out the first 13 things I would do immediately upon being elected.

Number one, we're going to once again reinstate all the cuts the president made in everything from the CAFE standards, how far automobiles can go, investing in light rail so that we take cars off the road, making sure we're in a position where we are now in a position that we put 500,000 charging stations in areas that, in fact, all new highways that we built.

Making sure that we spend $500 billion a year in the federal government paying for transportation, the vehicles we run. All of those being converted to be able to run on low carbon fuel and/or be able to run on no carbon fuel at all by having them move into a direction that is all, all carbon-free.

We can do these things. We can lay down the tracks where nothing can be changed by the next president or following president, the one beyond that.

In addition to that, we also have to -- I would immediately rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, which I helped put together. I would call the 100 nations -- over 100 nations, but the 100 major polluters to the United States in the first 100 days to up the ante and make it clear that, in fact, we would -- in fact, if they didn't, there would be a price to pay.

And lastly, I would be right now organizing the hemisphere and the world to provide $20 billion for the Amazon, for Brazil no longer to burn the Amazon so they could have forests -- they're no longer forests, but they could have farming, and say, this is what we're going to do. They absorb more carbon in the Amazon, and the region is burning now, than we emit in one entire year per year.

TAPPER: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: All well and good, but nowhere near enough. I mean, you mentioned we started this debate talking about a war-like situation in terms of the coronavirus. And we said we have to act accordingly. You said it. I think you're right. I said it. We have to act dramatically, boldly, if we're going to save lives in this country and around the world.

I look at climate change in exactly the same way. It's not a question of re-entering the Paris Accord. That's fine. Who cares. Not a big deal. The deal right now is do we have the courage? And this gets back to the point I'm trying to make all night long.

[21:25:00]

Do we take on the health care industry and tell them their profits are not more important than health care for all? Do we take on the fossil fuel industry?

Look, in terms of the fossil fuel industry, these guys have been lying. They've been lying for years like the tobacco industry lied 50 years ago. "Oh, we don't know if -- if fossil fuels, if oil and carbon emissions are causing climate change."

They knew. Exxon Mobil knew. They lied. In fact, I think they should be held criminally accountable.

But this, Jake, is an issue of enormous consequence. What Joe was saying goes nowhere near enough. It's not a question of money.

Give me a minute here. Let's -- we have time to talk about this. This is a world-changing event.

TAPPER: I understand. I just want to give him a chance to respond and then we can come back to you.

SANDERS: OK. All right. Let's stay on it.

TAPPER: We're staying on this issue.

BIDEN: Number one, no more subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, no more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling, including offshore, no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends, number one. Number two, we're in a situation, as well, where we cannot -- we -- we

are able to move rapidly to change the dynamic in terms of what we can do to set in motion -- the fact that he says climate change, Paris Accord doesn't mean much -- we can get everything exactly right. We're 15 percent of the problem. Eight-five percent of the problem is over there. We need someone who can deal internationally. We need someone who can bring the world together again. We need someone who can move in a direction that, in fact, if you violate the commitment you make, you will pay an economic price for it, like what's happening in China. They're exporting coal, significant coal.

TAPPER: Thank you.

SANDERS: OK, look, obviously, the Paris Accord is -- is useful. But it doesn't go anywhere -- if you're laughing, Joe, then you're missing the point. This is an existential crisis.

BIDEN: Bingo.

SANDERS: You -- you -- you talk about -- you know, I'm talking about stopping fracking as soon as we possibly can. I'm talking about telling the fossil fuel industry that they are going to stop destroying this planet -- no ifs, buts and maybes about it. I'm talking about speaking to...

BIDEN: So am I.

SANDERS: Well, I'm not sure your proposal does that.

I'm talking about speaking to China, to Russia, to countries all over the world -- and in this moment, making the point that instead of spending $1.8 trillion on weapons of destruction designed to kill each other, maybe we should pool our resources and fight our common enemy, which is climate change.

I know your heart is in the right place, but this requires dramatic, bold action. We've got to take on the fossil fuel industry. Your plan does not do that.

BIDEN: My plan takes on the fossil fuel industry and it unites the world. You just got finished saying -- what's he going to do? He's going to bring these countries together, make it clear to them. I'm saying we bring them together, make them live up to their commitments. If they don't live up to their commitments, they pay a financial price for it. They pay an economic price for it.

Because we can do everything -- my -- my state is three feet above sea level. I don't need a lecture on what's going to happen about rising seas. I know what happens. I watch the whole DelMarVa peninsula, just like it is in South Carolina and the rest, something I know a little bit about.

I wrote the first climate change bill that was in the Congress, which Politifact said was a game-changer. I'm the guy who came along and said, with Dick Lugar, that we're going to trade -- we'll forgive your debt if you don't cut down your forest. I have been way ahead of this curve. This idea that, all of a sudden, Bernie found this out is amazing to me.

TAPPER: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: No, Bernie didn't find it out. Bernie is listening to the scientists. And what, you know, you're talking about making countries around the world fulfill their commitments, those commitments are not enough.

What this moment is about, Joe, is that the scientists are telling us they underestimated the severity of the crisis. They were wrong. The problem is more severe.

So all that I'm saying right here is that we have -- we are fighting for the future of this planet, for the well-being of our kids and future generations. You cannot continue, as I understand, Joe believes, to continue fracking. Correct me if I am wrong. What we need to do right now is bring the world together, tell the fossil fuel industry that we are going to move aggressively to win solar, sustainable energies...

TAPPER: Thank you.

SANDERS: ... and energy efficiency.

BIDEN: Thank you, Senator.

BIDEN: No more -- no new fracking. And by the way, on the Recovery Act, I was able to make sure we invested $90 billion in making sure we brought down the price of solar and wind, that is lower than the price of coal. That's why not another new coal plant will be built. I did that, while you were watching, number one.

Number two, we're in a situation where we, in fact, have the ability to lay down the tracks where no one can change the -- change the dynamic. And that's why we should be talking about things like I have been talking about for years, high-speed rail, taking millions of automobiles off the road,

[20:30:00]

making sure that we move in a direction where no more -- no more drilling on federal lands, making sure that we invest in changing the entire fleet...

TAPPER: Thank you.

BIDEN: ... of the United States military to -- anyhow.

TAPPER: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Senator Sanders, I want -- I want to talk to you about fracking. Because you want to ban fracking...

SANDERS: Yes.

TAPPER: ... which is a method of extracting natural gas. The shift towards natural gas and away from coal has resulted in reduced U.S. carbon emissions. So how can the U.S. transition to your targeted goal of zero emissions with fracking completely out of the picture?

SANDERS: Because we have to invest in an unprecedented way -- in an unprecedented way. You started off by saying that we're talking about a $13 trillion, $14 trillion investment. That is a lot of money. And I've been criticized for that. But I don't know what the alternative is, if we are playing for the future of this planet. So we've got to be dramatic. And what being dramatic is, massive investments in wind, in solar, under the -- in sustainable energies in general, in research and development, in making our buildings all over this country.

My state of Vermont and around this country have got a lot of old buildings. We can put millions and millions of people to work making our buildings energy-efficient, moving our transportation system to electricity.

So what we're talking about is a massive unprecedented investment. That is what the Green New Deal is about. I supported it. And I will fight to implement it.

TAPPER: Thank you so much, Senator Sanders.

We're going to be back with more from the CNN-Univision Democratic presidential debate. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:35:00]

TAPPER: Welcome back to the CNN-Univision Democratic presidential debate. On Tuesday voters in Arizona, Ohio, Illinois and Florida will cast their votes in the Democratic primary.

Here's Univision's Ilia Calderon.

CALDERON: Thank you, Jake.

Let's move now to foreign policy. Senator Sanders, there are about 1.5 million Cuban-Americans living in Florida right now. Why would they vote for you when they hear you praise a program of Fidel Castro, a dictator who jailed, tortured and killed thousands of Cubans?

SANDERS: I have opposed authoritarianism, whether it's in Cuba, whether it's in Saudi Arabia, whether it's in China or whether it is in Russia. That is my life record. I believe, unlike the president of the United States, in democracy, not authoritarianism, in Cuba or any place else.

What I believe right now, in this world, is that we are faced with a global crisis and a movement toward authoritarianism. That's what Putin in Russia is leading. That's what MBS in Saudi Arabia is leading.

And as president of the United States, unlike Donald Trump, I would put the flag down and say that, in this country and in this world, we have got to move toward democracy and human rights. That is my view and has always been my view.

CALDERON: To be clear, Senator Sanders, Cuba has been a dictatorship for decades. Shouldn't we judge dictators by the violation of human rights and not by any of their alleged achievements?

SANDERS: Well, I think you can make the same point about China. China is undoubtedly an authoritarian society, OK. But would anybody deny, any economist deny that extreme poverty in China today is much less than what it was 40 or 50 years ago? That's a fact. So I think we condemn authoritarianism, whether it's in China, Russia, Cuba, any place else. But to simply say that nothing ever done by any of those administrations had a positive impact on their people would, I think, be incorrect.

BIDEN: Vice President Biden, you have criticized Senator Sanders for praising Castro's education system. But in 2016 President Obama said Cuba made, quote, "a great progress in educating young people" and that its health care system "is a huge achievement that they should be congratulated for."

How is that different from what Senator Sanders has said?

BIDEN: He was trying to change Cuban policy so the Cuban people would get out from under the thumb of Castro and his brother, that is to change the policy so that we could in fact on -- impact on Cuba's policy by getting them opened up. That's what that was about.

But the praising of the Sandinistas, the praising of Cuba, the praising, just now, of China -- China is an authoritarian dictatorship. That's what it is. We have to deal with them because they're there. But the idea that they, in fact, have increased the wealth of people in that country -- it's been marginal, the change that's taken place. It is still -- they have a million Uighurs, a million Muslims in prison camps in the West. You see what's happening in Hong Kong today.

And by the way, the idea that he praised the Soviet Union, when it was the Soviet Union, about the things that they had done well -- they're an awful dictatorship killing millions and millions of people.

And in addition to that, we have a circumstance where, after the election was all over and we knew what -- what was done by -- by the Russians now, in interfering with our elections, this man voted against sanctioning Russia for interference in our elections.

[21:40:05]

BASH: Senator Sanders...

BIDEN: I don't get it.

SANDERS: Well, what you don't get -- and this is exactly what the problem with politics is about. All right, question. Did China make progress in ending extreme poverty over the last 50 years, yes or no?

BIDEN: That's like saying Jack the Ripper... SANDERS: No, it's not.

BIDEN: Yes, it is.

SANDERS: See, Joe, this is the problem.

BIDEN: Yes, it is.

SANDERS: This is the problem. We can't talk -- I know there's a political line. I understand. China's terrible and awful, nothing ever good, (inaudible). But the fact of the matter is China, of course, is an authoritarian society. It's what I just said.

BIDEN: It's a dictatorship.

SANDERS: That's what I just said five minutes ago, you know. And, by the way, you know, the question that was asked quoted Barack Obama. President Obama was more generous in his praise of what Cuba did in health care and education than I was. I was talking about a program 60 years ago, in the first year of the Castro revolution.

So the bottom line is that I think it's a little bit absurd -- if we're going to look at the world the way it is, of course, we are opposed to authoritarianism. And by the way, you know, before it was considered good policy, a good idea. I was condemning the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia when a lot of other people in Washington...

BIDEN: It wasn't me.

SANDERS: I was condemning the dictatorship in the UAE. You were not.

BIDEN: Yes, I was.

CALDERON: Thank you, Senator Sanders.

Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: Look, the idea of occasionally saying something nice about a country is one thing. The idea of praising a country that is violating human rights around the world is, in fact -- makes our allies wonder what's going on.

What do you think the South Koreans think when we -- or he praises China like that?

What do you think -- what do you think the Australians believe in the shadow of China?

What do you think is happening in Indonesia in the shadow of China?

What do you think is happening in terms of Japan in the shadow of China?

Words matter. These are flat-out dictators, period. And they should be called for it, straight up. We may have to work out -- for example, I was able to help negotiate a New START agreement with Russia, not because I like Putin. The guy's a thug.

TAPPER: Mr. Vice President, sticking with foreign policy, you acknowledge that your support and vote for the Iraq War was a mistake. What lessons did you learn from that mistake?

And how might those lessons influence your foreign policy decision- making as president?

BIDEN: I learned I can't take the word of a president when, in fact, they assured me that they would not use force. Remember the context. The context was the United Nations Security Council was going to vote to insist that we allow inspectors in to determine whether or not -- whether or not they were in fact producing nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction.

They were not. And what's the first thing that happened when we got elected?

President Obama turned to me and said, "Get those troops out of there."

I was responsible for getting 150,000 combat troops out of Iraq. I was -- I admitted 14 years ago it was a mistake to have trusted him. And I'm prepared to compare my foreign policy credentials up against my friend here on any day of the week and every day of the week.

BIDEN: Well, let's start off with the war in Iraq, Joe. I was there, too. I was in the House. I understood -- and, by the way, let's be clear about what that vote was. And you were there at the signing ceremony with Bush. Everybody in the world knew that, when you voted for that resolution, you were giving Bush the authority to go to war. And everybody knew that's exactly what he and Cheney wanted to do.

Most people who followed that issue closely understood that the Bush administration was lying through its teeth with regard to Saddam having weapons of mass destruction. I understood that. I was on the floor of the House time and time again.

But the issue is not just the war in Iraq. That was a long time ago. The issue is the trade agreement. It wasn't so easy for me to lead the effort against disastrous trade agreements. The issue was the bankruptcy bill that you supported. The issue was the Hyde amendment. The issue was the Defense of Marriage Act. The issue is whether or not, in difficult times, and God knows these are difficult times, we're going to have the courage to take on powerful special interests and do what's right...

TAPPER: Vice President Biden?

SANDERS: ... for working families in this country.

BIDEN: Why did you vote not to sanction the Russians?

SANDERS: I'll tell you. You know why? Because that -- you keep talking about Iran. That was tied to Iran. Russia was in Iran. I think John Kerry indicated his support for what I did. That was undermining the Iranian agreement. That's why.

BIDEN: That's not true. Our...

SANDERS: That's why, and that's the only reason why.

BIDEN: That is not...

SANDERS: I have condemned Russia time and time again.

TAPPER: Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: The fact is that -- the idea that I, in fact, supported the things that he's suggesting is not accurate. Look, I'm the guy that helped put together the Iran deal and got the inspectors in there. That was my -

[21:45:00]

my chief of staff was the guy, my foreign policy guy, doing that negotiation.

I was the guy that helped put together a 60-nation organization to take on the ISIS in Iraq and in Syria. I've dealt with these folks. I know them. And I know what they're like. And I know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.

The fact is this -- Bernie's notion about how he embraces folks like the Sandinistas and Cuba and the former Soviet Union and talks about the good things in China, it's absolutely contrary to every message we want to send the rest of the world.

TAPPER: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: I have led the effort against all forms of authoritarianism, including America's so-called allies in the UAE and in Saudi Arabia, and in fact, as you may know, work with conservative Republicans to utilize for the very first time the War Powers Act to get the United States out of the horrific war in Yemen, led by Saudi Arabia. That's what I did. So my view is that in a world moving toward authoritarianism, the United States has got to be the leader where people all over the world look to us for guidance.

BASH: Thank you, Senator. Thank you, gentlemen. I want to change topics and ask each of you about some of your vulnerabilities in this election, starting with you, Vice President Biden. Senator Sanders has won more of the Hispanic vote than you in several key states so far. In fact, he doubled your support in California among Hispanics. He almost tripled it in Nevada. So why is your message not resonating with Hispanic voters?

BIDEN: Well, look, my message is resonating across the board. Every single state we've been in, there's been a significant turnout. In Virginia, turnout was up 70 percent. They voted for me. He didn't bring them out. I brought them out.

And, number two, look what's happened in Mississippi. Look what's happened in North Carolina. Look what's happened in Washington state. Look what's happened across the board. Why is it that I'm I winning all those places? What's the reason? What's the reason?

The reason is because they know I am a Democrat with a capital "D" who, in fact, believes that our base is the base of the Democratic Party, which are hard-working men and women, who, in fact, are high school educated, African-Americans and minorities, including Hispanics, but all minorities, suburban women, people who, in fact, have a sense of our place in the world. That's why I am winning -- not just winning, but overwhelmingly winning. Not even close in these places. And...

BASH: Senator...

SANDERS: Well, you didn't quite win...

BASH: Senator Sanders, Senator Sanders, let me just follow up with you about an issue that you're having. For the second consecutive presidential election, you're struggling to gain wide support from African-Americans. Why is your message not resonating with African- American voters?

SANDERS: Here is what I believe is happening. And this is an important point and why I decided to run for president. I think it's imperative that we defeat Trump. I think our campaign, of a biracial, bi-generational, multigenerational, grassroots movement is the way to do it.

Now, we have won some states. Joe has won more states than I have. But here's what we are winning. We are winning the ideological struggle. Even states in Mississippi, where Joe won a major victory, it turns out that a pretty good majority of the folks there believe in Medicare for all. And that's true in almost every state in this country.

And the other issue that we don't talk enough about is we are winning the generational struggle. Depending on the state, we're winning people 50 years of age or younger. Big time, people 30 years of age and younger. I, frankly, have my doubts.

Look, I -- if I lose this thing, Joe wins, Joe, I will be there for you. But I have my doubts about how you win a general election against Trump -- who will be a very, very tough opponent -- unless you have energy, excitement, the largest voter turnout in history.

And to do that, you are going to have to bring young people, who are not great voters. They don't vote in the kinds of numbers they should -- into the political process. You're going to have to bring Latinos, who are great people, who have the agenda that we need, but also don't vote in the numbers that we need. I have my doubts that Vice President Biden's campaign can generate that energy and excitement and that voter turnout.

BIDEN: I will do that. And by the way, just get this straight. The energy and excitement that's taken place so far has been for me, 70 percent turnout increase in Virginia. I can go down the list. They are coming out for me. And I didn't even have the money to compete with this man in those states. I virtually had no money. The press kept saying, Biden has no money. And they were right. Biden had no money.

And the idea, why are they doing that? The reason they're doing that is because they understand I know what has to happen, that I know what needs to be done. And by the way,

[21:50:00]

the idea that everybody supports Medicare for all, he still hasn't indicated how much it's going to cost people. He's yet to know exactly what's going to -- so here's my point. People don't know the detail at all. And the fact is...

BASH: Thank you, sir.

BIDEN: ... I am winning overwhelmingly among Democratic constituencies across the board.

BASH: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. We're going to be right back with more from the CNN-Univision Democratic presidential debate. Stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to the CNN-Univision Democratic presidential debate.

[21:55:00]

Finally, gentlemen, thanks so much for everything. As we end here tonight, let's return to where we began, the coronavirus, which does not discriminate based on ideology, it does not care if one is a Democrat or a Republican, a conservative, a moderate or a progressive.

Senator Sanders, let me start with you. What's your closing message tonight for those who are concerned about, affected by, or dealing with the coronavirus?

SANDERS: Well, our hearts go out to everyone. We need to move aggressively to make sure that every person in this country who has the virus, who thinks they have the virus, understands they get all the health care that they need, because they are Americans, that we move aggressively to make sure that the test kits are out there, that the ventilators are out there, that the ICU units are out there, that the medical personnel are out there.

But, Jake, if I might also say, that in this moment of economic uncertainty, in addition to the coronavirus, it is time to ask how we get to where we are, not only our lack of preparation for the virus, but how we end up with an economy where so many of our people are hurting at a time of massive income and wealth inequality. It is time to ask this -- the question of where the power is in America.

Who owns the media? Who owns the economy? Who owns the legislative process? Why do we give tax breaks to billionaires and not raise the minimum wage? Why do we pump up the oil industry while a half-a- million people are homeless in America?

This is a time to move aggressively, dealing with the coronavirus crisis, to deal with the economic fallout. But it's also a time to rethink America and create a country where we care about each other rather than a nation of greed and corruption, which is what is taking place among the corporate elite.

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator Sanders.

Vice President Biden, what's your closing message tonight for those concerned about, affected by, or dealing with this virus?

BIDEN: Number one, as I said at the outset, I just can't imagine what people are going through right now who have lost someone already. I can't imagine what people are going through, when they have a mom -- for example, a good friend of ours is sitting outside the window of a nursing home where her mom is because she can't go in, trying to do sign language to her mom through the window to be able to talk to her. I can't imagine the fear and the -- I guess I can imagine the fear and concern people have.

Number one, one of the things that I think we have to understand is that this is an all hands on deck. This is -- as someone said, maybe it was you, Jake, at the outset, this is bigger than any individual. This is bigger than yourself. This is about America. This is about the world. This is about how we bring people together and make the kind of sacrifices we need to make to get this done.

And so, first and foremost, what we have to do is start to listen to the science again. As I said, what we did, we met -- what I'd be doing today, I'd be sitting down in the Situation Room literally every day, like we did at the outset of other crises we had when we were in the White House, and pulling together the best people, and not just in the United States, the world, and say, what is it -- what are the prescriptive moves we have to take now to lessen this virus, to beat it, to go to the point where we can save more lives, get more people tested, get more people the kind of care they need?

And then what do we do beyond that, to make sure that the economic impact on them is, in fact, rendered harmless, that we, in fact, make sure every paycheck is met, every paycheck that's out there, that the people are going to miss, that we keep people in their homes, that they don't miss their mortgage payments, they don't miss their rent payments, making sure that they're going to be able to take care of education, that they're -- and, by the way, the education systems are closing down right now.

And so there are so many things we have to do. And in addition to that, what we have to do is we have to have the best science in the world telling what can stay open and what need be closed. Like I said earlier, the idea that we're closing schools -- which I understand -- but not being able to provide lunches for people who, in fact, need the school lunch program to get by. The idea that we would close any place that -- I can understand the

decision made to close places where 100 or 50 people or more gather. But how do you keep open the drugstore to make sure you can get your prescription? How do you deal with the things that necessarily have to be kept going? And what's the way to do that? There should be a national standard for that. It should be coming out of the Situation Room right now.

And by the way, the single most significant thing we can do to deal with the larger problem down the road of income inequality is get rid of Donald Trump. Donald Trump, he's exacerbated every single one of these problems, both the immediate urgent need and how we're going to hold people harmless for the damage done as a consequence of this virus. It's important we do both.

TAPPER: Vice President Biden, Senator Sanders, we want to thank you both for being here tonight under these challenging and trying circumstances. We wish both of you the best.

Our thanks, as well, to our partners at Univision. For Ilia Calderon and Dana Bash, I'm Jake Tapper. Thank you so much for watching. Please stay healthy, stay safe. Our coverage of both tonight's debate and the coronavirus pandemic continues now with Anderson Cooper.

HOLT: Good evening, everyone. I'm Lester Holt. Welcome to Las Vegas.

Everything is on the line tonight, with just three days before the critical Nevada caucuses. Here with me on the stage tonight, NBC News political director and moderator of "Meet the Press," Chuck Todd. And NBC News chief White House correspondent and MSNBC anchor Hallie Jackson. Also joining us is Telemundo senior correspondent Vanessa Hauc. And editor of the Nevada Independent Jon Ralston, who has covered Nevada politics for more than three decades.

The rules are this tonight. Candidates will get a minute and 15 seconds to answer each question and 45 seconds for follow-ups. Now that the stage is narrowed to six candidates, we encourage each of you to directly engage with each other on the issues.

So let's get to our first question. Since the last time you all shared the stage, Senator Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, has surged into the lead nationally in the Democratic race. And there's a new person on the stage tonight, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a former Republican who spent millions of his own dollars to run in this race.

What hasn't changed: a majority of Democratic voters still say their top priority is beating President Trump. Senator Sanders, the first question to you. Mayor Bloomberg is pitching himself as a centrist who says he's best positioned to win in November. Why is your revolution a better bet?

SANDERS: In order to beat Donald Trump, we're going to need the largest voter turnout in the history of the United States. Mr. Bloomberg had policies in New York City of stop and frisk which went after African-American and Latino people in an outrageous way. That is not a way you're going to grow voter turnout.

What our movement is about is bringing working-class people together, black and white and Latino, Native American, Asian American, around an agenda that works for all of us and not just the billionaire class. And that agenda says that maybe, just maybe, we should join the rest of the industrialized world, guarantee health care to all people as a human right, raise that minimum wage to a living wage of $15 bucks an hour, and have the guts to take on the fossil fuel industry, because their short-term profits are not more important than the future of this planet and the need to combat climate change.

Those are some of the reasons we have the strongest campaign to defeat Donald Trump.

WARREN: So I'd like...

HOLT: Mayor Bloomberg, can Senator Sanders beat President Trump? And how do you want to respond to what else he said?

BLOOMBERG: I don't think there's any chance of the senator beating President Trump. You don't start out by saying I've got 160 million people I'm going to take away the insurance plan that they love. That's just not a way that you go and start building the coalition that the Sanders camp thinks that they can do. I don't think there's any chance whatsoever. And if he goes and is the candidate, we will have Donald Trump for another four years. And we can't stand that.

HOLT: Senator Warren?

WARREN: So I'd like to talk about who we're running against, a billionaire who calls women "fat broads" and "horse-faced lesbians." And, no, I'm not talking about Donald Trump. I'm talking about Mayor Bloomberg.

Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women, and of supporting racist polls like redlining and stop and frisk.

Look, I'll support whoever the Democratic nominee is. But understand this: Democrats take a huge risk if we just substitute one arrogant billionaire for another.

(APPLAUSE)

This country has worked for the rich for a long time and left everyone else in the dirt. It is time to have a president who will be on the side of working families and be willing to get out there and fight for them. That is why I am in this race, and that is how I will beat Donald Trump.

(APPLAUSE)

BUTTIGIEG: We've got to wake up...

HOLT: Senator Klobuchar -- Senator Klobuchar, what do you think the path is from this stage to the White House? What works?

KLOBUCHAR: I think the path is a high voter turnout. I'm the one on this stage that had the highest voter turnout of any state in the country when I led the ticket, as well as bringing in rural and suburban voters. And I've done that, as well. And I'm the only one with the receipts to have done that in Republican congressional districts over and over again.

But I want to say this: I actually welcomed Mayor Bloomberg to the stage. I thought that he shouldn't be hiding behind his TV ads, and so I was all ready for this big day. And then I looked at the memo from his campaign staff this morning, and it said that he actually thought that three of us should get out of the way. That is what his campaign said because we should "pave the way" for him to become the nominee.

You know, I have been told as a woman, as someone that maybe no one thought was still going to be standing up on this stage, but I am because of pure grit and because of the people out there, I've been told many times to wait my turn and to step aside. And I'm not going to do that now, and I'm not going to do that because a campaign memo from Mayor Bloomberg said this morning that the only way that we get a nominee is if we step aside for him.

I think we need something different than Donald Trump. I don't think you look at Donald Trump and say we need someone richer in the White House.

(APPLAUSE)

HOLT: Thank you. Mayor Bloomberg, there's a lot for you to respond to there, so here's your opportunity.

BLOOMBERG: I think we have two questions to face tonight. One is, who can beat Donald Trump? And, number two, who can do the job if they get into the White House? And I would argue that I am the candidate that can do exactly both of those things.

I'm a New Yorker. I know how to take on an arrogant conman like Donald Trump, that comes from New York. I'm a mayor or was a mayor. I know how to run a complicated city, the biggest, most diverse city in this country.

I'm a manager. I knew what to do after 9/11 and brought the city back stronger than ever. And I'm a philanthropist who didn't inherit his money but made his money. And I'm spending that money to get rid of Donald Trump, the worst president we have ever had. And if I can get that done, it will be a great contribution to America and to my kids.

(APPLAUSE)

HOLT: Vice President Biden, I'll let you weigh in here.

BIDEN: In terms of who can beat Donald Trump, NBC did a poll yesterday. It says Joe Biden is best equipped to beat Donald Trump.

(APPLAUSE)

That's what your poll said. And it said that I can beat him in those toss-up states, too, those states we have to win. I'm ahead by eight points across the board. So in terms of being able to beat Donald Trump, I'm better positioned, according to your poll, than anybody else to beat Donald Trump, number one.

(APPLAUSE)

Number two, the mayor makes an interesting point. The mayor says that he has a great record, that he's done these wonderful things. Well, the fact -- the fact of the matter is, he has not managed his city very, very well when he was there. He didn't get a whole lot done. He had stop and frisk, throwing close to 5 million young black men up against a wall. And when we came along in our administration, President Obama, and said we're going to send in a moderator to -- a mediator, stop it, he said that's unnecessary.

So I -- we're going to get a chance to talk about the mayor's record. But in terms of who is best prepared to beat Donald Trump, look at your poll and what it says.

HOLT: Mayor Buttigieg, you'd like to weigh in.

BUTTIGIEG: Yes, we've got to wake up as a party. We could wake up two weeks from today, the day after Super Tuesday, and the only candidates left standing will be Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg, the two most polarizing figures on this stage.

And most Americans don't see where they fit if they've got to choose between a socialist who thinks that capitalism is the root of all evil and a billionaire who thinks that money ought to be the root of all power.

Let's put forward somebody who actually lives and works in a middle-class neighborhood, in an industrial Midwestern city. Let's put forward somebody who's actually a Democrat. Look...

(APPLAUSE)

We shouldn't have to choose between one candidate who wants to burn this party down and another candidate who wants to buy this party out. We can do better.

HOLT: Senator -- Senator Sanders, are you polarizing?

SANDERS: If speaking to the needs and the pain of a long-neglected working class is polarizing, I think you got the wrong word. What we are trying finally to do is to give a voice to people who after 45 years of work are not making a nickel more than they did 45 years ago. We are giving a voice to people who are saying we are sick and tired of billionaires like Mr. Bloomberg seeing huge expansions of their wealth while a half-a-million people sleep out on the street tonight.

And that's what we are saying, Pete, is maybe it's a time for the working class of this country to have a little bit of power in Washington, rather than your billionaire campaign contributors.

(APPLAUSE)

BUTTIGIEG: All right, look, first of all -- look, my campaign is fueled by hundreds of thousands of contributors.

SANDERS: Including 46 billionaires.

BUTTIGIEG: Among the hundreds of thousands of contributors. And, look, we've got to unite this country to deal with these issues. You're not the only one who cares about the working class. Most Americans believe we need to empower workers.

(APPLAUSE)

As a matter of fact, you're the one who is at war with the Culinary Union right here in Las Vegas. We can solve these issues...

SANDERS: We more union support than you have ever dreamed of. We have the support of unions all across this country.

BUTTIGIEG: Yeah, but the vision I'm putting forward has the support of the American people. We can actually deliver health care without taking it away from anyone. We can actually empower workers and lift wages without further polarizing this country. And we can build a movement without having legions of our supporters online and in person attacking Democratic figures and union leaders alike.

WARREN: I think it is important here...

JACKSON: Senator Warren, I have a question for you. On Sunday, on "Meet the Press," Vice President Biden accused Senator Sanders' supporters of bullying union leaders here with, quote, "vicious, malicious, misogynistic things." You said Democrats cannot build an inclusive party on a foundation of hate. Are Senator Sanders and his supporters making it harder for Democrats to unify in November?

WARREN: Look, I have said many times before, we are all responsible for our supporters. And we need to step up. That's what leadership is all about.

But the way we are going to lead this country and beat Donald Trump is going to be with a candidate who has rock-solid values and who actually gets something done. When Mayor Bloomberg was busy blaming African-Americans and Latinos for the housing crash of 2008, I was right here in Las Vegas, literally just a few blocks down the street, holding hearings on the banks that were taking away homes from millions of families.

That's when I met Mr. Estrada, one of your neighbors. He came in to testify, and he said he thought he'd done everything right with Wells Fargo, but what had happened? They took away his house in a matter of weeks. This man stood there and cried while he talked about what it was like to tell his two little daughters that they might not be in their elementary school, that they might be living out of their van.

I spent the next years making sure that would never happen again. Wall Street fought us every inch of the way on a consumer agency. They lost, and I won. We need a candidate with unshakable values and a candidate who can actually get something done for working people.

(APPLAUSE)

JACKSON: Thank you, Senator.

WARREN: That's why I'm in this race, and that's how I'll beat Donald Trump.

JACKSON: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: We have over 10.6 million people on Twitter, and 99.9 percent of them are decent human beings, are working people, are people who believe in justice, compassion, and love. And if there are a few people who make ugly remarks, who attack trade union leaders, I disown those people. They are not part of our movement.

But let me also say what I hope my friends up here will agree with is that if you look at the wild west of the internet, talk to some of the African-American women on my campaign. Talk to Senator Nina Turner. Talk to others and find the vicious, racist, sexist attacks that are coming their way, as well.

So I would hope that all of us understand that we should do everything we possibly can to end the viciousness and ugliness on the internet. Our campaign is about issues. It's about fighting for the working families and the middle class. It is not about vicious attacks on other people.

JACKSON: Senator, thank you.

BUTTIGIEG: Senator, when you say that you disown these attacks and you didn't personally direct them, I believe you.

SANDERS: Well, thank you.

BUTTIGIEG: But at a -- but at a certain point, you got to ask yourself, why did this pattern arise? Why is it especially the case among your supporters that this happens?

SANDERS: I don't think it is especially the case, by the way.

BUTTIGIEG: That's just not true. Look, people know the way your supporters treat them.

SANDERS: Well, Pete, if you want to talk to some of the women on my campaign, what you will see is the most ugly, sexist, racist attacks that are -- I wouldn't even describe them here, they're so disgusting.

And let me say something else about this, not being too paranoid. All of us remember 2016, and what we remember is efforts by Russians and others to try to interfere in our election and divide us up. I'm not saying that's happening, but it would not shock me.

I saw some of those tweets regarding the Culinary Workers Union. I have a 30-year 100 percent pro-union voting record. Do you think I would support or anybody who supports me would be attacking union leaders? It's not thinkable.

BUTTIGIEG: But leadership is about what you draw out of people. It's what -- it's about how you inspire people to act.

(APPLAUSE)

And right now, we're in this toxic political environment. Leadership isn't just about policy. I think at least in broad terms, we're largely pulling in the same direction on policy, but leadership is also about how you motivate people to treat other people.

I think you have to accept some responsibility and ask yourself what it is about your campaign in particular that seems to be motivating this behavior more than others, because in order to turn the page on the Trump era, we're going to need a president, not just a candidate who can win, but a president who can move us forward.

KLOBUCHAR: I have an idea -- I have an idea of how we can stop sexism on the internet. We could nominate a woman for candidate for president of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

I think that might go a long way if we showed our stuff as a party.

And the other thing I'm going to talk about is really what is at the core of this issue between Senator Sanders and the Culinary Union, and that is this. These are hard-working people, housekeepers like Elizabeth and I met with last night, who have health care plans that have been negotiated over time, sweat and blood. And that is the truth for so many Americans right now.

JACKSON: Senator, thank you.

KLOBUCHAR: There are 149 million Americans that would lose their current health insurance under Senator Sanders' bill. That's what it says on page 8.

JACKSON: Senator, thank you.

KLOBUCHAR: And I don't think we should forget that.

JACKSON: On that note, I want to turn it over to my colleague, Chuck Todd.

TODD: Senator Sanders, I'm going to stay on this topic, on this issue with the Culinary Union. Obviously, their leaders are warning their members about -- that your health care plan will take away their health care plan, take away private insurance completely. There are some Democrats who like you a lot but worry that this plan, Medicare for all, is going to take away private insurance and that it goes too far. Are they right?

SANDERS: No. Let me be very clear, two points. For a hundred years, from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama, this country has been talking about the need to guarantee health care for all people. And yet today, despite spending twice as much per capita, Chuck, twice as much as any other major country on Earth, we got 87 million who are uninsured or underinsured, we got over 60,000 people who die every year because they don't get to a doctor on time.

We're getting ripped off outrageously by the greed and corruption of a pharmaceutical industry, which in some cases charges us 10 times more for the same drugs because of their price-fixing, 500,000 people go bankrupt every year because they can't afford medical bills.

So let me be very clear to my good friends in the Culinary Workers Union, a great union. I will never sign a bill that will reduce the health care benefits they have. We will only expand it for them, for every union in the America, and for the working class of this country.

(APPLAUSE)

TODD: Senator Warren, you were all in on Medicare for all, and then you have since came up with a transition plan. Is it because of the impact on unions?

WARREN: So I want to be clear. I've been to the Culinary Union's health care facilities. They're terrific. You don't want to shut them down. You want to expand them. You want to see them all across Nevada and all across this country.

But we need to get everybody's health care plan out here. Mayor Buttigieg really has a slogan that was thought up by his consultants to paper over a thin version of a plan that would leave millions of people unable to afford their health care. It's not a plan. It's a PowerPoint.

And Amy's plan is even less. It's like a Post-It note, "Insert Plan Here."

Bernie has started very much -- has a good start, but instead of expanding and bringing in more people to help, instead, his campaign relentlessly attacks everyone who asks a question or tries to fill in details about how to actually make this work. And then his own advisors say, yeah, probably won't happen anyway.

Look, health care is a crisis in this country. We need -- my approach to this is we need as much help for as many people as quickly as possible and bring in as many supporters as we can. And if we don't get it all the first time, take the win and come back into the fight to ask for more.

TODD: Guys, I'm going to get everybody in.

WARREN: People need our help on this.

TODD: I got you. Mayor Buttigieg, I think she name-checked you first. I'll let you go first.

(LAUGHTER)

SANDERS: She name-checked me second.

TODD: Yes, well, OK. I think Amy second.

BUTTIGIEG: I'm more of a Microsoft Word guy. And if you look at my plan, I don't know if there are any PowerPoints on it, but you can definitely find the document on peteforamerica.com. And you'll see that it is a plan that solves the problem, makes sure there is no such thing as an uninsured American, and does it without kicking anybody off the plan that they have.

This idea that the union members don't know what's good for them is the exact kind of condescension and arrogance that makes people skeptical of the policies we've been putting forward. Here we have a plan that the majority of Americans support. Do you realize how historic that is? That the American people are ready in a way far beyond what was true even 10 years ago and what was available to President Obama at the time. There's a powerful American majority ready to undertake the biggest, most progressive reform we've had in health care in 50 years, just so long as we don't force it on anybody. What is wrong with that?

WARREN: Could I respond to that?

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: Let me go Senator Klobuchar, and then I'll have you respond.

KLOBUCHAR: OK.

TODD: All right, Senator Klobuchar.

SANDERS: I was (inaudible) through there.

TODD: Well, I think the Post-It note came first, Senator. I don't know.

(CROSSTALK)

I do think the Post-It note came first.

KLOBUCHAR: I must say, I take personal offense since Post-It notes were invented in my state, so...

(LAUGHTER)

TODD: (inaudible) 3M.

KLOBUCHAR: OK. So my plan is a public option. And according to all the studies out there, it would reduce premiums for 12 million people immediately. It would expand coverage for about that same number. It is a significant thing. It is what Barack Obama wanted to do from the very beginning.

And the way I look at it, since we're in Vegas, when it comes to your plan, Elizabeth and Bernie's, on Medicare for all, you don't put your money on a number that's not even on the wheel. And why is Medicare for all not on the wheel? Why is it not on the wheel? Because two-thirds of the Democratic senators are not even on that bill, because a bunch of the new House members that got elected see the problems with blowing up the Affordable Care Act. They see it right in front of them.

And the truth is that when you see some troubled waters, you don't blow up a bridge, you build one. And so we need to improve the Affordable Care Act, not blow it up.

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: You name-checked three of them. Let me get Senator Sanders in there.

SANDERS: I'm also attacked here.

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: Go ahead, Senator Sanders.

SANDERS: We'll get you in. We got a lot of people in here.

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: Some -- it's my turn, yeah?

TODD: Yes, sir.

SANDERS: Somehow or another, Canada can provide universal health care to all their people at half the cost. U.K. can do it. France can do it. Germany can do it. All of Europe can do it. Gee-whiz, somehow or another, we are the only major country on Earth that can't do it. Why is that?

And I'll tell you why. It's because, last year, the health care industry made $100 billion in profits. Pharmaceutical industry, top six companies, $69 billion in profit. And those CEOs are contributing to Pete's campaign and other campaigns up here.

BUTTIGIEG: Let's clear this up right now.

SANDERS: So maybe it is finally time that we said as a nation, enough is enough, the function of a rational health care system is not to make the pharmaceutical industry and the drug companies rich. It is to provide health care to all people as a human right, not a privilege.

TODD: Mr. Vice President, you got it.

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: No premiums, no copayments, no deductibles.

TODD: Mr. Vice President, go ahead, and then Senator Warren.

(CROSSTALK)

Mr. Vice President and Senator Warren.

BIDEN: Hey, I'm the only one on this stage that actually got anything done on health care, OK?

(APPLAUSE)

I'm the guy the president turned to and said, go get the votes for Obamacare. And I notice what everybody's talking about is the plan that I first introduced. That is to go and add to Obamacare, provide a public option, a Medicare-like option. It cost -- and increase the subsidies. It cost a lot of money. It cost $750 billion over 10 years. But I paid for it by making sure that Mike and other people pay at the same tax rate their secretary pays at.

(APPLAUSE)

That's how we get it paid, number one. Number two, you know, from the moment -- from the moment we passed that signature legislation, Mike called it a disgrace, number one. Number two, Trump decided to get rid of it. And, number three, my friends here came up with another plan.

But they don't tell you, when you ask Bernie how much it costs, the last time he said that -- I think it was on your show -- he said we'll find out, we'll find out or something to that effect. It cost over $35 trillion bucks. Let's get real.

(APPLAUSE)

TODD: Senator Warren, you get the final word on this one and then we go to another question.

SANDERS: And your plan costs $50 trillion.

TODD: Go ahead, Senator Warren.

BLOOMBERG: What am I, chicken liver?

WARREN: So I actually took a look at the plans that are posted. Mayor Buttigieg, there are four expenses that families pay, right, premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and uncovered medical expenses. Mayor Buttigieg says he will put a cap only on the premiums.

BUTTIGIEG: It's not true.

WARREN: And that means families are going to pick up the rest of the costs. Amy, I looked online at your plan. It's two paragraphs. Families are suffering, and they need...

KLOBUCHAR: OK, that's it.

WARREN: You can't simply stand here and trash an idea to give health care coverage to everyone without having a realistic plan of your own. And if you're not going to own up to the fact either that you don't have a plan or that your plan is going to leave people without health care coverage, full coverage, then you need to say so.

(CROSSTALK)

WARREN: I just want to say on this one, I was in Reno when I met a man who said he had diabetes. He gets his insulin through the V.A. But his sister and his daughter also have diabetes, no way to pay for their insulin. Three human beings right here in Nevada who are struggling.

BIDEN: My plan takes care of that.

WARREN: They share one insulin prescription. That should not happen in America.

TODD: Mayor Bloomberg, is Vice President Biden right, you weren't a fan of Obamacare?

BLOOMBERG: I am a fan of Obamacare. At the beginning...

BIDEN: Since when, Mr. Mayor?

BLOOMBERG: Mr. Vice President, I just checked the record, because you'd said one time that I was not. In '09, I testified and gave a speech before the mayors' conference in Washington advocating it and trying to get all the mayors to sign on. And I think at that time I wrote an article praising Obamacare. It was either in the New York Post or the Daily News. So the facts are I was there.

BIDEN: Didn't you call it a disgrace, though, Mr. Mayor?

BLOOMBERG: Let me finish, thank you. I was in favor of it. I thought it didn't do -- go as far as we should. What Trump has done to this is a disgrace. The first thing we've got to do is get the White House and bring back those things that were left and then find a way to expand it, another public option, to having some rules about capping charges. All of those things. We shouldn't just walk away and start something that is totally new, untried.

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: OK, Vice President Biden, go ahead.

BIDEN: The mayor said, when we passed it, the signature piece of this administration, it's a disgrace. They're the exact words, it was a disgrace. Look it up, check it out. "It was a disgrace." And I covered, by the way, my plan, you do not have surprise billing, you bring down drug prices, people are not -- and give people all the things we were just talking about. I guess we've not got the time to do it, but I'll get a chance to talk about...

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: Thank you, sir. Lester?

HOLT: All right.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLT: Mayor Bloomberg, at the beginning of this debate, you took some incoming fire on this next topic, so let's get into it. In 2015, this is how you described your policing policy as mayor. Quote, "We put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods." And you explained that as, quote, "Because that's where all the crime is."

You went on to say, "And the way you should get the guns out of the kids' hands is to throw them against the wall and frisk them." You've apologized for that policy. But what does that kind of language say about how you view people of color or people in minority neighborhoods?

BLOOMBERG: Well, if I go back and look at my time in office, the one thing that I'm really worried about, embarrassed about, was how it turned out with stop and frisk.

When I got into office, there were 650 murders a year in New York City. And I thought that my first responsibility was to give people the right to live. That's the basic right of everything. And we started -- we adopted a policy, which had been in place, the policy that all big police departments use, of stop and frisk.

What happened, however, was it got out of control. And when we discovered -- I discovered that we were doing many, many, too many stop and frisks, we cut 95 percent of it out. And I've sat down with a bunch of African-American clergy and businesspeople to talk about this, to try to learn. I've talked to a number of kids who'd been stopped.

And I'm trying -- was trying to understand how we change our policy so we can keep the city safe, because the crime rate did go from 650, 50 percent down to 300. And we have to keep a lid on crime. But we cannot go out and stop people indiscriminately.

HOLT: All right, Mayor...

BLOOMBERG: And that was what was happening.

HOLT: Let me go to Vice President Biden on this. You want to respond to that, react to it?

BIDEN: Yes, let's get something straight. The reason that stop and frisk changed is because Barack Obama sent moderators to see what was going on. When we sent them there to say this practice has to stop, the mayor thought it was a terrible idea we send them there, a terrible idea.

Let's get the facts straight. Let's get the order straight. And it's not whether he apologized or not. It's the policy. The policy was abhorrent. And it was a fact of violation of every right people have.

(APPLAUSE)

And we are the one, my -- our administration sent -- sent in people to moderate. And at the very time, the mayor argued against that. This idea that he figured out it was a bad idea, he figured out it was a bad idea after we sent in monitors and said it must stop. Even then, he continued the policy.

HOLT: All right. Mayor, would you like to make a quick response to that?

BLOOMBERG: Yes, I would. I've sat, I've apologized, I've asked for forgiveness, but the bottom line is that we stopped too many people, but the policy -- we stopped too many people. And we've got to make sure that we do something about criminal justice in this country.

There is no great answer to a lot of these problems. And if we took off everybody that was wrong off this panel, everybody that was wrong on criminal justice at some time in their careers, there'd be nobody else up here.

HOLT: Senator Warren?

WARREN: So I...

SANDERS: Let's be clear -- I'm sorry, who did you call on?

HOLT: Senator Warren.

SANDERS: Sorry.

WARREN: I think this -- he called me. I do think that this really is about leadership and accountability. When the mayor says that he apologized, listen very closely to the apology. The language he used is about stop and frisk. It's about how it turned out.

No, this isn't about how it turned out. This is about what it was designed to do to begin with.

(APPLAUSE)

It targeted communities of color. It targeted black and brown men from the beginning. And if you want to issue a real apology, then the apology has to start with the intent of the plan as it was put together and the willful ignorance, day by day by day, of admitting what was happening even as people protested in your own street, shutting out the sounds of people telling you how your own policy was breaking their lives. You need a different apology here, Mr. Mayor.

HOLT: Senator, thank you. Chuck?

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: Let me get Senator Klobuchar. We're staying on this topic. We're going to stay on this topic, but I want to get something in here with Senator Klobuchar.

When you were the top prosecutor in Minneapolis, Senator, there were at least two dozen instances where police were involved in the deaths of civilians. None of those officers were prosecuted. You did prosecute a black teenager who was sentenced to life in prison, despite what are now serious doubts about the evidence.

Now, the Minneapolis chapter of the NAACP has recently called for you to suspend your campaign over that case because some new evidence has come out since. Big picture, why should black and Latino voters trust your judgment now if it appears you may have gotten it wrong then?

KLOBUCHAR: First, I'll start with that case. It is very clear that any evidence, if there is new evidence, even old evidence, it should be reviewed by that office and by the county attorney. That must happen. I have called for that review.

This was a case involving an 11-year-old African-American girl named Tyesha Edwards who was shot doing her homework at her kitchen table. Three people were convicted. One of the cases is the one that is being investigated, was investigated by a journalist. And I think it's very important that that evidence come forward.

In terms of the police shootings that you noted, those went to a grand jury, every single one of them. And I have made very clear for months now that, like so many prosecutors, I think those cases in my time, they were all going to the grand jury. It was thought that was the best way to handle them in many, many jurisdictions.

TODD: Do you think you should have spoke up? You didn't speak up at the time. Should you?

KLOBUCHAR: Did -- I actually did speak up on something very similar. And that was when our police chief in Minneapolis tried to take the investigations of police shootings into his own hands. And I strongly said I disagreed with that. Now I do believe also that a prosecutor should make those decisions herself.

And the last thing I will say, because you asked the question about voting, I have the support of African-Americans in my community in every election. I had strong support and strong support of leadership. And that's because I earned it.

And this is going to be on me to earn it. You earn it with the -- what you stand for when it comes to equal opportunity. You earn it with the work that I have done, the leadership I've shown on voting rights, and, yes, you earn it with the work that must be done on criminal justice reform.

TODD: OK, thank you, Senator. Hallie Jackson?

JACKSON: I want to talk about transparency here, because many Democrats, including most of you on stage, have criticized President Trump for his lack of transparency. But, Senator Sanders, when you were here in Las Vegas in October, you were hospitalized with a heart attack. Afterwards, you pledged to make, quote, "all your medical records public." You've released three letters from your doctors, but you now say you won't release anything more. What happened to your promise of full transparency?

SANDERS: Well, I'll tell you. Well, I think we did. Let me tell you what happened. First of all, you're right. And thank you, Las Vegas, for the excellent medical care I got in the hospital for two days.

(APPLAUSE)

And I think the one area maybe that Mayor Bloomberg and I share, you have two stents, as well.

BLOOMBERG: Twenty-five years ago.

SANDERS: Well, we both have two stents. It's a procedure that is done about a million times a year. So we released the full report of that heart attack.

Second of all, we released the full -- my whole 29 years in the Capitol, the attending physician, all of my history, medical history.

And furthermore, we released reports from two leading Vermont cardiologists who described my situation and, by the way, who said Bernie Sanders is more than able to deal with the stress and the vigor of being president of the United States. Hey, follow me around the campaign trail, three, four, five events today. See how you're doing compared to me.

(APPLAUSE)

JACKSON: Mayor Buttigieg, you've been critical about transparency on this stage and people needing to do better. Is that response from Senator Sanders enough for you?

BUTTIGIEG: No, it's not, because, first of all, let me say, we're all delighted that you are in fighting shape.

SANDERS: Thank you.

BUTTIGIEG: And at the same time, transparency matters, especially living through the Trump era. Now, under President Obama, the standard was that the president would release full medical records, do a physical, and release the readout. I think that's the standard that we should hold ourselves to, as well.

Now, President Trump lowered that standard. He said just a letter from a doctor is enough. And a lot of folks on this stage are now saying that's enough. But I am certainly prepared to get a physical, put out the results. I think everybody here should be willing to do the same.

But I'm actually less concerned about the lack of transparency on Sanders' personal health than I am about the lack of transparency on how to pay for his health care plan, since he's said that it's impossible to even know how much it's going to cost, and even after raising taxes on everybody making $29,000, there is still a multi-trillion-dollar hole.

As a matter of fact, if you add up all his policies altogether, they come to $50 trillion. He's only explained $25 trillion worth of revenue, which means that the hole in there is bigger than the size of the entire economy of the United States. The time has come to level with the American people on matters personal and on matters of policy.

JACKSON: Thank you. Senator Sanders, quickly.

SANDERS: Let's level. Let's level, Pete. Under your plan, which is a maintenance continuation of the status quo...

BUTTIGIEG: That's untrue.

SANDERS: Can I finish? The average American today is paying $12,000 a year. That's what that family is paying, 20 percent of a $60,000 income, $12,000 a year, highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.

Just the other day, a major study came out from Yale epidemiologist in Lancet, one of the leading medical publications in the world. What they said, my friends, is Medicare for all will save $450 billion a year, because we are eliminating the absurdity of thousands of separate plans that require hundreds of billions of dollars of administration and, by the way, ending the $100 billion a year in profiteering from the drug companies and the insurance companies.

(CROSSTALK)

BUTTIGIEG: This is really important.

JACKSON: Mayor Bloomberg, I want to go to you on this.

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: Your plan, by the way, will increase costs.

BUTTIGIEG: He said my plan is the status quo, and that's false. Look, if my plan is the status quo, why was it attacked by the insurance industry the moment it came out? And on issue after issue after issue, this is what Senator Sanders is saying. If you're not with him, if you're not all the way on his side, then you must be for the status quo. Well, you know what? That is a picture that leaves most of the American people out.

JACKSON: I want to go to Mayor Bloomberg on this, the transparency issue.

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: Very briefly on transparency, Mayor Bloomberg, your campaign has said that you would eventually release your tax records.

BLOOMBERG: Yes.

JACKSON: When it comes to transparency, but people are already voting now. Why should Democratic voters have to wait?

BLOOMBERG: It just takes us a long time. Unfortunately or fortunately...

KLOBUCHAR: Could I comment on that...

(CROSSTALK)

BLOOMBERG: Fortunately, I make a lot of money, and we do business all around the world. And we are preparing it. The number of pages will probably be in the thousands of pages. I can't go to TurboTax. But I put out my tax return every year for 12 years in City Hall. We will put out this one. It tells everybody everything they need to know about every investment that I make and where the money goes.

And the biggest item is all the money I give away. And we list that, every single donation I make. And you can get that from our foundation any time you want.

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: Senator Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: OK, yeah, I'm just looking at my husband in the front row that has to, like, do our taxes all the time. We probably could go to TurboTax.

And the point of this is, I believe in transparency. I had a physical, by the way. It came out well. We might all be surprised if my blood pressure is lower than Mayor Pete's. That might really shock everyone out there. And I think you should release your records from your physical.

Secondly, when it comes to tax returns, everyone up here has released their tax returns, Mayor. I think -- and it is a major issue, because the president of the United States has been hiding behind his tax returns, even when courts order him to come forward with those tax returns.

(APPLAUSE)

And I think -- I don't care how much money anyone has. I think it's great you've got a lot of money. But I think you've got to come forward with your tax returns.

JACKSON: Senator, I want to get to you in a second. Mayor Bloomberg, quick response to Senator Klobuchar?

BLOOMBERG: We'll releasing them. They'll be out in a few weeks. And that's just as fast as I can do it. Remember, I only entered into this race 10 weeks ago. All of my associates here have been at this for a couple of years.

BUTTIGIEG: That's right, we have. Engaging with voters and humbling ourselves to the backyards and diners.

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: Let me ask about something else, Mr. Mayor, because, Mayor Bloomberg -- let me ask about something else.

WARREN: ... 10 weeks ago, pay overtime, and get it done.

BLOOMBERG: I wish it were that simple.

JACKSON: I'll let you get in here, but, Mayor Bloomberg...

BLOOMBERG: It would save me a lot of money.

JACKSON: Let me ask you about something else. Several former employees have claimed that your company was a hostile workplace for women. When you were confronted about it, you admitted making sexually suggestive remarks, saying, quote, "That's the way I grew up." In a lawsuit in the 1990s, according to the Washington Post, one former female employee alleged that you said, quote, "I would do you in a second." Should Democrats expect better from their nominee?

BLOOMBERG: Let me say a couple of things, if I could have my full minute and a quarter, thank you. I have no tolerance for the kind of behavior that the "Me, Too" movement has exposed. And anybody that does anything wrong in our company, we investigate it, and if it's appropriate, they're gone that day.

But let me tell you what I do at my company and my foundation and in city government when I was there. In my foundation, the person that runs it's a woman, 70 percent of the people there are women. In my company, lots and lots of women have big responsibilities. They get paid exactly the same as men. And in my -- in City Hall, the person, the top person, my deputy mayor was a woman, and 40 percent of our commissioners were women.

I am very proud of the fact that about two weeks ago we were awarded, we were voted the most -- the best place to work, second best place in America. If that doesn't say something about our employees and how happy they are, I don't know what does.

JACKSON: Senator Warren, you've been critical of Mayor Bloomberg on this issue.

WARREN: Yes, I have. And I hope you heard what his defense was. "I've been nice to some women." That just doesn't cut it.

The mayor has to stand on his record. And what we need to know is exactly what's lurking out there. He has gotten some number of women, dozens, who knows, to sign nondisclosure agreements both for sexual harassment and for gender discrimination in the workplace.

So, Mr. Mayor, are you willing to release all of those women from those nondisclosure agreements, so we can hear their side of the story?

(APPLAUSE)

BLOOMBERG: We have a very few nondisclosure agreements.

WARREN: How many is that?

BLOOMBERG: Let me finish.

WARREN: How many is that?

BLOOMBERG: None of them accuse me of doing anything, other than maybe they didn't like a joke I told. And let me just -- and let me -- there's agreements between two parties that wanted to keep it quiet and that's up to them. They signed those agreements, and we'll live with it.

BIDEN: Come on.

WARREN: So, wait, when you say it is up to -- I just want to be clear. Some is how many? And -- and when you -- and when you say they signed them and they wanted them, if they wish now to speak out and tell their side of the story about what it is they allege, that's now OK with you? You're releasing them on television tonight? Is that right?

(APPLAUSE)

BLOOMBERG: Senator...

WARREN: Is that right, tonight?

BLOOMBERG: Senator, the company and somebody else, in this case -- a man or a woman or it could be more than that, they decided when they made an agreement they wanted to keep it quiet for everybody's interests.

BIDEN: Come on.

BLOOMBERG: They signed the agreements and that's what we're going to live with.

(CROSSTALK)

BUTTIGIEG: You could release them now.

WARREN: I'm sorry. No, the question is...

BLOOMBERG: I heard your question.

WARREN: ... are the women bound by being muzzled by you and you could release them from that immediately? Because, understand, this is not just a question of the mayor's character. This is also a question about electability.

We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who knows how many nondisclosure agreements and the drip, drip, drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against.

(APPLAUSE)

That's not what we do as Democrats.

JACKSON: Mr. Vice President?

BIDEN: Look, let's get something straight here. It's easy. All the mayor has to do is say, "You are released from the nondisclosure agreement," period.

(APPLAUSE)

We talk about transparency here. This guy got himself in trouble saying that there was a non -- that he couldn't disclose what he did. He went to his company...

BUTTIGIEG: Just to be super-clear, that was about the list of clients, so nobody gets the wrong idea.

BIDEN: No, no, no. Yeah, I'm sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

BUTTIGIEG: I know what you mean. No, you're right.

BIDEN: But he said -- he went to the company and said I want to be released, I want to be able to do it. Look, this is about transparency from the very beginning, whether it's your health record, whether it's your taxes, whether it's whether you have cases against you, whether or not people have signed nondisclosure agreements.

You think the women, in fact, were ready to say I don't want anybody to know about what you did to me? That's not how it works. The way it works is they say, look, this is what you did to me and the mayor comes along and his attorneys said, I will give you this amount of money if you promise you will never say anything. That's how it works.

(APPLAUSE)

JACKSON: Mayor Bloomberg, final word to you?

BLOOMBERG: I've said we're not going to get -- to end these agreements because they were made consensually and they have every right to expect that they will stay private.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

BIDEN: If they want to release it, they should be able to release themselves. Say yes.

SANDERS: Can I add a word to this? You know, we talk about electability, and everybody up here wants to beat Trump, and we talk about stop and frisk, and we talked about the workplace that Mayor Bloomberg has established and the problems there.

But maybe we should also ask how Mayor Bloomberg in 2004 supported George W. Bush for president, put money into Republican candidates for the United States Senate when some of us -- Joe and I and others -- were fighting for Democrats to control the United States Senate.

BIDEN: And didn't support Barack.

SANDERS: Maybe we can talk -- maybe we can talk about a billionaire saying that we should not raise the minimum wage or that we should cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. If that's a way to beat Donald Trump, wow, I would be very surprised.

JACKSON: Thank you, Senator. Vanessa, to you.

HAUC: Senator Klobuchar, you're running on your Washington experience. But last week in a Telemundo interview, you could not name the president of Mexico or discuss any of his policies. Last night, you defended yourself saying, quote, "This isn't 'Jeopardy!'"

But my question to you is, shouldn't our next president know more about one of our largest trading partners?

KLOBUCHAR: Of course.

(APPLAUSE)

Of course. And I don't think that that momentary forgetfulness actually reflects what I know about Mexico and how much I care about it. And I first want to say greetings to President Lopez Obrador.

Secondly, I -- what I meant by the game of "Jeopardy!" is that I think we could all come up with things. You know, how many members are there in the Israeli Knesset? One hundred twenty. Who is the president of Honduras?

HAUC: Senator Klobuchar...

KLOBUCHAR: Hernandez.

HAUC: Senator Klobuchar.

KLOBUCHAR: But when it comes to Mexico, I am the one person on this stage that came out first to say I was for the U.S.-Mexican-Canadian Trade Agreement. That is going to be one of the number-one duties of a president is to implement that.

HAUC: Senator Klobuchar, my colleague specifically asked you if you could name the president of Mexico and your response was no.

KLOBUCHAR: Yes, that's right. And I said that I made an error. I think having a president that maybe is humble and is able to admit that here and there maybe wouldn't be a bad thing.

(APPLAUSE)

HAUC: Mayor Buttigieg, your response?

KLOBUCHAR: But if you could let me -- if you could...

BUTTIGIEG: Yeah, I wouldn't liken this to trivia. I actually didn't know how many members were in the Knesset, so you got me there.

KLOBUCHAR: Well, there you go.

BUTTIGIEG: But you're staking your candidacy on your Washington experience. You're on the committee that oversees border security. You're on the committee that does trade. You're literally in part of the committee that's overseeing these things and were not able to speak to literally the first thing about the politics of the country to our south.

KLOBUCHAR: Are you -- are you trying to say that I'm dumb? Or are you mocking me here, Pete?

BUTTIGIEG: I'm saying you shouldn't trivialize that knowledge.

KLOBUCHAR: I said I made an error. People sometimes forget names. I am the one that -- number one, has the experience based on passing over 100 bills...

HAUC: Thank you, Senator.

KLOBUCHAR: If I could respond, this was a pretty big allegation.

HAUC: Quickly, please.

KLOBUCHAR: He's basically saying that I don't have the experience to be president of the United States. I have passed over 100 bills as the lead Democrat since being in the U.S. Senate. I am the one, not you, that has won statewide in congressional district after congressional district.

(APPLAUSE)

And I will say, when you tried in Indiana, Pete, to run, what happened to you? You lost by over 20 points to someone who later lost to my friend, Joe Donnelly. So don't tell me about experience. What unites us here is we want to win. And I think we should put a proven winner in charge of the ticket.

HAUC: Quick response, Mayor Buttigieg.

BUTTIGIEG: This is a race for president. This is a race for president. If winning a race for Senate in Minnesota translated directly to becoming president, I would have grown up under the presidency of Walter Mondale. This is different.

And the reason that I think we need to talk about Washington experience is that we should ask what that experience has led to. Experience and certainly tenure is not always the same thing as judgment. If we're going to talk about votes in the Senate in Washington, let's talk about it.

(CROSSTALK)

KLOBUCHAR: Let's talk about a major policy...

(CROSSTALK)

HOLT: Hello, hello, hello, hello. Thank you. Senator Warren and Mayor Bloomberg, this question is for you.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLT: I want to talk about -- maybe this is appropriate here.

WARREN: Can I just defend Senator Klobuchar for a minute? This is not right. I understand that she forgot a name.

(APPLAUSE)

It happens. It happens to everybody on this stage. Look, you want to ask about whether or not you understand trade policy with Mexico? Have at it. And if you get it wrong, man, you ought to be held accountable for that. You want to ask about the economy and you get it wrong? You ought to be held accountable. You want to ask about a thousand different issues and you get it wrong? You ought to be held accountable.

But let's just be clear. Missing a name all by itself does not indicate that you do not understand what's going on. And I just think this is unfair.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: Let me say something.

(CROSSTALK)

HAUC: You're right. But Senator Klobuchar could not discuss Mexican policy, either.

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: I'm the only one who knows this man and met with him.

KLOBUCHAR: I do have to respond.

BIDEN: Come on, man.

SANDERS: I called him up.

(CROSSTALK)

KLOBUCHAR: You have just invoked my name again, and I ask you to look at the interview I did directly after the forum, which we went into great detail on Latin American policy.

And I want to say one thing about Mayor Pete where we just disagree. He was asked on a debate stage about the Mexican cartels, which are bad, bad criminal organizations. He said that he would be open to classifying them as terrorist organizations. I actually don't agree with that. That is a very valid debate to have. I don't think that would be good for our security coordination with Mexico, and I think you got that wrong.

BUTTIGIEG: Well, at least that's a substantive...

BIDEN: I've spent more time in Mexico than anybody. Could I get a chance to say something?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, hold on.

HOLT: Mr. Vice President?

SANDERS: Si.

BIDEN: Si, thank you.

SANDERS: Si, si.

BIDEN: Look, I'm the only one who's spent extensive -- hundreds of hours in Latin America. I've met with this president. I've met with the last president, the one before that. I've been deeply involved in making sure that we have a policy that makes more sense than this god-awful president we have now.

I'm the guy that put together $750 million to provide help for those Latin American countries that are the reason why people are leaving, because there's nothing for them to stay for. I've spent hours and hours and hours. And so you want to talk about experience in Washington, it's good to know with whom you're talking. It's good to know what they think. It's good to know what you think. And it's good to be able to have a relationship. That's what it's about.

(APPLAUSE)

HOLT: All right. Well, we -- clearly everybody is warmed up. We're going to take a short break and kick off the next hour with a topic many voters have said is top of mind, the climate crisis. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLT: Welcome back. We received hundreds of questions from Democratic voters, and many of them were about the climate crisis. It's an issue that uniquely impacted Nevadans.

Jon Ralston from the Nevada Independent kicks us off now.

RALSTON: So y'all ready to play some Nevada trivia now? I'm only half-joking here. Let's talk about this issue, because it's up there in polls. Voters are really concerned about it, as you all know.

What you might not know is that Las Vegas and Reno are the vibrant economic engines for the state of Nevada and are also two of the fastest warming cities in the country. In certain months of the year, the heat is already an emergency situation for residents and for tourists walking up and down the Strip.

So I'm going to start with you, Mr. Vice President. What specific policies would you implement that would keep Las Vegas and Reno livable, but also not hurt those economies?

BIDEN: It is the existential threat humanity faces, global warming. I went out to tech -- you have a facility where you have one of the largest, largest solar panel arrays in the world. And it's -- when the fourth stage is completed, it will be able to take care of 60,000 homes for every single bit of their needs.

And what I would do is, number one, work on providing the $47 billion we have for tech and for -- to making sure we find answers is to find a way to transmit that wind and solar energy across the network in the United States. Invest in battery technology.

I would immediately reinstate all of the elimination of -- of what Trump has eliminated in terms of the EPA. I would secondly make sure that we had 500,000 new charging stations in every new highway we built in the United States of America or repaired. I would make sure that we once again made sure that we got the mileage standards back up which would have saved over 12 billion barrels of oil, had he not walked away from it. And I would invest in rail, in rail. Rail can take hundreds of thousands, millions of cars off the road if we have high-speed rail.

RALSTON: Thank you, Mr. Vice president. I want to get some of the rest of you in on this because y'all have plans. Mayor Bloomberg, let me read -- let me read what you've said about this issue. You said you want to intensify U.S. and international actions to stop the expansion of coal. How exactly are you going to do that?

BLOOMBERG: Well, already we've closed 304 out of the 530 coal-fired power plants in the United States, and we've closed 80 out of the 200 or 300 that are in Europe, Bloomberg Philanthropies, working with the Sierra Club, that's one of the things you do.

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But let's just start at the beginning. If you're president, the first thing you do the first day is you rejoin the Paris Agreement. This is just ridiculous for us to drop out.

(APPLAUSE)

Two, America's responsibility is to be the leader in the world. And if we don't, we're the ones that are going to get hurt just as much as anybody else. And that's why I don't want to have us cut off all relationships with China, because you will never solve this problem without China and India, Western Europe, and America. That's where most of the greenhouse...

RALSTON: I just...

BLOOMBERG: Let me just finish one other thing. I believe -- and you can tell my whether this is right -- but the solar array that the vice president is talking about is being closed because it's not economic, that you can put solar panels in into modern technology even more modern than that.

RALSTON: All right. Mayor, I just -- I want to let Senator Warren jump in here, just because you've said something that's really specific to Nevada. And the tension here in this state is between people who want renewable energy and people who want conservation on public lands.

Eighty-five percent of Nevada is managed by the federal government. You have said that you were going to have an executive order that would stop drilling on public lands, stop mining, which is a huge industry here. You've got to have lithium, you've got to have copper for renewable energy. How do you do that?

WARREN: So, look, I think we should stop all new drilling and mining on public lands and all offshore drilling. If we need to make exceptions because there are specific minerals that we've got to have access to, then we locate those and we do it not in a way that just is about the profits of giant industries, but in a way that is sustainable for the environment. We cannot continue to let our public lands be used for profits by those who don't care about our environment and are not making it better.

Look, I'm going to say something that is really controversial in Washington, but I think I'm safe to say this here in Nevada. I believe in science.

(APPLAUSE)

And I believe that the way that we're going to deal with this problem is that we are going to increase by tenfold our investment in science.

There's an upcoming $27 trillion market worldwide for green. And much of what is needed has not yet been invented. My proposal is, let's invent it here in the United States and then say, we invent it in the U.S., you've got to build it in the U.S.

TODD: We're going to...

WARREN: That's a million new manufacturing jobs.

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: We're going to stick to this topic. But, Senator Sanders, I'm going to move to fracking. You want a total ban on natural gas extraction, fracking, in the next five years. The industry, obviously, supports a lot of jobs around the country, including thousands in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

One union official there told the New York Times, quote, "If we end up with a Democratic candidate that supports a fracking ban, I'm going to tell my members that either you don't vote or you vote for the other guy." What do you tell these workers, it's supporting a big industry right now, sir?

SANDERS: What I tell these workers is that the scientists are telling us that if we don't act incredibly boldly within the next six, seven years, there will be irreparable damage done not just in Nevada, not just to Vermont or Massachusetts, but to the entire world.

Joe said it right: This is an existential threat. You know what that means, Chuck? That means we're fighting for the future of this planet.

(APPLAUSE)

And the Green New Deal that I support, by the way, will create up to 20 million good-paying jobs as we move our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. This is a moral issue, my friends. We have to take the responsibility of making sure that the planet we leave our children and grandchildren is a planet that is healthy and habitable. That is more important than the profits of the fossil fuel industry.

(APPLAUSE)

TODD: I want to keep this going. Senator Klobuchar, you're not on the same page on a total ban of fracking. You call it a transitional fuel. But scientists are sounding this alarm now. Do you take these warnings that maybe fracking is a step backwards, not a step forward, not a transition?

KLOBUCHAR: I have made it very clear that we have to review all of the permits that are out there right now for natural gas and then make decisions on each one of them and then not grant new ones until we make sure that it's safe. But it is a transitional fuel.

And I want to add something that really hasn't been brought up by my colleagues. This is a crisis, and a lot of our plans are very similar to get to carbon neutral by 2045, 2050, something like that. But we're not going to be able to pass this unless we bring people with us.

I'm looking at these incredible senators from Nevada -- Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen -- and I'm thinking that they know how important this is. And you can do this in a smart way. One, get back into that international climate change agreement. Two, clean power rules, bring those back. And the president can do this herself without Congress, as well as the gas mileage standard.

But when it comes to putting a price on carbon -- this is very important, Chuck -- we have to make sure that that money goes back directly as dividends to the people that are going to need help for paying their bills. Otherwise, we're not going to pass it.

TODD: Senator Warren...

KLOBUCHAR: So there has to be a heart to the policy to get this done.

TODD: Senator Warren, address the worker issue, if you don't mind, as well. Can you address the worker issue?

WARREN: Yes. We can have a Green New Deal and create jobs. We need people in infrastructure who will help build. We have manufacturing...

TODD: They could lose that job tomorrow, though. That's what they're concerned about.

WARREN: Yes, those jobs are for tomorrow. Those are the ones we need to be working on to harden our infrastructure right now. But listen to Senator Klobuchar's point. She says we have to think smaller in order to get it passed. I don't think that's the right approach here.

Why can't we get anything passed in Washington on climate? Everyone understands the urgency, but we've got two problems. The first is corruption, an industry that makes its money felt all through Washington.

The first thing I want to do in Washington is pass my anti-corruption bill so that we can start making the changes we need to make on climate. And the second is the filibuster. If you're not willing to roll back the filibuster, then you're giving the fossil fuel industry a veto overall of the work that we need to do.

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: Thank you. Vanessa -- Senator, thank you, Vanessa has got the next question.

KLOBUCHAR: Can I respond? She mentioned me.

(CROSSTALK)

HAUC: Vice President Biden, you have said that you want to hold oil and gas executives accountable for their role in harming our planet. You have even suggested that you might put them in jail. Which companies are you talking about? And how far are you willing to go?

BIDEN: I'm willing to go as far as we have to. First of all, I would eliminate all the subsidies we have for oil and gas, eliminate it, period. That would save millions and millions -- billions of dollars.

(APPLAUSE)

Number two, I think that any executive who is engaged -- and by the way, minority communities are the communities that are being most badly hurt by the way in which we deal with climate change. They are the ones that become the victims. That's where the asthma is, that's where the groundwater supply has been polluted. That's where, in fact, people, in fact, do not have the opportunity to be able to get away from everything from asbestos in the walls of our schools.

I have a trillion-dollar program for infrastructure. That will provide for thousands and thousands of new jobs, not $15 an hour, but $50 an hour, plus benefits, unions, unions being able to do that.

(APPLAUSE)

And what it does is, it will change the nature -- look, here's the last point I want -- and my time is going to run out. Here's the last point I want to make to you. On day one, when I'm elected president, I'm going to invite all of the members of the Paris Accord to Washington, D.C. They make up 85 percent of the problem. They know me. I'm used to dealing with international relations. I will get them to up the ante in a big way.

HAUC: Vice President Biden, you didn't answer my questions.

BIDEN: I thought I did. I'm sorry.

HAUC: What would you do with these companies that are responsible for the destruction of our planet?

BIDEN: What would I do with them? I would make sure they, number one, stop. Number two, if you demonstrate that they, in fact, have done things already that are bad and they've been lying, they should be able to be sued, they should be able to be held personally accountable, and they should -- and not only the company, not the stockholders, but the CEOs of those companies. They should be engaged.

And it's a little bit like -- look, this is the industries we should be able to sue. We should go after -- just like we did the drug companies, just like we did with the tobacco companies. The only company we can't go after are gun manufacturers, because of my buddy here. But that's a different story...

HOLT: We're going to stay on the topic. My question is to Mayor Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg, your business is heavily invested in China. I think you mentioned that a few questions back. The number one producer in the world of carbon emissions. How far would you go to force China to reduce those emissions and tackle the climate crisis?

BLOOMBERG: Well, you're not going to go to war with them. You have to negotiate with them and try to -- and we've seen how well that works with tariffs that are hurting us. What you have to do is convince the Chinese that it is in their interest, as well. Their people are going to die just as our people are going to die. And we'll work together.

In all fairness, the China has slowed down. It's India that is an even bigger problem. But it is an enormous problem. Nobody's doing anything about it. We could right here in America make a big difference. We're closing the coal-fired power plants. If we could enforce some of the rules on fracking so that they don't release methane into the air and into the water, you'll make a big difference.

But we're not going to get rid of fracking for a while. And we, incidentally not just natural gas. You frack oil, as well. It is a technique, and when it's done poorly, like they're doing in too many places where the methane gets out into the air, it is very damaging. But it's a transition fuel, I think the senator said it right.

We want to go to all renewables. But that's still many years from now. And we -- before I think the senator mentioned 2050 for some data. No scientist thinks the numbers for 2050 are 2050 anymore. They're 2040, 2035. The world is coming apart faster than any scientific study had predicted. We've just got to do something now.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLT: Mayor Buttigieg, your thoughts.

BUTTIGIEG: Let's be real about the deadline. It's not 2050, it's not 2040, it's not 2030. It's 2020. Because if we don't elect a president who actually believes in climate science now, we will never meet any of the other scientific or policy deadlines that we need to.

(APPLAUSE)

So first of all, let's make sure we're actually positioned to win, which, once again, if we put forward two of the most polarizing figures on this stage as the only option, it's going to be a real struggle.

Now, I've got a plan to get us carbon neutral by 2050. And I think everybody up here has a plan that more or less does the same. So the real question is, how are we going to actually get it done?

We need leadership to make this a national project that breaks down the partisan and political tug of war that prevents anything from getting done. How do you do it? Well, first of all, making sure that those jobs are available quickly.

Secondly, ensuring that we are pulling in those very sectors who have been made to feel like they're part of the problem, from farming to industry, and fund as well as urge them to do the right thing.

And then global climate diplomacy. I'm a little skeptical of the idea that convincing is going to do the trick when it comes to working with China. America has repeatedly overestimated our ability to shape Chinese ambitions. But what we can do is ensure that we use the hard tools...

HOLT: All right, Mayor Buttigieg.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLT: Senator Warner?

BUTTIGIEG: ... to enforce what has to happen...

WARREN: Yes, I want to make sure that the question of environmental justice gets more than a glancing blow in this debate...

(APPLAUSE)

... because for generations now in this country, toxic waste dumps, polluting factories have been located in or near communities of color, over and over and over. And the consequences are felt in the health of young African-American babies, it's felt in the health of seniors, people with compromised immune systems.

It's also felt economically. Who wants to move into an area where the air smells bad or you can't drink the water?

I have a commitment of a trillion dollars to repair the damage that this nation has permitted to inflict on communities of color for generations now. We have to own up to our responsibility. We cannot simply talk about climate change in big, global terms. We need to talk about it in terms of rescuing the communities that have been damaged.

HOLT: Senator Warren, thank you. Hallie?

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: Vice President Biden, I want to ask you about something else that is important to people here. I want to ask you about Latinos, owning one out of every four new small businesses in the United States. Many of them have benefited from President Trump's tax cuts, and they may be hesitant about new taxes or regulations. Will taxes on their small businesses go up under your administration?

BIDEN: No. Taxes on small businesses won't go up. As a matter of fact, we're going to make sure there's more money available for small businesses in the Latino community and the black community to be able to get the capital to start businesses.

And at the Treasury Department, there's going to be a window available where we significantly increase the amount of money available so people can borrow the money to get started. They have demonstrated they're incredibly successful. We should not be raising taxes on them. We should start rewarding work, not just wealth.

That's why we have to change the tax code the way it is. That's why the wealthy have to start to pay their fair share. And that's why we have to focus on giving people the ability to garner wealth, generate wealth.

And that's why this whole idea of red-lining, lending to people in areas wasn't the cause of Wall Street failing. The greed of Wall Street was the reason why it occurred, not red-lining.

(APPLAUSE)

And lastly I want to say, look, the idea of China, China is -- and their Belt and Road proposal, they're taking the dirtiest coal in the world mostly out of Mongolia and spreading it all around the world. It's clear. Make it clear when you call them to Washington in the first 100 days, if you continue, you will suffer severe consequences because the rest of the world will impose tariffs on everything you're selling because you are undercutting the entire economy.

JACKSON: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Mayor Buttigieg, will taxes on those businesses go up under you?

BUTTIGIEG: Not if they are small businesses. I mean, what we've got to do is level the playing field, where a company like Amazon or Chevron is paying literally zero on billions of dollars in profits and it puts small businesses, like the ones that are revitalizing my own city, often Latino-owned on our west side, at a disadvantage.

We need to recognize that investing in Latino entrepreneurship is not just an investment in the Latino community, it is an investment in the future of America. And it is time for a president who understands the value of immigration in lifting up all of our communities and our country. We're getting the exact opposite message from the current president.

And it is time to recognize not just the diversity of the Latino community, but the importance of issues like economic empowerment, like health care, as well as immigration.

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: We have a tax system...

(CROSSTALK)

WARREN: We have an entrepreneurship gap in America. And that is a gap between white entrepreneurs and black and Latino entrepreneurs. And the principal reason for this is they don't have the money for equity to get the businesses started.

It's about a $7 billion gap. We want to have real entrepreneurship and a level playing field. I have a plan to put the $7 billion in to have the fund managed by the people...

JACKSON: Senator, thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

WARREN: ... who are routinely cut out.

SANDERS: When we talk...

WARREN: It can't just be about taxes.

JACKSON: Thank you, Senator.

WARREN: We need to make an investment to level the playing field and end the black and white wealth...

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: Look, I want to get into something. Mayor Bloomberg, the vice president talked about red-lining.

BLOOMBERG: As the only one here that started a business, maybe you...

TODD: Mayor Bloomberg, you seemed to imply that red-lining and stopping that is -- that stopping red-lining has somehow contributed to the financial crisis.

BLOOMBERG: No, that's exactly wrong.

TODD: And that was the implication that came out in your quote, so I want to give you a chance to clarify this.

BLOOMBERG: I've been well on the record against red-lining since I worked on Wall Street. I was against during the financial crisis. I've been against it since.

The financial crisis came about because the people that took the mortgages, packaged them, and other people bought them, those were -- that's where all the disaster was. Red-lining is still a practice some places, and we've got to cut it out. But it's just not true.

What I was going to say, maybe we want to talk about businesses. I'm the only one here that I think that's ever started a business. Is that fair? OK.

What we need is -- I can tell you in New York City, we had programs, they're mentoring programs for young businesspeople so they can learn how to start a business. We had programs that could get them seed capital. We had programs to get branch banking in their neighborhoods, because if you don't have a branch bank there, you can't get a checking account. You can't get a checking account, you can't get a loan. You can't get a loan, you can't get a mortgage. Then you don't have any wealth. There's ways to fix this. And it doesn't take trillions of dollars. It takes us to focus on the problems of small businesses.

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: Senator Sanders, 45 seconds, and then we're going to move on. Senator Sanders, 45 seconds.

(APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: You know, when we talk about a corrupt political system, bought by billionaires like Mr. Bloomberg, it manifests itself in a tax code in which not only is Amazon and many other major corporations, some owned by the wealthiest people in this country not paying a nickel in taxes, we have the insane situation that billionaires today, if you can believe it, have an effective tax rate lower than the middle class. So maybe, just maybe...

BLOOMBERG: But you're re-writing the tax code. Why are you complaining? Who wrote the code?

SANDERS: You did. You and your campaign...

BLOOMBERG: You and the other 99 senators.

SANDERS: You and your -- not me.

BLOOMBERG: Oh, come on.

SANDERS: You and your campaign contributions electing people who represent the wealthy and the powerful, those are the folks...

BLOOMBERG: Yes. Those are the Democrats, thank you.

SANDERS: Well, and Republicans, too. And George W. Bush, as well.

TODD: Senator Klobuchar, let me -- let me address...

KLOBUCHAR: I was just...

(CROSSTALK)

KLOBUCHAR: I was thinking there was going to be a boxing rematch on Saturday in Vegas and those guys should go down there.

(LAUGHTER)

TODD: Senator Klobuchar, I actually want to get you to something about -- Senator Sanders tweeted last year, "Billionaires should not exist."

KLOBUCHAR: OK.

TODD: What say you?

KLOBUCHAR: I believe in capitalism, but I think our -- the goal of someone in government and a president of the United States should be a check on that. I'm not going to limit what people make, but I think right now our tax code is so tilted against regular people and that is what's wrong.

I was thinking of your question about small businesses. The small businesses I talked to, they have trouble getting employees because their employees don't have childcare. We should have universal childcare.

(APPLAUSE)

And we have not been talking enough about Donald Trump and -- let's just talk about Donald Trump, because he signed that tax bill that helped the wealthy, and he went down to Mar-a-Lago and he said to all his friends, "You just got a lot richer." That is Exhibit A.

And I can tell you, the hard-working people in Nevada were not in that room. So the key to me is to not limit what people can make, but make sure that we have a government that is fair for everyone.

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: So, Senator Sanders, what did you mean that you don't think they should exist?

SANDERS: I'll tell you what I mean.

TODD: What did that mean?

SANDERS: We have a grotesque and immoral distribution of wealth and income. Mike Bloomberg owns more wealth than the bottom 125 million Americans. That's wrong. That's immoral. That should not be the case when we got a half a million people sleeping out on the street, where we have kids who cannot afford to go to college, when we have 45 million people dealing with student debt.

We have enormous problems facing this country, and we cannot continue seeing a situation where, in the last three years, billionaires in this country saw an $850 billion increase in their wealth -- congratulations, Mr. Bloomberg -- but the average American last year saw less than a 1 percent increase in his or her income. That's wrong.

(APPLAUSE)

TODD: Mayor Bloomberg, should you exist?

BLOOMBERG: I can't speak for all billionaires. All I know is I've been very lucky, made a lot of money, and I'm giving it all away to make this country better. And a good chunk of it goes to the Democratic Party, as well.

(APPLAUSE)

TODD: Is it too much? Have you earned too much -- has it been an obscene amount of -- should you have earned that much money?

BLOOMBERG: Yes. I worked very hard for it. And I'm giving it away.

TODD: All right, thank you. Hallie?

JACKSON: Mayor Buttigieg, Senator Sanders has a proposal that will require all large companies to turn over up to 20 percent of their ownership to employees over time. Is that a good idea?

BUTTIGIEG: I think that employee ownership of companies is a great idea. I'm not sure it makes sense to command those companies to do it. If we really want to deliver less inequality in this country, then we've got to start with the tax code and we've got to start with investments in how people are able to live the American dream, which is in serious, serious decline.

As a matter of fact, last time I checked, the list of countries to live out the American dream, in other words, to be born at the bottom and come out at the top, we're not even in the top ten. Number one place to live out the American dream right now is Denmark.

And as the, I think, lone person on this stage who's not a millionaire, let alone a billionaire, I believe that part of what needs to change is for the voices of the communities that haven't felt heard on Wall Street or in Washington to actually be brought to Capitol Hill.

It's why I am building a politics designed around inclusion, designed around belonging, because the one thing that will definitely perpetuate the income inequality we're living with right now is for Donald Trump to be re-elected, because we polarized this country with the wrong nominee.

JACKSON: Senator Sanders, it's your policy.

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: Can I -- to me, right?

JACKSON: It is your policy.

SANDERS: Thank you, it is my policy, and I'm very proud of that policy. All right? What we need to do to deal with this grotesque level of income and wealth inequality is make sure that those people who are working -- you know what, Mr. Bloomberg, it wasn't you who made all that money. Maybe your workers played some role in that, as well.

(APPLAUSE)

And it is important that those workers are able to share the benefits, also. When we have so many people who go to work every day and they feel not good about their jobs, they feel like cogs in a machine. I want workers to be able to sit on corporate boards, as well, so they can have some say over what happens to their lives.

JACKSON: Mayor Bloomberg, you own a large company. Would you support what Senator Sanders is proposing?

BLOOMBERG: Absolutely not. I can't think of a ways that would make it easier for Donald Trump to get re-elected than listening to this conversation.

(APPLAUSE)

It's ridiculous. We're not going to throw out capitalism. We tried. Other countries tried that. It was called communism, and it just didn't work.

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

WARREN: So let me make a proposal that will work, that has not only support from a majority of Democrats, but also from a majority of the independents and a majority of Republicans. And that is a two-cent wealth tax on all fortunes above $50 million. You hit a billion, you've got to pay a few pennies more.

This is a tax on the top one-tenth of one percent in America. And it permits us to start to restructure our economy. It means we can afford universal childcare for everybody baby in this country age zero to five. It means we can have universal pre-K for every child in America. It means we can raise the wages of every childcare worker and preschool teacher and stop exploiting the black and brown women who do this work.

(APPLAUSE)

It means we can put $800 billion into our public schools, quadruple funding for Title I schools. And as a former special education teacher, we could fully fund IDEA so children with disabilities would get the full education they need.

(APPLAUSE)

We can do college. We could put $50 billion into our historically black colleges and universities. And we could cancel student loan debt for 43 million Americans.

HOLT: Senator, thank you.

WARREN: That's something a majority of Americans support, a two-cent wealth tax. It is a question of values. Do we want to invest in Mr. Bloomberg? Or do we want to invest in an entire generation of young students?

HOLT: Senator Sanders, my next question is for you. Senator Sanders, our latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll released yesterday, two-thirds of all voters said they were uncomfortable with a socialist candidate for president. What do you say to those voters, sir?

SANDERS: What was the result of that poll? Who was winning?

HOLT: The question -- the question is to you.

SANDERS: The question was that I was winning, and I think by a fairly comfortable margin. Might mention that.

But here is the point. Let's talk about democratic socialism. Not communism, Mr. Bloomberg. That's a cheap shot. Let's talk about -- let's talk about what goes on in countries like Denmark, where Pete correctly pointed out they have a much higher quality of life in many respects than we do. What are we talking about?

We are living in many ways in a socialist society right now. The problem is, as Dr. Martin Luther King reminded us, we have socialism for the very rich, rugged individualism for the poor.

(APPLAUSE)

BLOOMBERG: Wait a second.

SANDERS: When Donald -- let me finish. When Donald Trump gets $800 million in tax breaks and subsidies to build luxury condominiums, that's socialism for the rich.

BLOOMBERG: Wait a second.

SANDERS: When Walmart -- we have to subsidize Walmart's workers who are on Medicaid and food stamps because the wealthiest family in America pays starvation wages, that's socialism for the rich.

(APPLAUSE)

I believe in democratic socialism for working people, not billionaires, health care for all, educational opportunities for all.

HOLT: All right, Senator, Senator, thank you.

SANDERS: Creating a government that works for all, not just for Mr. Bloomberg.

HOLT: The question was about socialism.

BLOOMBERG: What a wonderful country we have. The best known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with three houses. What did I miss here?

SANDERS: Well, you'll miss that I work in Washington, house one.

BLOOMBERG: That's the first problem.

SANDERS: Live in Burlington, house two.

BLOOMBERG: That's good.

SANDERS: And like thousands of other Vermonters, I do have a summer camp. Forgive me for that. Where is your home? Which tax haven do you have your home?

BLOOMBERG: New York City, thank you very much, and I pay all my taxes. And I'm happy to do it because I get something for it. And let me say, I thought the senator next to me was half right.

WARREN: Elizabeth.

BLOOMBERG: I agree we should raise taxes on the -- I disagree with the senator on the wealth tax but I do agree with her that the rich aren't paying their fair share. We should raise taxes on the rich. I did that as mayor in New York City. I raised taxes. And if you take a look at my plans, the first thing I would do is try to convince Congress, because they've got to do it, we can't just order it, to roll back the tax cuts that the Trump administration put in with the -- through Congress.

HOLT: All right, Vice President Biden, weigh in on this question of Americans' feeling about socialist candidates.

BIDEN: Well, look, let me weigh in on -- you know, for 36 years and as vice president, I was listed as the poorest man in Congress. I made money when I wrote a book about my son and it surprised me how much it sold. First time I've ever made any money.

And here's the deal. The fact is that we ought to start rewarding work, not just wealth. The idea that we have a tax rate for corporate America at 21 percent is ridiculous. It should be at 28 percent. That would raise almost $800 billion a year.

The idea that we have companies not paying anything at all, they should have a minimum tax of 15 percent. That would raise another $740 billion a year.

The idea that you're able to have a capital gains tax that you pay at the rate of 20 percent if you are -- if you're Mike Bloomberg or whomever that has a whole lot of money, and someone else who's paying at -- your staffer is paying at 25 percent is wrong. That would raise another $800 billion.

We should be rewarding work, not just wealth. And the American people, the middle class is getting killed, and the poor have no way up.

HOLT: All right, Vice President Biden, thank you. Chuck?

TODD: Mayor Buttigieg, I want to get you in on this, because, you know, in 2000, you wrote an award-winning essay. You praised Senator Sanders. You specifically praised him for embracing socialism. You have now since said that you are concerned about his policies.

But I am curious about this. Are you out of touch with your own generation, millennials by a big chunk embrace his version of democratic socialism, you do not. Are you out of touch with your generation?

BUTTIGIEG: No. Look, it's true that I was into Bernie before it was cool.

SANDERS: Thank you.

BUTTIGIEG: He was a congressman at the time. And the qualities I admired then are qualities I still respect a great deal. I never said that I agree with every part of his policy views, then or now. But I appreciate that at least he's straightforward and honest about them. He's honest about the fact that taxes will go up on anybody making more than $29,000 to fund his health care plan, although, again, a little bit vague about how the rest of that gets...

SANDERS: You're not being honest. Premiums would be eliminated.

BUTTIGIEG: But you're still raising those taxes. And when you do it...

SANDERS: But we're saving people money because they don't pay any premiums, out-of-pocket expenses, co-payments, or deductibles. They're going to be much better off.

(APPLAUSE)

BUTTIGIEG: But where is -- where is the other $25 trillion supposed to come from? At a certain point, you've got to do the math.

SANDERS: Well, we got it all up there on the internet. It's a payroll tax -- a payroll tax...

(CROSSTALK)

BUTTIGIEG: Well, no, but even after the payroll tax, you still have a hole.

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: Because we have a wealth tax. Elizabeth has a good one. Ours is a little bit tougher on Mr. Bloomberg than hers. We're going to raise it in a progressive way, which deals with income and wealth inequality, and makes certain, finally, that health care in this country is a human right, not a privilege.

KLOBUCHAR: Could I...

TODD: Forty-five seconds. Senator Warren, I'm just going to close it out here. You went out of your way -- you went out of your way to call yourself a capitalist, to separate yourself...

WARREN: Yes, because I am.

TODD: ... from him. Why?

WARREN: Yes, because I am. Look, Democrats want to beat Donald Trump, but they are worried. They are worried about gambling on a narrow vision that doesn't address the fears of millions of Americans across this country who see real problems and want real change. They are worried about gambling on a revolution that won't bring along a majority of this country.

Amy and Joe's hearts are in the right place, but we can't be so eager to be liked by Mitch McConnell that we forget how to fight the Republicans.

(CROSSTALK)

WARREN: Mayor Buttigieg has been taking money from big donors and changing his positions.

BUTTIGIEG: That's just not true.

WARREN: So it makes it unclear what it is he stands for, other than his own...

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: Senator, thank you. Senator Klobuchar, go ahead. You've got -- Senator Klobuchar -- Senator Klobuchar, go ahead, you've got the floor for 45. Go.

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you. Number one, I have repeatedly said that we have to win big. And the way we win big is winning states like Nevada, but also winning the Senate races in Arizona and in Colorado and beyond.

(APPLAUSE)

And the reason we want to do that is to send Mitch McConnell packing. And I think, when you look at my history, I am the one that has done that. I am the one that can lead this ticket. And just because I am willing to talk about common ground, that's where America is. It is not with Mitch McConnell, who has 400 bills on his desk that should pass if we get rid of him.

It is because I am willing to work...

HOLT: OK.

WARREN: May I respond?

KLOBUCHAR: ... with people and find common ground, and that's what we want in a president, Elizabeth.

(CROSSTALK)

KLOBUCHAR: We don't want someone that looks at just plans. The difference between...

HOLT: Senator, thank you. We need to take another break here. We'll return to the Paris Las Vegas in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLT: Welcome back to Las Vegas and the Democratic presidential debate. To kick off our next round of questioning, here's Hallie.

JACKSON: Mayor Buttigieg, to you. In 2018, Mayor Bloomberg was the biggest outside spender helping Democrats running for Congress. He's also donated billions toward causes like climate change, gun safety, education. If his money wasn't a problem then, why is it a problem now?

BUTTIGIEG: Oh, I think he should absolutely be doing everything in his power to defeat Donald Trump. I just don't think that has to result in him becoming the president of the United States.

Look, our party has values. We were built around values like making sure we protect working people. But Mayor Bloomberg opposed raising the minimum wage. Our party has a tradition that includes excellent presidents like Barack Obama, who Mayor Bloomberg opposed.

At the end of the day, it's not just about how much money you've got. It's what you stand for. And we are living in a moment when Americans are so deeply frustrated with the way that both Wall Street and Washington seem to have overlooked our lives.

The view from the porch of my one house in Indiana...

(LAUGHTER)

... is that they can't even see us sometimes. And if we're going into the election of our lives against a president who rose to power by cynically exploiting the frustration of ordinary Americans feeling like leaders weren't speaking to them, then I think that turning to someone like Mayor Bloomberg, who thinks he can buy this election, is no better a way to succeed than turning to somebody like Senator Sanders who wants to burn the house down.

JACKSON: Mr. Vice President?

BIDEN: You know, if you excuse a point of personal privilege, they used to say, it was said that I was in the pocket of Mitch McConnell. I'm the only person on this stage that's beaten Mitch McConnell on four major, major cases. Let me finish.

(APPLAUSE)

Let me finish. And Mitch McConnell -- I've been the object of his affection and the president's affection, the way he's gone after me, this new Republican party, after me, after my son, after my family. I don't need to be told I'm a friend of Mitch McConnell's. Mitch McConnell has been the biggest pain in my neck in a long, long time. And so that's number one.

Number two, we have to have somebody who understands what it's like for ordinary people. Ordinary people come up. They have to understand, like my dad made that longest walk up a short flight of stairs and said, "I don't have a job, honey, we have to move. You've got to move with Grandpa." How long it took to buy a house, how long it took to get back in the game again.

They have to understand the needs of ordinary people. And they are getting killed, no matter what people say about this economy, how good it is. And the good part of the economy, this -- it's only 60 seconds. It's not up yet.

And the fact is that we are in a situation where you have, Mayor, the -- excuse me, the president making clear that he doesn't want any part of me being his opponent. He's spending $125,000 this week to keep me from being the opponent. I wonder why.

(APPLAUSE)

JACKSON: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Vanessa, to you.

WARREN: So can I respond to the vice president?

HAUC: Thank you, Hallie.

WARREN: He's identifying me specifically in this.

JACKSON: Forty-five seconds to you, Senator.

BIDEN: I was identified. I was responding to an accusation.

WARREN: So, no, the point is different. Here's what happened. According to the New York Times," the last time that Mitch McConnell was on the ballot, the vice president stood in the Oval Office and said, "I hope that Mitch gets reelected so I can keep working with him." Well, Mitch did get -- Mitch did get re-elected.

BIDEN: That's totally out of context.

WARREN: He did not have an epiphany. Instead, he blocked nearly everything that Barack Obama tried to pass.

BIDEN: Did you ever win anything?

WARREN: And he stole a Supreme Court seat from Democrats.

BIDEN: Come on.

WARREN: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

HAUC: Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senator.

Our next question goes to Senator Klobuchar. About 700,000 young people known as Dreamers, or Sonadores, who were brought to this country as children, are currently protected from deportation because of a program that is now under the review by the Supreme Court. If the court sides with the Trump administration, which is eager to end this protection, what exactly is your plan to protect the Dreamers permanently?

KLOBUCHAR: To win, to beat Donald Trump. The best way to protect the Dreamers is to have a new president. There are the votes there to protect the Dreamers. And I have been working on this since I got to the United States Senate. In my first campaign, I actually had a bunch of ads run against me because I was standing up for immigrants.

And when I think of Dreamers -- and I try to explain it to my state -- I found a 99-year-old Hispanic war veteran who was a Dreamer when he was brought over to this country. And back then, he just went to Canada for a night and came back and he was a permanent citizen, because they needed him to serve in World War II. Now, not so easy.

The Dreamers are our future. The Dreamers are so important in Nevada. And the best way we can get this done is to beat Donald Trump, but it is to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which creates a path to citizenship to so many hard-working people, will bring down the deficit by $158 billion, and will bring peace for these Dreamers.

HAUC: Thank you so much, Senator.

KLOBUCHAR: They know no other country but our own.

HAUC: Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

BUTTIGIEG: If you're going to run based on...

HAUC: Mayor Pete?

BUTTIGIEG: If you're going to run based on your record of voting in Washington, then you have to own those votes, especially when it comes to immigration. You voted to confirm the head of Customs and Border Protection under Trump, who is one of the architects of the family separation policy. You voted to make English the national language. Do you know the message that sends in as multilingual a state as Nevada to immigrants?

You have been unusual among Democrats, I think the Democrat among all of the senators running for president most likely to vote for Donald Trump's judges, who we know are especially hostile to Dreamers and to the rights of immigrants.

Now, in South Bend, it was not always easy to stand up in a conservative place like Indiana on immigration. But we delivered. We created a municipal ID program so that Dreamers and others who were undocumented were able to navigate everyday life. We stood up for those rights and stood with members of our community with the message that they were as American as we are. (speaking Spanish)

HAUC: Thank you. Gracias, gracias, Mayor Pete.

KLOBUCHAR: I wish...

HAUC: Senator Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: I wish everyone was as perfect as you, Pete. But let me tell you what it's like to be in the arena. Number one, do the math. If my friend, Andrew Yang, was up here, that's what he'd say.

In fact, I have opposed, not supported, two-thirds of the Trump judges, so get your numbers right. And I am in the top 10 to 15 of opposing them.

Number two, when it comes to immigration reform, the things that you are referring to, that official that you are referring to was supported by about half the Democrats, including someone in this room. And I will say this: He was highly recommended by the Obama officials. Do you know why? Because Trump had so few career people.

I did not one bit agree with these draconian policies to separate kids from their parents. And in my first 100 days, I would immediately change that. And I would add one more thing. I have been in the arena.

HAUC: Thank you, Senator.

KLOBUCHAR: Ted Kennedy -- he had made a pretty big allegation against me again, and I think I should have a right to respond. He had...

(APPLAUSE)

BUTTIGIEG: I'm stating the facts, because these are votes that you took, and those votes set you alone among the Democrats running for president.

KLOBUCHAR: That is just...

BUTTIGIEG: No other -- is it true or is it false that no other Democrat from the Senate running for president voted that way?

KLOBUCHAR: First of all, it is -- what you've said about the judges are false. You are comparing me to two colleagues up here on this stage, and you are forgetting one thing.

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I would say anybody who ran for president this cycle, Senator Harris, Senator Booker saw through this.

KLOBUCHAR: You know what, Pete? If you could let me finish, since I've been in the arena. Ted Kennedy asked me to work on the first immigration bill. We were able with President Bush to at least get that bill to a vote. I'm sorry that Senator Sanders actually opposed that bill, and I worked on it. And if we had gotten that bill done, there would have been a path to citizenship for so many people.

Then I worked on the 2013 bill. I'm actually so proud of the work I have done on immigration reform. And you know what? You have not been in the arena doing that work. You've memorized a bunch of talking points and a bunch of things, but I can tell you one thing.

(APPLAUSE)

What the people of this country want, they want a leader that has the heart for the immigrants of this country, and that is me.

BUTTIGIEG: You know, maybe leading a diverse city that was facing ruin doesn't sound like the arena to you. I'm used to senators telling mayors that senators are more important than mayors, but this is the arena, too. You don't have to be in Washington to matter. You don't have to be on Capitol Hill for your work to be significant.

WARREN: Can we talk more...

(CROSSTALK)

TODD: Guys, guys, we are at the end here. We are at the end here. I've got to let that one go.

We are less than two weeks away from a national primary. And I want to ask all of you this simple question. There's a very good chance none of you are going to have enough delegates to the Democratic National Convention to clench this nomination, OK?

If that happens, I want all of your opinions on this. Should the person with the most delegates at the end of this primary season be the nominee, even if they are short of a majority? Senator Sanders, I'm going to let you go last here, because I know your view on this.

(LAUGHTER)

So instead, I will start with you, Mayor Bloomberg.

BLOOMBERG: Whatever the rules of the Democratic Party are, they should be followed. And if they have a process, which I believe they do...

TODD: OK, I'm trying to do this yes or no to make it fast.

BLOOMBERG: ... everybody else -- everybody can...

TODD: So you want the convention to work its will?

BLOOMBERG: Yes.

TODD: Senator Warren?

WARREN: But a convention working its will means that people have the delegates that are pledged to them and they keep those delegates until you come to the convention.

TODD: Should the leading person?

WARREN: All of the people.

TODD: OK. All righty. Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: Play by the rules.

TODD: Yes or no, leading person with the delegates, should they be the nominee or not?

BIDEN: No, let the process work its way out.

TODD: Mayor Buttigieg?

BUTTIGIEG: Not necessarily. Not until there's a majority.

TODD: Senator Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: Let the process work.

TODD: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: Well, the process includes 500 super-delegates on the second ballot. So I think that the will of the people should prevail, yes. The person who has the most votes should become the nominee.

TODD: Thank you, guys. Five noes and a yes.

HOLT: We are not done yet. We're back with more from Las Vegas after a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLT: Welcome back, everyone. It is time for closing statements. Each candidate will have one minute. And we begin with Senator Klobuchar.

KLOBUCHAR: This has been quite a debate.

(LAUGHTER)

And what I want everyone out there watching to remember is that what unites us is so much bigger than what divides us and that we need a candidate that can bring people with her.

(APPLAUSE)

Yes, a fired up Democratic base, but also independents and moderate Republicans. And I have done that every single time. I have won every race down to fourth grade. A lot of boasting up here, so thought I'd add that.

(LAUGHTER)

Secondly, you need someone who can govern. And I have passed over 100 bills as the lead Democrat.

And, third, you need someone that has the heart to be the president. They were talking a lot about heart conditions up here. We have a president right now that doesn't have a heart.

(APPLAUSE)

I love the people of this country. And I ask for the vote of the people of Nevada, because this state gets it. They get that maybe you don't agree with every single thing that's said on this debate stage, but we understand that the heart of America is bigger than any heart that guy has in the White House.

HOLT: Senator Klobuchar, Senator Klobuchar, thank you.

KLOBUCHAR: I ask you to join me at amyklobuchar.com. Thank you.

HOLT: Senator Klobuchar, thank you.

JACKSON: Mayor Bloomberg, to you.

BLOOMBERG: Well, you can join me at mikebloomberg.com, too, if you want, but I'm not asking for any money.

(LAUGHTER)

Look, this is a management job, and Donald Trump's not a manager. This is a job where you have to build teams. He doesn't have a team so he goes and makes decisions without knowing what's going on or the implications of what he does. We cannot run the railroad this way.

This country has to pull together and understand that the people that we elect -- and it's not just the president of the United States -- they should have experience, they should have credentials, they should understand what they're doing and the implications thereof.

And then we should as a society try to hold them accountable so the next time they go before the voters, if they haven't done the job, we shouldn't just say, oh, nice person, gives a good speech. We should say, didn't do the job and you're out of here.

JACKSON: Mr. Mayor, thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

TODD: Mayor Buttigieg, one minute.

BUTTIGIEG: Nevada, I'm asking for your vote because America is running out of time and this is our only chance to defeat Donald Trump. If you look at the choice between a revolution or the status quo and you don't see where you fit in that picture, then join us. And, yes, go to peteforamerica.com and help out, because we need to draw everybody that we can who believes that we need to empower workers, who believes in climate science, who believes in doing something about gun violence and recognizes that the only way we can do this is to create a sense of belonging in this country that moves us out of the toxic and polarized moment that we are living in today.

I already see an American majority ready to do these things. Now we have a responsibility to galvanize, not polarize, that majority. We cannot afford to lean on the same Washington playbook. We cannot afford to alienate half the country. We must step forward into the future in order to win and in order to govern a country that will be facing issues the likes of which we barely thought of just a few years ago. I'm asking you to join me so that we can deliver that future together.

(APPLAUSE)

HAUC: Senator Warren?

WARREN: I grew up fighting. I grew up out in Oklahoma, and I learned it probably from my mother. I watched when my daddy had a heart attack and didn't have any money coming in, when our car was lost and when we were on the edge of losing our home. I watched my mother fight to save our family. And I grew up fighting to save our family, my family.

I eventually made it through school and spent my life as a teacher, and looking into why it is that so many families across this country are struggling and why it gets worse year after year after year.

I for years have fought for unions to say the way we're going to restructure this economy is we're going to get -- make it easier to join a union and get more power into unions. To fight for students who have been cut out of opportunity over and over because of the rising cost of an education.

Look, for me, I am -- of all the people on this stage, I have been a politician the shortest time, but I've been the one out fighting for families the longest time. I promise you this: Give me a chance, I'll go to the White House and I'll fight for your family.

HAUC: Thank you, Senator.

RALSTON: Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: I'm running because so many people...

PROTESTORS: (OFF-MIKE)

(AUDIENCE BOOS)

HOLT: Give us a moment. We'll clear the room and let -- and let -- Senator -- Senator Biden, you have one minute.

BIDEN: Look, I'm running because so many people are being left behind. People I grew up with in Scranton, when my dad lost his job, lost his house, had to move. We moved to Claymont, we found ourselves in a position where we had little ability to get anything done. And my dad worked like hell.

I've learned a lot. I've been knocked down a whole hell of a lot. I know what it's like to be knocked down. But I know we have to get back up. We have to provide some safety and security for the American people.

Right here in Nevada, the site of the most significant mass murder in American history, guns. Our kids are getting sent to school having to hide under desks, learning how to run down corridors to avoid being shot. It's immoral. I'm the only one that's beaten the NRA nationally, and I beat them twice.

With regard to health care, it also is something that is a right. Obamacare has to be expanded. It can be, in fact, cover everybody.

And lastly, I think it's important that on day one, day one, we deal with sending an immigration bill to the desk. The only person in here that has a worse record on immigration is Bernie, because Bernie voted against the 2007 bill.

HOLT: All right.

RALSTON: Thank you, thank you.

BIDEN: Had, in fact, that immigration bill passed, there would be -- 6 million members would be now American citizens.

HOLT: All right. Senator Sanders, you have one minute for your closing remarks.

(APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: Unfortunately, LULAC, among other groups, Latino groups, saw that bill having provisions akin to slavery, Joe.

But the bottom line is, all of us are united in defeating the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country. That we agree on. But where we don't agree, I think, is why we are today the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people, why three people own more wealth than the bottom half of America, when 500,000 people sleep out on the street, why hundreds of thousands of bright young kids can't afford to go to college, and 45 million remain in student debt.

Bottom line here: Real change never takes place from the top on down, never takes place from an oligarchy controlled by billionaires. We need to mobilize millions of people to stand up for justice. That's our campaign. Join us as berniesanders.com. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

HOLT: Senator, thank you. Folks, thank you. That concludes tonight's debate. Our thanks to my fellow moderators, to the candidates, and of course, to all of you, the audience here and at home. The Nevada caucuses are this Saturday with the South Carolina primary just one week later. Then the big prize, Super Tuesday, on March 3rd. We'll be following it all for you.

For now, for all of us at NBC News, I'm Lester Holt. Good day.

George S.: (00:14)
Candidates, welcome. Vice President Biden, the first question is for you. In the last few days, you've been saying that Democrats will be taking too big a risk if they nominate Senator Sanders or Mayor Buttigieg, but they came out on top in Iowa. What risks did the Iowa Democrats miss?

Joe Biden: (00:32)
Oh, they didn't miss anything. It's a long race. I took a hit in Iowa and I'll probably take a hit here. Traditionally Bernie won by 20 points last time. And usually it's the neighboring senators that do well. But no matter what, I'm still in this for the same reason, we have to restore the soul of this country, bring back the middle class and make sure we bring people together. And so it's a simple proposition. It doesn't matter whether it's this one or the next. I've always viewed the first four encounters, two primaries, and two caucuses as the starting point. And so that's how I view it.

George S.: (01:08)
Why are Senator Sanders and Mayor Buttigieg too big a risk for Democrats?

Joe Biden: (01:12)
Well, you know that with regard to Senator Sanders, the President wants very much to sic a label on every candidate. We're going to not only have to win this time, we have to bring along the United States Senate. And Bernie's labeled himself, not me, a democratic socialist. I think that's the label that the President's going to lay on everyone running with Bernie if he's a nominee. And a Mayor Buttigieg is a great guy and a real patriot. He's a mayor of a small city, who has done some good things but has not demonstrated he has the ability to, and we'll soon find out, to get a broad scope of support across the spectrum, including African Americans and Latinos.

George S.: (01:53)
Senator Sanders, let me give you the chance to respond first. President Trump certainly thinks this label socialism will work. At the State of the Union, he said, "Socialism destroys nations. He's never going to let socialism destroy American healthcare." And before the Super Bowl, he joked was Sean Hannity about your honeymoon in Moscow. Those hits are going to keep coming if you're the nominee. Why shouldn't Democrats be worried?

Bernie Sanders: (02:14)
Because Donald Trump lies all the time. It doesn't matter what Donald Trump says, it's a sad state of affairs, it really is. He will say terrible things about Joe, he has [inaudible 00:02:32] ugly, disgusting things about Elizabeth, about Amy, about anybody else who was up here. But I think George, that at the end of the day, the way we defeat Donald Trump and everybody up here by the way, is united. No matter who wins this damn thing, we're all going to stand together to defeat Donald Trump.

Bernie Sanders: (02:55)
I believe that the way we beat Trump is by having the largest voter turnout in the history of this country. And that is appealing to working class people, who have given up on the political process because they don't believe that anybody is hearing their pain, perceiving that pain, feeling their pain. And we got to bring young people into the political process. I am very proud that in Iowa we won the popular vote by 6,000 votes. What was most significant, most significant, is we increased voter turnout for young people under 29 by over 30%. If we do that nationally, we're going to defeat Donald Trump.

George S.: (03:34)
But Senator, let me follow up there and then we'll move on. But back in Iowa, the turn out this year was about the same as it was in 2016. Far below what it was in 2008 when President Obama won.

Bernie Sanders: (03:46)
That's true. And that's the disappointment and I think all of us probably could have done a better job in bringing out our supporters. But if there is a good spot, a good aspect about that campaign, is that young people came out in higher numbers than they did during Obama's historic 2008 campaign. And if that happens nationally, we're going to win and defeat Trump.

George S.: (04:09)
Before I move on to Mayor Buttigieg, let me just ask, is anyone else on the stage concerned about having a democratic socialist at the top of the Democratic ticket?

Bernie Sanders: (04:20)
I'm not.

George S.: (04:21)
Senator Klobuchar.

Amy Klobuchar: (04:24)
Bernie and I work together all the time. But I think we are not going to be able to out divide the divider in chief. And I think we need someone to head up this ticket that actually brings people with her, instead of shutting them out. And when I look at a state like New Hampshire that had a very, very close election last time in 2016, I see a state that, yes, has a high voter turnout, fired-up Democrats just like my state, which by the way, Bernie, when I led the ticket, had the highest voter turnout of any state in the country. But I add to that being able to bring in independents like you have in this state as well as moderate Republicans. Because there are so many of them out there that are looking for a candidate. And truthfully, Donald Trump's worst nightmare is a candidate that will bring people in from the middle. The people that are tired of the noise and the nonsense. And they are tired of the tweets and the mean stuff and they are looking for someone else. And I would submit that that is me.

George S.: (05:29)
Mr. Steyer, is socialism [inaudible 00:05:33]

Tom Steyer: (05:34)
I don't think there's any question, George, that after this week there's a real threat that Donald Trump can get reelected. And I don't think there's any question, but that the only way that we're going to beat him actually is the way that Bernie Sanders said, which is to get turnout across the spectrum of democratic voters. And that means we're going to have to appeal across the spectrum, moderates, progressives and every group. So unless you can appeal to the diverse parts of the Democratic Party, including specifically the black community, including specifically Latinos. If you can't do that, then we can't beat Donald Trump in November and we can't choose a candidate who can't do that. And I am doing that right now with 24% of blacks down in South Carolina, with high numbers in Nevada. That's what it's going to take is turnout, but turnout across the spectrum of democratic voters. Someone who can pull, as Amy said, everything together in every single way we're divided.

George S.: (06:35)
Andrew Yang and Senator Warren then Mayor Buttigieg.

Andrew Yang: (06:39)
First, let me say America, it's great to be back on the debate stage. Thank you. I'm so excited, I want to give every American $1,000 a month. George, the entire capitalism, socialism dichotomy is completely out of date and the fact is when people were talking about these economic models, they did not foresee technology getting stronger, more powerful, capable of doing the work of thousands of humans in the blink of an eye. We have record high corporate profits in this country right now, but people in New Hampshire know, what else are at record highs? Mental illness, stress, debt, substance abuse, overdoses, suicides. What we have to do is actually get the markets working to improve our family's way of life. Instead of following GDP and corporate profits off a cliff, we should be measuring our own health and wellness, life expectancy, mental health and freedom from substance abuse, clean air, and clean water, how our kids are doing. The way forward is a new human centered version of capitalism that actually uses the markets to improve our family's lives.

George S.: (07:46)
Senator Warren, you reportedly said back in 2018, "I'm a capitalist to my bones." Senator Sanders says, "I'm not." Is that your biggest difference with Senator Sanders?

Elizabeth Warren: (07:57)
Oh, Bernie and I have been friends for a long time and we have a lot of things in common and we can have a lot of things that we differ on. But there's fundamental question about how we bring our party together. We have to think about it in new ways. People across this country, whether they're Democrats, independents, or Republicans, understand that we've got a government right now that works great for those at the top. Works great for giant drug companies, just not for people trying to get a prescription filled. Works great for oil companies that want to drill everywhere, just not for the rest of us who see climate change bearing down upon us. When you see a government that works great for those who can hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers and make big campaign donations and it's not working so great for everyone else, that is corruption, pure and simple, and we need to call it out for what it is. Corruption, and that's what we can run on. We bring our party together.

Elizabeth Warren: (08:54)
It's an issue we can all agree on and fight for to end the corruption. We're the Democrats, we should be the party on the side of hardworking people and we can bring in independents and Republicans on that. They hate the corruption as well. My anti-corruption plan, good for Republicans and Democrats. That's not only how we bring our party together. That's how we're going to win in November.

George S.: (09:21)
Mayor Buttigieg, early in the campaign you said that the word socialism has lost its power, it's mostly lost its meaning. Do you believe that or worry it could be a potent weapon in a general election?

Pete Buttigieg: (09:32)
I'm not interested in the labels. I'm not interested in what Republicans are going to say. I'm interested in the style of politics that we need to put forward to actually, finally turn the page. In order to win, yes, but also in order to govern. This is a moment where the next president is going to face challenges the likes of which we hadn't even thought of a few years or decades ago. And politically, we're facing a fundamentally new problem with President Donald Trump. So the biggest risk we could take at a time like this would be to go up against that fundamentally new challenge by trying to fall back on the familiar. Or trying to unite this country at a moment when we need that kind of unification, when our nominee is dividing people with a politics that says, if you don't go all the way to the edge, it doesn't count. A politics that says, it's my way or the highway.

George S.: (10:32)
Are you talking about Senator Sanders?

Pete Buttigieg: (10:32)
Yes. Because we've got to bring as many people as we can into this process. Look, all of us have been saying that we can build the majority that it's going to take in order to win. But the process of actually proving it is now underway. And now it comes to New Hampshire, a state that thinks for itself, is not going to be told what to do by anyone and that has a very independent streak that is going to respond to those who are reaching out in a politics of addition and inclusion and belonging. Not one that beats people over the head and says they shouldn't even be on their side if we don't agree 100% of the time.

George S.: (11:11)
Senator Sanders, your response.

Bernie Sanders: (11:13)
Needless to say, I've never said that, but let me tell you what I do say. The way you bring people together is by presenting an agenda that works for the working people of this country, not for the billionaire class. The way you bring people together, Republicans, independents, Democrats, progressives, conservatives, you raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour. The way you bring people together is to make it clear that we're not going to give tax breaks to billionaires and large corporations, they're going to start paying their fair share of taxes. That's what the American people want. And I'll tell you something else, the way you bring people together is by ending the international disgrace of this country being the only major nation on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right. And you bring people together by telling the pharmaceutical industry they're not going to charge us 10 times more for the same prescription drugs as the people in Canada that borders on New Hampshire. That's how you bring people together and you defeat Donald Trump.

George S.: (12:27)
Mayor Buttigieg, you just heard Senator Sanders make healthcare the center of his piece. Do you think his healthcare plan can bring people together?

Pete Buttigieg: (12:34)
I think there's a better way. It's true, the American people are ready. There's a historic majority right now, even broader than what was available to President Obama a decade ago. There is now a majority ready to act to make sure there is no such thing as an uninsured American and no such thing as an unaffordable prescription. Just so long as we don't command people to accept a public plan if they don't want to. That's the idea of Medicare for All Who Want It. My point is, what I am offering is campaigning for all of these things that America wants. Yes, higher wages, doubling the rate of unionization in this country, making corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share, delivering healthcare and college affordability. But also offering a way to do these game changing transformations that will actually galvanize and energize, not polarize the American people. That is not only what we need in order to win, it's what we need in order to govern and actually get these things done.

George S.: (13:31)
Vice President Biden, how do you unify the country?

Joe Biden: (13:34)
Look, Bernie says that you have to bring people together and we have to have Medicare for All. But Bernie says, and he says he wrote the damn thing, but he's unwilling to sell us with the damn thing's going to cost. The fact that we're in New Hampshire, very levelheaded group of people, look at the numbers. How much is it going to cost? Who's going to pay for it? It will cost more than the entire, the entire federal budget we spend now, more than entire budget. The idea middle class taxes aren't going to go up is just crazy. When they did it in Vermont, what happened? They doubled the state income tax and then had a 14% tax on withholding. And they finally did away with it. So how much is it going to cost? When you ask Bernie that, and I'll ask him again tonight sometime, and if you ask Bernie that, he says, "Go figure, I don't know, we'll find out."

Joe Biden: (14:28)
I think that was on CBS. He said, " We'll find out." Or something to that effect. Imagine you're going to unite the country walking into the Congress, "I got this bill. It's going to require Medicare for everybody. I can't tell you how much it's going to cost. We'll find out later and it's likely to be double whatever … everything we spent in the federal government." Who do you think is going to get that passed? I busted my neck getting Obamacare passed, getting every Democratic vote. I know how hard it is.

George S.: (14:53)
Senator Sanders.

Bernie Sanders: (14:56)
Well, for a start, what the studies show, if we do what Joe wants, we'll be spending some $50 trillion on healthcare over the next 10 years. That's the status quo, Joe. That's what Health and Human Services says. [crosstalk 00:15:15] And what we have got to do Joe, and what we have got to do is understand, simple question, Joe, we are spending twice as much per capita on healthcare as do the people of any other country. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the healthcare industry last year made $100 billion in profit. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we are wasting $500 billion a year trying to administer thousands and thousands of different plans. What Medicare for All will do is save the average American substantial sums of money. Substantial, be much less expensive than your plan. And we will expand Medicare to include dental care, eyeglasses, hearing aides and home health care as well.

George S.: (16:03)
Vice President Biden, 30 second response, then Senator Klobuchar after that.

Joe Biden: (16:07)
30 second-

George S.: (16:09)
Yeah, 30 second-

Joe Biden: (16:09)
30 second response. My proposal gives you a choice. You're going to be covered. You have Medicare if you want it, you turn [inaudible 00:16:16] we're going to restore all the cuts that they made in Obamacare. We're going to reduce drug prices, reduce prescription prices, reduce copays, et cetera. And it cost a lot of money, it costs $750 billion over 10 years. I tell you how I'm going to pay for it. I'm going to raise the capital gains rates, you pay capital gains and what your tax rate is. That'll pay for it, that's $800 billion. But here's the deal, the fact is that it's going to cost … Bernie's plan costs double, double what the taxpayers are paying for every single program we spend on in the United States of America.

George S.: (16:49)
Senator Klobuchar.

Amy Klobuchar: (16:50)
I keep listening to this same debate, and it is not real. It is not real, Bernie, because two thirds of the Democrats in the Senate are not on your bill and because it would kick 149 million Americans off their current health insurance in four years. And let me say what else, Elizabeth wants to do it in two years. And Pete, while you have a different plan now you sent out a tweet just a few years ago that said, henceforth, forewith, indubitably, affirmatively, you are for Medicare for All for the ages. And so I would like to point out that what leadership is about is taking a position, looking at things and sticking with them. I have long believed that the way that we expand healthcare to more people and bring down premiums is by building on the Affordable Care Act, with a nonprofit public option. That is the best way to do it.

Amy Klobuchar: (17:42)
And practically look at this, the Affordable Care Act is now nearly 10 points more popular than the President of United States. So why would we talk about blowing it up? What we need to do is build on it. Mental health care, addiction, longterm care, those are the things that would make it better for everyone.

George S.: (18:00)
Senator Warren and Mayor Buttigieg, you were both invoked. I want you each to respond and then go back to Senator Sanders.

Elizabeth Warren: (18:05)
So I think we need to think about healthcare a little differently and that is, 36 million Americans last year couldn't afford to have a prescription filled and that includes people with health insurance. I want everyone in here to think about what that means. They were worried enough or sick enough that they went to a doctor, a doctor looked at it and says that's serious enough to write a prescription. They walked out and then said, it's either that or groceries. It's that or pay them rent on time. We have got to change our healthcare system. The way [no audio or video 00:18:34] Help to the most people as quickly as we can. How about we start with what a president can do, I love saying this, all by herself. On day one, I will defend the Affordable Care Act and I will use march in orders to reduce the cost of commonly used prescription drugs like insulin and HIV, AIDS, drugs and EpiPens.

Elizabeth Warren: (19:02)
We can start making healthcare better for Americans from the beginning, but we have to agree to do that. We are the Democrats, we are on the side of expanding healthcare. When we come up against Donald Trump, the team that has been trying to take away healthcare from millions of people, what's going to matter most is we are the people on the side of those who need healthcare across this country. That's who Democrats are.

George S.: (19:29)
Mayor Buttigieg, I want you to respond to that, but also take on the argument at the beginning from the Vice President, you don't have the right experience to be president.

Pete Buttigieg: (19:35)
Sure. Well, first of all, just to be clear, the truth is that I have been consistent throughout in my position on delivering healthcare for every American. And as to experience, I just bring a different perspective. Look, I freely admit that if you're looking for the person with the most years of Washington establishment experience under their belt, you've got your candidate, and of course it's not me. The perspective I'm bringing is that of somebody whose life has been shaped by the decisions that are made in those big white buildings in Washington, D.C. Somebody who has guided a community written off as dying just a decade ago through historic transformation. Somebody who knows what it means to be sent to war on orders that come out of the Situation Room. We need a perspective right now that will finally allow us to leave the politics of the past in the past. Turn the page and bring change to Washington before it's too late.

George S.: (20:27)
Vice President Biden, there's his answer.

Joe Biden: (20:29)
The politics of the past I think were not all that bad. I wrote the Violence Against Women Act. I managed the $900 billion Recovery Act, which in fact put millions and millions of dollars into his city before he came and helped save his city. I was able to do it, I was able to pass the chemical weapons ban, arms control. And I was the first major leader holding public office to call for same sex marriage. So I don't know what about the past of Barack Obama and Joe Biden was so bad. What happened? What is it that he wants to do away with? We were just beginning.

Joe Biden: (21:03)
… Happened, what is it that he wants to do away with? We were just beginning. It was just the beginning of what will be the future of moving this country beyond where it is now in significant ways, and there's ways to do that, and one of the ways to do that is to make sure you have someone who knows how to get things done, and can lead the free world at the same time.

George S.: (21:18)
Mayor Buttigieg respond, and then Senator Sanders.

Pete Buttigieg: (21:23)
Those achievements were phenomenally important, because they met the moment, but now we have to meet this moment. And this moment is different. The next president is going to face challenges from global health security, like what we're seeing coming out of China, to cybersecurity, and election security challenges that were barely thought of a few years ago. And here at home, we're seeing things like gig work, transform what it means to be a worker in America, in ways that were barely conceived of not that long ago. We cannot solve the problems before us by looking back. We have to be ready to turn the page, and change our politics before it's too late. And I'm seeing everywhere I go, not just fellow Democrats, but a striking number of independents, and, what I like to call future former Republicans ready to join in that historic American majority to turn the page.

George S.: (22:15)
Senator Klobuchar.

Amy Klobuchar: (22:17)
I am listening to this about meeting the moment, and my first thought is, I'm a fresh face up here for a presidential debate, and I figure, Pete, that 59, my age, is the new 38 up here. The second thing I think about is this, and that is-

Bernie Sanders: (22:37)
70 is the new 50.

Amy Klobuchar: (22:37)
Okay, there you go. Meeting the moment, meeting the moment, we had a moment the last few weeks, mayor, and that moment was these impeachment hearings. And there was a lot of courage that you saw from only a few people. There was courage from Doug Jones, our friend of Alabama, who took that tough vote. There was courage from Mitt Romney, who took it very, very difficult vote. There was courage, as I read today, about Lieutenant Colonel Vindman being escorted out of the White House, what he did took courage. But what you said, Pete, as you were campaigning through Iowa, as three of us were jurors in that impeachment hearing, you said it was exhausting to watch, and that you wanted to turn the channel and watch cartoons.

Amy Klobuchar: (23:24)
It is easy to go after Washington, because that's a popular thing to do. It is much harder, as I see Senator Shaheen in the front row, such a leader, it is much harder to lead, and much harder to take those difficult positions. Because I think this going after every single thing that people do, because it's popular to say, and makes you look like a cool newcomer. I just, I don't think that's what people want right now. We have a newcomer in the White House, and look where it got us. I think having some experience is a good thing.

Bernie Sanders: (23:56)
George, George, can I…

George S.: (23:56)
Senator Sanders, then Mayor Buttigieg.

Andrew Yang: (23:57)
George, can I say…

Bernie Sanders: (24:01)
Look, at the end of the day, we got to ask ourselves a very simple question, whether it's healthcare in fact, or anything else. Why are we the only major country on earth that doesn't guarantee healthcare to all people? Pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs? Have 87 million people uninsured or under-insured? 30,000 die because they don't get to a doctor on time, and 500,000 people going bankrupt, for what reason? Because they have cancer or heart disease, or Alzheimer's. We got to ask that question, why is it why? Why have we been talking about healthcare in this country for a hundred years, and here is the answer. If you want real change in healthcare, at the end of the day, you're going to have to take on the insurance companies, and tell them the function of healthcare is healthcare for all, not huge profits for the insurance companies. You're going to have to take on the drug companies, and their corruption, and their price fixing, and tell them, "Sorry, we're not going to pay 10 times more for prescription drugs, than do the people of other country." But at the end of the day, there's no way around it. You may want to nibble around the edges, but ultimately, you need to rally the American people to tell the drug companies, to tell Wall Street, to tell the insurance companies, to tell the fossil fuel industry this country belongs to all of us, not a handful of special interests.

George S.: (25:28)
Mayor Buttigieg, wrap this up, and then-

Tom Steyer: (25:31)
I have heard this conversation on this debate stage from these people now every single debate, and they're all right, everybody on this stage is better on economic justice and healthcare than anybody in the Republican party, and a million times better than Donald Trump. That is not the question in front of us today. The question in front of us today is, how are we going to beat Donald Trump? You were in the Clinton campaign in 1992, and the mantra was, "It's the economy, stupid." Well, if you look at what Mr. Trump is saying, he's saying those words, "It's the economy, stupid." I trust every one of these people a million times more, but we're going to have to take Mr. Trump down on the economy, because if you listen to him, he's crowing about it every single day, and he's going to beat us unless we can take him down on the economy, stupid. And that's the issue here. It is not about who has the best healthcare plan. All the healthcare plans are better, a million times better.

Tom Steyer: (26:24)
The question is, who can go toe to toe with Mr. Trump? Who can take down Mr. Trump, because he's the real threat to the country? And let me say, you have to have experience to take him down. This is not a question of he's a nice guy who's going to listen. We need people with experience. That's why I'm worried about Mayor Pete. You need to be able to go toe to toe with this guy, and take him down on the debate stage, or we're going to lose. And that's actually the issue in front of democratic voters. I have heard this debate so many darn times, and I love all these people, and they're all right. If we win, we can get the right thing, Bernie. I am with you. If we win, we can get the right thing, Pete, and Amy, but we got to win, or we are in deep trouble, and we keep not talking about the facts.

George S.: (27:06)
Mayor Pete.

Pete Buttigieg: (27:17)
Here's how we're going to win. We're going to force this president to stand on that debate stage, next to somebody who actually lives in a middle class neighborhood, in the industrial Midwest, in the exact kind of community that he pretends to speak for, but turns his back on. We're going to put up somebody who's not afraid to call out things like his disgraceful behavior at the national prayer breakfast, and remind Americans that God does not belong to a political party. We're going to win by having somebody up there who can call him to account for his refusal to serve when it was his turn, and remind him what serving this country is really about. If we want to beat this president, we've got to be ready to move on from the playbook that we have relied on in the past, and unify this country around a new and better vision. That's how we're going to win. And when I talk about exhaustion, this is important, because I got to tell you, the American people, from outside of Washington, we feel a sense of exhaustion watching the division, and the dysfunction there.

Pete Buttigieg: (28:21)
And that is not to take anything away from the very good work that you and our other democratic members of Congress, and the Senate are doing. It's not. But, the reason I raise that sense of exhaustion is I see it. I see that temptation to walk away from it all among so many people that I've spoken to in communities from Claremont to Manchester, and in the other states that we're in. And the important thing for the American people to remember, is this is 2020, it's an election year. And if the Senate was the jury before, you are the jury now. The American people are the jury that will have the final verdict on this president, and on the senators in the GOP who protected him.

Andrew Yang: (28:58)
Pete, fundamentally, you are missing the lesson of Donald Trump's victory. Donald Trump is not the cause of all of our problems, and we're making a mistake when we act like he is.

Pete Buttigieg: (29:08)
That's right.

Andrew Yang: (29:11)
He is a symptom of a disease that has been building up in our communities for years, and decades. And it is our job to get to the harder work of actually curing the disease. Most Americans feel like the political parties have been playing you lose, I lose, you lose, I lose for years. And you know who's been losing this entire time? We have. Our communities have. Our communities way of life is disintegrating beneath our feet. That's why Iowa, traditional swing state, went to Trump by almost 10 points. That's why Ohio, a traditional swing state is now so red, that I'm told we're not even going to campaign there.

Andrew Yang: (29:45)
So, these communities are seeing their way of life get blasted into smithereens. We've automated away four million manufacturing jobs, and counting. We're closing 30% of New Hampshire stores and malls, and Amazon, the force behind that, is literally paying zero in taxes. These are the changes that Americans are seeing and feeling around us every day, and if we get done the hard work of curing those problems, we will not just defeat Donald Trump in the fall, but we'll actually be able to move our communities forward.

George S.: (30:12)
I know we're going to hear a lot more on this, but we're going to move on.

Speaker 1: (30:15)
Thank you George. Good evening candidates. We come to you, of course, just 48 hours after the acquittal of President Trump. A process that has certainly crystallized the divide in our country. Senator Warren, want to start with you. You have said that on day one of your presidency, one of your first orders of business will be to order your justice department to launch new investigations into the Trump Administration. After a grueling impeachment, and what is likely to be a polarizing election, is investigating President Trump the best way to try to unify the country?

Elizabeth Warren: (30:46)
Look, I think no one is above the law, and that includes the President of the United States. We watched on Wednesday as Republicans, all but one locked arms to protect him from impeachment, but we need to reestablish the rule of law in this country. I believe in an independent commission, in our justice department that investigates crimes committed by our own government. It is an important part of accountability. It is an important part for every administration, that we hold ourselves accountable to the American people. Look, people around this country are losing faith in our government. They're losing faith that government works for them. They see a government that just works great if you're rich. It works great if you're a lobbyist. It works great if you're a corporate executive, but they see themselves and their children with less and less and less, and we could do something about it.

Elizabeth Warren: (31:50)
It's not enough simply to talk about the future. We have to be willing to stand up to those who now control our government, and make that government instead work for us. We can do child care in this country for every baby. We can invest in our public schools. We can cancel student loan debt for 43 million Americans, but only if we are willing to take control of our government away from the giant corporations and billionaires, return it to the people. This is about our government. This is about our democracy. This is about our future.

Speaker 1: (32:29)
Mr. Yang, you said that the notion of a leader quote, throwing the president before them in jail is not the way things are done here in the United States. It would make it quote, very hard for any party to govern sustainably moving forward. Does that mean that any alleged misconduct by the president or his administration should not be investigated?

Andrew Yang: (32:49)
There are of course limits, and you have to see what the facts are on the ground after you assume office, but the fact is, if you look around the world, the countries that have thrown past presidents into jail, have generally been developing countries, and unfortunately that's a pattern that once you establish, is very, very hard to break. What's a more American tradition? We move the country forward. We don't focus on the mistakes of the leaders that are leaving office. Most Americans do not care about what a particular individual did, so much as they care about their family's wellbeing, their community, their town. That's where Americans focus wants. They want the American president. They want the present. Of course, the American president, sorry about that. They want the president to be focused on that, and that's where our attention should be. We should not fall into a pattern that has been disastrous in other countries.

Speaker 1: (33:36)
Senator Sanders.

Bernie Sanders: (33:40)
Along with Elizabeth and Amy, we sat for two weeks listening to the impeachment process, and here's what I think the horror and the danger of what happened was not only the acquittal of Trump, who in fact committed impeachable offenses, and obstructed Congress. It is the precedent that it set. The precedent that it set. And what that precedent is about now is in the future, you're going to have presidents who say, "Hey, governor, you want highway money? You better support me, or you're not going to get it." Because I am the president, I can do anything I want.

Bernie Sanders: (34:20)
Hey, Congress, you want to investigate me? Don't be ridiculous. Who cares about the Congress? Who cares about the separation of powers? Who cares about the constitution of the president? I'm the President of the United States. I have all of the power, and I'm able to intimidate members of my own party. The saddest aspect of this whole thing, is you have Republicans in the Senate who knew better. They knew that Donald Trump is a crook. They knew that Donald Trump is a cheat, but they didn't have the guts, with the exception of Romney to vote against him. That is a sad day.

Speaker 1: (34:54)
Mr. Steyer.

Tom Steyer: (34:58)
So, I did start the Need to Impeach movement in October of 2017. And my father was one of the people who prosecuted the Nazi war criminals after World War II. And that's part of the reason I started it. Because when you see something really wrong in the United States, you're supposed to stand up against it, and fight against it. And that's what I was doing. But he's been, the Republicans have rolled over, they've had a sham trial, they've refused to have witnesses. They've covered up the truth for the American people. And it doesn't matter anymore that he's a crook, and he's always been a crook, and he always will be a crook. Right now, what we have to do is we have to beat him in November, and we have to beat him because he's incompetent, and bad for the American people. And that's the case we have to make now.

Tom Steyer: (35:45)
Is he a crook? I knew that two years ago. Is he going to be more of a crook, now that he believes he can get away with anything? Of course he is. But the job of the people on this stage is to beat him in November, and that's going to be based on what we can deliver for the American people. The fact that he's incompetent as a president, his economy isn't delivering for working people. The jobs don't pay enough for people to live on. We've got to take him down on the economy, and get them out of the White House as soon as possible.

Speaker 1: (36:15)
Thank you Mr. Steyer. Impeachment is of course over. But Republicans in Congress have already started investigating vice president Biden's son, Hunter. Mayor Buttigieg, do you think that there's a danger for the democratic party to nominate a candidate who is still under the threat of investigation?

Pete Buttigieg: (36:30)
No, and we're not going to let them change the subject. This is not about Hunter Biden, or vice president Biden, or any Biden. This is about an abuse of power by the president. The vice president and I and all of us are competing. But we've got to draw a line here. And to be the kind of president, to be the kind of human being who would seek to turn someone against his own son, who would seek to weaponize a son against his own father, is an unbelievably dishonorable thing, that is just one more example of why we as a party have to be completely united in doing whatever it takes at the end of the day to make sure that this president does not get a second term.

Speaker 1: (37:19)
Vice president Biden.

Joe Biden: (37:19)
I thank my colleague for saying that. It is a diversion, but here's the deal. Whomever the nominee is, the president's going to make up lies about. He thinks he has free reign right now. One of the things that I think is really important is we have to be authentic with the American people about what we're going to do and how we're going to do it. And by the way, Colonel Vindman got thrown out of the White House, walked out. I think at the same time, he should have been pinning a medal on Vindman, and not on rush Limbaugh. And I think we should all stand and give Colonel Vindman a show of how much we supported him. Stand up and clap for Vindman. Get up there. Who we are. That's who we are. We are not what Trump is.

Speaker 1: (38:11)
Thank you Vice President Biden. The Democratic party's last presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton has criticized Senator Bernie Sanders track record in the senate.

Bernie Sanders: (38:23)
I wasn't able to hear that question.

Speaker 1: (38:24)
Okay sure. The democratic party's last presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton has criticized Senator Bernie Sanders record in the senate, saying, "Nobody likes him. Nobody wants to work with him. He got nothing done." Senator Klobuchar, you served with Senator Sanders in the Senate. Is he going to be able to get the support? Not if you like him, but is he going to be able to get the support that he needs from Republicans?

Amy Klobuchar: (38:49)
I like Bernie just fine. We actually have worked together on a number of things, including pharmaceuticals. We actually had a vote late at night one time, Klobuchar/ Sanders amendment to bring in less-

Bernie Sanders: (39:00)
I thought it was Sanders/Klobuchar?

Amy Klobuchar: (39:03)
Nope, nope, nope, it was not, it was not. To bring in less expensive drugs from other countries, since in this great state of New Hampshire, like in Minnesota and Vermont, we can see Canada from our porch. And we ended up getting I think 14 Republican votes. And they might not have noticed what was happening late at night, but we got those. And I think that it is just an example of what we need to do here, because I've been listening to this discussion. I agree with my colleagues, we must unite, but the way that we unite is by having an optimistic economic agenda for America. That is what we must do, and that means taking on a president, if you want to talk about being tough enough to take him on.

Amy Klobuchar: (39:46)
Taking on a president that literally went down to Mar-a-Lago after he signed that Republican tax bill, and looked at all his friends and said, "You just got a lot richer." That is exhibit A for those carpenters in Pennsylvania, and those dairy farmers in Wisconsin, and those dock workers that I met with in Michigan. That is an exhibit A, and we have to be able to make the case to the working people of this country, some of whom voted for Donald Trump, that we have something better to offer. That we are going to take those incredibly regressive parts of that tax bill, and put that money into their childcare, into their healththere.

Speaker 1: (40:25)
Senator, just a quick yes or no. Do you think that Senator Sanders will be able to get Republican support in order to pass his bills?

Amy Klobuchar: (40:32)
That, I don't know. I know we did on that bill, but the point is, I think we're better off with someone that has the receipts. Someone that has actually won big time with Republicans and independents, and I'm the only one up on this stage, you can check it out, that has consistently won in red congressional districts. Not once, not twice, but three times. And when I did this, I didn't just do it for me. I led a ticket. I've flipped the state house every single time, because I have a way of working with people, that I think should be valued here as we look at these candidates, and it's one of the reasons that I got the New York Times endorsement, along with Elizabeth, and that I got the endorsements of the three major papers here in New Hampshire, which is the Union Leader, the Seacoast papers, and the Keene Sentinel. I think that matters. Read those editorials, and you will get a sense of what I'm about.

Speaker 1: (41:22)
Thank you Senator. Senator Sanders.

Bernie Sanders: (41:27)
I must confess, I don't get too many newspaper editorial support. Must confess that.

Amy Klobuchar: (41:32)
Well, you the Conway endorsement.

Bernie Sanders: (41:34)
I did. We're very proud of that.

Amy Klobuchar: (41:36)
There we go.

Bernie Sanders: (41:37)
But, let me just say this. I think the question started off with Secretary Clinton's critique. I think, quite honestly, as we face one of the great political crises facing America, our job is to look forward and not back to 2016. And I hope that Secretary Clinton and all of us can come together, and move in that direction. Now, second of all, in terms of Republicans, let me say…

Bernie Sanders: (42:03)
-in that direction. Now, second of all, in terms of Republicans, let me say that in my own great state of Vermont, if my memory is correct, Amy, I got 25% of the Republican vote. And in fact, there were periods when I was in the House of Representatives, a number of years where I passed more amendments on the floor of the House in a bipartisan way than any other member of the House and that is when you bring people together on an issue. There are many conservative Republicans, for example, who are concerned about civil liberties, at least they used to be concerned about civil liberties. There are Republicans, as you know, who are concerned about the high cost of prescription drugs. There are ways that we can work with Republicans on issues where we have a common basis.

Lindsey: (42:57)
Thank you, Senator.

Bernie Sanders: (42:57)
Let's do that.

Lindsey: (42:57)
David.

David Muir: (42:59)
Lindsey, thank you. Good evening, all. I want to turn to America's role in the world and readiness to be commander-in-chief on day one. Just this week, you saw it, during the State of the Union, President Trump offered an indication of what he'll tout on the campaign trail. He celebrated the US air strike that killed top Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani saying, "Soleimani was the Iranian regime's most ruthless butcher, a monster who murdered or wounded thousands of American service members in Iraq."

David Muir: (43:24)
Mayor Buttigieg, you're the only veteran standing on this stage and while there is still debate about whether or not there was an imminent threat, there is no debate about whether or not Soleimani was a bad actor who was responsible for the deaths of many Americans. Given what you know about Soleimani, if your national security team came to you with an opportunity to strike, would Soleimani have been dead or would he still be alive under your presidency?

Pete Buttigieg: (43:45)
In the situation that we saw with President Trump's decision, there is no evidence that that made our country safer. Look, I feel very strongly about the campaign of murder and mayhem that General Soleimani and his units have perpetrated. It's also the case that if we learned nothing else from the war in Iraq, it's that taking out a bad guy is not a good idea if you do not know what you were doing. This president has moved us this much closer to the brink of war, but it didn't start with the Soleimani strike. It started with withdrawing us from the Iran nuclear deal that his own administration certified was working. And it's time for us to recognize that every time a step is taken that moves us to the brink of war, that has incredibly serious consequences for those who serve.

Pete Buttigieg: (44:38)
By chance, just because I was traveling for the campaign, not long ago, I ran into somebody that I hadn't seen since we were both serving, hadn't seen since she was injured in an insider attack. And I saw her coming down the concourse in the airport wearing a Wounded Warrior Project tee shirt that said, "Some assembly required." And when I asked her how she was doing, she up her knee and tapped on the part of her leg that they couldn't save, tapped on the prosthetic and said the Navy had fixed her up just fine and then let me know that she was looking forward to an upcoming deployment.

Pete Buttigieg: (45:11)
The people in our uniform will do whatever the United States requires of them. What they deserve in return is a president who will actually read the intelligence, pay attention to the international security situation, consult with our allies, keep US politics out of it, and never commit our troops to a situation where they would have to go into harm's way if there is an alternative.

David Muir: (45:35)
Mayor Buttigieg, let me just press further on this though, because president Trump has signal in a general election campaign, he will celebrate his willingness to order that strike. I'm asking if your national security team came to you and presented you with the opportunity, would you take the strike?

Pete Buttigieg: (45:52)
It depends on the circumstances. It depends if there was an alternative and it depends what the different effects would be. That's my point. This is not an episode of 24. This is a situation that requires that you actually evaluate the entire intelligence picture. This president has insulted the intelligence community, but they put their lives on the line to gather the information that will help a decision maker evaluate whether or not something like that is justified. And I don't think he even reads it.

Pete Buttigieg: (46:20)
And here we have a situation where the world, that one of the most volatile places in the world has just become more dangerous at the hands of a president who has no regard for the military, not only punishing a war hero today with what he did to Colonel Vindman, but pardoning war criminals in a way that undermines the entire sense of good order and discipline and military honor. We deserve a better commander-in-chief.

David Muir: (46:44)
Mayor Buttigieg, thank you. I do want to take this to Vice President Biden next because we know that the Obama Administration was aware of the threat that Soleimani posed, so was the Bush Administration before it. I'm asking tonight as commander-in-chief though, would you have ordered the strike?

Joe Biden: (46:59)
No. And the reason I wouldn't have ordered the strike, there is no evidence yet of imminent threat that was going to come from him. Look what happened, his America First policies made America alone. You cannot think of a time, David, and as long as you've been alive when NATO has said to the United States of America and to Iran, made a moral equivalence and said, both of you stand down. We are alone now, alone in that region of the world, without friends, without support, without allies.

Joe Biden: (47:31)
And secondly, you saw what happened when that air raid, when those missiles were fired from Iran into Iraq at Al-Assad Airbase, 64 of our heroes were wounded. I don't know what I would've done if my son were still there. I would have been so damn angry. I don't know what I would've done. But here's what happened, they had received traumatic brain injury. What did the president say? He said, "headaches," "not bad," "Headaches, that's all they are." This guy doesn't deserve to be commander- in-chief for one more day.

David Muir: (48:02)
Mr. Vice President, thank you, Senator Sanders, you have called this, "assassinating a government official." You would not have ordered the strike.

Bernie Sanders: (48:10)
Right. Look, here is the danger, David, there are very bad leaders all over the world. Kim Jong-un in North Korea is probably responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of his people threatening all of Asia with nuclear weapons. You got Mohammad Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia who is a terrible murderer, who murdered Khashoggi in cold blood and dismembered his body. You have Putin in Russia who has been involved in political assassinations of his enemies. You got Xi in China who has put a million Muslims into concentration camps.

Bernie Sanders: (48:49)
You cannot go around saying you're a bad guy, we're going to assassinate you, and then you're going to have, if that happens, you're opening the door to international anarchy that every government in the world will then be subjected to attacks and assassination. What we have got to do, which Trump does not understand, is strengthen the State Department and our diplomatic capabilities, not just the military. What we have got to do is bring countries around the world together with our power and our wealth and say, you know what, let us sit down and work out our differences through debate and discussion at the UN, not through more and more war and the expenditures of trillions of dollars and the loss of God knows how many lives.

David Muir: (49:41)
Senator Sanders, thank you. This does take me to Afghanistan and to America's longest war. Senator Warren, you recently said quote, "We have one general after another in Afghanistan who comes in and says, "We've just turned the corner,' and then what happens? It's all the same. Someone new comes in and says, "We've just turned the corner.' You said, "So many say it. We're going in circles."

David Muir: (50:02)
We were on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent months and the generals told us that the US needs some US presence on the ground, US special forces some presence to go after ISIS and the terrorists. If your commander-in-chief, would you listen to the generals or do they fall into the category of the generals you've mentioned before?

Elizabeth Warren: (50:19)
No. Look, I sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee, so I get the briefings from the generals on a regular basis. I've been to Afghanistan, to Iraq. I've been to Jordan. I've been throughout the region. I've been there with John McCain. I've been there with Lindsey Graham to ask the hard questions about what's happening, to ask our generals, to ask their generals to ask people who are on the ground. And the bottom line is, nobody sees a solution to this war. Nobody can describe what winning looks like. All they can describe is endless war.

Elizabeth Warren: (50:52)
And I realized there are people on this debate stage who are willing to say, yeah, we'll leave our troops there for five more years, for 10 more years. Lindsey Graham has said he's willing to leave troops for 100 more years. And yet, what has all these years of war brought us? Right now, the Afghan Government controls less than 60% of the land. People don't have faith in it. It's a corrupt government. The opium trade is higher than ever.

Elizabeth Warren: (51:20)
Look, we sent our troops in and they did their best. They were there for us, but we need to be there for them. And that means, not send our troops to do work that cannot be solved militarily. It is time to bring our combat troops home. It is time to stop this endless war in Afghanistan.

David Muir: (51:41)
Senator Warren, I want to press you on this. You just said, "combat troops."

Elizabeth Warren: (51:45)
Yes.

David Muir: (51:45)
So if the generals came to you and said, we need US Special Forces, some footprint in Iraq and Afghanistan, would you listen? Would you leave them?

Elizabeth Warren: (51:53)
So I want to hear the plan, not just a, we need it now, we need it for the next day, we need it for the six months. And I want to know where our allies are. We all have an interest in dealing with terrorism and controlling terrorism, but that means it can't just be the United States waging endless war. That does not make us safer. It does not make the region safer. It does not make the world safer. We should work with our allies in managing terrorism, but we need to end this war in Afghanistan. We cannot wait five more years, or 10 more years, or until we turn the corner 10 more times. We need to bring our combat troops home.

David Muir: (52:34)
Senator Warren, thank you. I want to take this to the Vice President because you have said of Senator Warren's comments before that the United States should get out of the Middle East. You have said, "I quite frankly was surprised that I have never heard anyone say with any serious background in foreign policy that we should pull all troops out of the Middle East." Is Senator Warren wrong on this?

Joe Biden: (52:54)
I'm not sure what she, if she wants to pull all troops out of the Middle East, but if she does want to put all troops out of the Middle East, we saw what happens when that happened.

Joe Biden: (53:02)
I helped put together a 61 nation group to take out ISIS by putting fewer than 5,000 forces along the Turkish border to see to it that they, and they lost 10,000, the Kurds, lost 10,000 lives. They defeated ISIS. They ended the caliphate and then the president on a whim dealing with a man I know very well, they've now, the guy running Turkey who is more of an autocrat now than a Democrat, and what happened? We pulled out and you saw what happened. You saw the end of the effort to be able to continue to contain, contain ISIS, number one.

Joe Biden: (53:37)
Number two, close your eye, everybody. Remember what you saw on television. You saw a woman standing up there holding up her baby, Kurd, saying, "Please don't leave us." And our military women and men standing at, going out in their [inaudible 00:53:49] Humvees with their heads down ashamed of what they did. It didn't take a lot of men or men and women to do what needed to be done.

Joe Biden: (53:57)
And with regard Afghanistan, now I can say it because it was made public, I was totally against the whole notion of no nation building in Afghanistan. The only thing we should be doing is dealing with terrorism in that region. I've been in every part of Afghanistan, not in combat like my friend has, but in helicopter and/or on a vehicle in every part of it as senator and vice president. Here's what I saw, there is no possibility of uniting that country, no possibility at all of making it a whole country. But it is possible to see to it that they're not able to launch more attacks from the region on the United States of America. That's a small footprint that we needed and I argued for that in the beginning.

David Muir: (54:38)
You mentioned Mayor Buttigieg. And I do want to take this to you next, mayor. Given your finish in Iowa, you've come under increasing scrutiny, attacks from opponents on experience. We've heard that theme even right here tonight. You have said on the Iraq War, for example. "I just don't believe there is any justification for that vote." You said, "It's the difference between tenure and judgment." That it's the judgment that matters, not the time in Washington. Vice President Biden, as you know, voted yes. As commander-in-chief, do you believe your judgment would be better than the vice president's?

Pete Buttigieg: (55:07)
I believe that I have the judgment to help us get through these situations where obviously the vice president made the wrong decision when it came to such an important moment in our foreign policy. And looking forward, we got to recognize just how much is going to be on the plate of the next president that is different in kind from what we have faced before. It's not just about dealing with the aftermath of the war in Iraq, it's about preventing a war with Iran. And not only do we have to undertake the military and counter terrorism activities that we've been doing throughout, the next president is going to have to restore the credibility of this country among our allies and among the international community.

Pete Buttigieg: (55:48)
At a moment when we are facing fundamentally different challenges from asymmetric warfare to cybersecurity threats, in President Trump's imagination of a national security strategy is a big wall and a moat full of alligators. It's a 17th century approach to keeping a place safe. What we have to do is be ready for the future and that means insisting not only on shoring up our relationships, but defining a strategy to keep the American people safe from fundamentally new challenges.

David Muir: (56:16)
Mr. Vice President, I'll let you respond to his argument on judgment.

Joe Biden: (56:21)
I made a mistake and I said it 14 years ago. I trusted George Bush to keep his word. He said he was not going to go into Iraq. He said he was only using this to unite the United Nations to insist we get inspectors in to see what Saddam was doing. When we got elected, the president turned to me with the entire security apparatus and said, "Joe, I want you to organize getting 156,000 troops out of Iraq." I did that. I did that.

Joe Biden: (56:46)
The other thing I want to point out too is that NATO is in fact going to crumble if we don't beat Trump. NATO is in real trouble. We need NATO for more reasons than just physical security. We need NATO to make sure that we do not allow Russia to continue to have its influence in Eastern Europe in ways that it had before. It wasn't just to stop the Soviet Union from coming into the United States, coming into Europe. It was to make sure that we did not have a kleptocracy taking over that part of the world, to unite Europe in our behalf. I know how to deal with them. I know every one of these world leaders by their first names. They call me. I talked to them and I believe I can get it done.

David Muir: (57:22)
Mr. Vice President, thank you. Mr. Steyer, I do want to bring you in on this because I noticed in the last 24 hours you have an attack ad running here in New Hampshire with images of Mayor Buttigieg and you say over those images "an untested newcomer." But I wanted to ask you tonight on this readiness to be commander-in-chief, you share the stage with a veteran from Afghanistan, a vice president who was in the Situation Room. What makes you most qualified of all candidates on this stage to be commander-in-chief?

Tom Steyer: (57:47)
Well, let me say this, I agree with Pete Buttigieg that it's about judgment not tenure. What we're hearing here is a very long dissertation about exactly how America should be the world's policemen. And what we've actually seen in the Middle East is that Barack Obama used diplomacy to get Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions in return for our releasing economic sanctions along with our partners around the world. So when we're talking about our role in the world and commander-in-chief, we have abandoned a diplomacy. We don't have a strategy and we don't have allies.

Tom Steyer: (58:26)
And actually this view of the world, that our response should be military is driven by our gigantic military complex and ignores the biggest problem that we face internationally in the world, which is climate change. And it cannot be solved with guns and tanks and planes. It can only be solved with diplomacy and allies and interaction with other countries. So in fact, what we are listening to right here is a discussion of 20 years of failed military action and how we should continue it and how we should continue spending $700 billion dollars a year on defense when we spend $70 billion dollars a year at the federal level on education.

David Muir: (59:12)
Mr. Steyer [crosstalk 00:17:13].

Tom Steyer: (59:17)
Let's talk about judgment here. [crosstalk 00:59:16].

David Muir: (59:20)
Mr. Vice President, I'll give you 30 seconds to respond.

Joe Biden: (59:22)
That's not what I said, I was part of the reason putting that deal together with Iran. I was there. I was involved in that. I was also part of the deal putting together the Paris Climate Accord. I brought in the Chinese. I was part of that. I've been part of every major initiative we've had relative to diplomacy. I have not argued for the placement of major numbers of US combat troops. I have said, along with the President of the United States, Barack Obama as his partner, I have said, we have to strengthen NATO to make it clear that we keep our commitments when we make them. Like we don't keep our commitments to the Kurds. We must keep our commitments when we make them. Otherwise, we have no power whatsoever.

Joe Biden: (01:00:04)
And it's not about making sure we're policeman of the world. The only way not to become the policeman of the world is to have allies who will join us in dealing with failed States and terrorism. And it has to be done jointly by a whole lot of people and it doesn't require large number of US troops, and I've never said that.

Tom Steyer: (01:00:21)
Okay, can I respond to that, David?

David Muir: (01:00:21)
Senator Sanders, Senator Sanders, please.

Tom Steyer: (01:00:23)
Can I respond to [crosstalk 01:00:22].

Bernie Sanders: (01:00:24)
Let me say this if I might, like Joe and others, I also heard the arguments in terms of the war in Iraq from Bush, from Cheney, from John Bolton, from the whole administration. I listened very carefully and I concluded that they were lying through their teeth. And I not only voted against that war, but I help lead the opposition. And it saddens me so much. If you hear what I said, it's on YouTube, my fears about all the destabilization that would take place by the US invading Iraq. It's sad to me that, that is what happened.

Bernie Sanders: (01:01:04)
But let me just pick up on a point that Tom made, which is absolutely right. Trump wants to build a wall around America. The problem is if we are going to deal with issues like climate change, not only do we in America have to take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry, we have to lead the entire world. This is not an American issue. It's a global issue. We got to bring China and Russia and Brazil and Pakistan and India and every major country on earth into the fight against climate change.

Bernie Sanders: (01:01:38)
And here is my dream, maybe it's a radical dream, but maybe just may be given the crisis of climate change, the world can understand that instead of spending $1.8 trillion dollars a year collectively on weapons of destruction designed to kill each other, maybe we pool our resources and fight our common enemy, which is climate change.

David Muir: (01:02:02)
[crosstalk 00:20:02]. Senator Sanders, thank you. George, back to you.

George S.: (01:02:06)
We have much more today coming up, but we have got to take a break. We'll be right back.

George S.: (04:24)
Welcome back of Saint Anselm College here in New Hampshire and we are here every four years, thanks to our amazing Manchester partner WMUR. And now anchor Monica Hernandez and political director Adam Section are joining us with questions on the minds of New Hampshire voters.

Monica Hernandez: (04:39)
Thank you George. It's an honor to be here in our community. We know Granite Staters are engaged and we know there are issues that strike especially close to home here. New Hampshire has one of the highest rates of deadly overdoses in the country. In some cases, police and paramedics tell us that they are saving the same lives again and again, sometimes more than once in a single day. It's a healthcare issue, but it's also so much more. Mayor Buttigieg, you have described yourself as a moderate, but one of your policies at least goes further than some on the stage with you are willing to go. You have called for the decriminalization of all drugs. Does that include heroin, meth, and cocaine, some of the drugs that have contributed to this crisis?

Pete Buttigieg: (05:19)
No. What I've called for is that incarceration should no longer be the response to drug possession.

Monica Hernandez: (05:34)
With all due respect Mayor Buttigieg, on your website it says that you called for decriminalization of all drugs.

Pete Buttigieg: (05:35)
Again, what I'm calling for is that we end the use of incarceration as a response. This does not mean that it will be lawful to produce or distribute those kinds of harmful drugs, but also as we know from the opioid crisis, some of this has been driven by companies that were acting irresponsibly with substances that were lawful. It's why in South Bend we sued those companies to hold them accountable. We've got to make sure that there is accountability for those who suppressed evidence about the addictiveness of those substances. Even while we're also coming to recognize that these kinds of addiction are a medical issue, not a moral failure on the part of somebody battling that addiction.

Pete Buttigieg: (06:17)
That's why medication assisted treatment is so important. And those people who are being revived, and our own EMTs in my city had been so frustrated by the experience of reviving somebody, but then they have nowhere to go. Sometimes you get brought back with a dose of Narcan, but then your life depends on whether in the days that follow you make it until somebody can actually see you, because we have such a shortage of mental health and addiction providers in this country. We must act to change that and save lives when we do.

Monica Hernandez: (06:47)
I want to bring this question now to Mr. Yang. You've said you would decriminalize opioids, but you've also said that you would require all overdose patients to go to mandatory treatment centers for three days. Right now in New Hampshire there aren't enough beds in treatment centers and across the country. How would you make sure treatment is available for all overdose patients and what would you do to fill the gap in the meantime?

Andrew Yang: (07:13)
That's what we have to change, Monica. I've heard heartbreaking stories from families here in New Hampshire that have been destroyed, torn apart by the opiod epidemic and you have to look at the companies that profited to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in profits of essentially blood money. As President, we will take back those profits and put them to work right here in New Hampshire so that if you are seeking treatment, you have resources to be able to pursue it.

Andrew Yang: (07:37)
This is not a money problem fundamentally this is a human problem, but money cannot be the obstacle. This is something that happened on the government's watch. The government allowed this opiod epidemic to spread throughout our communities and we have to do everything in our power to actually make sure that if you are seeking treatment, you know you're not going to be sent to jail. We have safe injection and safe consumption sites for you.

Andrew Yang: (08:00)
If you have a family member who's struggling, you can refer them and know that they're not going to have criminal penalties as a result. There are so much about this that's endemic to what's happened throughout the country in terms of companies running amok, this hyper corporate capitalism where if money's on one side in this country and people are on the other side, the money is winning. You can see it with the opiate epidemic. You can see it with the military industrial complex, the fossil fuel companies. This is what must change and that's where I'll lead as president.

Monica Hernandez: (08:33)
Senator Klobuchar, I want to take the question to you now. As a prosecutor, you embrace tough on crime policies, even with drug offenders. You've also spoken many times about your father's own addiction issues, his own alcoholism and his DUI arrests. If addiction is a disease, should people be arrested for it and as a prosecutor, do you regret sending people with substance abuse issues to jail?

Amy Klobuchar: (08:56)
I led one of the most successful drug courts in the country in Hennepin County, and I always would say and believed, and I think my record shows this, that we weren't a business. We didn't want to see repeat customers. And if you don't want to see repeat customers, the only answer is treatment. And maybe you're referring to some of the people who were dealing big time in drugs. Yes, I felt that we should prosecute those people, but when it comes to, when you asked Mr. Yang a question, and I think it, we owe it to the people of New Hampshire, had one of the biggest addiction rates in the countries and death rates when it comes to opioids, to explain how we will pay for the treatment and the bed. I've been very clear about this.

Amy Klobuchar: (09:40)
There's going to be a major settlement coming through, a federal settlement against all these opioid manufacturers. The evidence is overwhelming, including an email where one guy, a business guy, says to the other, "They're eating them like Doritos. Just keep pumping them out." We will get a conservative estimate, $40 billion in from that settlement, we can put a 2 cents per milligram tax on opiods that brings in another 40 billion. Then you can close a hedge fund loophole that brings in $18 billion. And just like every other policy I've proposed, and I think New Hampshire voters should care about this, I have showed how I'm going to pay for it. Because I think we have someone in the White House that has told over 15,000 lies. He makes all kinds of promises. The people of New Hampshire and the people of our country deserve better. I will get this done and it is personal for me.

Adam Sexton: (10:32)
Good evening candidates. New Hampshire is a battleground, not just for presidential contenders but also for top issues and that includes gun policy. Senator Sanders, for many voters in this Democratic primary, your allure is about consistency when it comes to progressive issues you've been on the right side of them for a long time. One exception is gun rights. In the '90s when you were in Congress, you voted against background checks. You also voted against a waiting period for purchase of a firearm. Can you explain why you opposed these things that you now support?

Bernie Sanders: (11:01)
I can Adam, and let me also say that in 1988 I probably lost a race for Congress, and we only have one Congress person in the whole state, because in 1988 I said that we should ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons in this country. That was 30 years ago. Furthermore, I am very proud that today I have a D- voting record from the NRA. And under my administration it will be the American people doing gun policy, not dictated by the NRA.

Bernie Sanders: (11:38)
But to answer your question, I come, like New Hampshire, from a very, very rural state. In Vermont until the last two years ago, we had virtually no gun control legislation at all and I represented that perspective. The world has changed. In Vermont and in New Hampshire and all over this country, people are sickened by the mass shootings that we have seen and the gun violence that we have seen. The world has changed and my views have changed, and my view is right now we need universal background checks, we end the gun show loophole, we end the so called straw man provision. We make certain that we end the sale and distribution of assault weapons in this country, and we go further. We go further, but at the bottom line is I will not be intimidated by the NRA. We're going to run the gun policy that the American people want.

Adam Sexton: (12:34)
Vice President Biden, you've taken a lot of heat in this primary, on these debate stages and from voters here in New Hampshire for your past positions. You've essentially asked them to look at the totality of your record and give you the benefit of the doubt. Does Senator Sanders deserve that same benefit of the doubt on guns?

Joe Biden : (12:49)
Here's the deal. The biggest mistake that Bernie made, that Senator Sanders made, he voted to give the gun manufacturers, the only major industry in America, a loophole that does not allow them to be sued for the carnage they are creating. First thing I'll do as President is work to get rid of that. It's going to be hard. Think of all the thousands and thousands of people who died. And I might add Bernie, while you were representing your constituency, an awful lot of people [inaudible 00:13:18] your gun state and they've come around. In fact, all those folks in California, New York, Pennsylvania, they're getting killed by the thousands during the same period.

Joe Biden : (13:27)
I come from a state that's a major gun owning stare. I introduced the first assault weapons ban. I in fact got it passed. I'm the only guy that beat the NRA twice. While I was pushing the Brady Background Bill to check background checks, Bernie voted five times against that when he was in the House. So look, the other thing is that we have to be held accountable for the things we did, I'm the guy that set up drug courts. I set them up. I wrote it into law and it never got funded. And also on opioids, I'm the guy who's already begun to make a down payment. In the Cures Act I put in $1 billion to fight opioid addiction. And lastly, my time is going to be up, surely. Here's the deal. Those Chief Executive Officer of drug companies, they should not only be fined, they should go to jail.

Adam Sexton: (14:15)
Senator Warren, we'd like to go over to you now. [inaudible 00:14:18] I want to ask you this question here though. Laws can do so much, if you could change one thing about America's gun culture, what would it be?

Elizabeth Warren: (14:25)
Look, we have a gun violence problem in America. It is about the mass shootings that we hear about in our schools and that frighten us, about it in theaters and in churches. It's also though about shootings that occur on sidewalks and in playgrounds, often in communities of color that are hit hardest, but there are no headlines over those. It's also about suicide and the increasing lethality of suicide because of the availability of guns. It is also about the increased chances that it's usually a woman will die of domestic violence if she is with a violent man and a gun is in the home.

Elizabeth Warren: (15:07)
We need to think of this problem not as one and done or three things and done. We need to think of it just like we did on auto safety. We just keep coming back. We treat it like the public health emergency that it is. But the question we should be asking ourselves is when America, across this country, including gun owners, agree in certain basic things, universal background checks, get assault weapons off the streets. Why can we not even get a vote in the United States Senate?

Elizabeth Warren: (15:40)
And the answer is 90%, think about this, more than 90% of Americans agree on this. We can't get a vote in the United States Senate because it is the gun industry that continues to call the shots. Until we attack the corruption in Washington, the influence of money on campaigns and lobbying, we're not going to be able to meet our promises. And one more, until we agree that we are willing to roll back to filibuster, the gun industry is going to continue to have a veto and we will never make the changes we make. We have to be willing to build a future that works, not for a gun industry, but that works for the rest of America and protects our children.

Joe Biden : (16:24)
We ought to be able to sue the gun industry.

David Muir: (16:25)
Thank you, candidates. We're going to go back to David up there [inaudible 00:16:26]. Adam and Monica, thank you and thanks to WMUR tonight. I want to turn to the Supreme Court, the balance on the court and the issues before the court right now. President Trump in just the last 24 hours saying we've appointed 191 federal judges, two Supreme Court Justices, keeping his campaign promise to shift the Court to the right with Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

David Muir: (16:46)
The Affordable Care Act is at the court. Climate change is working its way to the court, and a major abortion case is on the docket this year. Vice President Biden, on the issue of abortion, in 2012 you said, "President Obama's two Supreme Court picks of them, there was no litmus test. We picked people who had an open mind, did not come with an agenda." And you've said before, "We both believed that we should not apply narrow litmus tests to appointees to the Supreme Court." Let me just ask, would you do it differently as President, Mr. Vice President? Would there be a litmus test on abortion?

Joe Biden : (17:16)
If you say the rest of what I said. I said that we're going to not appoint anyone who did not have a view that unenumerated rights existed in the Constitution. That's not a specific test. It's a generic test. And only way, the only reason women have the right to choose is because it's determined that there's unenumerated rights coming from the Ninth Amendment in the Constitution. That's what I said. And I was part of the reason why Elena Kagan, who worked for me, we got onto the Supreme Court. I was part of the reason why Ruth Bader Ginsburg is on the Court. I was part of the reason why Sotomayer is on the Court and she will swear me in. I presided, and I'm the reason why this right wasn't taken away a long time ago because I almost single handedly made sure that Robert Bork did not get on the Court because he did not think there should be enumerated rights [inaudible 00:18:04].

David Muir: (18:04)
So let me just-

Joe Biden : (18:05)
Let's get that straight.

David Muir: (18:05)
Mr. Vice President, I am aware of what you said, which is why I'm asking would you do it differently now? Would there be a litmus test on abortion?

Joe Biden : (18:12)
Yes. Look, here's the deal. Litmus test on abortion relates to the fundamental value of the Constitution. A woman does have a right to choose. I would in fact, if they rule it to be unconstitutional, I will send to the United States Congress and it will pass, I believe, a bill that… Excuse me, legislates Roe V. Wade adjusted by Casey. It's a woman's right to do that. Period. And if you call that a litmus test it's a litmus test, but what I was talking about in the past, so no one gets confused here, is if there is no… If you read the Constitution very, very narrowly and say there are no unenumerated rights. If the doesn't say it in the Constitution that doesn't exist, you cannot have any of the things I care about, any of the things I care about as a progressive member of the United States Congress at the time, and as Vice President and as a member of society.

David Muir: (19:04)
Mr. Vice president, thank you. Senator Warren.

Elizabeth Warren: (19:06)
Look, I've lived in an America in which abortion was illegal and rich women still got abortions and that's what we have to remember about this. States are heading toward trying to ban abortion outright and the Supreme Court seems headed in exactly that direction as well. If we are going to protect the people of the United States of America and we are going to protect our rights to have dominion over our own bodies, then it's going to mean we can't simply rely on the courts. Three out of every four people in America believe right now that the rule of Roe versus Wade should be the law. That means we should be pushing for a Congressional solution as well. It is time to have a national law to protect the right of a woman's choice.

David Muir: (19:57)
Senator Warren, thank you. Senator Klobuchar, I do want to come to you. Should there be a litmus test? It's an active hall here tonight. I did want to come to you on this question.

Amy Klobuchar: (20:10)
Thank you.

David Muir: (20:10)
Should there be a litmus test on abortion?

Amy Klobuchar: (20:12)
I would only appoint judges that would respect precedent and one of those key precedents is Roe v. Wade. In addition, you have got to put it into law. Donald Trump, and I think it's really important to take it to him here, when he was running for election, and this is a case I will make on the debate stage against him, he actually said that he wanted to put women in jail. He then dialed it back and said, "No, I want to put doctors in jail." Is it a big surprise then we're seeing states like Alabama start enacting laws that would criminalize doctors who perform abortions. It's not. And that is why it's going to be really important when you look at the overwhelming public support for funding Planned Parenthood, for making sure women have access to contraception, to making sure that they have a right to choose, that we make this case strongly and loudly.

David Muir: (21:06)
Senator Klobuchar, thank you. Mayor Buttigieg, you have signaled that you'd be open to the idea of expanding the Court. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested leaving the Court as it is, saying quote, "Nine seems to be a good number." And in fact she said if the number of justices is increased quote, "It would make the Court appear partisan. It would be one side saying, "When we're in power, we're going to enlarge the number of judges to have more people who will vote the way we want them to.'" Is Justice Ginsburg wrong?

Pete Buttigieg: (21:32)
Well, if all we did was change the number of justices than I agree with her that that could be the consequence. What I've called for is not only reforming the number of justices on the bench, but structural reform so that some of the justices are not appointed through a partisan process. We cannot allow the Supreme Court to continue to become one more political battlefield as we are seeing today. And the time has come for us to think bigger, not just reforming the makeup of the court as America, by the way, has done several times in our history. But also remember that the founders gave us the power to amend the Constitution for a reason and we shouldn't be afraid to use it.

Pete Buttigieg: (22:13)
It's not something you do lightly or quickly, but when it comes to something like Citizens United, which holds that corporations have the same political soul as people and that spending money to influence an election is the same thing as writing an op-ed to your local paper, we need a Constitutional amendment to clear that up and protect our democracy.

David Muir: (22:33)
Mayor Buttigieg, thank you. Vice President Biden, I do want to come to you on this. President Trump has said that the only reason Democrats want to expand the Court is they want to try and catch up. You have called any expansion of the court a bad idea, adding, "We will live to rue that day." Do you agree with President Trump on-

Joe Biden : (22:50)
I agree with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That's who I agree with. And I agree the way you deal with Citizens United is pass a constitutional amendment I introduced 25 years ago saying that only public money can be spent in elections. Period. Not private money, not billionaires, not money from special interests. Period. That's the way to amend the Constitution to deal with that. In addition to that, if in fact… Look, the Democrats stood up against the man I've revered, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he wanted to expand the Court. But they were wise enough to understand that whoever then has the majority will have the ability to abuse it and it will lose its legitimacy and there are three equal branches of government. It says the President shell nominate, the Senate shall dispose, the Senate shall make that decision, not the president. He can nominate.

Joe Biden : (23:37)
That's why it's so important we must win back the United States Senate this time out. And that's why as you all look at it up here in New Hampshire and around the world, excuse me, around the country, you have to ask yourself, who is most likely to help get a Senator elected in North Carolina, Georgia? Who can win Florida, Pennsylvania, Minnesota? Who can do that? Because you got to be able to win those… Well, you can. I agree. But here's the point. You've got to be able to, you've got to be able to not just win, you've got to bring along a United States Senate or this becomes moot.

David Muir: (24:16)
Senator Sanders [crosstalk 00:24:17].

Bernie Sanders: (24:18)
Look, you asked the simple question, is there a litmus test for those of us up here? For me there is. I will never nominate any person to the Supreme Court or the federal courts in general who was not 100% pro Roe v. Wade. Number two, we have got a codify Roe v. Wade into legislation. Number three, we have to significantly expand funding for Planned Parenthood.

David Muir: (24:52)
Mr. Steyer, I want to bring you in on this because you have claimed that when it comes to the Supreme Court, you have said Republicans have been cheating.

Tom Steyer: (24:59)
Sure they've been cheating. Look, what we saw Mitch McConnell do, not just in the Supreme Court with Merrick Garland, but across the board with federal judges, was refuse to allow President Obama's picks to be considered. That's why Mr. Trump has appointed so many federal judges, because in fact the Republicans refused to allow President Obama to get his due, and honestly, we're sitting here talking about do you have a litmus test? We all have the litmus test. Everybody on this row feels exactly the same way about a woman's right to choose. Everybody on this row feels exactly the same way on gun control. Every single one in this row feels the same way.

Tom Steyer: (25:38)
There's something else going on. These Republicans are in control. They're stacking the Court for a generation with young right-wing radicals, and we've watched it happen and the question is what are we going to do about it? That's where we are in the United States, and the question is… Actually Joe Biden's right. We have to go win a huge victory this year, and we're in trouble. And so the question is going to be, look at these people, who can pull together the Democratic Party?

Tom Steyer: (26:05)
And let me say this, we have not said one word tonight about race. Not one word. Are you kidding me? We have the most diverse party. We have a very diverse country. We have a very diverse party. The heart and soul of this party is diversity, black people, Latinos, AAPI people, Native Americans and white people. But for goodness sakes, pull it together. We're talking about something different. The question we have is how are we getting that diverse group of people to the polls? What are we saying? Everybody on this stage feels the same way about a woman's right to choose and economic justice. The question is how do we beat Trump? How do we take down these Republicans? And the answer is we've got to show we can take them down on growth, job creation, the economy. We send them packing and then we get all of this including beating the corporations.

David Muir: (26:56)
Mr Steyer, thank you. The night is still young. Many questions to come, and Linsey Davis is next.

Linsey Davis: (27:01)
I want to turn now to criminal justice. Mayor Buttigieg…

David Muir: (27:03)
Linsey Davis is next.

Linsey Davis: (27:03)
I want to turn now to criminal justice. Mayor Buttigieg, under your leadership as mayor, a black resident in South Bend, Indiana was four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white resident. Now, that racial disparity is higher than the rest of the state, in fact, it's higher than the rest of the nation, and that disparity increased in South Bend after you took office.

Linsey Davis: (27:23)
When talking about the problem on national terms, you've called it "evidence of systemic racism." You were mayor for eight years, so weren't you, in effect, the head of the system, and how do explain that increase in black arrests under your leadership?

Pete Buttigieg: (27:37)
Well, the reality is, on my watch, drug arrests in South Bend were lower than the national average, and specifically to marijuana, lower than in Indiana. But there is no question that systemic racism has penetrated to every level of our system, and my city was not immune. I took a lot of heat for discussing systemic racism with my own police department, but we've got to confront the fact that there is no escaping how this is part of all of our policies.

Pete Buttigieg: (28:05)
Earlier, we were talking about opioids, and thankfully, America has come to a better understanding about the fact that opioid addiction is best understood as a medical problem. But there were a lot of people, including a lot of African American activists in my community who have made the very good point, it's great that everybody's so enlightened about drug policy now when it comes to opioids, but where were you when it came to marijuana, where were you when it came to the crack epidemic in the 1990s? That is one of the reasons why I am calling for us as a country to take up those reforms that end incarceration as a response to possession and make sure that we legalize marijuana and when we do it, do it retroactively with expungements to correct the harm done in so many cases of incarceration, disproportionately of black and brown Americans where the incarceration did far more harm than the offense it was intended to deal with.

Linsey Davis: (29:00)
Right, let me go back to the original question though. How do you explain the increase in black arrests in South Bend under your leadership for marijuana possession?

Pete Buttigieg: (29:05)
And again, the overall rate was lower than the national rate.

Linsey Davis: (29:09)
No, there was an increase. The year before you were in office, it was lower. Once you became in office in 2012, that number went up. In 2018, the last number year that we have record for, that number was still up.

Pete Buttigieg: (29:22)
And one of the strategies that our community adopted was to target, when there were cases where there was gun violence and gang violence, which was slaughtering so many in our community, burying teenagers, disproportionately black teenagers, we adopted a strategy that said that drug enforcement would be targeted in cases where there was a connection to the most violent group or gang connected to a murder.

Pete Buttigieg: (29:49)
These things are all connected, but that's the point. So are all of the things that need to change in order for us to prevent violence and remove the effects of systemic racism, not just from criminal justice, but from our economy, from health, from housing, and from our democracy itself.

Linsey Davis: (30:05)
Senator Warren, is that a substantial answer from Mayor Buttigieg?

Elizabeth Warren: (30:08)
No. You have to own up to the fact, and it's important to own up to the facts about how race has totally permeated our criminal justice system. For the exact same crimes, study after study now shows that African Americans are more likely than whites to be detained, to be arrested, to be taken to trial, to be wrongfully convicted, and receive harsher sentences. We need to rework our criminal justice system, from the very front end on what we make illegal all the way through the system, and how we help people come back into the community.

Elizabeth Warren: (30:50)
But we cannot just say that criminal justice is the only time we want to talk about race specifically. We need to start having race-conscious laws. Housing, for example, I have a great housing plan to build more housing in America, but understand it was the policy of the United States of America to discriminate against African Americans and any other people of color for buying homes until 1965. You can't just repeal that and say "Okay, now everything is even." It's not. We need race-conscious laws in education and employment, in entrepreneurship, to make this country a country of opportunity for everyone, no matter the color of their skin.

Andrew Yang: (31:37)
Elizabeth, with respect, you can't regulate away racism with a whole patchwork of laws that are race-specific. What we have to do is heed the writings of Martin Luther King, whose birthday we just celebrated. He said that capitalism forgets that life is social, and what he was championing was a guaranteed minimum income for all Americans of $1000 a month or more that would end up reshaping our economy in communities of color, make it so that black net work is not 10% of white net worth in this country, which is the most important number of them all. We can't regulate that away through any other means except by putting money directly into the hands of African Americans and Latinos and people of color to allow businesses to actually flourish and grow in those communities. The only way that will happen is if black and Latino consumers have buying power, and that is where we have to move as a country.

Linsey Davis: (32:33)
Senator Sanders, then Mr. Steyer.

Tom Steyer: (32:36)
Let me say this, I disagree. Andrew, no, let me say this. I disagree with you Andrew. I am the person on this stage who will say openly, I'm for reparations. Something wrong happened. I am for reparations to African Americans in this country, and anyone who things that racism is a thing of the past and not an ongoing problem is not dealing with reality. In fact, three days ago, one of the leaders of Joe Biden's South Carolina campaign made racist remarks about someone associated with our campaign, and the Legislative Black Caucus went out en masse to stand up for that man and for our campaign. Joe, I'm asking you to come with me and the Legislative Black Caucus and disavow Dick Harpootlian and what he had to say. It was wrong, and I'm asking you to join us. Be on the right side.

Joe Biden : (33:25)
I'm asking you to join me and join in the support I have from the overwhelming number of the members of that Black Caucus. I have more support in South Carolina in the Black Caucus and the black community than anybody else. Double what you have, or anybody else here.

Bernie Sanders: (33:36)
I don't think that's quite right.

Tom Steyer: (33:37)
But wait a second, wait a second. Bernie.

Joe Biden : (33:39)
Well, that is quite right.

Tom Steyer: (33:40)
Let's not argue about polls. Bernie, this isn't about polls.

Linsey Davis: (33:43)
Senator Sanders …

Joe Biden : (33:43)
This is not about polls. I'm not talking about polls.

Bernie Sanders: (33:47)
Let me just say, first of all, we have nine members of the Black Caucus in South Carolina supporting us, but more importantly, much of what Elizabeth said is absolutely correct. We have a racist society from top to bottom impacting healthcare, housing, criminal justice, education, you name it. And clearly this is an issue that must be dealt with. But in terms of criminal justice, what we have got to do is understand the system is broken, is racist. We invested our young people in jobs and education, not more jails and incarceration. We end the war on drugs, which has disproportionately impacted African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. We end private prisons and detention centers in America.

Tom Steyer: (34:40)
Bernie, I appreciate what you're saying.

Bernie Sanders: (34:42)
And, excuse me, we also, most people don't know this. Tonight in America, 200,000 people are in jail without having been convicted of anything.

Tom Steyer: (34:52)
That's right.

Bernie Sanders: (34:52)
200,000 people, because they can't afford the $500 for bail they need to get out of jail. That is outrageous, we're going to end cash bail in America.

Tom Steyer: (35:03)
Okay, let me say this. I've worked, Bernie, I've worked to end cash bail in California and it's gone. I've worked to end private prisons in California and they're gone. I'm somebody who's, our family, my wife and I started a bank specifically to support businesses owned by women, black people, and Latinos, because they couldn't get financing anywhere else. But I, Joe, I want a answer. Really. I think you should come over and disavow the statements that this man made that were openly racist, that were wrong, and the Legislative Black Caucus is against. I'm asking you to join us and do the right thing.

Joe Biden : (35:41)
I've already spoken to Dick Harpootlian and he in fact is, I believe, sorry for what he said. But here's the deal, folks. We've got to stop taking the black community for granted. That's the starting place. Every one of the things we talked about here, for example, in South Carolina, Jim Clyburn, he has a program, 10-15-30. We should be investing our money in those communities that haven't gotten help for a long time and give most of that help to those communities. Make it a priority. We should make sure that we have no one going to jail for a drug offense, they go directly, mandatory prison. I mean, excuse me, mandatory treatment, not prison. And we fund it. And we fund it, and three days doesn't get it. It takes at least 60 to 90 days to make any progress. We have to pay for that.

Joe Biden : (36:34)
Just like instead of building new prisons, we build new rehabilitation centers. We have to make sure that we have a window at the Treasury Department that allows entrepreneurs who are black and brown and minorities to be able to get loans to be able to start businesses. You know, if you own a house, I know you do know, if you own a house in an all black neighborhood, same exact house in all white neighborhood, exact same shape, the house valued in the black neighborhood would be valued as worth less, making it difficult for you to accumulate wealth, as my friend at the end of the line here says. So here's the deal: we have to do much, much more. That's what got me involved in politics in the first place, redlining, to stop it.

Joe Biden : (37:13)
I got involved through the Civil Rights Movement, I became a public defender. That's why I got involved. There's so many things we have to do across the board, and in education, at-risk schools. We should triple the funding we have for at-risk schools to provide for three, four, and five years old to go to school, not daycare. Increase the salaries of teachers, encourage more blacks to get into teaching, especially black men, because studies show when there's a black man in a school, it increases prospects significantly, and so on. There's a lot we can do, I've laid it all out as how to do, go to joebiden.com, you'll see the whole deal, including criminal justice reform.

Linsey Davis: (37:49)
Thank you Mr. Vice President. As you mentioned South Carolina, three weeks from tomorrow they'll go to the polls to vote, black voters make up about 60% of the electorate there. Senator Sanders, several weeks ago, Nina Turner, one of your national co-chairs, published an op-ed piece that said Vice President Biden has "repeatedly betrayed black voters to side with Republican lawmakers and undermine our progress." Senator Sanders, do you agree with her, one of your most visible surrogates, that Vice President Biden has repeatedly betrayed black voters?

Bernie Sanders: (38:19)
Well, I think what Senator Turner was talking about are some of the early actions of Vice President Biden, but no. Joe Biden is a friend of mine, and I'm not here to attack him. But what I would say is that what we need in terms of the African American community is to understand that we have got to start investing big time in education, in healthcare. There is no excuse why white families in America have 10 times more wealth than black families. No excuse that disproportionately, African Americans are in jail compared to whites. No excuse for black women dying in childbirth three times the rate that white women are doing as well.

Linsey Davis: (39:06)
Senator Klobuchar?

Amy Klobuchar: (39:08)
Yes.

Linsey Davis: (39:09)
You had raised your hand before.

Amy Klobuchar: (39:10)
Yes I did, because I think in addition to the economic argument we're making here with the sad, sad stories of a woman walking into a maternity room in New Orleans and saying her hand are swollen and walking out without her baby, and 30% of African American kids being living in poverty, we know that there are economic solutions here, to invest in those communities, housing, childcare. But there's something else insidious going on that we haven't addressed, and that is the systematic racism when it comes to voting. That is, moves across the country to limit people's right to vote, and that is why I have been leading on these bills to automatically register every kid to vote in this country when they turn 18. There is no reason that we can't do that across this country. To stop the gerrymandering by setting up independent commissions in every single state, and yes, to stop the voting purges.

Amy Klobuchar: (40:08)
Because what is going on right now in the words of one North Carolina court is that they are discriminating with surgical precision against African American voters, and we are not going to be able to get any of these things done if we don't give people the right to vote.

Linsey Davis: (40:25)
Vice President Biden and then Senator Warren.

Joe Biden : (40:31)
I beg your pardon?

Linsey Davis: (40:31)
I just wanted to give you a chance to respond.

Joe Biden : (40:33)
Yes, I agree completely. There should be registration, automatic registration, turning 18, you get a driver's license, whatever you do, you automatically are registered, number one. Number two, with regard to what we're going to see in South Carolina, we're all going to be there pretty soon. We'll see whether or not it works. In response to the letter that the person, I'm not saying Bernie wrote the letter, but the senator who wrote the letter was very brisk and significant with other African Americans in South Carolina taking issue with her.

Joe Biden : (41:02)
But look, Amy is right, the senator's correct. That is that we, in fact, there is systematic racism, and that's why our Justice Department works so hard to go after those. You know, realize there are 35 states in the United States of America that have come up with a total of 78 laws to restrict voting just in the last five years to try to keep African Americans from voting, and brown as well, black and brown people from voting. And that will be an enormous priority in my administration as it was in ours. It's just wrong, simply wrong.

Elizabeth Warren: (41:41)
I'm glad to stand on this stage with my fellow Democrats who talk about how important the black community is, at least at election time. Year after year after year, election after election after election, Democrats go to people in the black community and say "Boy, we really care about these issues. Racism is terrible, we all want to do something," and then somehow the problem just seems to keep getting worse. Well I think it's time we have real, concrete plans that are going to make a difference in people's lives. I proposed a two cent wealth tax. And let me tell you just one of the things we can do with a two cent wealth tax. We can cancel student loan debt for 43 million Americans, and because African Americans have to borrow more money to go to college, borrow more money while they're in college and have a harder time paying it back when they get out, that one law is going to help close the black-white wealth gap for people with student loans by about 20 points.

Elizabeth Warren: (42:40)
We aren't making a difference in America. We're saying to the rich folks "You keep your money, and the rest of us will talk about racism but not really do anything." I think the time for that is over, I'm ready to get in this fight and really make a change.

Joe Biden : (42:54)
Okay, thank you.

George S.: (42:57)
Actually, let's keep this debate going. Go ahead, Mr. Steyer.

Tom Steyer: (43:02)
Out of narrative comes policy. And we're talking about a lot of policies that affect Americans, broadly and disproportionately affect black Americans or brown Americans. But what I believe is we should set up a commission on race and deal with race explicitly. Because everyone's saying we can't have rules that are different for different people, but in fact we're here because we had rules that are different for different people. I would set up a formal commission on race on day one to retell the story of the last 400 years in America of systematic racism against African Americans, not just legal discrimination, injustice, and cruelty, but also the contribution that the African American community has made to America in building it and in leading the entire country from a moral standpoint for generations and centuries. Because I believe out of narrative comes policy. We need to repair damage that's been done officially, and pretending we're all the same is not accurate. We got here a certain way. Let's talk about Jim Crow, let's talk about Martin Luther King, let's talk about Barbara Lee, the congresswoman from Oakland who's one of our great leaders, and then let's figure out how to repair the damage so we can move forward together.

George S.: (44:24)
Mr. Yang, take on that argument, also what he said about reparations.

Andrew Yang: (44:31)
The median African American household net work is projected to be zero by 2053. Things are not getting better for people of color. If anything, they're getting wore, because we're in the process of eliminating the most common jobs in our economy. It's something of an economic unnatural disaster, and who suffers most in a natural disaster? People of color, people with lower levels of capital and access to opportunity and education.

Andrew Yang: (44:58)
And while I know we love to champion education here as Democrats, only 33% of Americans are going attend college, lower percentage of African Americans. There is no way we can prevent this tsunami from wiping out African American net worth unless we put straight cash into their hands sometime between now and 2053, and it's not just them, it is truck drivers, it is retail clerks, it is call center workers, it is accountants, it is bookkeepers. We are in the midst of the greatest economic transformation in the history of our country, and it's going to hit black people the hardest. We have to stop nibbling at the edges and actually start solving the real problem.

George S.: (45:39)
We've been getting a lot of questions from Apple News in tonight, including many about a candidate who's not on the stage tonight, but is in this race, and that is former Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York. And this question came in from Nashville, Tennessee, says "Billionaire Michael Bloomberg has entered the race and just got the endorsement of a former Trump Navy Secretary. Why do you think you are better positioned than Bloomberg to beat Trump?" Senator Warren.

Elizabeth Warren: (46:03)
Look, I don't think anyone ought to be able to buy their way into a nomination or to be president of the United States. I don't think any billionaire ought to be able to do it, and I don't think people who suck up to billionaires in order to fund their campaigns out to do it. I heard everyone here talking about as Democrats, we all want to overturn Citizens United because we want to end this unlimited spending, yeah. Except everyone on this stage except Amy and me is either a billionaire or is receiving help from PACs that can do unlimited spending. So if you really want to live where you say, then put your money where your mouth is and say no to the PACs.

Elizabeth Warren: (46:54)
Look, I think the way we build a democracy going forward is not billionaires reaching in their own pockets or people sucking up to billionaires. The way we build it going forward is we have a grassroots movement funded from the grassroots up. That's the way I'm running this campaign. If you think it's the right way to run a campaign, to go elizabethwarren.com and pitch in $5, because understand this: our democracy hangs in the balance. If we have to fund through billionaires, then we're just going to be an America that's going to work better and better for billionaires and not for anyone else.

George S.: (47:33)
Senator Klobuchar, then Senator Sanders.

Amy Klobuchar: (47:34)
So I can't stand the big money in politics, and one of my major focuses is going to be on passing that constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. I didn't come from money, and I just simply think people don't look at the guy in the White House and say "Can we get someone richer?" I don't think they think that. They want to have someone that they can understand. And you know my background. My grandpa was an iron ore miner, he worked 1500 feet underground in the mines his whole life. He couldn't even graduate from high school because he had to raise his nine brothers and sisters. My grandpa saved money in a coffee can to send my dad to a two year community college. That was my family's trust, and you can't send, like Donald Trump got from his family, you can't fit $413 million in a coffee can.

Amy Klobuchar: (48:26)
My mom grew up and wanted to be a teacher in Wisconsin. She moved to Minnesota, she taught second grade until she was 70 years old. And no, I am not a billionaire, but I stand before you today as granddaughter of an iron ore miner, the daughter of a teacher and a newspaperman, the first woman elected to the US Senate from the state of Minnesota, someone who has passed over 100 bills as a lead Democrat in that gridlock in Washington, DC, and that is because we live in a country of shared dreams. And that means no matter where you come from, no matter where you come from, you should be able to make it. So please help me in my efforts at amyklobuchar.com.

George S.: (49:05)
Everybody's getting the fundraising pitches out here.

Amy Klobuchar: (49:06)
This is a campaign of real people.

George S.: (49:07)
Right now, Senator Sanders, I am coming to you, but Mayor Bloomberg is-

Bernie Sanders: (49:11)
Let's talk about money, and let's talk about-

George S.: (49:11)
… Let me just put the question to you, because Mayor Bloomberg has taken on your argument-

Bernie Sanders: (49:14)
… I've got to answer before the question, it's more …

George S.: (49:16)
… he says we need evolution, not revolution.

Bernie Sanders: (49:18)
I couldn't hear that.

George S.: (49:19)
Mayor Bloomberg has said we need evolution, not revolution, taking you on directly.

Bernie Sanders: (49:23)
Well, it's a funny thing. There are millions of people who can desire to run for office, but I guess if you're work $60 billion and you can spend several hundred million dollars on commercials, you have a slight advantage. That is nonsense. What we have got to do is have a nation in which we not only overturn Citizens United, we move to public funding of election.

Bernie Sanders: (49:51)
In terms of money in politics, our campaign, and I am enormously proud of this, unlike some of the folks up here, I don't have 40 billionaires, Pete, contributing to my campaign, coming from the pharmaceutical industry, coming from Wall Street, and all the big money interests. What we do have is we have now over six million contributions from one and a half million people averaging $18.50 a contribution. That is unprecedented in the history of American politics. If we want to change America, you're not going to do it be electing candidates who are going out to rich people's homes begging for money. The way we're going to do it is build a mass movement of working people who are prepared to stand up, not take money from these billionaires, not take money from Wall Street, but stand up to the drug companies and Wall Street. And if you want to be part of that political revolution, berniesanders.com.

George S.: (51:03)
Mayor Buttigieg, close this round out.

Pete Buttigieg: (51:09)
We are going into the fight of our lives. Donald Trump, according to news reports, and his allies raised $25 million today. We need to go into that fight with everything that we've got. Now I've been very clear on both my record, where I have sued pharmaceutical companies, and what I'm campaigning for, that includes raising wages and raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. And as the only person on this stage who is not a millionaire or a billionaire, I know a thing or two about building a movement because mayor of South Bend, Indiana is not exactly an establishment fundraising powerhouse.

Pete Buttigieg: (51:49)
We are here without the involvement of any corporate PACs because hundreds of thousands of people went to, yes, peteforamerica.com, contributed to this campaign, and let me say something else. If we want to bring about any of the changes that everyone is talking about so elegantly up here, we need to put together the majority that can decisively defeat Donald Trump. And in order to do that, we need a politics that is defined not by who we reject, but how we bring everybody into the fold. And if you are low-income, or if you're able to contribute a lot. If you've always voted Democrat, or if you're an Independent or even a Republican who's just sick of looking your kids in the eye and trying to explain this White House, we need you to join us right now. I will not pursue politics by telling people they can't be at our side if they're not with us 100% of the time. This is a time for addition, not rejection, for belonging, not exclusion.

David Muir: (52:49)
Mayor Buttigieg, thank you. I want to turn to climate change and jobs here in America. President Trump just signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, many call it an updated NAFTA. But it odes include incentives to make cars here in North America and it does open Canadian markets for American dairy farmers. Senator Sanders, as we sit here in New Hampshire tonight, both New Hampshire senators Maggie Hassan and Senator Jeanne Shaheen supported this, calling it a real win for workers and for farmers. You voted no, because you said you believe it takes us back years on climate. Were the senators from New Hampshire wrong?

Bernie Sanders: (53:26)
Yes. I mean, it's a disagreement, but if you look at every environmental group in this country, including the Sunrise organization, we're so proud to have their support, because we have introduced the most comprehensive climate change proposal I think ever authored by a presidential candidate. But they are saying, what the environmental groups are saying, we're simply exporting fossil fuel emissions to Mexico. There is not one word in that trade agreement …

Bernie Sanders: (54:03)
There is not one word in that trade agreement that deals with climate change and I don't know how in 2020 you can do that. Second of all, there is, in terms of outsourcing of jobs, a major crisis in this country. Nobody believes that under this Trump trade agreement that they will not be continued and significant outsourcing of jobs into low wage Mexico, where workers are paid in some cases less than $2 an hour. So I think the right vote was the vote against that agreement. I don't apologize for that.

George S.: (54:36)
Senator Sanders, thank you. I do want to go to Senator Klobuchar. You've heard what Senator Sanders just said there. He said not one word on climate in the trade deal. So why did you vote yes?

Amy Klobuchar: (54:44)
Well, first of all, I want to defend the honor of the incredible two senators from New Hampshire, Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, who work so hard for this state every day and I voted with them. Why did I vote with them? Because there were some major improvements in this trade agreement when it comes to labor inspections, when it comes to getting rid of a sweetheart pharma deal that was in place and when it comes to climate change, I think we have to have a North American trading block. We have to have Mexico and Canada and America working together and the best way to take on climate change as president, yes, I'll work to make this a part of every future trade agreement, but the best way to take on climate change is by getting back into the international climate change agreement, which I will do on day one.

Amy Klobuchar: (55:32)
It is bringing back the clean power rules. It is bringing back the gas mileage standards and it is introducing sweeping legislation to put a price on carbon and you cannot divorce trade from that, and in future trade agreements, that should be part of our negotiations. But I'm telling you right now, having no trade agreement with Canada and Mexico puts us at such a disadvantage when it comes to dealing with China and pushing China to do better when it comes to climate change.

George S.: (55:59)
Senator Klobuchar, thank you. Senator Warren, you voted yes as well.

Elizabeth Warren: (56:03)
Yes I did, and I'll tell you why, because there are a lot of farmers around this country that are really hurting because of Donald Trump's trade policies. There are a lot of workers who are hurting because they can't get enforcement of any workers' rights. So this NAFTA provision, after a lot of negotiation with Democrats, Senator Sherrod Brown helped make it a whole lot better. This makes things somewhat better for workers and for farmers and when I see a law that makes things somewhat better for hardworking people in this country, I'm saying, I'll sign up for that and then I'll get up tomorrow morning and I'll start working hard for a better trade deal on climate, a better trade deal that has a basic coherence to it. Everyone wants to get to the American market. We should be raising standards on climate around the world to get access to our market.

George S.: (56:56)
Mr. Steyer.

Tom Steyer: (56:58)
Yeah, I got to agree with Bernie Sanders, I do. Senator Warren is right. Everybody wants to get into our market, and that's how we convince them that they've got to be right on climate too. That we have to stop making foreign policy decisions in the old way. Yeah, of course, we want to make things better for American workers, and it's absolutely critical that when we think about trade policy, we're thinking about it from the point of view of the American people, not of the American corporations. That's a huge positive change. And I agree with the senators on that, but there's something else going on here when we think about our foreign policy. We talked about whether it was right to kill General Soleimani, and there was no discussion in that about where that leaves the United States in the community of nations around the world.

Tom Steyer: (57:55)
So if we actually want to be the leaders of the world, the leaders of the free world who can actually negotiate a climate treaty around the world that sticks, that makes a difference, we're going to have to put climate first, and when we think about doing the wrong thing, the way Mr. Trump did with General Soleimani, we have to ask, does that help us build a coalition of countries around the world to do the right thing? It absolutely does not.

Tom Steyer: (58:21)
Being all by ourselves, being the Empire in the Star Wars movie does not put us in a position to get done what we need to get done as the leader of the free world. So in fact, the USMCA is something, that's the first step, but the second step is exactly what Bernie Sanders is saying. Use access to our market as a negotiating thing to make sure not only that we represent American workers, but that we represent the American people in the long run and we make sure that we get a safe climate deal.

Amy Klobuchar: (58:50)
One of the things about being in the arena is you have to make decisions all the time and these things aren't always exactly how you would do them. But in this case, if you want to criticize Trump for not ever having any friends, and I would agree, he always sides with tyrants over innocents. He always sides with dictators over allies, but I think you've got to have some friends and those two countries, our neighbors, may not be perfect, but they are our friends, and we have a president that literally blames everyone in the world, and we have not talked about this enough.

Amy Klobuchar: (59:21)
He blames Barack Obama for everything that goes wrong. He blames his federal reserve chair that he appointed himself. He blames the King of Denmark, who does that? He blames the prime minister of Canada for, he claims, cutting him out of the Canadian version of Home Alone 2, who does that? That's what Donald Trump does. So my point here is that when we have opportunities to work with our allies, and New Hampshire is such a great example of this, New Hampshire, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, with senators like Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassen, who believe we need to work with NATO and the rest of the world who sees it as a smaller state, but a state that is a piece of the world. We cannot be alone, and that trade agreement was not perfect, but the point of it is, if we start isolating ourselves from the rest of the world, we are going to hurt ourselves economically and we are going to hurt our nation's security.

George S.: (01:00:17)
All right. Senator Klobuchar, thanks very much. We have hit the two hour mark, we need to take a quick break and come back for the final question.

Devin Dwyer: (01:02:40)
Welcome back to Manchester, New Hampshire and the ABC News Democratic Debate. Thanks for joining us here on ABC News Live tonight. I'm Devin Dwyer, joined with our political correspondent, Rachel Scott. Rachel, we heard so much this last block about gun policy, abortion, climate change, and then the issue of race, pushed on by Tom Steyer and really a lot of the candidates confronting Joe Biden, a sign of where this campaign is headed.

Rachel Scott: (01:03:05)
Exactly, Devin. Steyer tonight calling out the lack of discussion when it comes to race on that stage, the conversation turning 90 minutes into this debate and Biden touting what the national polls reflect. His loyalty among African American voters. I have sat down with the vice president, he has told me it's one of the things that he is most proud of, his loyalty among black supporters, and if you want to just see how important black voters are to the democratic base, all you have to look at are the numbers from 2016, the exit polls from that primary, 6 out of 10 voters in Mississippi were black, 61% of voters in the South Carolina primary were black, and that's where the candidates are going to be heading very soon ahead of that.

Devin Dwyer: (01:03:41)
And to Nevada as well with a lot of voters of color there and Joe Biden holding a lion's share of those voters. We'll see if these candidates can chip away. You know, we were talking so many of the policies we heard about tonight, like so many of the previous debates, are familiar positions from these candidates, which is why the style of their performance tonight is going to get a lot of attention from voters.

Rachel Scott: (01:04:02)
It will, but you know, when I talk to voters as I travel the country, they tell me their number one concern is electability. They want someone that could be President Trump, they want someone that could carry this over the finish line and that's why you hear so much of the session pitting back to who can do that on that stage today.

Devin Dwyer: (01:04:18)
I was up in Derry, New Hampshire just yesterday hearing not only a lot of attention on those qualities of style, but also a lot of anxiety over this issue of electability particularly now with Donald Trump's polling numbers on the rise, his performance at the State of the Union and his acquittal in that Senate trial. It's going to be a four day sprint, I know you're going to be out there all weekend as I will as well and we were just talking about what this moment in this campaign will mean. We could see a dramatically smaller field after Tuesday night here in New Hampshire.

Rachel Scott: (01:04:49)
Tom Perez came out here and he said, listen, we are beginning a 90 day sprint. Most of the delegates are going to be grabbed up by the end of this 90 days and the candidates really have to hone in on their pitch here. The voting has started, already. We're moving into the New Hampshire primary and a lot of these candidates have a lot on the line here. They only have a few days left to gain momentum before that next vote is cast, and again, this race is getting tighter and tighter.

Devin Dwyer: (01:05:13)
And we know Donald Trump will be here in New Hampshire and Manchester as well, on Monday. So things are going to get a little even more exciting four days ahead of the New Hampshire primaries. We had back now for the final question in this ABC News Democratic Debate. Take a look at the speaking times of the candidates. We'll leave you with that. Joe Biden, top of the list, all the candidates back at their podiums. Stay with us right here on ABC News Live.

Announcer: (01:05:45)
The democratic debate. Here now, George Stephanopoulos.

George S.: (01:05:49)
Welcome back to our debate, time now for a final question. Each of you will answer it in turn. We'll start with Mr.Yang, and the question is this. According to the Children's Defense Fund, it's been more than 20 years since child poverty was directly addressed in a presidential debate. The year was 1999 the question was our friend and former [inaudible 01:06:13] who may be watching right now, the late Cokie Roberts.

George S.: (01:06:19)
Cokie loved the New Hampshire primary, and she asked the candidates in this Republican debate, how will we overcome the scandal of one quarter of American preschoolers living in poverty in the richest nation on earth? Today, nearly one in five American preschoolers are still living below the poverty line, even though we've had 10 straight years of economic growth. What does that say to you about where America is today and what we need to do about it?

Andrew Yang: (01:06:46)
George, we're in the midst of the most extreme winner take all economy in the history of our country, and unfortunately, that extremity is just going to reach unprecedented heights as technology is getting stronger, smarter, more capable all the time, and most of us are not. Most adults feel happy if we stayed about the same on any given day. So if we want to alleviate child poverty, we need to put money directly into the hands of families, particularly single parents, 40% of American children today are born to single moms, 90% of single parents are single moms and right now we have fallen into this trap where we have allowed the market to tell us what we are all worth.

Andrew Yang: (01:07:29)
What is the market value my wife, Evelyn had, or stay at home parents around the country? Zero. Caregivers taking care of ailing loved ones, like Kyle Christensen in Iowa? Zero. Volunteers and activists in our communities trying to do something positive? Zero. Coaches and mentors helping our kids? Zero. Most artists, sorry artists, but it's true. Zero. Increasingly local journalists, which is wiping out our ability to have a functioning democracy because you can't vote on something if you actually don't have any news coverage. The mission in this campaign has to be for us to disentangle economic value and human value, say they are not the same things and make this case to our fellow Americans. That we each have intrinsic value as citizens, as human beings and as owners and shareholders of the richest country in the history of the world.

Pete Buttigieg: (01:08:27)
The problem is, America's been counting the wrong things. Now we have a president who says the economy is fantastic because the Dow Jones is looking good. I'm sure if you've got a building with your name on it close to Wall Street, then that really is the same thing as the economy to you. But the problem is, we've had an economy grow and not be able to lift up those most in need, or even so many in the middle.

Pete Buttigieg: (01:08:53)
When I'm president, we're going to measure the performance of our economy, not by the Dow Jones but by the income growth of the 90%, because a good economy is one where children are being lifted out of poverty. Just as we focused in South B on cutting the poverty rate, in particular, the black poverty rate and making sure families with children were participating in the growth that we did have. This is one more example of something where the American people want to see change. The American people, not just die hard Democrats, but so many Independents and some Republicans, think we need to prioritize economic equity and yet it still doesn't happen. That is why we need to recognize that the time has arrived for a different kind of politics. To turn the page, leave the politics of the past in the past and deliver a better future before it is too late.

George S.: (01:09:47)
Senator Warren.

Elizabeth Warren: (01:09:52)
So I started my grownup life as a special education teacher. I learned early on about the worth of every single human being, and I believe that the best investment we can make as a nation, the best investment we can make as human beings, is to invest in our children. We've had enough of making rhetoric around this. Everyone says they love the kids, but here's the deal. It's time to come up with real plans to make that happen. I've talked before about a two cent wealth tax, but the whole idea behind it is we can do early childhood education and good quality child care, universal pre-K for every three year old and four year old in America, and we can stop exploiting the people, largely black and brown women who do this work and raise the wages of every childcare worker and preschool teacher in America.

Elizabeth Warren: (01:10:53)
We want to have a real future in this country, then invest in our children. Don't leave public education just to our localities in our states. Be a good federal partner. Put real money into our schools, put real money into housing, put real money into into healthcare. Put real money into the future of our children. That's how we build the America of our best values.

George S.: (01:11:22)
Mr. Vice President.

Joe Biden : (01:11:26)
I come from a family where our dad walked in one day and said, we've got to move. Don't have a job. We've got to move to a different city. I watched my dad and I met many people here in this state and others, who go through the same thing where the father's made that longest walk or the mother's made that longest walk. I was listed for the entire time I was in the United States Congress as the poorest man in the United States Congress. My net worth was net zero a couple of times. The fact of the matter is that I've never focused on money for me and I was a single dad for five years. It's not as hard as being a single mom and I had help from my sisters in the audience and others, but the fact is that I think we have to focus on what is at stake here.

Joe Biden : (01:12:09)
These aren't someone else's children. They're all our children. They're the kite strings that lift our national ambitions, they really are. They lift our national ambitions aloft. We have an overwhelming interest, overwhelming interest in seeing to it they do well. You know, 24 out of every 100 students in school today, from grade school to high school, are Latino. What are we going to do? Walk away from that?

Joe Biden : (01:12:33)
Many of them come from homes that are poor, very poor. That's why I invest so much time and energy in preschool. That's why if I only have $1 to spend, I spend it equipping the child before they get into school in the early day, than after and we talk about all those kids out there that are going to be graduating. A great number of them, as Mr. Yang said, aren't going on to college, although I think we should help with college. They're not going on to college. What they're going to do, they're going to be equipped to compete in the 21st century by training them for the new trades, the new opportunities, the new capabilities that are out there. We must focus on our children. Like I said, they're all our children, they're not somebody else's kids. Everyone, everyone, everyone, everyone, as my father would say, is entitled to be treated with dignity and respect and we're not doing it.

George S.: (01:13:20)
Senator Sanders.

Bernie Sanders: (01:13:21)
Well, the answer to your question of why we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth, disproportionately high for the African American community, by the way, is the same reason that we give massive trillion dollar tax breaks to the rich and large corporations. Same reason that we give tens of billions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks to the fossil fuel industry, while half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. The same reason that we have three people in America owning more wealth than the bottom half of America.

Bernie Sanders: (01:13:59)
The same reason that we are the only major country on earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right. Same reason as to why we are paying in some cases 10 times more than other countries for prescription drugs, and that reason is that our priorities are determined by the 1% and by wealthy campaign contributors. Our priorities are determined by those who want to see the rich get richer and are turning their backs on the working families of this country. What is unique about our campaign, is we say, unashamedly, we are raising our campaign contributions, not from billionaires but from working class people. That our campaign is about the working families of this country for the working class of this country and that is the administration that we will run. It is time to take on the big money interests. It is time to change our national priorities. Thank you.

George S.: (01:15:02)
Senator Klobuchar.

Amy Klobuchar: (01:15:05)
In Cokie's memory, let me answer this question. We may have lost an election in 2016, Democrats, but we did not lose hope. And there is a way, it's actually based on a National Academy of Science report and I've used that to put together a plan to reduce child poverty in half in 10 years and eradicate it in a generation. We can do it with investment in childcare. We can do it with investment in preschool and school and we can do it with tax credits and we can get it done. But to get it done, we have to be able to reach those voters that we lost in this state and across the country.

Amy Klobuchar: (01:15:43)
There's an old story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and when he died, his body was put on a train and went up across America and there was a guy standing by those tracks along with so many Americans, and he had his hat on his chest and he was sobbing and a reporter said, Sir, did you know the president? And the guy says, no, I didn't know the president, but he knew me. He knew me. I will tell you this, there is a complete lack of empathy in this guy in the White House right now. I will bring that to you.

Amy Klobuchar: (01:16:20)
If you have trouble stretching your paycheck to pay for that rent. I know you and I will fight for you. If you have trouble deciding if you're going to pay for your childcare or your longterm care, I know you and I will fight for you. If you have trouble figuring out if you're going to fill your refrigerator or fill your prescription drug, I know you and I will fight for you. I do not have the biggest name up on this stage. I don't have the biggest bank account. I'm not a political newcomer with no record, but I have a record of fighting for people. I'm asking you to join us@amyklobuchar.com. I'm asking you to believe that someone who totally believes in America can win this because if you are tired of the extremes in our politics and the noise and the nonsense, you have a home with me, Please, New Hampshire, I would love your vote and I would love the vote of America. Thank you.

George S.: (01:17:17)
Mr. Steyer.

Tom Steyer: (01:17:24)
The Republicans have a cruel plan and their plan is pretty simple. It's to cut taxes on the richest Americans and the biggest corporations and then they pay for it by cutting education for kids, by cutting healthcare across the board, by allowing corporations to pollute as much as they want, and then they try and break unions and the organized labor movement. It's very simple. That's what Mr. Trump's plan is and it's true in every single red state, but we are not going to win by just criticizing Mr. Trump. I know that there is a better America out there and that America lives in our hearts and minds. And that America understands that when a kid succeeds in Columbia, South Carolina, that is a triumph for every American. And the same is true of a kid in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mr. Trump has no idea what prosperity looks like across this country. It's not just that he does bad things. He doesn't understand that investing in education and healthcare and good union jobs is actually an investment in our common humanity and in growth in the future, mobility and justice. That is the America that lives in our hearts and minds that will beat Mr. Trump, because he will never be able to imagine it. So in fact, what we need to do is have a new conception, a new dream of America, dream it and make it happen. Imagine the mountain and then we climb it together. We are in perilous times. I am asking for your vote. Let's rise together.

George S.: (01:19:09)
Candidates. Thank you. Thanks for a great debate tonight. Thanks to our audience here at Saint Anselm College. Thanks for our partners, WMUR and Apple News and now I'd like to send it to my colleague Martha Raddatz.

WOLF BLITZER: Live from Drake University in Iowa, this is the CNN Democratic presidential debate, in partnership with the Des Moines Register. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer, along with CNN's Abby Phillip and the Des Moines Register's chief politics reporter Brianne Pfannenstiel.

ABBY PHILLIP: The top six Democratic presidential candidates are in place. This is their final debate before the first votes of the 2020 presidential campaign. The Iowa caucuses are 20 days away.

BRIANNE PFANNENSTIEL: Before we begin, a reminder of the ground rules. You'll each receive 75 seconds to answer questions, 45 seconds for responses and rebuttals and 15 seconds for clarifications. Please refrain from interrupting your fellow candidates, as that will count against your time.

BLITZER: All right, so let's begin right now. Just this month, the United States and Iran were on the brink of war, which has reignited the debate over America's role in the world and which of you is best prepared to be commander-in-chief. So let's have the debate right now.

Sen. Sanders, why are you best prepared -- the best prepared person on this stage to be commander-in-chief?

More: What were the tense words exchanged between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders after Tuesday's debate? Now we know.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Yes, I think my record speaks to that, Wolf. In 2002, when the Congress was debating whether or not we go into a war in Iraq, invade Iraq, I got up on the floor of the House and I said that would be a disaster, it would lead to unprecedented levels of chaos in the region. And I not only voted against the war, I helped lead the effort against that war.

Just last year, I helped, for the first time in the modern history of this country, pass a War Powers Act resolution, working with a conservative Republican, Mike Lee of Utah, which said that the war in Yemen, led by Saudi Arabia, was unconstitutional because Congress had not authorized it. We got a majority vote in the Senate. We got a majority vote in the House. Unfortunately, Bush vetoed that and that horrific war continues.

I am able to work with Republicans. I am able to bring people together to try to create a world where we solve conflicts over the negotiating table, not through military efforts.

BLITZER: Vice President Biden, you talk a lot about your experience, but some of your competitors have taken issue with that experience, questioning your judgment in voting to authorize the Iraq war. Why are you the best prepared person on this stage to be commander-in-chief?

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JOE BIDEN: I said 13 years ago it was a mistake to give the president the authority to go to war if, in fact, he couldn't get inspectors into Iraq to stop what -- thought to be the attempt to get a nuclear weapon. It was a mistake, and I acknowledged that.

But right -- the man who also argued against that war, Barack Obama, picked me to be his vice president. And once we -- once we were elected president, he turned -- and vice president, he turned to me and asked me to end that war.

I know what it's like to send a son or daughter, like our colleague has gone to war in Afghanistan, my son for a year in Iraq, and that's why I do it very, very reluctantly. That's why I led the effort, as you know, Wolf, against surging tens of thousands of troops into Afghanistan. We should not send anyone anywhere unless the overwhelming vital interests of the United States are at stake. They were not at stake there. They were not at stake in Iraq. And it was a mistaken vote.

But I think my record overall on everything we've done has been -- I'm -- I'm prepared to compare it to anybody on this stage.

Debate guide:

Highlights, what it means, photos, videos and more. Browse Des Moines Register coverage.
Top moments and conflicts: What you missed
Who were the winners and losers
Rekha Basu: What did the candidates show voters in the debate?
The spin room: An inside look at the talk and opinions
BLITZER: Sen. Sanders, you have been attacking Vice President Biden's vote on the Iraq war, but you recently acknowledged that your vote to authorize the war in Afghanistan was also a mistake. So you both acknowledged mistakes. Why should the American people trust your judgment more?

SANDERS: Well, it's a little bit of a difference. On that particular vote, every single member of the House, including myself, voted for it. Only Barbara Lee voted against it.

But what I understood right away, in terms of the war in Iraq, the difference here is that the war in Iraq turned out to be the worst foreign policy blunder in the modern history of this country. As Joe well knows, we lost 4,500 brave troops. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. We have spent trillions of dollars on that endless war, money which should go into health care and education and infrastructure in this country.

Joe and I listened to what Dick Cheney and George Bush and Rumsfeld had to say. I thought they were lying. I didn't believe them for a moment. I took to the floor. I did everything I could to prevent that war. Joe saw it differently.

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BLITZER: Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: I was asked to bring 156,000 troops home from that war, which I did. I led that effort. It was a mistake to trust that they weren't going to go to war. They said they were not going to go to war. They said they were just going to get inspectors in.

The world, in fact, voted to send inspectors in and they still went to war. From that point on, I was in the position of making the case that it was a big, big mistake. And from that point on, I've voted to -- I moved to bring those troops home.

BLITZER: Sen. Klobuchar, you've publicly questioned Mayor Buttigieg's experience when it comes to being commander-in-chief. Why is your time as a U.S. senator more valuable than his time as a U.S. naval intelligence officer in Afghanistan and as mayor?

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: Thank you, Wolf. And I have been very clear that I respect the mayor's experience very much in the military. I just have different experience.

I've been in the U.S. Senate for over 12 years. And I think what you want in a president is someone who has dealt with these life-and-death issues and who has made decisions.

I will look at my position on the Iraq war first. I wasn't in the Senate for that vote, but I opposed that war from the very beginning. In my first campaign for Senate, I ran against a Republican who ran ads against me on it, but I stood my ground. When I got to the Senate, I pushed to bring our troops home.

Then I have dealt with every issue, from Afghanistan to keeping our troops with good health care after what we saw with Walter Reed and being part of an effort to improve the situation for our troops in a very big way with our education and with their jobs and also with their health care.

I think right now what we should be talking about, though, Wolf, is what is happening right now with Donald Trump. Donald Trump is taking us pell-mell toward another war. We have a very important resolution. We just found out today that four Republicans are joining Democrats to go to him and say: You must have an authorization of military force if you're going to go to war with Iran.

That is so important, because we have a situation where he got us out of the Iranian nuclear agreement, something I worked on for a significant period of time. As president, I will get us back into that agreement. I will take an oath...

BLITZER: Thank you.

KLOBUCHAR: ... to protect and defend our Constitution.

BLITZER: Thank you.

KLOBUCHAR: And I will mean it.

BLITZER: Thank you, Sen. Klobuchar. We're going to continue talking about who's best prepared to be commander-in-chief. Mayor Buttigieg?

PETE BUTTIGIEG: Well, I bring a different perspective. There are enlisted people that I served with barely old enough to remember those votes on the authorization after 9/11, on the war in Iraq. And there are people now old enough to enlist who were not alive for some of those debates.

The next president is going to be confronted with national security challenges different in scope and in kind from anything we've seen before, not just conventional military challenges, not just stateless terrorism, but cybersecurity challenges, climate security challenges, foreign interference in our elections. It's going to take a view to the future, as well as the readiness, to learn from the lessons of the past. And for me, those lessons of the past are personal.

BLITZER: Sen. Warren, in our new CNN/Des Moines Register poll, almost a third of your supporters say your ability to lead the military is more of a weakness than a strength of yours. Why are you best prepared to be commander-in-chief?

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SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: I believe the principal job of the commander-in-chief is to keep America safe. And I think that's about judgment. I think it starts with knowing our military. I sit on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I work with our generals, with our military leaders, with our intelligence, but I also visit our troops. I visit our troops around the world.

I've been to Afghanistan, to Iraq, to Jordan, to South Korea. I've been to lots of places to talk with our troops. And I fight for our troops, to make sure that they get their pay, that they get the housing and medical benefits that they've been promised, that they don't get cheated by giant financial institutions.

You know, I have three brothers who were in the military, and I know how much our military families sacrifice. But I also know that we have to think about our defense in very different ways. We have to think about cyber. We have to think about climate. We also have to think about how we spend money.

We have a problem with a revolving door in Washington between the defense industry and the Department of Defense and the Pentagon. That is corruption, pure and simple. We need to block that revolving door, and we need to cut our defense budget. We need to depend on all of our tools -- diplomatic, economic, working with our allies -- and not let the defense industry call the shots.

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BLITZER: Mr. Steyer, you worked in finance for decades and have never held elected office. Why should voters believe you have the experience or judgment to serve as commander-in-chief?

TOM STEYER: I worked internationally around the world for decades. I traveled, I met with governments, I met with businesses, and I understand how America interacts with other countries.

And you asked what is the reason that the -- the experience really counts, and to me, I believe that Sen. Warren made a great point. It isn't so much about experience, it's about judgment.

If you've been listening to this, what we are hearing is 20 years of mistakes by the American government in the Middle East, of failure, of mistakes. So the real question is judgment.

And if you look who had the judgment, it was a state senator from Illinois with no experience named Barack Obama who opposed the war. It is a congresswoman, Barbara Lee from Oakland, California, who stood up against the original vote, who was the only person in Congress.

So I would say to you this: An outside perspective, looking at this and actually dealing with the problems as they are is what we're looking for now. I agree with Sen. Warren. We are spending dramatically too much money on defense. The money that we're spending there, we could spend in the other parts of the budget, and it's time for someone from the outside to have a strategic view about what we're trying to do and how to do it.

BLITZER: Sen. Sanders, in the wake of the Iran crisis, Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei has again called for all U.S. troops to be pulled out of the Middle East, something you've called for, as well. Yet when American troops last left Iraq, ISIS emerged and spread terror across the Middle East and, indeed, around the world. How would you prevent that from happening again?

SANDERS: O.K., I'm going to tell you, but before I tell you that, let me tell you something else.

(LAUGHTER)

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa.Buy Photo
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

And that is -- and I don't know if my colleagues here will agree with me or not. Maybe they will. But what we have to face as a nation is that the two great foreign policy disasters of our lifetimes were the war in Vietnam and the war in Iraq. Both of those wars were based on lies. And right now, what I fear very much is we have a president who is lying again and could drag us into a war that is even worse than the war in Iraq.

To answer your question, what we need to do is have an international coalition. We cannot keep acting unilaterally. As you know, the nuclear deal with Iran was worked on with a number of our allies. We have got to undo what Trump did, bring that coalition together, and make sure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.

BLITZER: Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: I was part of that deal to get the nuclear agreement with Iran, bringing together the rest of the world, including some of the folks who aren't friendly to us. And it was working. It was working. It was being held tightly. There was no movement on the part of the Iranian government to get closer to a nuclear weapon.

And look what's happened. He went ahead -- and it was predictable from the day he pulled out of the agreement, Trump, what exactly would happen. We're now isolated. We're in a situation where our allies in Europe are making a comparison between the United States and Iran, saying both ought to stand down, making a moral equivalence.

We have lost our standing in the region. We have lost the support of our allies. The next president has to be able to pull those folks back together, re-establish our alliances, and insist that Iran go back into the agreement, which I believe with the pressure applied as we put on before we can get done.

BLITZER: So just to be clear, Vice President Biden, would you leave troops in the Middle East or would you pull them out?

BIDEN: I would leave troops in the Middle East in terms of patrolling the Gulf, where we have -- where we are now, small numbers of troops, and I think it's a mistake to pull out the small number of troops that are there now to deal with ISIS.

What's happened is, now that he's gone ahead, the president, and started this whole process moving, what's happening? ISIS is going to reconstitute itself. We're in a position where we have to pull our forces out. Americans have to leave the entire region. And quite frankly, I think he's flat-out lied about saying the reason he went after -- the reason he made the strike was because our embassies were about to be bombed.

BLITZER: Sen. Klobuchar, what's your response?

KLOBUCHAR: I would leave some troops there, but not in the level that Donald Trump is taking us right now. Afghanistan, I have long wanted to bring our troops home. I would do that. Some would remain for counterterrorism and training.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa.Buy Photo
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

In Syria, I would not have removed the 150 troops from the border with Turkey. I think that was a mistake. I think it made our allies and many others much more vulnerable to ISIS. And then when it comes to Iraq, right now, I would leave our troops there, despite the mess that has been created by Donald Trump.

At the briefing we had last week, I was the only person on this stage that asked a question of both the secretary of defense and the secretary of state. And I asked them about imminent threat, but I also asked them what their alternatives were. And they gave very vague, vague answers.

I asked them, where is the surge of diplomacy that we would be seeing if I was president? And I asked them where they were going to leave the Iraqi people. Time and time again, you see that this president puts his own interests, his private interests, in front of our country's. I would put our country's interests first as commander-in-chief.

BLITZER: Sen. Warren, leave combat troops, at least some combat troops in the Middle East, or bring them home?

WARREN: No, I think we need to get our combat troops out. You know, we have to stop this mindset that we can do everything with combat troops. Our military is the finest military on Earth and they will take any sacrifice we ask them to take. But we should stop asking our military to solve problems that cannot be solved militarily.

Our keeping combat troops there is not helping. We need to work with our allies. We need to use our economic tools. We need to use our diplomatic tools.

Now, look, I understand, there are people on this stage, when it comes to Afghanistan, for example, who talk about 5 more years, 10 more years. Shoot, Lindsey Graham talks about leaving troops there for a hundred more years. No one has a solution and an endpoint. We need to get our combat troops out. They are not helping create more safety for the United States or the region.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa.Buy Photo
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

BLITZER: Vice President Biden, is Sen. Warren right?

BIDEN: Well, I tell you what, there's a difference between combat troops and leaving special forces in a position. I was part of the coalition to put together 68 countries to deal with stateless terror as well as failed states. Not us alone, 68 other countries.

That's how we were able to defeat and end the caliphate for ISIS. They'll come back if we do not deal with them and we do not have someone who can bring together the rest of the world to go with us, with small numbers of special forces we have, to organize the effort to take them down.

BLITZER: Mayor Buttigieg, you served in Afghanistan. Who's right?

BUTTIGIEG: We can continue to remain engaged without having an endless commitment of ground troops. But what's going on right now is the president's actually sending more. The very president who said he was going to end endless war, who pretended to have been against the war in Iraq all along -- although we know that's not true -- now has more troops going to the Middle East.

And whenever I see that happen, I think about the day we shipped out and the time that was set aside for saying goodbye to family members. I remember walking with a friend of mine, another lieutenant I trained with, as we walked away, and his one-and-a-half-year-old boy was toddling after him, not understanding why his father wasn't turning back to scoop him up. And it took all the strength he had not to turn around and look at his boy one more time.

That is happening by the thousands right now, as we see so many more troops sent into harm's way. And my perspective is to ensure that that will never happen when there is an alternative as commander-in-chief.

Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa.Buy Photo
Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

BLITZER: Sen. Sanders?

SANDERS: Wolf, in America today, our infrastructure is crumbling. Half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. Eighty-seven million people have no health care or are uninsured or underinsured. We got 500,000 people sleeping out on the streets tonight.

The American people are sick and tired of endless wars which have cost us trillions of dollars. Our job is to rebuild the United Nations, rebuild the State Department, make sure that we have the capability of bringing the world together to resolve international conflict diplomatically and stop the endless wars that we have experienced.

BLITZER: We're going to get to everyone, but, Vice President Biden, you criticized President Trump's decision to kill the Iranian general, Soleimani, without first going to Congress. Are there any circumstances, other than a direct attack on the United States, where you would take military action without congressional approval?

BIDEN: I ran the first time as a 29-year-old kid against the war in Vietnam on the grounds that the only way to take a nation to war is with the informed consent of the American people. The informed consent of the American people.

And with regard to this idea that we can walk away and not have any troops anywhere, including special forces, we -- there's no way you negotiate or have been able to negotiate with terrorists. You have to be able to form coalitions to be able to defeat them or contain them. If you don't, we end up being the world's policeman again.

Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa.Buy Photo
Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

They're going to come to us. They've come to us before. They'll come to us again. So it's a fundamental difference than negotiating with other countries. It's fundamentally the requirement that we use our special forces in small numbers to coordinate with other countries to bring together coalitions.

BLITZER: Mr. Vice President, just to be clear, the Obama-Biden administration did not ask Congress for permission multiple times when it took military action. So would the Biden doctrine be different?

BIDEN: No, there was the authorization for the use of military force that was passed by the United States Congress, House, and Senate, and signed by the president. That was the authority. It does not give authority to go into Iran. It gave authority to deal with these other issues.

BLITZER: Mayor Buttigieg?

BUTTIGIEG: That authorization needs to be replaced.

BIDEN: Exactly. And we tried to.

BUTTIGIEG: When we lost troops in Niger, there were members of Congress who admitted they didn't even know we had troops there. And it was all pursuant to an authorization that was passed to deal with Al Qaida and 9/11. And often, Congress has been all too happy to leave aside its role. Now, thanks to Democrats in Congress, that's changing. But the reality is, year after year, Congress didn't want to touch this, either, because it was so politically difficult.

Fundamental truth is, if our troops can summon the courage to go overseas into harm's way, often on deployment after deployment, then we've got to make sure that Congress has the courage to take tough up-or-down votes on whether they ought to be there. And when I am president, anytime -- which I hope will never happen -- but anytime I am compelled to use force and seek that authorization, we will have a three-year sunset, so that the American people are included ...

BLITZER: Thank you.

BUTTIGIEG: ... not only in the decision about whether to send troops, but whether to continue.

BLITZER: Thank you. Sen. Warren -- we're going to get to everyone -- but, Sen. Warren, what about you? Are there any circumstances, other than a direct attack on the United States, where you would take military action without congressional approval?

WARREN: Well, imminent threat. But we need an authorization for the use of military force before we take this nation into combat. That is what the Constitution provides and that is what as commander-in-chief I will do.

But I just want to be clear. Everyone on this stage talks about nobody wants endless war. But the question is, when and how do you plan to get out of it?

You know, on the Senate Armed Services Committee, we have one general after another in Afghanistan who comes in and says, you know, we've just turned the corner and now it's all going to be different. And then what happens? It's all the same for another year. Someone new comes in and we've just turned the corner.

We've turned the corner so many times, we're going in circles in these regions. This has got to stop. It's not enough to say some day we're going to get out. No one on the ground, none of our military can describe what the conditions are for getting out. It's time to get our combat troops home.

BLITZER: Mr. Steyer, would a President Steyer use military force as a deterrent? And if not, under what circumstances would you take military action?

STEYER: I would take military action to protect the lives and safety of American citizens. But what we can see in the Middle East and what this conversation shows is that there is no real strategy that we're trying to accomplish in what we're doing in the Middle East.

Obviously, Mr. Trump has no strategy. He is going from crisis to crisis, from escalation to escalation. But if you look further over the last 20 years, including in the war in Afghanistan, we know from the Washington Post that, in fact, there was no strategy. There was just a series of tactical decisions that made no sense.

Tom Steyer, billionaire political activist, speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa.Buy Photo
Tom Steyer, billionaire political activist, speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

So we really have to ask ourselves in the Middle East, what are we trying to accomplish? I agree with Vice President Biden. To do it, we should definitely be doing it in coalition with other countries. And I want to point out that, as we do that, we're confronted by this issue which everyone is talking about.

But at the same time, there's a gigantic climate issue in Australia, which also requires the same kind of value-driven coalition-building that we actually should be using in the Middle East. We need to ask ourselves, how are we going to provide a world that is safer for Americans, where we can prosper more? And every single thing we should do should follow into that strategy. And it's just not happening in Washington, D.C.

PHILLIP: Mayor Buttigieg, another critical issue you'd face as president is the threat of nuclear weapons. Last week, President Trump said, quote, "As long as I am president of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon." Would a President Buttigieg make that same promise?

BUTTIGIEG: Ensuring that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons will, of course, be a priority, because it's such an important part of keeping America safe. But unfortunately, President Trump has made it much harder for the next president to achieve that goal.

By gutting the Iran nuclear deal -- one that, by the way, the Trump administration itself admitted was working, certified that it was preventing progress toward a nuclear Iran -- by gutting that, they have made the region more dangerous and set off the chain of events that we are now dealing with as it escalates even closer to the brink of outright war.

Now -- yes?

PHILLIP: Continue.

BUTTIGIEG: In order to get that done, we've got to work with our partners. The Iran nuclear deal, the technical term for it was the JCPOA. That first letter "J" stood for "Joint." We can't do this alone, even less so now after everything that has happened.

American flags hang from the rafters alongside basketball hoops near the spin room during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa.
American flags hang from the rafters alongside basketball hoops near the spin room during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen)

Which is why it will be so critically important to engage leaders, including a lot of new leaders emerging around the world, and ensure that we have the alliances we need to meet what I believe is not just an American goal, but a widely shared goal around the world to ensure that Iran does not become a nuclear-armed country.

PHILLIP: Mayor Buttigieg, to be clear, would you allow Iran to become a nuclear power, yes or no?

BUTTIGIEG: No. Our security depends on ensuring that Iran does not become nuclear. And by the way, we've got a lot of other challenges with nuclear proliferation around the world.

Despite this president's coziness with Vladimir Putin, we actually seem to be further away from being able to work with Russia on things like the renewal of START. We've got to move toward less, not more nuclear danger, whether it is from states, from stateless potential terrorist actors, or anywhere else around the world.

PHILLIP: Thank you, Mayor Buttigieg. Thank you, Mayor Buttigieg.

Lila Desai, 8, poses for a photo with Drake University mascot Griff before the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020.Buy Photo
Lila Desai, 8, poses for a photo with Drake University mascot Griff before the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020. (Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register)

Sen. Klobuchar, if you become president, it's very possible there won't be an Iran nuclear deal for the United States to rejoin. Given that, how would you prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon?

KLOBUCHAR: I would start negotiations again. And I won't take that as a given, given that our European partners are still trying to hold the agreement together. My issue is that, because of the actions of Donald Trump, we are in a situation where they are now starting -- Iran is starting to enrich uranium again in violation of the original agreement.

So what I would do is negotiate. I would bring people together, just as President Obama did years ago, and I think that we can get this done. But you have to have a president that sees this as a number-one goal.

And in answer to the original question you asked the mayor, I would not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. And then you have to get an agreement in place. I think there are changes you can make to the agreement that are sunset, some changes to the inspections, but overall, that is what we should do.

And I am the one person on this debate stage, on the first night of the very first debate, when we were asked what we saw as the biggest threat to our world, I said China on the economy, but I said Iran, because of Donald Trump. Because I feared that exactly what happened would happen: enrichment of uranium, escalation of tensions, leaving frayed relations with our allies. We can bring them back, understanding this is a terrorist regime that we cannot allow to have a nuclear weapon.

PHILLIP: Vice President Biden, I want to ask you about North Korea. President Trump has met with Kim Jong-un three times. President Obama once said he would meet with North Korea without any preconditions. Would you meet with North Korea without any preconditions?

BIDEN: No, not now. I wouldn't meet with them without any preconditions. Look, what -- we gave him everything he's looking for, legitimacy. The president showed up, met with him, gave him legitimacy, weakened the sanctions we have against him.

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I would be putting what I did as vice president -- I met with Xi Jinping more than anyone else. I would be putting pressure on China to put pressure on Korea, to cease and desist from their nuclear power, make -- their efforts to deal with nuclear weapons. I would move forward as we did before -- and you reported it extensively, Wolf -- about moving forward the whole notion of defense against nuclear weapons, that we would -- and when China said to me, when Xi Jinping said to me, that's a threat to us, I said, we're going to move and protect our interests unless you get involved and protect it.

Protestors gather outside the Knapp Center before the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate at Drake University's Sheslow Auditorium on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Des Moines.Buy Photo
Protestors gather outside the Knapp Center before the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate at Drake University's Sheslow Auditorium on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Des Moines. (Photo: Brian Powers/The Register)

I would reignite the relationship between Japan and South Korea, and I would put enormous pressure, enormous pressure on China, because that's also in their interests for them to put pressure on North Korea to cease and desist.

But I would not, I would not meet with -- absent preconditions, I would not meet with the, quote, "Supreme Leader," who said Joe Biden is a rabid dog, he should be beaten to death with a stick. I count that ...

SANDERS: Other than that, you like him?

BIDEN: Other than that, I like him, and he -- he ...

(LAUGHTER)

And he got a love letter from Trump right after that.

PHILLIP: Mr. Steyer, would you meet with North Korea without any preconditions?

STEYER: No. It's very clear that if we're going to do something with North Korea, we're going to have to do it in concert with our allies, that meeting with him without preconditions is not going anywhere, that the staff can meet to try and see how far we can get.

But this is a classic situation where the United States' idea of going it alone makes no sense. And when you are talking about Iran, let's face it. Iran is under great pressure economically. So every single discussion we've had about Iran has had to do with military power and America versus Iran, whereas, in fact, what worked with President Obama was an alliance of our allies and us putting economic pressure on them for them to give up their military tactic. That, to me, is called strategy. Having a goal to make America safer, by looking more broadly...

Drake University mascot Griff poses for photos before the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020.Buy Photo
Drake University mascot Griff poses for photos before the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020. (Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register)

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you.

STEYER: ... than just us, as the policeman of the world spending money.

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Mr. Steyer. Let's stay with the theme of America's role in the world and talk about trade. Tomorrow, President Trump is expected to sign phase one of a trade agreement with China. And the Senate will likely soon approve a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada, Iowa's largest trading partners.

Sen. Sanders, you have said that new deal, the USMCA, quote, "makes some modest improvements," yet you are going to vote against it. Aren't modest improvements better than no improvements...

SANDERS: No, we can do much ...

PFANNENSTIEL: ... for the farmers and manufacturers who have been devastated here in Iowa?

SANDERS: The answer is we could do much better than a Trump-led trade deal. This deal -- and I think the proponents of it acknowledge -- will result in the continuation of the loss of hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs as a result of outsourcing.

The heart and soul of our disastrous trade agreements -- and I'm the guy who voted against NAFTA and against permanent normal trade relations with China -- is that we have forced American workers to compete against people in Mexico, in China, elsewhere, who earn starvation wages, $1 or $2 an hour.

Second of all, every major environmental organization has said no to this new trade agreement because it does not even have the phrase "climate change" in it. And given the fact that climate change is right now the greatest threat facing this planet, I will not vote for a trade agreement that does not incorporate very, very strong principles to significantly lower fossil fuel emissions in the world.

PFANNENSTIEL: But, Sen. Sanders, to be clear, the AFL-CIO supports this deal. Are you unwilling to compromise?

SANDERS: The AFL-CIO does. The Machinists Union does not. And every environmental organization in this country, including the Sunrise Organization, who are supporting my candidacy, opposes it.

So I happen to believe -- and I hope we will talk about climate change in a moment -- if we do not get our act together in terms of climate change, the planet that we're going to be leaving our kids and our children -- and our grandchildren will be increasingly unlivable and uninhabitable.

PFANNENSTIEL: We're going to get to climate change, but I'd like to stay on trade. Sen. Warren ...

SANDERS: Well, they are the same in this issue.

PFANNENSTIEL: Sen. Warren, you support the USMCA. Why is Sen. Sanders wrong?

WARREN: I do. I wasn't here. I haven't been in Congress long enough to have voted against NAFTA, but I led the fight against the trade deal with Asia and the trade deal with Europe, because I didn't think it was in the interests of the American people, the American workers, or environmental interests.

Protestors with the Poor Peoples Campaign rally outside the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate at Drake University's Sheslow Auditorium on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Des Moines.
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Protestors with the Poor Peoples Campaign rally outside the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate at Drake University's Sheslow Auditorium on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Des Moines. (Photo: Brian Powers/The Register)

But we have farmers here in Iowa who are hurting. And they are hurting because of Donald Trump's initiated trade wars. We have workers who are hurting because the agreements that have already been cut really don't have enforcement on workers' rights.

This new trade deal is a modest improvement. Sen. Sanders himself has said so. It will give some relief to our farmers. It will give some relief to our workers. I believe we accept that relief, we try to help the people who need help, and we get up the next day and fight for a better trade deal.

We need a coherent trade policy. We need a policy that actually helps our workers, our farmers. We need them at the table, not just to trade policy written for big, international companies. I'm ready to have that fight, but let's help the people who need help right now.

Democratic Presidential candidates Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and former Vice President Joe Biden, center, exchange words before the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate in Sheslow Auditorium at Drake UniversityTuesday, Jan. 14, 2020.Buy Photo
Democratic Presidential candidates Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and former Vice President Joe Biden, center, exchange words before the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate in Sheslow Auditorium at Drake UniversityTuesday, Jan. 14, 2020. (Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register)

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you. Sen. Sanders, can you please respond to Sen. Warren?

SANDERS: Well, I think that it is not so easy to put together new trade legislation. If this is passed, I think it will set us back a number of years.

Sen. Warren is right in saying we need to bring the stakeholders to the table, that -- it is the family farmers here in Iowa and in Vermont and around the country. That is the environmental community. That is the workers. Bottom line here is, I am sick and tired of trade agreements negotiated by the CEOs of large corporations behind doors.

PFANNENSTIEL: Sen. Klobuchar, I'd like to bring you in here.

KLOBUCHAR: Brianne, I want to hit reality here. I serve on the Agriculture Committee, and I will never forget going to Crawfordsville here in Iowa -- and thank you for bringing up Iowa, Brianne, since that is where we are -- and I went to this plant and there was one worker left in that plant. That plant had been shut down because of Donald Trump's trade policies and because of what he had done to those workers with giving secret waivers to oil companies and ruining the renewable fuel standard. That worker brought out a coat rack of uniforms and he said, these are my friends, they don't work anymore. And their names were embroidered on those uniforms, Derek, Mark, Salvador. And that guy started to cry.

These are real people hurt by Donald Trump's trade war. So what we should do, and I support the USMCA, I am glad that these improvements were made that are supported by people like Richard Trumka and Sherrod Brown on labor and environment and on pharma, the sweetheart deal...

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you.

KLOBUCHAR: ... because I think we need a big trading block...

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Sen. Klobuchar.

KLOBUCHAR: ... with North America to take on China. And the way you are stronger...

PFANNENSTIEL: Sen. Klobuchar, your time is up.

Tom Perez, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, (left) poses for a photo with Lila Desai, 8, during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa.
Tom Perez, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, (left) poses for a photo with Lila Desai, 8, during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen)

KLOBUCHAR: ... China is with our allies.

PFANNENSTIEL: Mayor Buttigieg, do you support the USMCA, yes or no?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes, it has been improved, it is not perfect. But when you sit down with the people who are most impacted, they share just how much harm has been done to them by things like the trade war and just how much we can benefit, American consumers and workers and farmers, by making sure we have the right kind of labor and enforceability, as Democrats ensured we got in this USMCA.

But let's acknowledge why there is such fear and frustration. You know, my part of the country, in the industrial Midwest, I remember when they came around in the '90s, selling trade deals, telling us, don't worry about your slice of the pie, the pie will get so much bigger that everyone will be better off. And that promise was broken.

The part about the pie getting bigger happened. It's just that the part about it getting to most people where I live did not. That is why there is such frustration, the sense that these decisions in boardrooms...

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you.

BUTTIGIEG: ... and in committee rooms in Washington are being made not based on what's best for us...

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Mayor Buttigieg.

BUTTIGIEG: ... but based on their own gain.

Protestors from the Poor Peoples Campaign demonstrate outside Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus before the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020.Buy Photo
Protestors from the Poor Peoples Campaign demonstrate outside Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus before the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020. (Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register)

PFANNENSTIEL: Vice President Biden, Sen. Sanders has said that Donald Trump will, quote, "eat your lunch" for voting yes on what he calls terrible trade agreements. When it comes to trade, why are you the best candidate to take on President Trump?

BIDEN: There will be no trade agreements signed in my administration without environmentalists and labor at the table. And there will be no trade agreement until we invest more in American workers. We should be putting our money and our effort and our time in preparing American workers to compete in the 21st Century on the high-tech side, dealing with all artificial intelligence. We should be focusing on equipping American workers to do that.

And by the way, the idea -- I don't know that there's any trade agreement that the senator would ever think made any sense, but the problem is that 95 percent of the customers are out there. So we better figure out how we begin to write the rules of the road, not China.

PFANNENSTIEL: Sen. Sanders?

SANDERS: Joe and I have a fundamental disagreement here, in case you haven't noticed. And that is NAFTA, PNTR with China, other trade agreements were written for one reason alone. And that is to increase the profits of large multi-national corporations. And the end result of those two, just PNTR with China, Joe, and NAFTA, cost us some 4 million jobs, as part of the race to the bottom.

Young supporters of Democratic presidential candidate hopeful carry signs and demand he should be allowed into the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic candidate debate at Drake University in Des Moines on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2020. Buy Photo
Young supporters of Democratic presidential candidate hopeful carry signs and demand he should be allowed into the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic candidate debate at Drake University in Des Moines on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2020. (Photo: Bryon Houlgrave/The Register)

I am sick and tired and will not tolerate, and we will use the power of the federal contracting system. If a corporation in America wants to shut down in Iowa or Vermont or any place else, and then they think they're going to get on line for our generous federal contract, they've got another thing going.

We need some corporate responsibility here and we need to protect good-paying jobs in America, not see them go to China, Mexico, Vietnam, and all these other countries.

PFANNENSTIEL: Mr. Vice president, what's your response?

BIDEN: We need corporate responsibility and I agree with that completely. But we also need to have enforcement mechanisms in the agreements we make. Enforceable agreements. That's one of the things that has been improved with the trade agreement with Mexico. And that's what we should be doing in any agreement we have.

But let's get back to the basics here. If we don't set the rules of the road by going out to our partners, instead of poking our eye -- excuse me, poking our finger in the eye of all of our friends and allies, we make up 25 percent of the world's economy. We've got to bring the other 25 percent of our allies along with us to set the rules of the road so China cannot continue to abuse their power by stealing our intellectual property and doing all the other things, using their corporate state system to our significant disadvantage.

PFANNENSTIEL: Sen. Warren?

WARREN: You know, our problem is not just that we need corporate responsibility. It has been the structure of how these trade deals have been negotiated. The United States has had this strategy for decades. And that strategy has been to have government trade negotiators, a small number, and then surround them with giant multi-national corporation lobbyists and corporate executives, who whisper in the ears of our negotiators and then get deals cut that are great for the giant multi-national corporations, not good for America, not good for American workers, not good for the environment.

We need a different approach to trade and it starts by calling out the corruption of these giant corporations that have cut our trade deals. Everybody wants to get to the American market. And we need to put some standards in place. You want to be able to sell your goods here, then you've got to meet some environmental standards. You've got to meet labor standards.

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Sen. Warren.

WARREN: We need a...

(CROSSTALK)

WARREN: ... approach.

PFANNENSTIEL: I would like to bring in Mr. Steyer here.

Mr. Steyer, even though farmers and manufacturers here in Iowa and around the country could see some relief from the China deal, they've been crushed by the current administration's trade war. What will you do as president to help them get back on their feet?

STEYER: Look, on the first day, I would undo Mr. Trump's tariffs. On the first day, I would get rid of his waivers that Sen. Klobuchar was referring to, to oil refiners, so that not having to use corn-based ethanol.

In fact, these trade deals have been exactly what Sen. Sanders and Warren have been saying, which is that they've been designed to grow the American GDP for the corporations of America, not for the working people of America, and not to protect the climate.

So let me say this. I'm the only person on this stage who says climate is my number one priority. I would not sign this deal, because if climate is your number one priority, you can't sign a deal, even if it's marginally better for working people until climate is also taken into consideration.

Spectators watch the CNN/Des Moines Register debate of six Democratic presidential candidates on Jan. 14, 2020 at Wobby Boots in Clive.
Spectators watch the CNN/Des Moines Register debate of six Democratic presidential candidates on Jan. 14, 2020 at Wobby Boots in Clive. (Photo: Olivia Sun)

Look, I've got four kids between the ages of 26 and 31. I cannot allow this country to go down the path of climate destruction. Everybody in their generation knows it. Frankly, Mayor Buttigieg, you're their generation. I think you would be standing up more -- look, that's why I'm standing up for it.

We cannot put climate on the backseat all the time and say we're going to sign this one more deal, we're going to do one more thing without putting climate first. That's why it's my number one priority. We can do it in a way that makes us richer, but we have to do it.

PFANNENSTIEL: Mayor Buttigieg, your response?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, that's right. This issue is personal for me. It's why we're going to tackle climate from day one. It's why we've got to make sure that we have better answers than we do today. Now, what I've noticed is, pretty much all of us propose that we move on from fossil fuels by the middle of the century, starting with actions that we take right now.

The question is, how are we going to make sure any of this actually gets done? Because people have been saying the right things in these debates for literally decades. The other day in Winterset, there was a kid at one of my events, raised his hand and he pointed out that he expects to be here in his 90s in the year 2100.

Attendees at a watch party for Sen. Elizabeth Warren at Drake University during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate in Sheslow Auditorium at Drake UniversityTuesday, Jan. 14, 2020.Buy Photo
Attendees at a watch party for Sen. Elizabeth Warren at Drake University during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate in Sheslow Auditorium at Drake UniversityTuesday, Jan. 14, 2020. (Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register)

He will sit in judgment over what we do, not just what we on this stage do, anyone old enough to vote right now, whether we actually put together the national project it will require to meet our climate goals, to act aggressively, not just re-joining the Paris Climate Accord, that's table stakes, but to actually move on from the fossil-dependent economy we live in today.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Let's now turn to -- let's now turn to an issue that's come up in the last 48 hours. Sen. Sanders, CNN reported yesterday that -- and Sen. Sanders, Sen. Warren confirmed in a statement, that in 2018 you told her that you did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that?

SANDERS: Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't say it. And I don't want to waste a whole lot of time on this, because this is what Donald Trump and maybe some of the media want. Anybody knows me knows that it's incomprehensible that I would think that a woman cannot be president of the United States.

Go to YouTube today. There's a video of me 30 years ago talking about how a woman could become president of the United States. In 2015, I deferred, in fact, to Sen. Warren. There was a movement to draft Sen. Warren to run for president. And you know what, I said -- stayed back. Sen. Warren decided not to run, and I then -- I did run afterwards.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes. How could anybody in a million years not believe that a woman could become president of the United States? And let me be very clear. If any of the women on this stage or any of the men on this stage win the nomination, I hope that's not the case, I hope it's me.

(LAUGHTER)

But if they do, I will do everything in my power to make sure that they are elected in order to defeat the most dangerous president in the history of our country.

(APPLAUSE)

PHILLIP: So Sen. Sanders -- Sen. Sanders, I do want to be clear here, you're saying that you never told Sen. Warren that a woman could not win the election?

SANDERS: That is correct.

Members of the media work from the filing center in the spin room following the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate at Drake University's Sheslow Auditorium on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Des Moines.Buy Photo
Members of the media work from the filing center in the spin room following the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate at Drake University's Sheslow Auditorium on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Des Moines. (Photo: Brian Powers/The Register)

PHILLIP: Sen. Warren, what did you think when Sen. Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?

(LAUGHTER)

WARREN: I disagreed. Bernie is my friend, and I am not here to try to fight with Bernie. But, look, this question about whether or not a woman can be president has been raised, and it's time for us to attack it head-on.

And I think the best way to talk about who can win is by looking at people's winning record. So, can a woman beat Donald Trump?

Look at the men on this stage. Collectively, they have lost 10 elections.

(LAUGHTER)

The only people on this stage who have won every single election that they've been in are the women...

(APPLAUSE)

... Amy and me.

KLOBUCHAR: So true.

(APPLAUSE)

So true.

Tully Baker, of New Hampshire, carries a flag in support of Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang during a watch party for the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, at Papa Keno's Pizzeria in Des Moines, Iowa.
Tully Baker, of New Hampshire, carries a flag in support of Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang during a watch party for the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, at Papa Keno's Pizzeria in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen)

(APPLAUSE)

WARREN: And the only person on this stage who has beaten an incumbent Republican any time in the past 30 years is me.

And here's what I know. The real danger that we face as Democrats is picking a candidate who can't pull our party together or someone who takes for granted big parts of the Democratic constituency.

We need a candidate who will excite all parts of the Democratic Party, bring everyone in and give everyone a Democrat to believe in. That's my plan and that is why I'm going to win.

PHILLIP: Sen. Klobuchar...

(APPLAUSE)

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you.

PHILLIP: Sen. Klobuchar, what do you say to people who don't...

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you, Elizabeth.

PHILLIP: Sen. Klobuchar, what do you say...

KLOBUCHAR: I would like to point out...

PHILLIP: Sen. Klobuchar, let me finish my question.

KLOBUCHAR: Oh, OK.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: What do you say to people who...

KLOBUCHAR: I thought it was such an open-end -- I wasn't at the meeting, so I can't comment, but I was going to say...

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: What do you say to people who say that a woman can't win this election?

KLOBUCHAR: I hear that. People have said it. That's why I've addressed it from this stage. I point out that you don't have to be the tallest person in the room. James Madison was 5'4". You don't have to be the skinniest person in the room. You don't have to be the loudest person. You have to be competent.

And when you look at the facts, Michigan has a woman governor right now and she beat a Republican, Gretchen Whitmer. Kansas has a woman governor right now and she beat Kris Kobach. And her name is -- I'm very proud to know her, and her name is Governor Kelly. Thank you.

Third, I would add to this, you have to be competent to win and you have to know what you're doing. And when you look at what I have done, I have won every race, every place, every time. I have won in the reddest of districts. I have won in the suburban areas, in the rural areas. I have brought people with me.

That is why I have the most endorsements of current Iowa legislators and former Iowa legislators in this race.

PHILLIP: Thank you.

KLOBUCHAR: Because they know I bring people with me.

And finally, every single person...

PHILLIP: Thank you, Sen. Klobuchar.

KLOBUCHAR: ... that I have beaten, my Republican opponents, have gotten out of politics for good.

Sue Dinsdale of Huxley holds a sign in the free speech and protest zone at Drake University prior to the start of the Democratic debate in Des Moines on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2020. Buy Photo
Sue Dinsdale of Huxley holds a sign in the free speech and protest zone at Drake University prior to the start of the Democratic debate in Des Moines on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2020. (Photo: Bryon Houlgrave/The Register)

(LAUGHTER)

And I think -- I think that sounds pretty good. I think that sounds pretty good with the guy we have in the White House right now.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: Sen. Sanders, you can respond.

SANDERS: Well, just to set the record straight, I defeated an incumbent Republican running for Congress.

WARREN: When?

SANDERS: Nineteen-ninety.

That's how I won, beat a republican congressman.

(LAUGHTER)

Number two...

WARREN: Thirty years ago.

SANDERS: ... of course, I don't think there's any debate up here...

WARREN: Wasn't it 30 years ago?

SANDERS: I beat an incumbent Republican congressman.

WARREN: And I said I was the only one who's beaten an incumbent Republican in 30 years.

(LAUGHTER)

SANDERS: Well, 30 years ago is 1990, as a matter of fact.

(LAUGHTER)

But I don't know that that's the major issue of the day. I think what the major issue of the day is -- let's -- does anybody in their right mind think that a woman cannot be elected president?

That's -- nobody believes that. Of -- Hillary Clinton got 3 million votes, more votes than Trump. So who believes that a woman can't win? Of course, a woman can win.

But the real question is, how do we beat Trump?

And the only way we beat Trump is by a campaign of energy and excitement and a campaign that has, by far, the largest voter turnout in the history of this country. And I believe that our campaign has the strongest grassroots movement...

PHILLIP: Thank you.

SANDERS: We have been endorsed by many grassroots organizations...

PHILLIP: Sen. Warren --

SANDERS: That's why...

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Sen. Warren, I want to give you the final word.

WARREN: So I do think it's the right question, "How do we beat Trump?"

And here's the thing. Since Donald Trump was elected, women candidates have out-performed men candidates in competitive races. And in 2018, we took back the House; we took back statehouses, because of women candidates and women voters.

Look, don't deny that the question is there. Back in the 1960s, people asked, "Could a Catholic win?"

Back in 2008, people asked if an African-American could win.

In both times the Democratic Party stepped up and said yes, got behind their candidate and we changed America. That's who we are.

(APPLAUSE)

PHILLIP: Vice President Biden?

Vice President Biden, go ahead.

BIDEN: I agree women can win. And I have went in and campaigned for 27 of them this last -- in 2018, the best group I've ever campaigned for, in terms of competence

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg take the stage during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. Buy Photo
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg take the stage during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

But the real issue is who can bring the whole party together, represents all elements of the party, African-American, brown, black, women, men, gay, straight. The fact of the matter is that -- I would argue that, in terms of endorsements around the country, endorsements wherever we go, I am the one who has the broadest coalition of anyone running up here in this race.

PHILLIP: All right. We're going to take a short break now. The CNN Democratic presidential debate, live from Drake University, will be back right after this.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: Welcome back to the CNN Democratic presidential debate, live from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.

(APPLAUSE)

PHILLIP: Let's turn to health care, the top issue for Iowa Democrats.

Donald Trump is trying to repeal Obamacare, including the protections for pre-existing conditions. We all know that each of you vigorously opposes that. Still, there are some questions about what each of you would do.

Sen. Sanders, you have consistently refused to say exactly how much your Medicare For All plan is going to cost. Don't voters deserve to see the price tag before you send them a bill that could cost tens of trillions of dollars?

SANDERS: Well, what I will tell you is Medicare For All, which will guarantee comprehensive health care to every man, woman and child, will cost substantially less than the status quo.

Medicare For All will end the absurdity of the United States paying by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs and health care in general, while we have 87 million uninsured -- uninsured and underinsured, and while 30,000 people die each year.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D- Minn., takes the stage during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. Buy Photo
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D- Minn., takes the stage during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

Under Medicare For All, one of the provisions we have to pay for it is a 4 percent tax on income, exempting the first $29,000. So the average family in America that today makes $60,000 would pay $1,200 a year, compared to that family paying $12,000 a year.

We save money, comprehensive health care, because we take on the greed and the profiteering and the administrative nightmare that currently exists in our dysfunctional system.

PHILLIP: Vice President Biden, does Sen. Sanders owe voters a price tag on his health care plan?

BIDEN: I think we need to be candid with voters. I think we have to tell them what we're going to do and what it's going to cost. And a 4 percent tax on income over $24,000 doesn't even come close to paying for between $30 trillion, and some estimates as high as $40 trillion over 10 years.

That's doubling the entire federal budget per year. There's a way to do that. The way to do that is to take Obamacare, reinstate -- rebuild it, provide a public option, allow Medicare for those folks who want it, and in fact make sure that we, in the process, reduce the cost of -- of drug prices, reduce the cost of being able to buy into the -- subsidize it further, and make it everybody -- available to everyone.

Here's the deal. That costs a lot of money. That costs $740 billion over 10 years. I lay out how I'd pay for that.

PHILLIP: Sen. Sanders?

SANDERS: Well, first of all, what Joe forgets to say is, when you leave the current system as it is, what you are talking about are workers paying on average 20 percent of their incomes for health care. That is insane.

You've got 500,000 people going bankrupt because they cannot pay their medical bills. We're spending twice as much per capita on health care as do the people of any other country.

Former Vice President Joe Biden takes the stage during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. Buy Photo
Former Vice President Joe Biden takes the stage during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

Look, we have talked about health care for all -- in this country -- for over 100 years. Now is the time to take on the greed and corruption of the health care industry, of the drug companies, and finally provide health care to all through a Medicare For All single-payer program.

It won't be easy, but that is what we have to do.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: You can do it without that. You can do it without Medicare For All. You can get the same place.

SANDERS: No, you can't.

PHILLIP: Sen. Klobuchar, your response?

KLOBUCHAR: Yeah. Sen. Sanders and I have worked together on pharmaceuticals for a long, long time. And we agree on this. But what I don't agree with is that we -- his position on health care.

This debate isn't real. I was in Vegas the other day and someone said "Don't put your chips on a number on the wheel that isn't even on the wheel."

That's the problem. Over two-thirds of the Democrats in the U.S. Senate are not on the bill that you and Sen. Warren on on. You have numerous governors that are Democratic that don't support this. You have numerous House members that put Nancy Pelosi in as speaker.

The answer is a non-profit public option. The answer is -- the real debate we should be having is how do we make it easier for people to get coverage for addiction and mental health. I have a plan for that.

And then, finally, what should we do about long-term care? The elephant that doesn't even fit in this room. We need to make it easier for people to get long-term care insurance. We need to make it easier for them to pay for their premiums.

My own dad, I know when his long-term care insurance ends, and then we have some savings for him. He's in assisted living. He got married three times -- whole other story -- so there isn't much there.

(LAUGHTER)

But then we go to Medicaid, and I've already talked to Catholic Elder Care.

PHILLIP: Thank you.

KLOBUCHAR: They're willing to take him in. Our story is better than so many other families. We have to make it easier for long-term care.

PHILLIP: Thank you. Thank you, Sen. Klobuchar.

KLOBUCHAR: It's not just for seniors. It's also for the sandwich generation.

PHILLIP: Thank you, Sen. Klobuchar.

KLOBUCHAR: People trying to help their parents.

PHILLIP: Sen. Warren?

WARREN: So we need to start with what's happening in America. People are suffering. I'll just pick one: 36 million people last year went to the doctor, got a prescription, this is what they needed to get well, and they couldn't afford to have the prescription filled. They looked at it and said it's either groceries or this prescription.

My approach to this is we've got to get as much as help to as many people as quickly as possible. I have worked out a plan where we can do that without raising taxes on middle-class families by one thin dime.

What I can do are the things I can do as president on the first day. We can cut the cost of prescription drugs. I'll use the power that's already given to the president to reduce the cost of insulin and EpiPens and HIV-AIDS drugs. Let's get some relief to those families. And I will defend the Affordable Care Act.

I've got a plan to expand health care, but let's keep in mind, when we come to a general election, we Democrats may argue among each other about the best way to do health care, but we're going to be up against a Republican incumbent who has cut health care for millions of people and is still trying to do that. I'll take our side of the argument any day. We're going to beat him on this.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks and Sen. Amy Klobuchar asks to be recognized during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. Buy Photo
Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks and Sen. Amy Klobuchar asks to be recognized during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

PHILLIP: Thank you. Thank you, Sen. Warren. Vice President Biden?

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: The proposal I lay out does, in fact, limit drug cost. It sets up -- it allows all the drug companies -- excuse me, it allows you to -- Medicare to negotiate with drug companies for the price. It sets a system whereby you cannot raise the price of a drug beyond the cost of medical inflation. And by the way, there's mental health parity that I call for in the Obamacare expanded with the Biden option.

PHILLIP: Mr. Steyer?

STEYER: Look, we've had this conversation on this stage so many times. Everybody on this stage believes that affordable health care is a right for every single American. Everybody on this stage knows that Americans are paying twice as much for health care as any other advanced country in the world. And it makes no sense and the government has to step in.

I do happen to agree with Vice President Biden that we should move and develop the Affordable Care Act with a public option. But the real question is this. This is not a new problem. Why do we keep having this conversation? We have a broken government. It has been bought by corporations that include the drug companies, the insurance companies, and the private hospitals.

That's what I'm talking about. How do we get back government of, by, and for the people? How do we actually break...

PHILLIP: Thank you.

STEYER: ... the corporate stranglehold on our government so that we can get any of these things passed?

PHILLIP: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Steyer. Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

Sen. Sanders, your campaign proposals would double federal spending over the next decade, an unprecedented level of spending not seen since World War II. How would you keep your plans from bankrupting the country?

SANDERS: No, our plan wouldn't bankrupt the country. And, in fact, it would much improve the well-being of working-class families and the middle class.

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. Buy Photo
Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

Let us be clear what Medicare for all does. It ends all premiums. It ends all copayments. It ends the absurdity of deductibles. It ends out-of-pocket expenses. It takes on the pharmaceutical industry, which in some cases charges us 10 times more for the same prescription drugs sold abroad as sold here.

What we will do through a Medicare for all single-payer program is substantially lower the cost of health care for employers and workers, because we end the $100 billion a year that the health care industry makes and the $500 billion a year we spend in administrative -- the administrative nightmare of dealing with thousands of separate insurance plans.

Health care is a human right. Every other major country on Earth is guaranteeing health care for all. The time is long overdue for us to do the same.

PHILLIP: Sen. Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: Again, I think it is much better to build on the Affordable Care Act. And if you want to be practical and progressive at the same time and have a plan and not a pipedream, you have to show how you're going to pay for it.

And I would also note practically that the Affordable Care Act right now is 10 points more popular than the president of the United States. So I think the answer is to build on it.

And, yes, I think you should show how you're going to pay for things, Bernie. I do. This president is treating people out there like poker chips in one of his bankrupt casinos the way he is adding to our debt.

I am the one person up here who has on her website in her plan a plan to actually start taking on the deficit, by taking part of that money from that corporate tax cut that they put in there and putting it in a fund to pay back the deficit.

PHILLIP: Thank you. Thank you, Sen. Klobuchar.

KLOBUCHAR: And I have shown how I'm going to pay for every single plan...

PHILLIP: Thank you, Sen. Klobuchar.

KLOBUCHAR: ... capital gains tax going to the personal level, getting rid of oil giveaways.

PHILLIP: Let's move on.

We explain the complicated issues ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Support the reporters who follow your government.​​​​​​​

KLOBUCHAR: Doing something about the hedge fund loophole. You can go through...

PHILLIP: Sen. Klobuchar, your time is up. Let's move on to the next question.

KLOBUCHAR: ... and we can get the money to pay for things.

PHILLIP: Mayor Buttigieg, you're selling your plan as Medicare for all who want it, yet your plan would automatically enroll uninsured Americans into a public option, even if they don't want it, and force them to pay for it. How is that truth in advertising?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, it's making sure that there is no such thing as an uninsured American. Look, the individual mandate was an important part of the ACA because the system doesn't work if there are free riders.

Tom Steyer, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar take the stage for the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. Buy Photo
Tom Steyer, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar take the stage for the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

What I'm offering is a choice. You don't have to be in my plan if there's another plan that you would rather keep. And there's no need to kick Americans off the plans that they want in order to deliver health care for all.

And my plan is paid for. Look, our party should no longer hesitate to talk about the issue of the debt and the deficit. Now, we've got a dramatically better track record on it than Republicans do. In my lifetime, it's almost invariably Republican presidents who have added to the deficit, a trillion dollars under this president. And it's why everything I've put forward -- from Medicare for all who want it to the historic investments we're going to make in infrastructure to dealing with climate change -- is fully paid for.

When it comes to health care, you can do it in two moves. Of course, my plan costs $1.5 trillion over a decade. No small sum. But not the $20 trillion, $30 trillion, $40 trillion that we're hearing about from the others. All you've got to do is two things, both of them are commonsense. Allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices and roll back the Trump corporate tax cuts that went to corporations and the wealthy that didn't even need it.

PHILLIP: Sen. Warren?

WARREN: So I started this by talking about 36 million Americans, including Americans with insurance, who just can't even afford to have a prescription filled. We all talk about plans, health care plans that we have, and these plans are paid for.

The problem is that plans like the mayor's and like the vice president's is that they are an improvement. They are an improvement over where we are right now. But they're a small improvement. And that's why it is that they cost so much less, because by themselves, they're not going to be enough to cover prescriptions for 36 million people who can't afford to get them filled.

What we need to do is make the commitment that we know where the money comes from. We can ask those at the very top, the top 1 percent, to pay a little more. Those giant corporations like Chevron and Amazon who paid nothing in taxes, we can have them pay. And we can go after the corporate tax cheats. And when we do that, we have enough money to provide health care for all our people.

Democratic Presidential candidates Tom Steyer, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former South Bend Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, stand for a photo before the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate in Sheslow Auditorium at Drake UniversityTuesday, Jan. 14, 2020.Buy Photo
Democratic Presidential candidates Tom Steyer, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former South Bend Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, stand for a photo before the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate in Sheslow Auditorium at Drake UniversityTuesday, Jan. 14, 2020. (Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register)

Yes, we build on the Affordable Care Act, but where we end up is we offer health care to all of our people. And we can offer it at no cost or low cost to all of them.

PHILLIP: Mayor Buttigieg?

BUTTIGIEG: It's just not true that the plan I'm proposing is small. We've got to move past a Washington mentality that suggests that the bigness of plans only consists of how many trillions of dollars they put through the Treasury, that the boldness of a plan only consists of how many Americans it can alienate.

This would be a game-changer. This would be the biggest thing we've done to American health care in a half-century. Let's measure the effects of our plans based on what they would do in our everyday lives.

And, yes, we're taking on cost. On prescription drugs, we'll have an out-of-pocket cap, even if you don't get the subsidies that would make it free, a $250 monthly cap. And here's why it's got to be monthly. You ever been in that situation or known somebody who finds that they've got to defer a procedure or delay filling a prescription to try to have it happen in the right month because of when your out-of-pocket cap hits?

It makes no sense medically because most of us don't experience the economy on an annual basis. Our bills don't come in every year. They come in every month. Same with our paychecks, biweekly or monthly.

PHILLIP: Thank you.

BUTTIGIEG: That's why we set this up in a way to solve the problem without running up $20 trillion, $30 trillion, $40 trillion bills.

PHILLIP: Thank you, Mayor Buttigieg. Sen. Warren, your response?

WARREN: Look, the numbers that the mayor is offering just don't add up. The average family in America last year paid $12,000 in some combination of deductibles and co-pays and uncovered expenses and fees. You can't cover that with the kind of money that the mayor is talking about.

The way we have to approach this is we've got to build this and we've got to build the alliances to make this happen. I can bring down the cost of prescription drugs like insulin and take hundreds of millions of dollars out of the system immediately in costs. We can get help to families.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., takes the stage during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. Buy Photo
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., takes the stage during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

But we have to be willing to work together. We can let people experience what health care is like when it's you and your doctor, your mental health professional, your nurse practitioner, with no insurance company standing in the middle.

PHILLIP: Thank you. Thank you, Sen. Warren.

WARREN: When people try it and use it, then...

PHILLIP: Sen. Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: Sen. Warren, you acknowledged that Medicare for all -- that you couldn't get there right away. You got on the bill that said on page eight, which is why I didn't get on it, that you would kick 149 million Americans off their current health insurance. Then, a few months ago, you said, no, you're going to wait a while to get there.

And I think that was some acknowledgment that maybe what we're talking about is true. And I don't buy that it's not enough. It is a big, big step to say to people making $100,000 that your premiums will be cut in half, which is what the nonprofit public option will do.

And as you talk, Mayor Buttigieg, about Medicare and having negotiation, I actually have led that bill for years. I have 34 cosponsors. As president, I can get it done. That would allow Medicare to finally negotiate and lift the ban that big pharma got into law that says they can't negotiate for better prices for our seniors.

PHILLIP: Senator...

KLOBUCHAR: I will get it done.

PHILLIP: Sen. Sanders, coming to you now. CNN reached out to Iowa Democratic voters for their most pressing questions. Edward from here in Des Moines writes, "Des Moines is an insurance town. What happens to all the insurance industry -- the health insurance industry here if there is Medicare for all? What happens to all the jobs and the livelihoods of the people that live in insurance towns like Des Moines?"

SANDERS: We build in to our Medicare for all program a transition fund of many, many billions of dollars that will provide for up to five years income and health care and job training for those people.

But here is the issue. Tom Steyer made the point a moment ago. We are now spending twice as much per person on health care as do the people of any other country. That is insane. In some cases, 10 times more for prescription drugs. Why is that? Why is that? And the answer is: the greed and corruption of the drug companies and the insurance companies.

And if we want to do what every other major country on Earth does and guarantee people health care is a human right, not a privilege, you know what we have to do? We are finally going to have to stand up to the health care industry...

STEYER: Can I respond to this?

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. Buy Photo
Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

SANDERS: ... and end hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and profiteering.

PHILLIP: Mr. Steyer?

STEYER: I just want to emphasize what Sen. Sanders said. This is not a complicated problem. Between what Sen. Warren and Sen. Sanders said, it's clear. There are two problems. We're spending way too much because corporations own the system and we're not negotiating against those corporations.

And we've given tax cuts to the richest Americans and the biggest corporations for decades. That's all this is. We have corporations who are having their way with the American people and people are suffering.

Sen. Warren is right. This is cruelty for money. In order to break this, we're going to have to break the corporate stranglehold and solve both the tax and the negotiating problem. That's why I'm for term limits. We need to redo Washington, D.C., and...

PHILLIP: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

STEYER: ... actually take back the government from the corporations who've bought it.

PHILLIP: Thank you, Mr. Steyer. Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: I would argue that the biggest breakthrough in recent time was us being able to do in our administration what five -- five Democratic presidents couldn't get done, and that is pass Obamacare. It was a big deal.

Secondly, I would argue that the way you control drug prices is you limit what they can charge for those prices. You don't have to pay the price. Limit what they can charge. If, in fact, they charge more than we set the price for, they can -- they can, in fact -- we can -- people can import from abroad, assuming that it is -- it is -- it is safe.

We, in fact -- it's only yellow, Wolf, OK? And we can, in fact, do all of this and still provide people the option to stay -- the roughly 150 to 160 million Americans who like the negotiated plan they have with their employers. If they don't like it, or the employer gets rid of it, they can buy into a Medicare plan in the Biden plan.

BLITZER: Let's talk a little bit more about prescription drugs right now. Prescription drug prices in 2018, Americans spent $335 billion on prescription drugs alone. That's about $60 billion more than they paid a decade ago.

Sen. Warren, you've called for the creation of a government-run drug manufacturer that would step in if there is a drug shortage or a price spike. Why does it make sense for the government -- for the government to manufacture drugs, especially when public trust in government is near historic lows?

WARREN: So, let's do this both ways. What I also have said is, I'm just going to use the power that is available and I will do what a president can do all by herself on the very first day, and that is lower the prices of certain prescription drugs. I will lower the price of insulin.

We already have the legal authority with the president to do that. The president just hasn't picked up and used it. I will lower the price of EpiPens, of HIV-AIDS drugs. That's going to bring a lot of relief to a lot of families immediately.

But, you know, there are a whole lot of drugs, about 90 percent of drugs, that are not under patent. They're generic drugs. But the drug industry has figured out how to manipulate this industry to keep jerking the prices up and up and up.

So my view is, let's give them a little competition. The government lets contracts for all kind of things. They let contracts to build buildings. They let contracts to build military weapons. Let's let the contracts out. Put the contracts out so that we can put more generic drugs out there and drive down those prices.

This is a way to make markets work, not to try to move away from the market. You don't have to even use price controls. The whole idea behind it is get some competition out there so the price of these drugs that are no longer under patent drops where it should be.

BLITZER: Sen. Klobuchar, do you believe the government should be manufacturing drugs?

KLOBUCHAR: I am open to looking at it, but I would try these things first. Number one, I mention the Medicare negotiation. Number two, I have a plan, 137 things I've found that a president can do herself in the first 100 days without Congress -- that are legal.

(LAUGHTER)

And one of those things is that you can start bringing in less expensive drugs from other countries. Bernie and I had an amendment on this. We got 14 Republican votes on it. It was at midnight. They might have not known what they were voting for. But we got that.

(LAUGHTER)

Tom Steyer takes the stage during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. Buy Photo
Tom Steyer takes the stage during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

I now have an actual bill with Sen. Grassley that does that. And I have a bill to get at what Elizabeth was talking about, which is to stop generics from taking money from big pharmaceuticals to keep their products off the market.

The issue here is that there are two pharma lobbyists for every member of the Congress.

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Senator.

KLOBUCHAR: They think they own Washington. They don't own me.

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Sen. Klobuchar.

KLOBUCHAR: And as president, I will get this done.

PFANNENSTIEL: We're going to turn now to childcare, a huge expense for many new families and a problem that's especially acute in rural Iowa. We have another question for an Iowa Democratic voter.

Mayor Buttigieg, this is for you. Tiffany from Clive writes, as a young mom, I had to quit a job I love because childcare costs were taking up two-thirds of my income. Many families don't have the option of quitting a job because that little bit of income is needed. That leads to families using whatever care they can find, and sometimes the results are deadly, as we've seen in Iowa over the last few years. How will you prioritize accessing quality, affordable child care in your first 100 days in office?

Child care in Iowa:Iowa's child care crisis worsens its workforce crisis, business leaders say, and they're digging in to help

BUTTIGIEG: It makes no sense for childcare to cost two-thirds of somebody's income. We've to drive it to 7 percent or below, and zero for those families who are living in poverty.

Tom Steyer, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar take the stage for the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. Buy Photo
Tom Steyer, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar take the stage for the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

But this is happening to folks at every level of the income spectrum. I meet professionals who sometimes say that they're working in order to be able to afford childcare in order to be able to be working. It makes no sense, and it must change, and we shouldn't be afraid to put federal dollars into making that a reality.

Subsidizing childcare and making sure that we are building up a workforce of people who are paid at a decent level to offer early childhood education, as well as childcare writ large. We can do that.

And until we do, this will be one of the biggest drivers of the gender pay gap. Because when somebody like the voter asking the question has to step out of the workforce because of that reason, she is at a disadvantage when she comes back in, and that can affect her pay for the rest of her career.

PFANNENSTIEL: Sen. Warren, your education plan includes tuition-free public college for all, but you impose an income limit for free childcare. Why do your plans cover everyone for public college, but not childcare and early learning?

WARREN: No, actually, my plan is universal childcare for everyone. It just has some people adding a small payment.

But understand this about the plan. I've been there. You know, I remember when I was a young mom. I had two little kids, and I had my first real university teaching job. It was hard work. I was excited. But it was childcare that nearly brought me down. We went through one childcare after another, and it just didn't work.

Members of the media work from the filing center in the spin room following the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate at Drake University's Sheslow Auditorium on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Des Moines.Buy Photo
Members of the media work from the filing center in the spin room following the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate at Drake University's Sheslow Auditorium on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Des Moines. (Photo: Brian Powers/The Register)

If I hadn't been saved by my Aunt Bee -- I was ready to quit my job. And I think about how many women of my generation just got knocked off the track and never got back on, how many of my daughter's generation get knocked off the track and don't get back on, how many mamas and daddies today are getting knocked off the track and never get back on.

I have a two cent wealth tax so that we can cover childcare for all of our children, and provide universal pre-K for every 3-year-old and 4-year-old in America, and stop exploiting the people who do this valuable work, largely black and brown women. We can raise the wages of every childcare worker and preschool teacher in America. That's an investment in our babies. That's an investment in their mamas and their daddies. And it's an investment in our teachers and in our economy.

PFANNENSTIEL: Sen. Sanders, will your...

(APPLAUSE)

WARREN: It's what we need to do.

PFANNENSTIEL: ... universal childcare program be free for everyone regardless of income?

SANDERS: Yeah. Let me pick up on this childcare thing. Every psychologist in the world knows zero through 4 are the most important years of human life, intellectually and emotionally. And yet our current childcare system is an embarrassment, it is unaffordable. Childcare workers are making wages lower than McDonald's workers.

We need to fundamentally change priorities in America. We should not be one of a few countries that does not have universal high-quality affordable childcare. We should not be one of the only major countries not to guarantee health care to all people as a human right. We should not be spending more than the 10 next countries on the military, hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, tax breaks for billionaires, and then tell the moms and dads in this country we cannot have high-quality affordable childcare.

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Senator. Vice President Biden, I'm coming to you now.

SANDERS: That is wrong.

Members of the media work from the filing center in the spin room following the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate at Drake University's Sheslow Auditorium on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Des Moines.Buy Photo
Members of the media work from the filing center in the spin room following the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate at Drake University's Sheslow Auditorium on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Des Moines. (Photo: Brian Powers/The Register)

PFANNENSTIEL: Vice President Biden, infant care is more expensive than in-state public college tuition in more than half the country. Do you support free universal infant care?

BIDEN: There should be free universal infant care, but here's the deal. You know, I was a single parent, too. When my wife and daughter were killed, my two boys I had to raise. I was a senator, a young senator. I just hadn't been sworn in yet. And I was making $42,000 a year.

I commuted every single solitary day to Wilmington, Delaware, over 500 miles a day -- excuse me, 250 miles a day, because I could not afford but for my family childcare. It was beyond my reach to be able to do it.

And that's why there are several things we do. When I triple the amount of money for Title I schools, every child, 3, 4, and 5 years old, will, in fact, have full schooling. They'll go to school and after-school programs, which will release some of the burden.

Secondly, I think we should have an $8,000 tax credit which would put 7 million women back to work that could afford to go to work and still care for their children as an $8,000 tax credit. I also believe that we should, in fact, for people who, in fact, are not able to afford any of the infant care to be able to get that care.

But Bernie's right. We have to raise the salaries of the people who are doing the care. And I provide for that, as well. My time is up, I know, but I'm not going to go over like everybody.

(LAUGHTER)

PFANNENSTIEL: Mayor Buttigieg -- Mayor Buttigieg, higher education is another huge expense for families. You oppose free public college for all because you don't want to make it, quote, "free for the kids of millionaires." But lots of public services are available to the kids of rich people, like libraries and public schools. Why do you draw the line at public colleges and universities?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, it's simple. We expect and hope for everyone to get through 12th grade. It's not the same for college. Now, again, I don't want cost ever to be a barrier to somebody seeking to attend college. And under my plan, it won't be.

As a matter of fact, for the first 80 percent of Americans by income, it is free at public colleges. But if you're in that top income bracket, don't get me wrong, I still wish you well. I hope you succeed when you go to college. I just need you to go ahead and pay that tuition, because we could be using those dollars for something else.

There is a very real choice about what we do with every single taxpayer dollar that we raise, and we need to be using that to support everybody, whether you go to college or not, making sure that Americans can thrive, investing in infrastructure, and something that hasn't come up very much tonight but deserves a lot of attention, poverty.

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. Buy Photo
Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

You know, the Poor People's Campaign is marching on Iowa right now calling on us to talk about this issue more. They are driven by their faith. I think because even though in politics we're supposed to talk middle class, they know there's no scripture that says as you've done unto the middle class, so you've done unto me.

We've got to be making sure that we target our tax dollars where they will make the biggest difference. And I don't think subsidizing the children of millionaires and billionaires to pay absolutely zero in tuition at public colleges is the best use of those scarce taxpayer dollars.

PFANNENSTIEL: Sen. Warren?

WARREN: So, look, the way I think we need to do this is we need a wealth tax in America. We need to ask people with fortunes above $50 million to pay more. And that means that the lowliest millionaire that I would tax under this wealth tax would be paying about $19 million in the first year in taxes.

If he wants to send his kid to public university, then I'm OK with that, because what we really need to talk about is the bigger economic picture here. We need to be willing to put a wealth tax in place, to ask those giant corporations that are not paying to pay, because that's how we build an economy and, for those who want to talk about it, bring down the national debt.

You do universal childcare and you've got a lot of mamas who can go to work, a lot of mamas who can finish their education. We make that investment in universal college. We've got a lot of people who...

(CROSSTALK)

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Senator. Sen. Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: Yeah, you know, I appreciate your thoughts, Elizabeth, but I want to step back. I actually think that some of our colleagues who want free college for all aren't actually thinking big enough.

I think what we have to look at is how we connect our education system with our economy. Where are our job openings? And what do we need? We are going to have over a million openings for home health care workers that we don't know how to fill in the next 10 years. We are going to have open 100,000 jobs for nursing assistants. We-- as my union friends know -- we're going to have over 70,000 openings for electricians.

We're not going to have a shortage of MBAs. We're going to have a shortage of plumbers. So when we look at that, then we step back. Where should our money go? It should go into K through 12. It should go into free one- and two-year degrees, like my dad got, like my sister got.

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Sen. Klobuchar.

KLOBUCHAR: And then we should double the Pell grants, because we're going to need four-year degrees...

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Sen. Klobuchar. Mr. Steyer...

KLOBUCHAR: ... so the money goes where it should go, instead of to rich kids going to college.

PFANNENSTIEL: Mr. Steyer, as a billionaire, should your children have been entitled to free public college?

STEYER: No. And let me say this. I was one of the people who talked about a wealth tax almost a year-and-a-half ago. I believe that the income inequality in this country is unbearable, unjust, and unsupportable, and the redistribution of wealth to the richest Americans from everyone else has to end. And I proposed a wealth tax almost a year-and-a-half ago to start to address it and to raise some of the money that we need.

But I want to go beyond this and go back to this question about education, because we're talking a lot about college. But, in fact, if you talk about the Poor People's Campaign, you have to realize that for the youngest kids, they are getting an education that's relative to the taxes in their neighborhoods. We need to redistribute money so every kid has a chance, so we're not legislating inequality for the next generation, and so we actually invest in every single kid, specifically poor kids, specifically black kids, specifically brown kids. We need to start using the money dramatically more for that.

BLITZER: We'll be back with more from CNN's Democratic presidential debate, live from Des Moines, Iowa. Stay right here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to CNN's Democratic presidential debate. We're live in Des Moines, Iowa.

Tomorrow, the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, will send articles of impeachment against President Trump to the United States Senate, launching the third trial of a U.S. president. The Republican-led Senate has signaled that it is likely to acquit him.

Vice President Biden, if you're the nominee, is it going to be harder to run against President Trump if he's been acquitted and able to claim vindication, especially after what he's said about your family?

BIDEN: It's irrelevant. There's no -- there's no choice but to -- for Nancy Pelosi and the House to move. He has, in fact, committed impeachable offenses. Whether the Senate makes that judgment or not, it's for them to decide.

But -- and, by the way, I'm told that, you know, we -- that I don't -- I say we have to unite the country and it's going to be harder after this trial. It may be. But, look, you know, I understand how these guys are, this Republican Party. They've got gone after -- savaged my surviving son, gone after me, told lies that your networks and others won't even carry on television because they're flat-out lies.

And I did my job. The question is whether or not he did his job. And he hasn't done his job. And so it doesn't really matter whether or not he's gone after me. I've got to be in a position that I think of the American people. I can't hold a grudge. I have to be able to not only fight, but also heal.

And as president of the United States, that's what I will attempt to do, notwithstanding that -- we're going to be more division after he's defeated by me this next time.

BLITZER: Sen. Klobuchar, you're going to be a juror in the trial in the Senate that's about to start. Do you worry President Trump will be emboldened by acquittal?

KLOBUCHAR: No. We have a constitutional duty to do -- to perform here. And when I look at what the issue is, it's whether or not we're going to be able to have witnesses. We've asked for only four people as witnesses. And if our Republican colleagues won't allow those witnesses, they may as well give the president a crown and a scepter. They may as well make him king. And last time I checked, our country was founded on this idea that we didn't want to be ruled by a king.

And I think the best way to think about this is trial and what we're facing in this election is a story of a man from Primghar, Iowa. His name was Joseph Welch. He came from humble beginnings, a son of immigrants. He became the Army counsel. And he was the one that went to the Joseph McCarthy hearings. And when McCarthy was blacklisting people and going after people because of their political beliefs or supposed political beliefs, there was only one man.

Everyone that was afraid, they were afraid of being blacklisted, Joseph Welch, he stood up and looked at McCarthy and said, have you no sense of decency, sir? Have you no sense of decency. This is a decency check on our government. This is a patriotism check. Not only is this trial that...

BLITZER: Thank you.

KLOBUCHAR: ... but also this election. And no matter if you agree with everyone here on the stage, I say this...

BLITZER: Thank you, Sen. Klobuchar.

KLOBUCHAR: ... to Americans, you know this is a decency check on this president.

BLITZER: Mr. Steyer, you have spent millions and millions of dollars telling the American people that President Trump deserves to be impeached. Will it have been worth if it he has been impeached but not removed from office?

STEYER: Well, Wolf, actually what I have done is to organize a petition drive of 8.5 million Americans to sign and say this president deserves to be impeached and removed from office. And those 8.5 million people have called their congresspeople, have emailed their congresspeople, and have actually dragged Washington, D.C., to see that in fact this is a question of right and wrong and not of political expediency.

So if you ask me whether standing up for what's right in America, standing up for the American people and our safety, standing up for the Constitution, whether doing that and trying to bring the truth in front of the American people in televised hearings so we can decide what the truth is for ourselves, if you think that that isn't worth it, then you don't share the idea that I do about what America is about.

Standing up for what's right is always worth it, Wolf. And I will never back down from that.

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: Sen. Warren, a Senate trial is expected to keep you in Washington in the weeks leading up to the Iowa Caucuses here. How big of a problem is that for you as you're making your closing pitch to voters here?

WARREN: Look, some things are more important than politics. I took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. It says that no one is above the law. That includes the president of the United States. We have an impeachment trial. I will be there because it is my responsibility.

But understand this, what that impeachment trial is going to show once again to the American people, and something we should all be talking about, is the corruption of this administration. That is what lies at heart of it. It is about Donald Trump putting Donald Trump first. Not the American people. Not the interests of the United States of America. Not even helping Ukraine defend against Russia.

It is about him helping himself. That is what we need to do to win this election. We need to draw that distinction and show that as Democrats we're not going to be the people who are just out for the big corporations, people who want to help themselves, that we are going to be the party that is willing to fight on the side of the people. That's why we're here.

PFANNENSTIEL: Let's turn now to the climate crisis. Here in Iowa parts of the state remain under water after record-breaking flooding began last spring, racking up an estimated $2 billion in damages. Today many Iowans are still displaced from their homes.

Mayor Buttigieg, you have talked about helping people move from areas at high risk of flooding. But what do you do about farms and factories that simply can't be moved?

BUTTIGIEG: That's why we have to fight climate change with such urgency. Climate change has come to America from coast to coast. Seeing it in Iowa. We have seen it in historic floods in my community. I had to activate our emergency operation center for a once-in-a-millennium flood. Then two years later had to do the same thing.

In Australia there are literally tornadoes made of fire taking place. This is no longer theoretical and this is no longer off in the future. We have got to act, yes, to adapt, to make sure communities are more resilient, to make sure our economy is ready for the consequences that are going to happen one way or the other.

But we also have to ensure that we don't allow this to get any worse. And if we get right, farmers will be a huge part of the solution. We need to reach out to the very people who have sometimes been made to feel that accepting climate science would be a defeat for them, whether we're talking about farmers or industrial workers in my community, and make clear that we need to enlist them...

PFANNENSTIEL: But, Mayor Buttigieg...

BUTTIGIEG: ... in the national project to do something about it.

PFANNENSTIEL: ... to clarify, what do you do about farms and factories that cannot be relocated?

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. Buy Photo
Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

BUTTIGIEG: We are going to have to use federal funds to make sure that we are supporting those whose lives will inevitably be impacted further by the increased severity and the increased frequency. And by the way, that is happening to farms, that is happening to factories, and that disproportionately happens to black and brown Americans, which is why equity and environmental justice have to be at the core of our climate plan going forward.

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Mayor Buttigieg.

Mr. Steyer, what's your response?

STEYER: Look, what you're talking about is what's called managed retreat. It's basically saying we're going to have to move things because this crisis is out of control. And it's unbelievably expensive. And of course we'll come to the rescue of Americans who are in trouble.

But this is why climate is my number one priority. And I'm still shocked that I'm the only person on this stage who will say this. I would declare a state of emergency on day one on climate.

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa.Buy Photo
Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

(APPLAUSE)

I would do it from the standpoint of environmental justice and make sure we go to the black and brown communities where you can't breathe the air or drink the water that comes out of the tap safely. But I also know this, we're going to create millions of good-paying union jobs across this country. It's going to be the biggest job program in American history.

So I know we have to do it. I know we can do it. And I know that we can do it in a way that makes us healthier, that makes us better paid, and is more just. But the truth of the matter is, we're going to have to do it and we're going to have to make the whole world come along with us. And it's going to have to be...

PFANNENSTIEL: Mr. Steyer...

STEYER: ... priority one.

PFANNENSTIEL: Mr. Steyer, to clarify, you say you're the climate change candidate, but you made your $1.6 billion in part by investing in coal, oil, and gas. So are you the right messenger on this topic?

STEYER: I absolutely am. Look, we invested in every part of the economy. And over 10 years ago I realized that there was something going on that had to do with fossil fuels, that we had to change. So I divested from fossil fuels. I took the Giving Pledge to give most of my money away while I'm alive. And for 12 years I have been fighting the climate crisis.

I have beat oil companies in terms of clean air laws. I have stopped fossil fuel plants in Oxnard, California. I fought the Keystone pipeline. I have a history of over a decade of leading the climate fight successfully.

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

STEYER: So actually, yes, I am the person here who has the chops and the history that says, I'll make it priority one, because I have been doing it for a long time.

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

Sen. Warren, President Trump is rolling back major environmental rules to allow pipeline and other major infrastructure projects to be built without strict environmental review. Will you restore those protections and in a way that the next president can't overturn?

WARREN: Yes. Climate change threatens every living thing on this planet. And the urgency of the moment cannot be overstated. I will do everything a president can do all by herself on the first day. I will roll back the environmental changes that Donald Trump is putting in place. I will stop all new drilling and mining on federal lands, and offshore drilling. That will help us get in the right directions. I'll bring in the farmers. Farmers can be part of the climate solution.

Supporters of South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg gather to cheer prior to the democratic presidential candidate debate at Drake University in Des Moines on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2020. Buy Photo
Supporters of South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg gather to cheer prior to the democratic presidential candidate debate at Drake University in Des Moines on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2020. (Photo: Bryon Houlgrave/The Register)

We should see this for the problem it is. Mr. Steyer talks about it being problem number one. Understand this, we have known about this climate crisis for decades. Back in the 1990s we were calling it global warming, but we knew what it was. Democrats and Republicans back then were working together because no one wanted a problem.

But you know what happened? The industry came in and said, we can make big money if we keep them divided and make no change. Priority number one has to be taking back our government from the corruption. That is the only way we will make progress on climate, on gun safety, on health care, on all of the issues that matter to us.

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Sen. Warren.

Sen. Klobuchar, some of your competitors on this stage have called for an all-out ban on fracking. You haven't. Why not?

KLOBUCHAR: Well, first of all, I would note that I have 100 percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters. And that is because I have stood tall on every issue that we have talked about up here when it comes to this administration, this Trump administration, trying to reverse environmental protections. I think it is going to lead to so many problems.

And one thing that hasn't been raised, by the way, is the rules on methane, which is actually one of the most environmentally dangerous hazards that they have recently embarked on. And I would bring those rules back as well as a number of other ones.

When it comes to the issue of fracking, I actually see natural gas as a transition fuel. It's a transition fuel to where we get to carbon neutral.

Nearly every one of us has a plan that is very similar. And that is to get to carbon neutral by 2045 to 2050, to get to by 2030 to a 45 percent reduction.

And I want to add one thing that no one's really answered. When we do this, we have to make sure that we make people whole. And when we put a tax on carbon, which we will do either through cap-and-trade or through a renewable electricity standard or through a fee on carbon...

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Sen. Klobuchar.

KLOBUCHAR: ... then we have to make sure the money goes back to the people...

PFANNENSTIEL: I want to...

(CROSSTALK)

PFANNENSTIEL: ... into this conversation.

KLOBUCHAR: ... that will be hurt by it.

PFANNENSTIEL: Thank you, Sen. Klobuchar.

KLOBUCHAR: ... to help with their energy bills and to bring jobs to areas that will lose jobs.

PFANNENSTIEL: Sen. Sanders?

SANDERS: Thank you.

(LAUGHTER)

Supporters of Minnesota Sen. and current Democratic presidential candidate hopeful Amy Klobuchar chant and cheer in the hours prior to the Democratic debate at Drake University in Des Moines on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2020. Buy Photo
Supporters of Minnesota Sen. and current Democratic presidential candidate hopeful Amy Klobuchar chant and cheer in the hours prior to the Democratic debate at Drake University in Des Moines on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2020. (Photo: Bryon Houlgrave/The Register)

Let's be clear. If we as a nation do not transform our energy system away from fossil fuel, not by 2050, not by 2040, but unless we lead the world right now -- not easy stuff-- the planet we are leaving our kids will be uninhabitable and unhealthy.

We are seeing Australia burning. We saw California burning. The drought here in Iowa is going to make it harder for farmers to produce the food that we need.

This is of course a national crisis. I introduced legislation to indicate it's a national crisis. We have got to take on the fossil fuel industry and all of their lies and tell them that their short-term profits are not more important than the future of this planet. That's what the Green New Deal does. That's what my legislation does. And that is what we have to do.

PFANNENSTIEL: Vice President Biden, your response?

BIDEN: My response is, back in 1986, I introduced the first climate change bill -- and check PolitiFacts (sic); they said it was a game-changer. I've been fighting this for a long time. I headed up the Recovery Act, which put more money into moving away from fossil fuels to -- to solar and wind energy than ever has occurred in the history of America.

Look, what we have to do is we have to act right away. And the way we act right away is, immediately if I'm elected president, I'll reinstate all the mileage standards that existed in our administration which were taken down. That's 12 billion gallons of gasoline -- barrels of gasoline to be saved immediately.

And with regard to those folks who in fact are going to be victimized by what's already happened, we should be investing in infrastructure that raises roads, makes sure that we're in a position where we have -- that every new highway built is a green highway, having 550,000 charging stations.

We can create -- and this is where I agree with Tom -- we can create millions of good-paying jobs. We're the only country in the world that's ever taken great crisis and turned it into great opportunity. And one of the ways to do it is with farmers here in Iowa, by making them the first group in the world to get to net zero emissions by paying them for planting and absorbing carbon in their fields right -- there's more to say, but I know my time is...

PHILLIP: A key part of your mission in this primary is going to be to prove to Democratic voters that you're strong enough to take on Donald Trump. Each of you face unique challenges in doing that.

Mayor Buttigieg, you say you've had trouble earning the support of black voters because you're unknown. But you've been campaigning for a year now and polling shows you with next to no black support, support that you'll need in order to beat Donald Trump. Is it possible that black voters have gotten to know you and have simply decided to choose another candidate?

BUTTIGIEG: The black voters who know me best are supporting me. It's why I have the most support in South Bend. It's why, among elected black officials in my community who have gotten into this race, by far most of them are supporting me.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks and Sen. Amy Klobuchar asks to be recognized during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. Buy Photo
Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks and Sen. Amy Klobuchar asks to be recognized during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Debate on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, in Sheslow Auditorium on the Drake University campus in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

And now, nationally, I am proud that my campaign is co-chaired by a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and to have support right here in Iowa from some of the most recognizable black elected leaders, from Mayor Hart of Waterloo to former Representative Berry in Black Hawk County.

Now, the biggest mistake we could make is to take black votes for granted. And I never will. The reason I have the support I do is not because any voter thinks that I'm perfect. It's because of the work that we have done facing some of the toughest issues that communities can, not from the luxury of -- of a debate or a television panel or a committee room but on the ground, issues from poverty to justice in policing.

And I'm proud to say we have been nationally recognized for our work as a race-informed city on delivering greater economic justice, that we have reduced use of force by leading the region in transparency around the use of force in policing.

Of course there is a much longer way to go, in my community and around the country. But I will be a president whose personal commitment is to continue doing this work.

PHILLIP: Sen. Sanders, you call yourself a Democratic Socialist. But more than two-thirds of voters say they are not enthusiastic about voting for a socialist. Doesn't that put your chances of beating Donald Trump at risk?

SANDERS: Nope, not at all. And that is because the campaign that we are going to run will expose the fraudulency of who Donald Trump is. Donald Trump is corrupt. He is a pathological liar and he is a fraud.

Now, when Trump talks about socialism, what he talks about is giving hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. Donald Trump as a businessman received $800 million in tax breaks and subsidies to build luxury housing.

Attendees at a watch party for Sen. Amy Klobuchar at Drake University during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate in Sheslow Auditorium at Drake UniversityTuesday, Jan. 14, 2020.Buy Photo
Attendees at a watch party for Sen. Amy Klobuchar at Drake University during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate in Sheslow Auditorium at Drake UniversityTuesday, Jan. 14, 2020. (Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register)

My Democratic Socialism says health care is a human right. We're going to raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour. We're going to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. We're going to have a Green New Deal and create up to $20 million, saving the planet for our children and our grandchildren. We are going to take on the greed and corruption of the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance company. That is what Democratic Socialism is about and that will win this election.

PHILLIP: Mr. Steyer, you've spent more than $100 million of your own dollars on television ads. How do you convince voters that you're more than just your money?

STEYER: Look, we know how Donald Trump is going to run for president. He's going to run on the economy. He's already told Americans last month in Florida, "You don't like me and I don't like you, but you're all going to vote for me because the Democrats are going to destroy the economy in 15 minutes if they get in control."

So let's be clear. I started a business by myself in one room. I didn't inherit a penny from my parents. I spent 30 years building that business into a multi-billion-dollar international business. Then I walked away from it and took the giving pledge and started organizing coalitions of ordinary Americans to take on unchecked corporate power.

But whoever is going to beat Mr. Trump is going to have to beat him on the economy. And I have the experience and the expertise to show that he's a fake there and a fraud.

Look, Mayor Pete has three years as an analyst at McKinsey. I have 30 years of international business experience. I can beat Trump on the economy. We're going to have to beat him on the economy. And I look forward to taking him down in the fall on the debate stage.

Attendees at a watch party for Sen. Elizabeth Warren at Drake University cheer during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate in Sheslow Auditorium at Drake UniversityTuesday, Jan. 14, 2020.Buy Photo
Attendees at a watch party for Sen. Elizabeth Warren at Drake University cheer during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate in Sheslow Auditorium at Drake UniversityTuesday, Jan. 14, 2020. (Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register)

PHILLIP: Mayor Buttigieg?

BUTTIGIEG: You demoted me. I was actually an associate, but that's OK.

(LAUGHTER)

BUTTIGIEG: It was not the biggest part of my career. But I am ready to take on this president on the economy because I am from the exact kind of industrial Midwestern community that he pretends to speak to and has proven to turn his back on, and guided that community through a historic transformation.

When, at the beginning of the decade, I took office, we were described as a dying city. I'm ready to take on Donald Trump because, when he gets to the tough talk and the chest-thumping, he'll have to stand next to an American war veteran and explain how he pretended bone spurs made him ineligible to serve.

And if -- and if he keeps trying...

(APPLAUSE)

... to use religion...

(APPLAUSE)

If a guy like Donald Trump keeps trying to use religion to somehow recruit Christianity into the GOP, I will be standing there not afraid to talk about a different way to answer the call of faith and insist that God does not belong to a political party. I am ready to take on this president...

PHILLIP: Thank you.

BUTTIGIEG: ... on everything.

(APPLAUSE)

PHILLIP: Sen. Klobuchar...

(APPLAUSE)

Spectators watch the CNN/Des Moines Register debate of six Democratic presidential candidates on Jan. 14, 2020 at Wobby Boots in Clive.
Spectators watch the CNN/Des Moines Register debate of six Democratic presidential candidates on Jan. 14, 2020 at Wobby Boots in Clive. (Photo: Olivia Sun)

Sen. Klobuchar, you're pitching yourself as a practical candidate who can get things done. And even tonight you've dismissed some of the ideas that are offered in this primary as pipe-dreams. How are you going to inspire Democratic voters with a message of pragmatism?

KLOBUCHAR: Our voters, actually all Americans, have seen now a number of years of a guy that has, I think, told over 15,000 lies. He is someone that literally has a rap sheet of divisive rhetoric. And I think what Americans want is something different.

I am going to be able to stand across from him on that debate stage and say to my friends in Iowa, "The Midwest is not flyover country for me; I live here."

I'm going to be able to look at him and say, "You've treated these workers and farmers like poker chips. For me, these are my friends and these are my neighbors."

I'm going to be able to look at him and say, "You know what? You got $413 million over the course of your career. That's how you built your fortune." And what I'm going to say is this. "My grandpa worked 1,500 feet underground in the iron ore mines, saved money in a coffee can in the basement, to send my dad to a two-year community college. That's my family trust. And when you have been given an opportunity like that, you go into the world not with a sense of entitlement, Donald -- Donald Trump, but with a sense of obligation."

PHILLIP: Thank you.

Sen. Warren, what do you say to voters who like your policies but they're worried they will scare away swing voters you need to win this race in November?

WARREN: So I was born and raised in Oklahoma. I have three older brothers who are all retired, who are all back there still. And two of my three brothers are Republicans. And, sure, there are a lot of things we disagree on, and we can take to our corners and do the Democratic/Republican talking points, but the truth is there's a whole lot we agree on.

You know, my brother is just furious over Chevron and Eli Lilly and Amazon, that are giant corporations making billions of dollars in tax -- make billions of dollars in profits and pay nothing in taxes.

My brother said, "I don't get this. I have to pay my taxes. Somebody has to keep the roads paved and the schools open and pay for our defense."

They understand that we have an America right now that's working great for those at the top; it's just not working for anyone else. We have a chance to unite -- unite as Democrats, but also with independents and Republicans who are sick of living in a country that's working great for the politicians that are taking the money; it's working great for the lobbyists; it's working great for the corporate executives, it's just not working for everyone else.

Watch party attendees react as candidates respond to a question about a conversation Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren had in 2018 about if a woman could be president, during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, at Papa Keno's Pizzeria in Des Moines, Iowa.
Watch party attendees react as candidates respond to a question about a conversation Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren had in 2018 about if a woman could be president, during the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, at Papa Keno's Pizzeria in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen)

I'm building the grassroots movement, leading the fight. We're going to make this America work for everyone else. That is how we're going to beat Donald Trump.

PHILLIP: Vice President Biden, the eventual nominee will face President Trump, who has no problem mocking people, using insulting nicknames, slinging mud and telling lies. The debate against him will make tonight's debate look like child's play.

Are you prepared for that?

BIDEN: I am prepared for that. Look, I've been the object of his affection now more than anybody else on this stage.

(LAUGHTER)

I've taken all the hits he can deliver, and I'm getting better in the polls, my going up. And by the way, I have overwhelming support from the African-American community, overwhelming -- more than everybody else in this operation, number one.

Number two, working-class people, where I come from, in Pennsylvania and the places I come from Delaware, I have great support.

I have support across the board, and I'm not worried about taking on Donald Trump at all. And with regard to the economy, I can hardly wait to have that debate with him. Where I come from, the neighbors I come from, they're in real trouble, working-class people and middle-class people.

When the middle class does well, the working class has a way up and the wealthy do well. But what's happening now? They're being clobbered. They're being killed. They now have a situation where if they -- the vast majority believe their children will never reach the stage that they've -- they've reached in economic security.

We -- I love that debate because the American public is getting clobbered. The wealthy are the only ones doing well, period. I'm looking forward to the economic debate.

BLITZER: We'll be right back with more from CNN's Democratic presidential debate, live from Des Moines, Iowa.

(APPLAUSE)

Stay right here.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back to CNN's Democratic presidential debate, live from Des Moines, Iowa. Time now for closing statements. You each have one minute. Sen. Klobuchar, let's begin with you.

KLOBUCHAR: Donald Trump thinks this is all about him. I think it's about you. It's not about his resorts or his tweets or even his ego. It is about your health care. It is about your schools. It is about your lives and your future.

So if you want to do something about racial justice and immigration reform and climate change and gun safety, we need a candidate who is actually going to bring people with her. I have won every race, every place, every time. I have gotten the highest voter turnout in the country when I've led the ticket. I have passed more bills as the lead Democrat than anyone who's in Congress that's running for president. I believe that we need a president that's going to look out for you.

It is easy to hurl insults. It is easy to draw lines in the sand and sketch out grand ideological sketches that will never see the light of day. What is hard is bringing people together and finding common ground instead of scorched earth. What is hard is the work of governing.

The six candidates who made the debate stage at Sheshlow Auditorium for the CNN/Des Moines Register debate. From left, Tom Steyer, billionaire political activist, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.Buy Photo
The six candidates who made the debate stage at Sheshlow Auditorium for the CNN/Des Moines Register debate. From left, Tom Steyer, billionaire political activist, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. (Photo: Kelsey Kremer/The Register)

So if you are tired of the extremes in our politics and the noise and the nonsense, you have a home with me. Join me at amyklobuchar.com.

BLITZER: Mr. Steyer?

STEYER: I know that Iowans are going to caucus within three weeks, and I want to tell you how I feel about the American people. Look, I played team sports my entire life. The bond between teammates is deep and emotional and full of love. And as far as I'm concerned, the American people are my teammates.

And if there's one thing I will not permit, it is someone to run down the field and kick my teammate in the face. And that is exactly what I've seen over the last seven years, traveling around this country, seeing these Republicans, led by Mr. Trump, basically kicking the American people in the face.

I am prepared to take on Mr. Trump on the debate stage and take him down on the economy. But I am asking for your support because I know that if I'm -- if I'm going to be a good teammate to you and give you absolutely everything, without any compromise, I need the support of you on caucus night so I can turn around and together we can take back this country and together we can save the world.

BLITZER: Mayor Buttigieg?

BUTTIGIEG: This is our moment, this is our one shot to defeat Donald Trump, and to do it by such a big margin that we send Trumpism into the dust bin of history, too. But we cannot take the risk with so much on the line of trying to confront this president with the same Washington mindset and political warfare that led us to this point.

If you are watching this at home and you are exhausted by the spectacle of division and dysfunction, I'm asking you to join me to help turn the page on our politics. You're seeing the president boast about the Dow Jones, wondering whether any of that will ever get to your kitchen table. Join me.

If you're a voter of color feeling taken for granted by politics as usual, join me. If you're used to voting for the other party but right now cannot look your kids in the eye and explain this president to them, join me.

We have a chance to change all of this if we can summon the courage to break from the past. That is why I am running for president. It is why I'm asking you to caucus for me on February 3rd. And I hope that you'll go to peteforamerica.com and join me in this effort.

BLITZER: Sen. Warren?

Signs with images of Griff, the living mascot at Drake University, are displayed at a front counter during a watch party for the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, at Papa Keno's Pizzeria in Des Moines, Iowa.
Signs with images of Griff, the living mascot at Drake University, are displayed at a front counter during a watch party for the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic Presidential Debate, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020, at Papa Keno's Pizzeria in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen)

WARREN: So much is broken in this country. I sat here in the break and just made notes about many of the things we didn't get to talk about tonight: how the disability community is struggling for true equality; how gun violence and active shooter drills worry every mother in this country; how children are living in poverty and seeing their life chances shrink; how transwomen, particularly transwomen of color, are at risk; black infant mortality; climate change that particularly hits black and brown communities; people who are being crushed by student loan debt; farmers who are barely holding on; people struggling with mental illness.

And yet I come here tonight with a heart filled with hope. And it's filled with hope because I see this as our moment in history, our moment when no one is left on the sidelines, our moment when we understand that it comes to us to decide the future of this country, our moment when we build the movement to make real change.

Hope and courage. That is how I will make you proud every day, as your nominee and as the first woman president of the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: Sen. Sanders?

SANDERS: It's been a good debate, but we haven't asked the major question. The major question is, how does it happen in the richest country in the history of the world that half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck, trying to get by on $9, $10 bucks an hour?

How does it happen that when the top 1 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 92 percent, half a million people are sleeping out on the streets tonight? How does it happen that in this great country we are the only major nation not to guarantee health care to all? How does it happen that we have a childcare system which is dysfunctional, a criminal justice system which is broken and racist, an immigration system that needs reform?

This is the moment when we have got to think big, not small. This is the moment when we have got to have the courage to take on the 1 percent, take on the greed and corruption of the corporate elite, and create an economy and create a government that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: Vice President Biden.

BIDEN: Character is on the ballot this time around. The American character is on the ballot. Not what Donald Trump is spewing out, the hate, the xenophobia, the racism, that's not who we are as a nation.

Democratic Presidential candidates Tom Steyer, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former South Bend Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, stand for a photo before the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate in Sheslow Auditorium at Drake UniversityTuesday, Jan. 14, 2020.Buy Photo
Democratic Presidential candidates Tom Steyer, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former South Bend Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, stand for a photo before the CNN/Des Moines Register Democratic presidential debate in Sheslow Auditorium at Drake UniversityTuesday, Jan. 14, 2020. (Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register)

Everyone in this country is entitled to be treated with respect and dignity. Every single, solitary person has to have in a position that, in fact, we treat them with decency. It's about fundamental basic decency.

We in the United States of America can put up with -- we can overcome four years of Donald Trump, but eight years of Donald Trump will be an absolute disaster and fundamentally change this nation.

We have to restore America's soul, as I've said from the moment I announced. It is in jeopardy under this president of the United States. We lead the world when we lead by example, not by our power. We, in fact, have to regain the respect of the world in order to be able to change things.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in a position right now where we have to remember who we are: This is the United States of America. There is not a single thing beyond our capacity to do if we do it together. Let's go do it.

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: Candidates, thank you very, very much. That concludes the first Democratic presidential debate of 2020. The Iowa caucuses are only 20 days away. Tune into CNN for continuing coverage of this presidential election.

ANNOUNCER: This is the PBS "NewsHour" "Politico" Democratic Debate.

Now, live from Los Angeles, Judy Woodruff.

WOODRUFF: Welcome back.

A quick reminder to have rules for this debate. Each candidate has one minute and 15 seconds to answer direct questions from the moderators, and 45 seconds to answer rebuttal and follow-up questions.

Tonight's podium order on the stage was determined by an average of recent polls.

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And let's begin.

To the candidates -- last night, at this hour, the House of Representatives voted for only the third time in American history to impeach a president. Every one of you was in favor of this action. But unlike 1974 and President Nixon, congressional Democrats have, so far, not convinced a strong majority of Americans to support impeachment of President Trump.

Why do you think that is, and what can you say or do differently in the coming weeks to persuade more Americans that this is the right thing to do?

I want to ask all of you to respond, but to begin with Vice President Biden.

BIDEN: You know, Judy, it was a constitutional necessity for the House to act as it did. And, you know, Trump's response to suggest that only half of the American people want to see him thrown out of office now, I find, is dumbing down the presidency beyond what I even thought he would do. You know, is it any wonder that if you look at the international polling that's been done, that the Chinese leader is rated above American -- the American president or that Vladimir Putin congratulated him saying, stand fast and, in fact, it was a mistake to impeach him.

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You know, we need to restore the integrity of the presidency, the office of the presidency, and it's about time we get that underway. My job and I think the job of all of us up here is to, in fact -- well, that's not true, some are going to actually be voting in the Senate -- but my job is just to go out and make the case why he doesn't deserve to be president of the United States for another four years.

WOODRUFF: Senator Sanders, why do you think more people are not in support of impeachment and what else can you do?

SANDERS: Well, Judy, what I would say is that we have a president who is a pathological liar. We have a president who is running the most corrupt administration in the modern history of this country, and we have a president who is a fraud, because during his campaign, he told working people one thing, and he ended up doing something else.

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I believe, and I will personally be doing this in the coming weeks and months, is making the case that we have a president ho has sold out the working families of this country, who wants to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid after he promised he would not do that, and who has documentedly lied thousands of times since he is president.

And the case is to be made is -- yes, certainly, I disagree with Trump on virtually all of his policies, but what conservatives, I think, understand is that we cannot have a president with that temperament who is dishonoring the presidency of the United States.

WOODRUFF: Senator Warren, why do you think --

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: -- why do you think more Americans don't agree that this is the right thing to do? And what more can you say?

WARREN: So, I see this as a constitutional moment. Last night, the president was impeached, and everyone now in the Senate who has taken a constitutional oath to uphold our Constitution -- and that doesn't mean loyalty to an individual, it doesn't mean loyalty to a political party, it means loyalty to our country -- and that vote will play out over the next several weeks.

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But the way I see this is we've now seen the impact of corruption, and that's what's clearly on the stage in 2020, is how we are going to run against the most corrupt president in living history.

You know, this president has made corruption originally his argument that he would drain the swamp, and, yet, he came to Washington, broke that promise, and has done everything he can for the wealthy and the well-connected, from tax breaks to ambassadorships.

We have to prosecute the case against him, and that means we need a candidate for president who can draw the sharpest distinction between the corruption of the Trump administration and a Democrat who is willing to get out and fight not for the wealthy and well-connected but to fight for everyone else. That's why I'm in this race.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Senator Klobuchar -- Senator Klobuchar, what argument can you make to persuade more Americans this is the right thing?

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KLOBUCHAR: Let me make the case to the American people. As a wise judge said, the president is not king in America, the law is king. And what James Madison once said when he was speaking out at the Constitutional Convention -- and, by the way, I think he's a pretty good size for a president, he was five-foot-four.

(LAUGHTER)

And what he said, he said the reason that we have these impeachment articles in the Constitution, that the provisions are in there, is because he feared that a president would betray the trust of the American people for a foreign power. That is what happened here.

Watergate -- this is a global Watergate. In the case of Watergate, a paranoid president facing election looked for dirt on a political opponent. He did it by getting people to break in. This president did it by calling a foreign leader to look for dirt on a political opponent.

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And I would make this case: as we face this trial in the Senate, if the president claims that he is so innocent, then why doesn't he have all the presidents men testify? Richard Nixon had his top people testify.

(APPLAUSE)

We should be hearing from Mulvaney, who is the one under oath. Witnesses have said that Mulvaney is the one that said, OK, we're going to withhold this aid to a fledgling democracy to get dirt on a political opponent.

We should hear from Bolton who told his own staff to go see a lawyer after they met with the president. That is the case.

If President Trump thinks he should not be impeached, he should not be scared to put forward his own witnesses.

WOODRUFF: Mayor Buttigieg --

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Mayor Buttigieg, what additional argument can you make to the American people?

BUTTIGIEG: At the end of the day, this is beyond public opinions. This is beyond polls. This is beyond politics.

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The president left the House with no choice, and I think a lot of us are watching this process, watching Washington go through the motions, and not expecting much but a foregone conclusion when it gets to the Senate.

We cannot give in to that sense of helplessness, because that's what they want. They want us to be taken in by that cynicism to where we give up on the process altogether. Meanwhile, their allies are laughing all the way to the bank, as we see policies that let giant corporations -- some of which made billions in profits, pay not just zero, but as we've recently learned negative taxes -- all the while they block policies that would actually boost wages for working Americans.

Here's the good news: it's up to us. No matter what happens in the Senate, it is up to us in 2020. This is our chance to refuse to be taken in by the helplessness, to refuse and reject the cynicism.

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That is what this presidential election is about. It is what my campaign is about: our opportunity in 2020, no matter what happens in Washington, as a country, to change the course of this nation for the better.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Mr. Yang, what more --

(APPLAUSE)

YANG: I'm over here.

WOODDRUFF: Mr. Yang, what more can you say (ph) to the American people?

(CROSSTALK)

YANG: Judy --

WOODRUFF: I'm sorry, Mr. Steyer. I'm sorry.

STEYER: Well, let me remind everyone that I'm the person who started the Need to Impeach Movement over two years ago because I --

(APPLAUSE)

STEYER: -- because I believe what counts here is actually the American people's opinion. Over eight and a half million signed that petition and dragged Washington into the idea that, actually, the most corrupt president in American history -- it's not a question of political expediency, it's not a question of political tactics, it's a question of right and wrong.

So, now, when we look at what's going on, I actually agree with Senator Klobuchar. The question here is, if we want the American people to understand what's going on, we need to have the administration officials testify on TV so we can judge.

The court that counts here is the court of public opinion. The American people deserve to see the truth of these administration officials testifying under oath so we can make up our mind. If we want Republican senators to do the right thing, we need their constituents to see the truth on TV and tell them, get rid of this guy or we'll get rid of you.

That's what I believe in. I'm a believer in the grassroots as an outsider, getting the American people's voice to count. That's who I trust and that's who I trust now.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Yang?

(APPLAUSE)

YANG: It's clear why Americans can't agree on impeachment, we're getting news from different sources, and it's making it hard for us even to agree on basic facts. Congressional approval rating, last I checked, was something like 17 percent, and Americans don't trust the media networks to tell them the truth.

The media networks didn't do us any favors by missing a reason why Donald Trump became our president in the first place. If your turn on cable network news today, you would think he's our president because of some combination of Russia, racism, Facebook, Hillary Clinton, and emails all mixed together.

But Americans around the country know different. We blasted away 4 million manufacturing jobs that were primarily based in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri. I just left Iowa -- we blasted 40,000 manufacturing jobs there.

The more we act like Donald Trump is the cause of all our problems, the more Americans lose trust that we can actually see what's going on in our communities and solve those problems.

What we have to do is we have to stop being obsessed over impeachment, which, unfortunately, strikes many Americans like a ball game where you know what the score is going to be, and actually start digging in and solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place. We have to take every opportunity to present a new positive vision for the country, a new way forward to help beat him in 2020 because, make no mistake, he'll be there at the ballot box for us to defeat.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, Mr. Yang.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Let's turn now to an issue that is on the minds of all Americans, and that is the economy.

Senator Sanders, today, the House of Representatives voted for a new bipartisan trade agreement among the United States, Canada and Mexico. It was supported by union-friendly leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and big labor groups like the AFL-CIO. They say it is going to be a big job creator.

Senator, my question is, will you support this deal? And, if not, why not?

SANDERS: Judy, you're talking to somebody who, unlike some of my colleagues here, voted against NAFTA, voted against PNTR with China -- two agreements that cost us over 4 million decent-paying jobs.

Now, I don't agree with the -- your statement that people think this is going to be a great job creator. This is a modest improvement over what we have right now. It would allow, hopefully, Mexican workers to organize into unions, independent unions and be able to negotiate decent contracts.

But at the end of the day, in my view, it is not going to stop outsourcing. It is not going to stop corporations from moving to Mexico, where manufacturing workers make less than $2 an hour.

What we need is a trade policy that stands up for workers, stands up for farmers. And, by the way, the word "climate change," to the best of my knowledge, is not discussed in this new NAFTA agreement at all, which is an outrage. So, no, I will not be voting for this agreement, although it makes some modest improvements.

WOODRUFF: Senator Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: I have a different view. I'll go with my friend, Sherrod Brown, who has voted against every trade agreement that's come in front of him, and he's voting for this, and I am, too.

And the reason I am voting for it is that I believe that we have a change with this agreement. I would not have voted for the agreement that President Trump put forward, but we've got better labor standards, better environmental standards, and a better deal when it comes to the pharmaceutical provision, which I also opposed.

Ninety-five percent of our customers are outside of our borders. And we have to make sure that we have trade agreements that are more fair, because if we can encourage work made in America, every time you hold something in your hand that says "Made in America," it is the ingenuity of our workers, it is the quality of a product, it is equality of our workers, and it is the hopes and dreams of the American people.

I think this agreement -- while Senator Sanders is correct, there are some issues with it -- is much better than the one originally proposed. And for those farmers in the Midwest and for those people that have been hurt by the fact that we will not have a trade segment with Mexico and with Canada and the United States, I think that this is a much better deal.

WOODRUFF: All right, we can pull some of your -- I see some other hands up. I want to move to the next question, and you can bring in, I think, your points with this.

This one I'm going to initially address to Vice President Biden, and that is the overall U.S. economy right now looks strong. The unemployment rate is at historic lows. Unemployment among African-Americans is down. The markets are booming. Wages, while not growing as much as many would like, they're still doing about as well as they were in the Obama-Biden era.

My question to you, Mr. Vice President, is what is your argument to the voter watching this debate tonight who may not like everything President Trump does but they really like this economy and they don't know why they should make a change.

BIDEN: Well, I don't think they really do like the economy. Go back and talk to the old neighborhoods and middle-class neighborhoods you grew up in. The middle class is getting killed. The middle class is getting crushed. And the working class has no way up as a consequence of that.

You have, for example, farmers in the Midwest, 40 percent of them couldn't pay their bills last year. You have most Americans, if they received a bill for $400 or more, they'd have to sell something or borrow the money.

The middle class is not as behind the eight ball. We have to make sure that they have an even shot. We have to eliminate a significant number of these god-awful tax cuts that were given to the very wealthy. We have to invest in education. We have to invest in health care. We have to invest in those things that make a difference in the lives of middle-class people so they can maintain their standard of living.

That's not being done. And the idea that we're growing -- we're not growing. The wealthy, very wealthy are growing. Ordinary people are not growing. They are not happy with where they are. And that's why we must change this presidency now.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Mayor Buttigieg, is that your -- is that your assessment?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes. Where I live, folks aren't measuring the economy by how the Dow Jones is looking. They're measuring the economy by how they're doing. When you're doing the bills at the end of the month at your kitchen table, and you find that even if your wages have gone up, it's not nearly going as fast as the cost of health and housing.

This economy is not working for most of us, for the middle class, and -- I know you're only ever supposed to say middle class and not poor in politics, but we've got to talk about poverty in this country. There is not one county in the United States of America where someone working full-time at the minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment. In most places, not even a one-bedroom apartment.

The biggest problem in our economy is simple: People are not getting paid enough. That is not the result of some mysterious cosmic force. It's the result of bad policy. And we've got to change it by raising wages and empowering workers.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Mr. Yang? Mr. Yang?

YANG: GDP and corporate profits are at record highs in America today. Also at record highs? Depression, financial insecurity, student loan debt.

(APPLAUSE)

Even suicides and drug overdoses. It has gotten so bad that our life expectancy as a country has declined for the last three years because suicides and drug overdoses have overtaken vehicle deaths for the first time in American history.

The fact is, this unemployment rate and GDP have very little relationship with people's lived experience on the ground. If you're a recent college graduate, you have a 40 percent chance of doing a job that doesn't require a college degree. That doesn't show up in the headline unemployment rate, nor does all of the families that are working two or three jobs to get by.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Senator Warren, you have your hand up.

WARREN: I do.

WOODRUFF: And I have a question for you.

WARREN: Well, I want to answer this question.

WOODRUFF: Go ahead. Go ahead.

WARREN: Because here's the problem. I'm proud to stand on a stage with Democrats who understand that a rise in GDP, rise in corporate profits is not being felt by millions of families across this country. I'm proud to stand on a stage with people who see that America's middle class is being hollowed out and that working families and poor people are being left behind.

What we need to talk about, though, is why that has happened. And the answer is we've got a government that works great for those with money and doesn't work for much of anyone else. We have a government that works great for giant drug companies, just not for someone trying to fill a prescription. Works great for people who want to make money on private prisons and private detention centers at our border, just not for the people whose lives are torn apart.

Works great for giant oil companies that want to drill everywhere, but not for the rest of us who see climate change bearing down upon us.

(APPLAUSE)

And when you see a government that works great for the wealthy and the well-connected and for no one else, that is corruption, pure and simple. And we need to call it out for what it is.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: I want -- I want, Senator Sanders, if you would, a brief response, and then I have another question.

SANDERS: Look, here's the response. Trump goes around saying the economy is doing great. Do you know what real inflation accounted for wages went up last year? 1.1 percent. That ain't great.

Tonight, while three people own more wealth than the bottom half of America, 500,000 Americans, including 30,000 veterans, are sleeping out on the streets. Today in America, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth, more income and wealth inequality than since the 1920s. We need an economy that works for working families, not just the 1 percent. That is what our campaign is about.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Senator Warren, I have a question for you. Every candidate on the stage has proposed tax increases on the wealthy. But you have especially ambitious plans that, apart from health care, would hike taxes an additional $8 trillion over the decade, the biggest tax increase since World War II. How do you answer top economists who say taxes of this magnitude would stifle growth and investment?

WARREN: Oh, they're just wrong.

(APPLAUSE)

Let's start with a wealth tax. The idea of a two-cent tax on the great fortunes in this country, $50 million and above. For two cents, what can we do? We can invest in the rest of America. We can provide universal childcare, early childhood education for every baby in this country, age 0 to 5, universal pre-K for every 3-year-old and 4-year-old, and raise the wages of every childcare worker and preschool teacher.

We can do even more for our public schools, for college graduates. We can cancel student loan debt. But think about the economic impact of that. You leave two cents with the billionaires, they're not eating more pizzas, they're not buying more cars. We invest that 2 percent in early childhood education and childcare, that means those babies get top-notch care. It means their mamas can finish their education. It means their mamas and their daddies can take on real jobs, harder jobs, longer hours.

WOODRUFF: And...

WARREN: We can increase productivity in this country. And we can start building this economy from the ground up. That's how we build it in small towns. That's how we build it in rural America. And that's how we built it in urban America. An economy that works, not for Wall Street, but that works for Main Street.

WOODRUFF: Brief answers -- brief responses from Mr. Steyer and Mr. Buttigieg.

(APPLAUSE)

STEYER: So let me say that I agree with Senator Warren in much of what she says. I've been for a wealth tax for over a year. I'm in favor of undoing all the tax breaks for rich people and big corporations that this administration has put through.

(APPLAUSE)

And in addition, I've talked about equilibrating the taxes on passive investment income, which would allow us to cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans by 10 percent.

But there's something else going on here that I think is really important, and that's this. We know Mr. Trump is going to run on the economy. I built a business over 30 years from scratch. We're going to have to take him on, on the economy in terms of growth, as well as economic justice. We're going to have to be able to talk about growth, prosperity across the board for everyone in America.

My experience building a business, understanding how to make that happen, means I can go toe-to-toe with Mr. Trump and take him down on the economy and expose him as a fraud and a failure. And I think that's different from the other people on this stage. I think we need a different, unconventional way of attacking a different, unconventional president who actually went after the best-prepared candidate in American history and beat her.

WOODRUFF: Mayor Buttigieg?

BUTTIGIEG: We're also being -- right now, I think we're being offered a false choice that you either have to go all the way to the extreme or it's business as usual. Yes, we must deliver big ideas and, yes, taxes on wealthy individuals and on corporations are going to have to go up.

We can also be smart about the promises we're making, make sure they're promises that we can keep without the kind of taxation that economists tell us could hurt the economy.

It's why, for example, I've proposed that we make college free for 80 percent of Americans. But it doesn't have to be free for the top. If you're in that top 10 percent, how about you pay your own tuition and we save those dollars for something else that we could spend them on that would make a big difference, whether it's infrastructure, childcare, housing, health?

On issue after issue, we've got to break out of the Washington mindset that measures the bigness of an idea by how many trillions of dollars it adds to the budget or the boldness of an idea by how many fellow Americans it can antagonize.

WOODRUFF: We're going to take a short break and we'll be right back in two minutes with questions from my fellow moderators.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Live from Los Angeles, the PBS NewsHour/Politico Democratic...

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Live from Los Angeles, the PBS NewsHour/Politico Democratic debate continues. Once again, Judy Woodruff.

WOODRUFF: Welcome back to the PBS NewsHour/Politico Democratic presidential debate. The next question is from Tim Alberta of Politico.

ALBERTA: Thanks, Judy. Candidates, good evening. We're going to talk about climate now. Senator Klobuchar, many scientists say that even if the U.S. reduced its carbon footprint to zero by the year 2050, the damage will have been done, that climate change will have made certain places in the U.S. unlivable.

So knowing this, would you support a new federal program to subsidize the relocation of American families and businesses away from places like Miami or Paradise, California, perhaps, Davenport, Iowa, because we know these places are going to be hit time and time again?

KLOBUCHAR: Well, I don't -- I very much hope we're not going to have to relocate entire cities, but we will probably have to relocate some individual residents.

And the problem right now is that this climate change is an existential crisis. And you are seeing it here in California with the fires that you just had. You saw it in Northern California, as was mentioned with Paradise. And the most moving video from that to me was the 30-second video of that dad driving his little girl through the lapping fires with his neighborhood burning behind him and singing to her to calm her down.

We cannot wait to act. There is an Ojibway saying that great leaders make decisions not for this generation, but seven generations from now. This president doesn't keep his decisions for seven minutes.

(APPLAUSE)

So what I think we need to do, get back into the international climate change agreement. I will do that on day one. On day two, bring back the clean power rules. On day three, the gas mileage standards. I see the governor of California, who's been working so hard to get those done, defied every step of the way by the Trump administration. And then introduce sweeping legislation to put a price on carbon and build a fridge to the next century, which means we must upgrade our buildings and our building standards.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator Klobuchar.

Mr. Steyer, would you support such a new federal program, again, to help subsidize the relocation of these families?

STEYER: Look, I am hoping that we, in fact, will do what I'm suggesting, which is declare a state of emergency on day one of my presidency. I have made this -- I believe I'm the only person here who will say unequivocally this is my number-one priority.

I know that we have to deal with this crisis. I know that we have to deal with it from the standpoint of environmental justice. I've been working on this for more than a decade. I've taken on oil companies and beaten them on environmental laws. I've pushed clean energy across this country. I've prevented pipelines and I've prevented fossil fuel plants.

But what I know is this: Not only can we clear up the air and water in the black and brown communities where our pollution is concentrated, this is also the opportunity to create literally millions of middle-class union jobs, well-paid, across the United States of America.

Our biggest crisis is our biggest opportunity. And if we don't declare a state of emergency on day one, I don't understand how we go to the people around the world to lead the coalition that has to happen and that only America can lead.

Look, this is a generational question. I have a lot of respect for the people on this stage. I know everybody is worried about this. But, for instance, I would call on Mayor Buttigieg to prioritize this higher because the people in his generation understand that this is a crisis that we have to go on right now, but it's also...

ALBERTA: Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

STEYER: ... the greatest opportunity to rebuild and reinvent America.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Mr. Steyer. Mr. Buttigieg, 45 seconds to respond.

(APPLAUSE)

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I've made clear that this will be a topic of day one action. And this is not theoretical for me. I live in one of those river cities that you're talking about. Not only that, I live right by the river. My neighborhood flooded in the second of two once in a millennium floods that we had in two years. Do the math on that. So I know what's at stake.

And it's why I insist that we act with a carbon tax and dividend with massive increases in renewable research, on renewable energy, energy storage, and carbon storage. But bigger than that, we have to summon the energies of the entire country to deal with this.

I've seen politicians in Washington saying the right thing about climate change as long as I've been alive, all these plans we have to get carbon neutral by 2050. And I think most or all of us have one. Their impact is multiplied by zero unless something actually gets done.

ALBERTA: We'd like to switch...

BUTTIGIEG: And that is why I want to make sure that our vision for climate includes people from the autoworker down the block from me in South Bend to a farmer a few minutes away so that they understand that we are asking, recruiting them to be part of the solution, not beating them over the head and telling them they're part of the problem.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We'd like to switch gears slightly.

Vice President Biden, I'd like to ask you. Three consecutive American presidents have enjoyed stints of explosive economic growth due to a boom in oil and natural gas production. As president, would you be willing to sacrifice some of that growth, even knowing potentially that it could displace thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers in the interest of transitioning to that greener economy?

BIDEN: The answer is yes. The answer is yes, because the opportunity -- the opportunity for those workers to transition to high-paying jobs, as Tom said, is real. We're the only country in the world that's ever taken great, great crises and turned them into enormous opportunities.

I've met with the union leaders. For example, we should, in fact, be making that -- making sure right now that every new building built is energy contained, that it doesn't leak energy, that, in fact -- we should be providing tax credits for people to be able to make their homes turn to solar power, where -- there's all kinds of folks out here, right here in California, who are now on the verge of having batteries that are about the size of the top of this podium that you can store energy when, in fact, the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining.

We have enormous opportunities. For example, you talk about, would we relocate people who, in fact, were in a position where they lost their home? We have to not rebuild to the standard that existed before when we talk about when we come in and help people. We have to rebuild with the standard that exists today.

For example, we shouldn't build another new highway in America that doesn't have charging stations on it. We have an opportunity to put 550,000 charging stations so that we own the electrical vehicle market, creating millions of jobs for people installing them, as well as making sure that we own the electric vehicle market. There are so many things we can do, and we have to make sure we explain it to those people who are displaced, that their skills are going to be needed for the new opportunities.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Vice President Biden.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: Tim, in all due respect, your question misses the mark. It is not an issue of relocating people in towns. The issue now is whether we save the planet for our children and our grandchildren.

(APPLAUSE)

The issue, as you should know, what the scientists are telling us is they have underestimated the threat and severity of climate change. You're talking about the Paris agreement, that's fine. Ain't enough. We have got to -- and I've introduced legislation to do this -- declare a national emergency.

The United States has got to lead the world. And maybe, just maybe, instead of spending $1.8 trillion a year globally on weapons of destruction, maybe an American president, i.e. Bernie Sanders, can lead the world, instead of spending money to kill each other, maybe we pool our resources and fight our common enemy, which is climate change.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator Sanders. Thank you, Senator Sanders.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Warren, a new question to you, Senator Warren. Many of our Western allies rely heavily on nuclear energy because it's efficient, affordable, and virtually carbon-free. And many climate experts believe that it's impossible to realize your goal of net zero emissions by the year 2050 without utilizing nuclear energy. So can you have it both ways on this issue?

WARREN: So I see right now is we've got to get the carbon -- we've got to stop putting more carbon into the air. We've got to get the carbon out of the air and out of the water. And that means that we need to keep some of our nuclear in place.

I will not build more nuclear. I want to put the energy, literally, and the money and the resources behind clean energy and by increasing by tenfold what we put into science, what we put into research and development. We need to do what we do best, and that is innovate our way out of this problem and be a world leader.

But understand, the biggest climate problem we face is the politicians in Washington who keep saying the right thing but continue to take money from the oil industry, continue to bow down to the lobbyists, to the lawyers, to the think-tanks, to the bought-and-paid-for experts.

America understands that we've got to make change and we're running out of time, that climate change threatens every living thing on this planet. But getting Congress to act, you know, they just don't want to hear it. And if we don't attack the corruption first, if we don't attack the corruption head-on, then we're not going to be able to make the changes we need to make on climate, on gun safety, on drug pricing, on all of the big problems that face us.

ALBERTA: Thank you.

WARREN: We need a Washington that doesn't just work for the rich and the powerful. We need one that works for our families.

(APPLAUSE)

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator.

Senator Klobuchar, and then I would like to bring in Mr. Yang and Mr. Steyer for follow-ups.

KLOBUCHAR: Yeah, I want to add to what Elizabeth said. So the way we tackle corruption is by winning big in this election. And the way we take on climate change in a big way is by, yes, talking about what's happening on the coasts, as I just did, but also talking about what's happening in the Midwest, where I'm from. It's not flyover country to me. I live there.

And what we are seeing there is unprecedented flooding. We're seeing an increase, 50 percent increase in homeowners insurance over the last few years. And when we make these changes, we have to make clear to people that when we put a price on carbon, that that money is going to come back to those areas where people are going to be hurt, where jobs are going to change, and to make them whole with their energy bills.

When you make the case like that, you bring in the Midwestern votes. You win big. And I think the best way to do it is by putting someone at the top of the ticket who is from the Midwest.

(APPLAUSE)

ALBERTA: Mr. Yang, Mr. Yang, 45 seconds, on the issue of nuclear energy.

YANG: Well, first, we should obviously be paying to relocate Americans away from places that are hit by climate change. We're already doing it. We relocated a town in Louisiana that became uninhabitable because the sea levels rose. And we know that town is not alone. That's playing out in coastal areas around the country.

The question is, do you leave that town on its own to fend for itself? Or do you come together as a country and say, we need to protect our people from climate change?

Part of my plan is literally called "move people to higher ground," because that's what we need to do. And that's literal and figurative. Here in California, it's forest fires and forest management.

On nuclear power, I agree with the research. We need to have everything on the table in a crisis situation, which this is. Other countries have had success with nuclear power. And the next generation thorium reactors have a wealth of potential. Thorium is not radioactive the way uranium is. It doesn't last as long. And you can't make a weapon out of it. If we're going to innovate our way out of this, as...

ALBERTA: Thank you, Mr. Yang.

YANG: ... Elizabeth is saying, then we have to have nuclear on the table.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Mr. Yang. The last word climate to you, Mr. Steyer.

STEYER: Look, the point about nuclear power is, it's not at the stage in the United States where it's competitive on price. It has a lot of risks to it in terms of disasters. And we have no ability to store the toxins that come out of it and last 100,000 years.

We actually have the technology that we need. It's called wind and solar and batteries. So, in fact, what we need to do, we can do. We've got to stop taking a look at this as something that we can't do, because we can do this, and we can do it in a way that creates, rebuilds this country on an accelerated basis, creates millions of union jobs, and we come at it from the standpoint of environmental justice.

This is our greatest opportunity to reinvent this country, to actually take on the biggest challenge in history and succeed together. You want to pull the country together with all this partisanship? Let's take on the biggest challenge in history and succeed together as a nation. That's what pulls people together.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Mr. Steyer. Amna?

(APPLAUSE)

NAWAZ: Thanks, Tim.

Vice President Biden, you've been reassuring voters that things will return to normal once President Trump leaves office, that Republicans will have what you call an epiphany and come to the table to work with a Biden administration. But given everything that you have seen from current Republicans, what evidence is there that things will change?

BIDEN: Look, I didn't say return to normal. Normal's not enough. Normal -- in fact, we have to move beyond normal, whether it's health care, the environment, whatever it is. We have to build on what we had started in our administration, and that's been interrupted very badly, number one.

Number two, with Trump out of the way, it's not going to change things in a fundamental way. But what it will do is it will mean that we're in a position where he's not going to be able to intimidate the base, his base is not going to be able to intimidate those half a dozen Republicans we may need in other things.

I refuse to accept the notion, as some on this stage do, that we can never, never get to a place where we have cooperation again. If that's the case, we're dead as a country. We need to be able to reach a consensus. And if anyone has reason to be angry with the Republicans and not want to cooperate it's me, the way they've attacked me, my son, and my family. I have no -- no -- no love.

(APPLAUSE)

But the fact is, we have to -- we have to be able to get things done. And when we can't convince them, we go out and beat them like we did in the 2018 election in red states and in purple states.

(APPLAUSE)

NAWAZ: Thank you, Mr. Biden.

Mr. Yang, I want to switch topics to you, Mr. Yang, a new question. The Democratic Party relies on black, Hispanic, and Asian voters, but you are the only candidate of color on the stage tonight, and the entire field remains overwhelmingly white. What message do you think this sends to voters of color?

YANG: It's both an honor and disappointment to be the lone candidate of color on the stage tonight. I miss Kamala, I miss Cory, though I think Cory will be back.

(APPLAUSE)

I grew up the son of immigrants, and I had many racial epithets used against me as a kid. But black and Latinos have something much more powerful working against them than words. They have numbers. The average net worth of a black household is only 10 percent that of a white household. For Latinos, it's 12 percent. If you're a black woman, you're 320 percent more likely to die from complications in childbirth.

These are the numbers that define race in our country. And the question is, why am I the lone candidate of color on this stage? Fewer than 5 percent of Americans donate to political campaigns. You know what you need to donate to political campaigns? Disposable income.

(APPLAUSE)

The way that we fix it -- the way we fix this is we take Martin Luther King's message of a guaranteed minimum income, a freedom dividend of $1,000 a month for all Americans. I guarantee, if we had a freedom dividend of $1,000 a month, I would not be the only candidate of color on this stage tonight.

(APPLAUSE)

NAWAZ: Thank you, Mr. Yang.

Senator Sanders, I do want to put the same question to you, Senator Sanders. What message do you think...

SANDERS: I will answer that question, but I wanted to get back to the issue of climate change for a moment, because I do believe this is the existential issue.

NAWAZ: Senator, with all respect, this question is about race. Can you answer the question as it was asked?

(APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: I certainly can. Because people of color, in fact, are going to be the people suffering most if we do not deal with climate change.

(APPLAUSE)

And by the way, we have an obligation up here, if there are not any of our African-American brothers and sisters up here, to speak about an economy in which African-Americans are exploited, where black women die three times at higher rates than white women, where we have a criminal justice system which is racist and broken, disproportionately made up of African-Americans and Latinos and Native Americans who are in jail.

So we need an economy that focuses on the needs of oppressed, exploited people, and that is the African-American community.

NAWAZ: Thank you, Senator.

Yamiche?

ALCINDOR: Thank you, Amna.

Senator Klobuchar, here in California, people who identify as Hispanic, black, Asian, or multiracial represent a majority of the population, outnumbering white residents. The United States is expected to be majority nonwhite within a generation. What do you say to white Americans who are uncomfortable with the idea of becoming a racial minority, even if you don't share their concerns?

KLOBUCHAR: I say this is America. You're looking at it. And we are not going to be able to succeed in the world if we do not invite everyone to be part of our economy.

Our Constitution says that we strive for a more perfect union. Well, that's what we are doing right now. And to me, that means, one, that everyone can vote, and that includes our communities of color. This action that's been taken by this president and his people and his governors all over the country is wrong. They have made it harder for African-Americans to vote, as one court said, discriminated with surgical precision.

What would I do? As one of the leaders on voting in the U.S. Senate, one, stop the purging. As Stacey Abrams said, you know, you do not stop having your right to assemble if you don't go to a meeting for a year. Because you don't go to a church or a synagogue or a mosque for three months, you don't lose your right to worship. You shouldn't lose your right to vote.

(APPLAUSE)

I would pass as president my bill to register every kid in this country when they turn 18 to vote. That would make all of these discriminatory actions in these states go away. And I would stop the gerrymandering, in addition to the agenda of economic opportunity, because as Martin Luther King said, what good is it to integrate a lunch counter if you can't afford a hamburger?

(APPLAUSE)

ALCINDOR: Thank you, Senator. Let's now turn to the issue of foreign policy and the Middle East. Senator Sanders, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently declared that the United States believes Israeli settlements in the West Bank do not violate international law. That broke decades-long U.S. precedent. How would you respond to Israeli expansion of settlements? Would you link that to foreign aid to Israel?

SANDERS: Israel has -- and I say this as somebody who lived in Israel as a kid, proudly Jewish -- Israel has the right not only to exist, but to exist in peace and security.

But what -- but what U.S. foreign policy must be about is not just being pro-Israel. We must be pro-Palestinian, as well.

(APPLAUSE)

And whether, in my view -- we must understand that right now in Israel we have leadership under Netanyahu, who has recently, as you know, been indicted for bribery, who, in my view, is a racist -- what we need is a level playing field in terms of the Middle East, which addresses the terrible crisis in Gaza, where 60 percent or 70 percent of the young people are unemployed.

So what my foreign policy will be about is human rights, is democracy, is bringing people together in a peaceful way, trying to negotiate agreements, not endless wars with trillions of dollars of expenses.

ALCINDOR: Thank you, Senator.

Mayor Buttigieg?

BUTTIGIEG: What we are seeing in the Middle East and around the world are the consequences of this president's failure, this president's refusal to lead. It's particularly disturbing in the case of Israel because he has infused domestic politics, making U.S. foreign policy choices in order to effectively interfere in Israeli domestic politics, acting as though that somehow makes him pro-Israel and pro-Jewish, while welcoming white nationalists into the White House.

But it's not only in the Middle East that we see the consequences of the disappearance of U.S. leadership. We see among our allies and among our adversaries case after case where the world is making plans on what to do, ignoring the United States, because we're no longer considered reliable.

It's not just the mockery at a cocktail party on the sidelines of a conference. It's the looks on the faces of the leaders at the U.N. as they looked at the United States president with a mixture of contempt and pity.

As an American, I never again want to see the American president looked at that way by the leaders of the world. The world needs America right now. But it can't be just any America. It has to be one that is actually living up to the values that make us who we are: supporting peace, supporting democracy, supporting human rights, and supporting stability around the world.

(APPLAUSE)

ALCINDOR: Thank you, Mayor Buttigieg.

Senator Warren, President Obama pledged to close the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay but could not. Forty prisoners remain there. Last year, U.S. taxpayers paid $540 million to keep Guantanamo open. Would you pledge to finally close the detention facility? And if elected, how will you do it?

WARREN: Yes. It is time to close this detention facility. It not only costs us money, it is an international embarrassment.

We have to be an America that lives our values every single day. We can't be an America that stands up and asks people to fight alongside us, as we did with the Kurds in fighting ISIS, and then turn around in the blink of a tweet and say that we're turning our backs on the people who stood beside us. After that, who wants to be an ally of the United States?

We have to be an America that understands the difference and recognizes the difference between our allies, the people who will work alongside us, and the dictators who would do us harm.

And we need to treat our allies better than we treat the dictators. That needs to be our job as an America.

(APPLAUSE)

We have -- we have the finest military on Earth. All three of my brothers served. And we have people on this stage who have served, and I am deeply grateful for that. Our military is strong and important, but we need to be an America that relies on our State Department, that relies on diplomacy, that relies on our economic power and that relies on working together with the rest of the world to build a world that is sustainable environmentally and economically for everyone.

ALCINDOR: Thank you. Thank you, Senator Warren.

Vice President Biden, why couldn't you close Guantanamo Bay? Why couldn't the Obama administration close Guantanamo Bay?

BIDEN: We attempted to close Guantanamo Bay, but you have to have congressional authority to do it. They've kept it open. And the fact is that we, in fact, think it's greatest -- it is an advertisement for creating terror.

Look, what we have done around the world in terms of keeping Guantanamo open or what Trump has done by no longer being an honest broker in Israel, there's no solution for Israel other than a two-state solution. It does not exist. It's not possible to have a Jewish state in the Middle East without there being a two-state solution.

And he has played to all the same fears and all the prejudices that exist in this country and in Israel. Bibi Netanyahu and I know one another well. He knows that I think what he's doing is outrageous.

What we do is, we have to put pressure constantly on the Israelis to move to a two-state solution, not withdraw physical aid from them in terms of their security.

And lastly, I think that...

ALCINDOR: Thank you, Vice President Biden.

BIDEN: ... Senator Warren is correct. We have led by not the example of our power, but the power of our example. And the example we're demonstrating now is horrible. It's hurting us badly.

ALCINDOR: Thank you, Vice President Biden. Judy?

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: I want to turn to another part of the world, and that's China. Mayor Buttigieg, you have said that you think China presents more of a challenge than do your fellow candidates believe. The U.S. clearly wants China's cooperation on human rights, on climate change, on North Korea, on terrorism. And yet Americans are appalled by China's record on human rights, including the detention of over a million Muslim Uighurs. Should the U.S., is my question, do more than protest and issue sanctions? Should the U.S., for example, boycott the 2022 Beijing Olympics?

BUTTIGIEG: I think that any tool ought to be on the table, especially diplomatic, economic, and social tools, like what you're describing.

Look, for the president to let it be known that his silence, whether it's on the rounding up of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, putting them into camps, or the aspirations of the people of Hong Kong for democracy, for him to let China know that his silence can be purchased is trashing American values.

The reality is that there's a lot more to the relationship with China than who's selling more dishwashers. Yes, we need a much smarter trade policy. We also have to acknowledge what's going on over there: the use of technology for the perfection of dictatorship.

That is going to require a stronger than ever response from the U.S. in defense of democracy. But when folks out there standing up for democracy hear not a peep from the president of the United States, what message is that sending to the Chinese Communist Party?

The message I will send is that if they perpetrate a repeat of anything like Tiananmen Square, when it comes to Hong Kong, they will be isolated from the free world, and we will lead that isolation diplomatically and economically.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Mr. Steyer, many Americans have been moved in the last months by the protests of the people of Hong Kong. It is Chinese territory, but what could you, would you do as president if the Chinese government moved in militarily?

STEYER: Look, there is a temptation, particularly for this president, to try and answer that on a bilateral -- in a bilateral way. The way the United States should be reacting in Hong Kong is by gathering our coalition of democracy- and freedom-loving partners and allies to push back.

In fact, when we're making moral statements around the world, it should not be us threatening and trying to be the world's policeman. It should be us leading on a value-driven basis with the other people who share our values and want to change the world.

We actually can't isolate ourselves from China. In fact, we have to work with them as a frenemy. People who disturb us, who we disagree with, but who, in effect, we are linked to in a world that is ever getting closer. And, in fact, if we are going to treat climate as the threat that it is, we are going to have to partner with the Chinese. They are going to have to come along with us. They're going to have to trust us. And together we're going to have to solve this problem.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

STEYER: So the ability to say what's off the table -- we need a good relationship with them and we're going to have to work with them going forward under all circumstances.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

Vice President Biden, on China, we now know that China is engaged in an unprecedented military build-up. They have just launched a new aircraft carrier. There are new signs of their disturbing espionage campaign here inside the United States. There are a number of disturbing signs from the Chinese.

National security scholars have long warned about the historical precedent that when there's a ruling power and a rising power, there's likely to be a war. Is the U.S. on a collision course with China?

BIDEN: It's not...

WOODRUFF: What steps could you take as president?

BIDEN: It's on a collision course with China, but not for war. What we have to make clear is that we, in fact, are not going to abide by what they've done. A million Uighurs, as you pointed out, Muslims, are in concentration camps. That's where they are right now. They're being abused. They're in concentration camps.

And what we started in our administration that Trump stopped, we should be moving 60 percent of our sea power to that area of the world to let, in fact, the Chinese understand that they're not going to go any further. We are going to be there to protect other folks.

Secondly, we, in fact, should make sure that we begin to rebuild our alliances, which Trump has demolished, with Japan and South Korea, Australia and all -- and Indonesia. We, in fact, need to have allies who understand that we're going to stop the Chinese from their actions.

We should be going to the U.N. immediately and sought sanctions against them in the United Nations for what they did. We have to be firm. We don't have to go to war. But we have to make it clear, this is as far as you go, China.

And in terms of their military build-up, it's real. But it would take them about 17 years to build up to where we are. We're not looking for a war. But we've got to make clear, we are a Pacific power and we are not going to back away.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Yang and then Senator Klobuchar.

(APPLAUSE)

YANG: I have family in Hong Kong. I spent four months there and seeing what's happening on the streets. It's shocking. They banned face masks in Hong Kong. Why? Because they have AI technology that now is using facial recognition to identify protesters if they so much as do anything on the street so they can follow up with them and detain them later.

This is the rivalry that we have to win where China is concerned. They're in the process of leapfrogging us in AI because they have more data than we do and their government is subsidizing it to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.

I have sat with our leading technologists and they say they cannot match the Chinese resources. China just produced its first major smartphone that does not have Google apps and it is now trying to export its technology to the rest of the world.

What we have to do is build an international coalition to set technology standards, and then you can bring the Chinese to the table in a very real way, because this is their top priority, and this is where we need to outcompete them and win.

WOODRUFF: Senator Klobuchar?

(APPLAUSE)

KLOBUCHAR: When it comes to foreign policy, I think we need to keep our promises and keep our threats. And this president has done neither. In a country like China, their leaders, they watch that and they know. He has stood with dictators over innocents. He has stood with tyrants over free leaders. He does it all the time.

And I have a little different take than some of my colleagues when it comes to what happened at that conference with NATO. Yeah, they were making fun of them, some of the foreign leaders. I've heard senators make more fun of other senators than that.

The point of it was that he couldn't even tolerate it. He is so thin-skinned that he walked. He quit.

America doesn't quit. So if we want to send a message to the Chinese, we stand with our allies. We stand with them firmly. We have a very clear and coherent foreign policy when it comes to human rights.

Check out my website, amyklobuchar.com. I have the five R's of our foreign policy, about reasserting our values, rejoining international agreements, like the Iranian nuclear agreement. But it all comes down to one R: returning to sanity.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Mayor Buttigieg, and then we're going to take a break.

BUTTIGIEG: I'm actually not worried about the president's bad sense of humor when it comes to being made fun of. I'm worried about the fact that he is echoing the vocabulary of dictators around the world.

When the American president refers to unfavorable press coverage as the product of the "enemy of the people," democracy around the world gets weaker. Freedom of the press not just here at home but around the world gets weaker. It's one more reminder of what is at stake, not just here at home, but for world history in the imperative that we win this election.

KLOBUCHAR: Could I respond?

BUTTIGIEG: This is our chance.

WOODRUFF: Very brief. Very brief.

KLOBUCHAR: OK. I just want to make very clear, Mayor, that the freedom of the press is deep in my heart. My dad was a newspaperman. And I am the one that asked every attorney general candidate we've had under Donald Trump, both of whom I opposed, about their respect for the First Amendment. And they have refused, they have refused to follow the rules that Attorney General Holder put in place when it came to protecting our journalists.

They would not commit that they wouldn't put a journalist in jail for doing their job. So this is not just talking points to me. This is the real world. And I think that experience that I will bring to the White House, with protecting the First Amendment, is worth more than any talking points.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: We are going to take a short break, and we will be -- we'll be right back with more questions.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: Welcome back to the PBS NewsHour-Politico Democratic presidential debate. I'm Judy Woodruff, joined by my PBS NewsHour colleagues, Amna Nawaz and Yamiche Alcindor, by Tim Alberta of Politico.

Now let's turn to the next question from Tim.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Judy. Candidates, let's make things interesting. Former President Obama said this week when asked who should be running countries that if women were in charge, you'd see a significant improvement on just about everything.

(APPLAUSE)

He also said, quote, "If you look at the world and look at the problems, it's usually old people, usually old men, not getting out of the way."

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Sanders, you are the oldest candidate on stage this evening.

SANDERS: And I'm white, as well. Yes.

ALBERTA: How do you respond to what the former president had to say?

SANDERS: Well, I got a lot of respect for Barack Obama. I think I disagree with him on this one. Maybe a little self-serving, but I do disagree.

Here is the issue. The issue is where power resides in America, and it's not white or black or male or female. We are living in a nation increasingly becoming an oligarchy, where you have a handful of billionaires who spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying elections and politicians.

You have more income and wealth inequality today than at any time since the 1920s. We are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care for all people, which is why we need Medicare for all.

We are facing an existential crisis of climate change. The issue is not old or young, male or female. The issue is working people standing up, taking on the billionaire class, and creating a government and economy that works for all, not just the 1 percent.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator Sanders.

Vice President Biden, I'm going to guess that President Obama did not clear that remark through your campaign ahead of time.

BIDEN: And I'm going to guess...

ALBERTA: What do you say to it?

BIDEN: And I'm going to guess he wasn't talking about me, either.

MORE

XXX about me, either.

ALBERTA: OK.

BIDEN: Number one. Look, I'm running -- I'm running because I've been around, on my experience. With experience hopefully comes judgment and a little bit of wisdom. The fact is that we're in a position now, the next president of the United States is going to inherit two things, an economy that is out of kilter and a domestic policy that needs to be -- where we have to unite America. And a foreign policy that requires somebody to be able to on day one stand up, look out, the entire world know who that person is, know what they stand for, and know they know them.

And that's what -- that's the reason I'm running. I have more experience in doing that than anybody on this stage.

ALBERTA: Just to follow up, Vice President Biden, if elected, if elected you would turn 82 at the end of your first term. You'd be the oldest president in American history.

BIDEN: More like Winston Churchill.

ALBERTA: Are you willing -- are you willing to commit -- American history.

BIDEN: Oh, American history.

ALBERTA: Yes. Are you...

BIDEN: I was joking. That was a joke.

ALBERTA: OK.

(LAUGHTER)

Appreciate it.

BIDEN: Politico doesn't have much of a sense of humor.

ALBERTA: Oh, we've got a great sense of humor. They wouldn't have put me on stage otherwise. Are you willing to commit tonight to running for a second term if you're elected next November?

BIDEN: No, I'm not willing to commit one way or another. Here's the deal. I'm not even elected one term yet, and let's see where we are. Let's see what happens.

(APPLAUSE)

But it's a nice thought.

ALBERTA: Senator Klobuchar, you had your hand raised.

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you for asking a woman this question. I think...

(APPLAUSE)

First of all, we have not had enough women in our government. When I was on Trevor Noah's show once, I explained how in the history of the Senate, there was something like 2,000 men and only 50 women in the whole history. And he said if a nightclub had numbers that bad, they would shut it down.

(LAUGHTER)

However, it is not just about numbers. It's about what you get done. And that is my argument. If you look at the poll -- the state that knows me best, and that is the state of Minnesota, it showed in the state that Hillary had her lowest margin of victory, it showed that I'd beat Donald Trump by 18 points. I beat him with men more than anyone on this stage.

So I think what matters in this election is, can you bring in those rural and suburban areas, particularly in the Midwest? And number two, what will you do when you get there? And I am someone that has passed over 100 bills, with men and women, with Republicans and with Democrats, including changing the sexual harassment laws for the United States Congress, a bill I led so taxpayers are no longer going to have to pay for people that harass other people.

ALBERTA: Senator Warren...

KLOBUCHAR: I have passed a law for drug shortages. I have done work in our rural areas. I think that's what most matters to people. I would be so proud to be the first woman president. But mostly I want to be a president that gets things done and improves people's lives.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator Klobuchar.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Warren, you would be the oldest president ever inaugurated. I'd like you to weigh in, as well.

WARREN: I'd also be the youngest woman ever inaugurated.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

I believe that President Obama was talking about who has power in America, whose voices get heard. I believe he's talking about women and people of color and trans people and people whose voices just so often get shoved out.

And for me, the best way to understand that is to look at how people are running their campaigns in 2020. You know, I made the decision when I decided to run not to do business as usual. And now I'm proud to have been in 100,000 selfies. That's 100,000 hugs and handshakes and stories, stories from people who are struggling with student loan debt, stories from people who can't pay their medical bills, stories from people who can't find childcare.

Now, most of the people on this stage run a traditional campaign. And that means going back and forth from coast to coast to rich people and people who can put up $5,000 bucks or more in order to have a picture taken, in order to have a conversation, and in order maybe to be considered to be an ambassador.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator Warren.

WARREN: Those selfies -- no, I want to finish this. Those selfies cost nobody anything. And I get it. In a democracy, we all have a lot of different points of view. And everybody gets one vote.

But here's the thing. People who can put down $5,000 to have a picture taken don't have the same priorities as people who are struggling with student loan debt or who are struggling to pay off medical debt.

I want -- I'm running a campaign where people whose voices get heard. We can't have...

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator Warren. We're...

WARREN: We can't have people who can put down $5,000 for a check drown out the voices of everyone else.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator Warren.

WARREN: They don't in my campaign, and they won't in my White House.

ALBERTA: Mayor Buttigieg -- Mayor Buttigieg, you had your hand raised.

(APPLAUSE)

BUTTIGIEG: Well, can't help but feel that might have been directed at me. And here is the thing. We're in the fight of our lives right now. Donald Trump and his allies have made it abundantly clear that they will stop at nothing, not even foreign interference to hold onto power. They've already put together more than $300 million.

This is our chance. This is our only chance to defeat Donald Trump. And we shouldn't try to do it with one hand tied behind our back.

The way we're going to win is to bring everybody to our side in this fight. If that means that you're a grad student digging deep to go online to peteforamerica.com and chip in $10 bucks, that's great. And if you can drop $1,000 without blinking, that's great, too. We need everybody's help in this fight. I'm not going to turn away anyone who wants to help us defeat Donald Trump.

We need Democrats who've been with us all along, yes, but we also need independents worried about the direction of the country. If you're a Republican disgusted with what's going on in your own party, we're not going to agree on everything, but we need you in this fight, and I will welcome you to our side.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Warren, 45 seconds to respond.

WARREN: So the mayor just recently had a fundraiser that was held in a wine cave full of crystals and served $900-a-bottle wine. Think about who comes to that. He had promised that every fundraiser he would do would be open door, but this one was closed door. We made the decision many years ago that rich people in smoke-filled rooms would not pick the next president of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

Billionaires in wine caves should not pick the next president of the United States.

ALBERTA: Mr. Mayor, your response?

BUTTIGIEG: You know, according to Forbes magazine, I am literally the only person on this stage who is not a millionaire or a billionaire.

(APPLAUSE)

So if -- this is important. This is the problem with issuing purity tests you cannot yourself pass.

(APPLAUSE)

If I pledge -- if I pledge never to be in the company of a progressive Democratic donor, I couldn't be up here. Senator, your net worth is 100 times mine. Now, supposing that you went home feeling the holiday spirit -- I know this isn't likely, but stay with me -- and decided to go onto peteforamerica.com and gave the maximum allowable by law, $2,800, would that pollute my campaign because it came from a wealthy person? No, I would be glad to have that support. We need the support from everybody who is committed to helping us defeat Donald Trump.

(APPLAUSE)

ALBERTA: We would like to bring everyone, but obviously, Senator Warren, would like to give you a chance to respond.

WARREN: I do not sell access to my time. I don't do call time with millionaires and billionaires.

BUTTIGIEG: Hold on a second. Sorry, as of when, Senator?

WARREN: I don't meet -- I don't meet behind closed doors with big dollar donors. And, look, I have taken one that ought to be an easy step for everyone here. I've said to anyone who wants to donate to me, if you want to donate to me, that's fine, but don't come around later expecting to be named ambassador, because that's what goes on in these high-dollar fundraisers.

I said no, and I asked everybody on this stage to join me. This ought to be an easy step. And here's the problem. If you can't stand up and take the steps that are relatively easy, can't stand up to the wealthy and well connected when it's relatively easy when you're a candidate, then how can the American people believe you're going to stand up to the wealthy and well-connected when you're president and it's really hard?

(APPLAUSE)

KLOBUCHAR: Judy -- Judy...

BUTTIGIEG: Senator, Senator, I've got to respond.

ALBERTA: Mr. Mayor, we're going to give you one more chance to respond.

BUTTIGIEG: First of all, if you can't say no to a donor, then you have no business running for office in the first place. But also, Senator, your presidential campaign right now as we speak is funded in part by money you transferred, having raised it at those exact same big-ticket fundraisers you now denounce. Did it corrupt you, Senator? Of course not.

So to denounce the same kind of fundraising guidelines that President Obama went by, that Speaker Pelosi goes by, that you yourself went by until not long ago, in order to build the Democratic Party and build a campaign ready for the fight of our lives, these purity tests shrink the stakes of the most important election...

(CROSSTALK)

ALBERTA: We'd like to bring everyone in. We'd like to bring everyone in.

(CROSSTALK)

ALBERTA: But, Senator Klobuchar, had your hand up first. We'd like to call on you.

(CROSSTALK)

KLOBUCHAR: I did not come here to listen to this argument. I came here to make a case for progress. And I have never even been to a wine cave. I've been to the wind cave in South Dakota, which I suggest you go to.

So what is making a case for progress about? That is what unites us up here instead of what divides us, which is campaign finance reform. That means passing a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. It means making the first bill we pass when I am president will be H.R. 1, which is the ethics reform passed in the House, which is currently sitting on Mitch McConnell's desk, along with 400 bills. And if you don't think we can get this done, well, we can, but only if we win this election big.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator.

KLOBUCHAR: Not by arguing with each other, but by finding what unites us and getting this done.

(APPLAUSE)

I came to make a case for progress.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator Klobuchar. Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: I am -- I am rather proud, maybe, I don't know, the only candidate up here that doesn't have any billionaire contributions. But you know what I do have? We have received more contributions from more individuals than any candidate in the history of the United States of America at this point in an election, averaging $18 a piece.

Now, there's a real competition going on up here. My good friend, Joe, and he is a good friend, he's received contributions from 44 billionaires. Pete, on the other hand, he's trailing, Pete. You only got 39 billionaires contributing. So, Pete, we look forward to you. I know you're an energetic guy and a competitive guy to see if you can take on Joe on that issue.

But what is not -- what is not a laughing matter, my friends, this is why three people own more wealth than the bottom half. This is why Amazon and other major corporations pay zero in federal taxes. We need to get money out of politics. We should run our campaigns on that basis.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator.

(APPLAUSE)

Vice President Biden, 45 seconds to respond.

BIDEN: My average contributions is $43, number one. That's number one.

Number two, the idea that the senator suggested, that I am in the pocket of billionaires, when, in fact, they oppose everything that I have ever done and continue to do, I have made sure from the very beginning every one of my fundraisers is open to the press, every single solitary one. Not one single time, period.

And I have made sure that you know exactly where all the -- and the largest contribution I have accepted is $2,800, which is allowed under law. And I'm the first person to introduce the constitutional amendment to make sure that there is no -- all public funding of elections. End all private funding.

And we all should take a commitment, make a commitment to that right now on this stage. In the meantime, you got to fund a campaign, and we, in fact, have funded a campaign, average contribution $43.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Vice President. Mr. Steyer, I would like to bring you in.

STEYER: Listen, I am running because this government is broken, because it's purchased by corporations. And I've spent 10 years fighting those corporations and beating them and building grassroots organizations to push power down to the people. That's what I've been doing for a decade.

But let me say this. There's someone who is loving this conversation, and his name is Donald Trump.

BIDEN: That's right.

STEYER: We know how he's going to run. He's told us last week he looked at a group of Americans and said, "I don't like you. You don't like me. It doesn't matter. You're going to support me because the Democrats will destroy the economy in 15 minutes."

We need to go after this guy. He's a different breed of cat, and we need to beat him. And we need to talk about prosperity. And I spent 25 years building a business. We're going to have to take him on, on the economy, not have these kinds of conversations and tear each other down, but actually go after...

ALBERTA: Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

STEYER: ... this corrupt president and beat him on the economy where he thinks he's king and where, in fact, he's a fraud and a failure.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Mr. Steyer. We're going to end it there.

(APPLAUSE)

Amna?

NAWAZ: Thanks, Tim. I want to turn now to an issue that's been in the headlines quite a bit, and that is immigration. Mr. Yang, we have a question here from a professor right here at Loyola, Marymount. There are nearly 200,000 DACA recipients, so-called Dreamers, in the state of California, more than any other state, including several students right here at LMU. If you win and you reinstate DACA through executive action, another president could just overturn it again. So will you move on a permanent legislative fix for Dreamers in your first 100 days, if elected?

YANG: Of course I would. I'm the son of immigrants myself, and I know that Dreamers are essentially Americans in everything but this legal classification.

(APPLAUSE)

I just want to return to this conversation, because I think it's core. Our country is deeply misogynist, and most all of us know that. Money and men are tied together. That's where I thought Elizabeth was taking the conversation.

The fact is, strong societies would elect more female leaders. Strong men treat women well for the same reasons.

(APPLAUSE)

I'm on the record saying that you need both strong men and female leaders in government, because the fact is, if you get too many men alone and leave us alone for a while, we kind of become morons.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

So it's related to our campaign finance rules, because right now the fact is we operate in a fundamentally anti-woman marketplace. And that includes the marketplace for politicians. If we were to put 100 democracy dollars into the hands of every American voter, instead of 5 percent contributing, you'd see that rate skyrocket to 50 percent or 60 percent, and you'd have many, many more women who would run for office because they don't have to go shake the money tree in the wine cave.

(LAUGHTER)

NAWAZ: Thank you, Mr. Yang. I do...

KLOBUCHAR: Could I address...

NAWAZ: I'd like to follow up. The question, again, Mr. Yang, was about Dreamers.

KLOBUCHAR: Could I address immigration reform?

NAWAZ: You pledged to move -- you pledged to move on a permanent legislative fix in your first 100 days. Dreamers say that they are frustrated by Democrats' failure to prioritize their status in deal after deal. So why should Dreamers trust Democrats now?

YANG: I believe everyone on this stage would do the right thing by Dreamers in the first 100 days. I would make it a top priority. I'm the son of immigrants myself. The fact is, almost half of Fortune 500 companies were started by an immigrant or children of immigrants. Immigrants make our country stronger and more dynamic.

(APPLAUSE)

And immigrants are being scapegoated for issues they have absolutely nothing to do with. If you go to the factory in Michigan, it's not wall-to-wall immigrants. It's wall-to-wall robot arms and machines. We have to send the opposite message of this administration.

And as your president, I think I could send a very clear message, where if you are considering immigrating to this country and I am the president, you would realize my son or daughter can become president of the United States. That's the opposite of the current administration, and that's the message I would love to send to the world.

NAWAZ: Thank you, Mr. Yang.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Sanders, a related question to you.

SANDERS: Donald Trump...

NAWAZ: Actually, Senator Sanders -- Senator Sanders, I have a new question for you. You can respond to Mr. Yang's comments, as well.

SANDERS: I can't respond to the immigration question?

NAWAZ: This is related, sir. But there are estimated to be as many as 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., more than 2 million right here in California. If you have a chance to forge a bipartisan immigration reform plan, would you insist on a path to citizenship for all 12 million or just a segment of that population?

SANDERS: This is what I would do. Day one, executive order, restore the legal status of 1.8 million young people in the DACA program.

(APPLAUSE)

Day one, we change border policy so that federal agents will never snatch babies from the arms of their mothers.

(APPLAUSE)

Day one, day one, we introduce bipartisan legislation, which will, in fact, be comprehensive, which will result in a path toward citizenship for all of the 11 million who are undocumented. That is what the people of our country want.

(APPLAUSE)

Trump thinks mistakenly that he is going to win re-election by dividing us up. We are going to win this election by bringing our people together -- black and white and Latino, Native American, Asian American. That's what this campaign is about. That's what America must be about.

(APPLAUSE)

NAWAZ: Senator Klobuchar, you had your hand up.

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you. I started my day-to-day with a group of immigrants who were there talking to me about housing. And I thought about this president and what he's done. He has used our immigrants as political pawns. Every single day, he tries to draw a wedge. I will be a different president.

My view on this comes from experience. When I got to the Senate, Senator Kennedy asked me to be one of the two new senators that was in the group to work on the immigration reform package. We got so close to passing that. I voted for it. Not everyone did. But most of the Democrats did.

Then I was on the Judiciary Committee when President Obama was president. And we worked very hard on that immigration reform. We actually passed that with Republican votes.

Then I was in the small group that worked on the compromise on the Dreamers that would have solved that problem. We didn't get that done because this president gut-punched us.

NAWAZ: Thank you, Senator.

KLOBUCHAR: I will take my views. I will take this experience. I will get this done because immigrants don't diminish America. They are America.

NAWAZ: Thank you, Senator. Mr. Steyer, briefly, your response?

STEYER: Listen, I think it's important to note that this president is not against immigration. He's against immigration by nonwhite people.

WARREN: Yes.

(APPLAUSE)

STEYER: This is his attempt to divide us, as Senator Sanders said, on race. And that's what he's been doing since the very first day he started running for president. He's been vilifying non-white people. He's been trying to inflame his base and scare them that if, in fact, white people lose control of this country, that they're going to lose control of their lives.

And as somebody who lives in a majority-minority state, which is California, what he's doing is so wrong on so many different levels.

I agree with Senator Sanders. We have to reframe this argument completely. We have to go back to the idea that every American is worth being a full human being on every right. This is a racial argument by a racist president who's trying to divide us and who's vilifying people. It's absolutely wrong. And it's led him to break the laws of humanity in our name.

NAWAZ: Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

(APPLAUSE)

Mayor Buttigieg, a new question to you, Mr. Mayor. You said last month that the U.S. owes compensation to children separated from their families at the southern border. The consensus among child welfare experts is that those thousands of children will likely suffer lifelong trauma as a result of that separation. Are you committing as president to financial compensation for those thousands of children?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes, and they should have a fast track to citizenship, because what the United States did under this president to them was wrong. We have a moral obligation to make right what was broken.

And on the larger issue of immigration, my understanding of this issue isn't theoretical. It's not something I formed in committee rooms in Washington. It begins with the fact that my household, my family, came from abroad. My father immigrated to this country and became a U.S. citizen.

It comes from the fact that I'm the mayor of a city where neighborhoods that were left for dying are now coming back to life, largely because of the contributions mainly of Latino immigrants. And I've seen those same neighborhoods shut down, families huddling in church, panicking just because of the rumor of an ICE raid. That did not make our country safer.

KLOBUCHAR: Could I respond?

BUTTIGIEG: I had to look into the eyes of an 8-year-old boy whose father was deported, even though he had nothing so much as a traffic ticket against his name, and try to think of something to tell that boy because I couldn't tell him what he most wanted to hear, which is just that he was going to have his dad back. How could harming that young man possibly make America safer?

NAWAZ: Mr. Mayor, just...

BUTTIGIEG: When I am president, based on those experiences, I will make sure that this is a country of laws and of values. And that means not only ending these unspeakable, cruel practices at the border, but finally and truly fixing the immigration system that has needed a full overhaul since the 1980s.

NAWAZ: Mr. Mayor...

BUTTIGIEG: We cannot wait 4 years, 10 years. We cannot wait anymore to do something about this.

NAWAZ: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just to follow up...

(APPLAUSE)

... since you do support compensation for those families, should the U.S. also compensate descendants of enslaved people? Do you support reparations for African-Americans?

BUTTIGIEG: I support H.R. 40, which is the bill that has been proposed in Congress to establish a commission to look at reparations. But we shouldn't wait for that commission to do its work to do things that are reparative.

Remember, we're not talking about a gift to anybody. We're talking about mending what was broken. We're talking about the generational theft of the wealth of generations of African-Americans. And just crossing out a racist policy and replacing it with a neutral one is not enough to deliver equality.

Harms compound, just like a dollar saved in its value compounds over time. So does the value of a dollars stolen. And that is why the United States must act immediately with investments in minority-owned businesses, with investments in health equity, with investments in HBCUs, and on the longer term look at reparations so that we can mend what has been broken.

NAWAZ: Vice President Biden, do you support reparations?

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: Look, let me -- since I haven't spoken on this, I've got a chance. Number one, the reason we're the country we are is because of immigration. We've been able to cherry pick the best from every single continent.

The people who come here have determination, resilience. They are ready to stand up and work like the devil. We have 24 out of every 100 children in our schools today is Hispanic. The idea that we are going to walk away and not provide every opportunity for them is not only stupid and immoral, but it's bad for America.

They are the future of America and we should invest in them. Everybody will benefit from it, every single American. And you should get used to it. This is a nation of immigrants. That's who we are. That's why we're who we are. That's what makes us different. And we should invest in them.

(APPLAUSE)

NAWAZ: Thank you, Mr. Biden. Senator Klobuchar, you had your hand up.

KLOBUCHAR: Well, I was -- I was harkening back. I made my case on immigration to what the mayor said about Washington.

So I look at this a different way. When we were in the last debate, Mayor, you basically mocked the hundred years of experience on the stage. And what do I see on this stage? I see Elizabeth's work starting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and helping 29 million people.

(APPLAUSE)

I see the vice president's work in getting $2 billion for his cancer moon shot. I see Senator Sanders' work -- working to get the veterans bill passed across the aisle. And I see what I've done, which is to negotiate three farm bills and be someone that actually had major provisions put in those bills.

So while you can dismiss committee hearings, I think this experience works. And I have not denigrated your experience as a local official. I have been one.

BUTTIGIEG: You know -- I'm sorry.

KLOBUCHAR: I just think you should respect our experience when you look at how you evaluate someone who can get things done.

NAWAZ: Thank you, Senator.

Mr. Mayor, I'll give you a chance to respond.

(APPLAUSE)

BUTTIGIEG: You actually did denigrate my experience, Senator, and it was before the break, and I was going to let it go, because we got bigger fish to fry here. But you implied that my...

KLOBUCHAR: Oh, I don't think we have bigger fish to fry than picking a president of the United States.

BUTTIGIEG: You're right. And before the break, you seemed to imply that my relationship to the First Amendment was a talking point, as if anyone up here has any more or less commitment to the Constitution than anybody else up here.

Let me tell you about my relationship to the First Amendment. It is part of the Constitution that I raised my right hand and swore to defend with my life. That is my experience. And it may not be the same as yours, but it counts, Senator. It counts.

NAWAZ: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Senator Klobuchar, you have 45 seconds to respond.

KLOBUCHAR: I have been -- I certainly respect your military experience. That's not what this is about. This is about choosing a president.

And I know my view of this is I know you ran to be chair of the Democratic National Committee. That's not something that I wanted to do. I want to be president of the United States. And the point is, we should have someone heading up this ticket that has actually won and been able to show that they can gather the support that you talk about of moderate Republicans and independents, as well as a fired-up Democratic base, and not just done it once, I have done it three times.

I think winning matters. I think a track record of getting things done matters. And I also think showing our party that we can actually bring people with us, have a wider tent, have a bigger coalition, and, yes, longer coattails, that matters.

NAWAZ: Thank you, Senator. Yamiche?

(APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: Excuse me.

BUTTIGIEG: I got to respond to that. I got to respond to that. Senator, I know that, if you just go by vote totals, maybe what goes on in my city seems small to you. If you want to talk about the capacity to win, try putting together a coalition to bring you back to office with 80 percent of the vote as a gay dude in Mike Pence's Indiana.

(APPLAUSE)

KLOBUCHAR: Again, I would -- Mayor, if you -- if you had won in Indiana, that would be one thing. You tried and you lost by 20 points. I'm sorry. That's just the math.

SANDERS: Let's talk about how we -- excuse me. Let's talk about how we win an election, which is something everybody here wants to do, in terms of defeating the most dangerous president in American history. So let me tell you how you win it: You have the largest voter turnout in the history of America.

(APPLAUSE)

And you don't have -- you don't have the largest voter turnout unless you create energy and excitement. And you don't create energy and excitement unless you are prepared to take on the people who own America and are prepared to speak to the people who are working in America.

We need a progressive agenda -- Medicare for all, raising the minimum wage to a living wage, leading the world in combatting climate change, making public colleges and universities available to all...

ALCINDOR: Thank you. Thank you, Senator Sanders.

SANDERS: ... because we have free tuition, and canceling all student debt in this country.

ALCINDOR: Thank you, Senator Sanders.

(APPLAUSE)

I'd like to turn to a new subject, and that is, of course, education. Senator Warren, you've proposed free public college tuition and student loan forgiveness for most families. Why should wealthy families be able to send their kids to public college for free? Why not concentrate that government help on those most in need?

WARREN: So, as I've talked about before, I have a two cent wealth tax proposed for millionaires and billionaires, and that gives us enough money to invest in all of our babies, age 0 to 5, to put an historic $800 billion investment in public schools K through 12, and that will permit us to offer technical school, two-year college, four-year college for every single person who wants an education, cancel student loan debt for 50 -- put a $50 billion investment in our historically black colleges and universities, and cancel student loan debt for 43 million Americans.

Look, this is about money, but this is also about values. We need to make an investment in our future, and the best way to do that is let's invest in the public education of our children. That starts when you're babies and it goes long after high school.

We want to have families. I meet families every day in the selfie lines who talk about what it means to be crushed by student loan debt. That's why I have a proposal popular among Democrats, popular among Republicans, popular among independents, to ask those at the top to pay a little more so somebody can get rid of that student loan debt so they can make an investment in themselves, start a small business, buy a car, create a future for themselves and for this country.

ALCINDOR: Thank you, Senator. I see some hands, but I want to go to Mayor Buttigieg.

BUTTIGIEG: Can I respond?

ALCINDOR: Mayor Buttigieg, your plan offers free or discounted public college only to families making up to $150,000 a year. Do you think Senator Warren's plan offers free college to too many families?

BUTTIGIEG: I do think that if you're in that lucky top 10 percent -- I still wish you well, don't get me wrong. I just want you to go ahead and pay your own tuition.

Now, we can still have public service loan forgiveness for those who go into lower income fields to deal with that. But if you're in that top 10 percent, I think you're going to be for the most part OK.

And there is a very real choice on where every one of these tax dollars goes. So I very much agree with Senator Warren on raising more tax revenue from millionaires and billionaires. I just don't agree on the part about spending it on millionaires and billionaires when it comes to their college tuition.

ALCINDOR: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor Buttigieg.

WARREN: So -- no, wait, wait, wait.

ALCINDOR: I want to...

WARREN: No. He mentioned me by name.

ALCINDOR: I'm going to let -- I'm going to let you respond, Senator Warren. Go ahead.

WARREN: He mentioned me by name. Look, the mayor wants billionaires to pay one tuition for their own kids. I want a billionaire to pay enough to cover tuition for all of our kids, because that's how we build a future.

The other part is we've got to deal with student loan debt. And right now, most of the people on this stage are nibbling around the edges of a huge student loan debt burden that disproportionally affects people of color. African-Americans are more likely to have to borrow money to go to school, more likely to borrow more money while they're in school, and have a harder time paying it off.

We want to make an investment in the future? Then open up education for all of our kids. That's how we build a future.

ALCINDOR: Thank you, Senator. Senator Sanders?

KLOBUCHAR: Could I respond after Bernie?

SANDERS: We believe -- I believe in the concept of universality. And one of the crises in America today is people are sick and tired of filling out forms. So you're not eligible for the program today because you're at $150,000, but you lost your job, are you eligible? You get a better job, you're eligible.

I think what we have to do is what we do with Social Security, what we do with public education. Donald Trump's kids can go to a public school. They should be able to go to a public school.

What we need right now is a revolution in education. We have got to end this dysfunctional childcare system and make sure that every working-class person in this country can find high-quality, affordable childcare. We need to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. And by taxing billionaires and by taxing Wall Street, we will cancel all student debt in this country.

ALCINDOR: Thank you, Senator Sanders.

Tim?

ALBERTA: Switching gears here, Mr. Steyer, earlier this year in Iowa, I met a father, Bill Stumpf, and his son, Kyle, in Dubuque. Kyle is a remarkable young adult with significant disabilities. And though he's been employed for about five years at a local pizza parlor, the future is very uncertain for his family.

Bill worries that there aren't enough jobs, living facilities, social programs designed to meet the needs of his son. So I'm wonderful, as president, are there specific steps that you would take to help people like Kyle become more integrated into the workforce and into their local communities?

STEYER: Look, the United States has made a commitment to treat everybody equally. And that means supporting people with disabilities, both in terms of education and later when they're part of the workforce. That means bringing the resources to bear to make sure that we're treating them fairly, in school and after school, to try and integrate them fully and to make them have as full a life as possible.

The question we've got here across the board is, can we afford to do the kinds of things that Senator Sanders and Senator Warren are pushing? And the answer is yes, that, in fact, what we need to do is to undo the tax breaks that have been given for two generations to rich Americans and big corporations.

Last year, the top 400 corporations paid an 11 percent tax. That is absolutely ludicrous.

KLOBUCHAR: Could I answer the question?

(CROSSTALK)

STEYER: So the answer on disabilities is a question of focus and money, as so many of these questions are. We have a country where the government is broken because corporations have bought it, they're getting their way, and for us to get back to government of, by, and for the people that serves Americans, including Americans with disabilities, we're going to have to take that back.

(CROSSTALK)

ALBERTA: Mr. Yang, I didn't hear a specific answer from Mr. Steyer. Can you outline specific steps that the government should take to help integrate these young people into the workforce and into their local communities?

YANG: I would love it. I have a son with special needs. And to me, special needs is the new normal in this country. How many of you all have a family member or a friend or a neighbor with special needs or autism?

(APPLAUSE)

As you look around, most hands went up. The fact is right now, we have to do more for Kyle. Special needs children are going to become special needs adults in many cases. And here's the challenge. We go to employers and say, hey, this special needs person can be a contributor in your workplace, which may be correct, but that's not the point.

We have to stop confusing economic value and human value. We have to be able to say to our kids and Kyle that you have intrinsic value because you're an American and you're a human being.

We're going to put a freedom dividend of $1,000 a month in everyone's hands, which is going to help families around the country adapt. And then we're going to take this burden off of the communities and off of the schools who do not have the resources to support kids like my son and make it a federal priority, not a local one, so we're not robbing Peter to pay Paul.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Mr. Yang. We have to move on. Judy?

(APPLAUSE)

WARREN: No, no, no. No, no, no. Come on.

(CROSSTALK)

ALBERTA: Senator Warren, 45 seconds to you, please.

WARREN: So I was a special education teacher. And I loved that work, because it gave me a chance to work straight out with people to recognize the worth of every human being. I had 4- to 6-year-olds who were in special ed.

And what do we need to do? That's why I have a plan, as a special ed teacher, to fully fund IDEA, so every child with disabilities will get the full education they need.

My housing plan is about investing in more housing across this country, in rural America, in urban America, in small town America, but it's also about making sure that people who want to live independently, people who have disabilities, will have housing available to them.

I make a part of my jobs bill that we are going to make sure -- as president, I will make sure that the people who want to bid on federal contracts are treating people with disabilities fairly and paying them fairly.

You've got to go at it at every part of what we do, because as a nation, this is truly a measure of who we are. We believe in treating these, the least of thy brethren, as people of value. And that is how we make a better America.

(APPLAUSE)

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator Warren. Thank you, Senator Warren.

Judy?

WOODRUFF: I know we have a lot of hands up. We have so many important topics to discuss.

I want to come to you, Senator Klobuchar, on a question of the judges. President Trump has appointed, as we know, two Supreme Court justices. But he's also had confirmed nearly 200 federal judges, most of whom are young and can shape American law for decades to come.

Some of them you voted for in the Senate, including one who just yesterday joined a ruling to strike down a key part of the Affordable Care Act. Would President Trump's appointees -- my question is -- make it harder for you as president, for any of you on this stage to enact your agenda?

KLOBUCHAR: Of course. And I want to make it clear that I have opposed many, many judges. And I think everyone will remember what happened at the Kavanaugh hearing when that nominee went after me. I stood my ground and he had to apologize.

(APPLAUSE)

So I have been very strong on these judges. As for the judge you just referred to, there was actually -- the judge that wrote the opinion was a judge that went through the Senate unanimously, with support by Senator Sanders, with support by President Obama, with support by then-Senator Kennedy.

So I think it is very important, when we look at these judges, to acknowledge that there are some of these judges that you think are going to be OK and they aren't.

But what would I do as president? I would appoint judges that are in the vein of people like Elena Kagan and Justice Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, and let's not forget the notorious RBG. That's what I would do.

(APPLAUSE)

And if you look at my record as a lawyer and a member of the Judiciary Committee, look at the judges that I recommended to President Obama, people like Mimi Wright, who is a superstar, and Susan Richard Nelson. Look who I've put in as the first openly gay marshal in the history of the United States. I did that because I knew they were qualified people to take those jobs.

And you need to do it not only with the right judges and have that know-how, but you also have to do it right away. That is one thing that we all learned from when President Obama was in, and that was that he was dealing with an economic crisis and it was hard to do it right away, but we have to immediately start putting judges on the bench to fill vacancies so that we can reverse the horrific nature of these Trump judges.

WOODRUFF: A follow-up to Mayor Buttigieg. Beyond a pledge not to overturn Roe v. Wade, which I believe all of you have said would be part of your decision-making in choosing a nominee to the court, are there other litmus tests that you would apply in choosing federal judges?

BUTTIGIEG: The Supreme Court is very personal for me, because my household, my marriage exists by the grace of a single vote on that body. And, yes, it is critical that we have justices who understand that American freedom includes reproductive rights and reproductive freedom.

But that's not all. I expect an understanding that voting rights are human rights. I expect an understanding that equality is required of us all. And I expect a level of respect for the rule of law that prevents this body from coming to be viewed as just one more partisan battlefield, which is why I will not only appoint judges and justices who reflect this worldview, but also begin moving to reform the body itself, as our country has done at least half a dozen times in its history, so that it is not one more political battlefield every single time a vacancy comes up.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Yamiche?

ALCINDOR: Senator Sanders, at least 22 transgender people were killed in the United States this year, move of them transgender women of color. Each of you has said you would push for the passage of the Equality Act, a comprehensive LGBTQ civil rights bill. But if elected, what more would you do to stop violence against transgender people?

SANDERS: We need moral leadership in the White House. We need a president who will do everything humanly possible to end all forms of discrimination against the transgender community, against the African-American community, against the Latino community, and against all minorities in this country.

But above and beyond providing the moral leadership of trying to bring our people together, what we also need for the transgender community is to make sure that health care is available to every person in this country, regardless of their sexual orientation or their needs.

And that is why I strongly support and have helped lead the effort for a Medicare for all single-payer program, which will provide comprehensive health care to all people, including certainly the transgender community.

ALCINDOR: Thank you, Senator Sanders. Senator Warren?

WARREN: The transgender community has been marginalized in every way possible. And one thing that the president of the United States can do is lift up attention, lift up their voices, lift up their lives.

Here's a promise I make. I will go to the Rose Garden once every year to read the names of transgender women, of people of color, who have been killed in the past year. I will make sure that we read their names so that as a nation we are forced to address the particular vulnerability on homelessness. I will change the rules now that put people in prison based on their birth sex identification rather than their current identification. I will do everything I can to make sure that we are an America that leaves no one behind.

ALCINDOR: Thank you, Senator Warren. Amna?

NAWAZ: Vice President Biden, let's turn now to Afghanistan. Confidential documents published last week by the Washington Post revealed that for years senior U.S. officials misled the public about the war in Afghanistan. As vice president...

BIDEN: Afghanistan, you said?

NAWAZ: Yes, sir, Afghanistan. As vice president, what did you know about the state of the war? And do you believe that you were honest with the American people about it?

BIDEN: The reason I can speak to this -- it's well-known, if any of you followed it, my view on Afghanistan -- I was sent by the president before we got sworn in to Afghanistan to come back with a report. I said there was no comprehensive policy available. And then I got in a big fight for a long time with the Pentagon because I strongly opposed the nation-building notion we set about.

Rebuilding that country as a whole nation is beyond our capacity. I argued from the very beginning that we should have a policy that was based on an antiterrorism policy with a very small footprint that, in fact, only had special forces to deal with potential threats from that territory to the United States of America.

The first thing I would do as president of the United States of America is to make sure that we brought all combat troops home, entered into a negotiation with the Taliban. But I would leave behind special forces in small numbers to be able to deal with the potential threat unless we got a real good negotiation accomplished to deal with terrorism.

That's been my position from the beginning. That's why I think Secretary Gates and some members of the Pentagon weren't happy with me.

NAWAZ: Mr. Biden, the question was about your time in the White House, though.

BIDEN: I'm talking about the White House.

NAWAZ: In that Washington Post report, there's a senior national security official who said that there was constant pressure from the Obama White House to produce figures showing the troop surge was working, and I'm quoting from the report here, "despite hard evidence to the contrary." What do you say to that?

BIDEN: Since 2009, go back and look. I was on the opposite side of that with the Pentagon. The only reason I can speak to it now is because it's been published. It's been published thoroughly. I'm the guy from the beginning who argued that it was a big, big mistake to surge forces to Afghanistan, period. We should not have done it. And I argued against it constantly.

NAWAZ: Senator Sanders, you had your hand up.

(APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: Well, in all due respect to my -- Joe, Joe, you're also the guy who helped lead us into the disastrous war in Iraq. What we need to do is, I think, rethink -- and the Washington Post piece was very educational -- what we need to rethink is the entire war on terror.

We have lost thousands of our own men and women, brave soldiers. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people have been killed abroad or forced to leave their countries. It is time right now that we bring this world together to try to end these endless wars and address the root causes which are causing these wars.

NAWAZ: Senator Sanders, you do often point to your vote against the war in Iraq as evidence of your judgment on foreign policy, but you did vote for the war in Afghanistan. And as recently as 2015, you said you supported a continued U.S. troop presence there. Was that support a mistake?

SANDERS: Well, only one person, my good friend, Barbara Lee, was right on that issue. She was the only person in the House to vote against the war in Afghanistan. She was right. I was wrong. So was everybody else in the House.

But to answer your question, I don't think you do what Trump does and make foreign policy decisions based on a tweet at 3 a.m. in the morning or desert your long-time allies like the Kurds. I think you work with the international community. You remove all troops over a period of time, a short period of time, within one year.

NAWAZ: Thank you, Senator. Mayor Buttigieg, you served in this war, but I want to ask about your decision-making if you were elected commander-in-chief. You have pledged to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan within your first year as president, but the Taliban today control or contest more than half the country.

So should you as president still withdraw all those U.S. troops if the country could once again become a haven for terrorists?

BUTTIGIEG: We're going to leave one way or the other. The question is to make sure we do it well and not poorly. And of course, that has to respond to the conditions on the ground and the need for a political settlement.

But, you know, the other day, I was reunited with somebody that I'd served with over there. And the thing we were marveling at is how long it's been since we left. I thought I was one of the last troops turning out the lights when I left years ago, and we're still there.

There may need to be some kind of limited special operations and intelligence capacity, the exact same kind of thing, by the way, that we actually had in Syria holding the line before the president yanked it out, leading to the road to chaos.

But what we know is that we cannot go on with these endless wars. And I'm glad that the name of Barbara Lee was mentioned, not only because of what she's talked about years ago. I believe that we had no choice but to go to Afghanistan after 9/11. But right now, she is one of the leaders of the effort to repeal and replace the authorization for the use of military force and the folks that I served with deserve that. They deserve the clarity of members of Congress being able to summon the courage to take an up-or-down vote on whether they ought to be there in the first place.

And when I am president, any time, if I am forced to deploy troops into war, any time we seek an authorization, it will have a three-year sunset, so that if there really does have to be a conversation about extending it, it has to be brought to Congress, brought to the American people, and those members of Congress have to take that tough up-or-down vote.

NAWAZ: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Tim?

ALBERTA: Thanks, Amna.

Moving to health care, an issue that voters tell us every day is still the number-one priority for them, Senator Sanders, you've spent plenty of time discussing and defending the merits of your Medicare for all plan. But the reality is that if Republicans retain control of the U.S. Senate or even if Democrats win back a narrow Senate majority, your plan as constituted probably would not have the votes to pass Congress.

So the question, Senator, is, if Congress rejects your plan and the American people are looking to you for leadership on this issue, are there smaller specific measures that you would take immediately to expand coverage and decrease costs as president?

SANDERS: Well, Tim, at a time when we're spending twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation, when 87 million people are uninsured or underinsured, when 30,000 people are dying each year because they don't get to a doctor when they should, and when a half a million people are going bankrupt because of the dysfunctional and cruel system that we currently have, you know what? I think we will pass a Medicare for all single-payer system, and I will introduce that legislation in my first week in office.

Now, to answer your question, I think when we go out to the American people and tell them that right now we have got to take on the greed and corruption of the pharmaceutical industry, for example, which in some cases charges us 10 times more for the same exact drug as is charged in this country, when the American people understand that Medicare for all expands Medicare to cover home health care, dental care, eyeglasses, and hearing aids, and does it at a cost far, far lower than what some of my opponents are talking about, you know what? We're going to have the American people behind us. We will have Congress behind us.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator Sanders.

Vice President Biden, I'd like to bring you in. You spent an awful lot of time 10 years ago trying to pass a bill far less ambitious than what Senator Sanders is talking about here. Is he being realistic?

BIDEN: I don't think it is realistic, but let me explain why. I introduced a plan to build on Obamacare. Remind everybody, 20 million people got insurance who didn't have it before. All people with pre-existing conditions were able to be covered. I could go on. We didn't get all that we wanted.

But now that it's been exposed, that taking it away has such dire consequences, I've added to the Obamacare plan the Biden initiative, which is a public option, Medicare if you want to have Medicare, reducing significantly the price of drugs, deductibles, et cetera, by -- made by underwriting the plan to a tune of about $750 billion, and making sure that we're able to cover everyone who is, in fact, able to be covered. Put your hand down for a second, Bernie, OK?

(APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: Just waving to you, Joe.

BIDEN: I know. I know.

SANDERS: Saying hello.

BIDEN: I know. So, look, it covers everybody. It's realistic. And most importantly, it lets you choose what you want. Here you have 160 million people who negotiated their health care plans with their employer, like many of you have. You may or may not like it. If you don't like it, you can move into the public option that I propose in my plan. But if you like it, you shouldn't have -- you shouldn't have Washington dictating to you, you cannot keep the plan you have.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Vice President Biden.

BIDEN: That's a...

(APPLAUSE)

ALBERTA: Senator Sanders, 45 seconds to respond.

SANDERS: Under Joe's plan, essentially we retain the status quo.

BIDEN: That's not true.

SANDERS: It is exactly true.

KLOBUCHAR: No, that's not right.

SANDERS: And but -- thank you. And, by the way, Joe, under your plan, you know, you asked me how are we going to pay for it? Under your plan, I'll tell you how we're paying for it right now. The average worker in America, their family makes $60,000 a year. That family is now paying $12,000 a year for health care, 20 percent of their income. Under Medicare for all, that family will be paying $1,200 a year, because we're eliminating the profiteering of the drug companies and the insurance companies and ending this byzantine and complex administration of thousands of separate health care plans.

ALBERTA: Senator Klobuchar, I'm going to come to you...

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: My name was mentioned.

ALBERTA: I'm going to come to you, but 45 seconds...

BIDEN: I'm the only guy that's not interrupted.

ALBERTA: Forty-five seconds for Vice President Biden.

BIDEN: I'm the only guy that's not interrupted here, all right? And I'm going to interrupt now. It costs $30 trillion. Let's get that straight, $30 trillion over 10 years. Some say it costs $20 trillion. Some say it costs $40 trillion.

The idea that you're going to be able to save that person making $60,000 a year on Medicare for all is absolutely preposterous. Sixteen percent of the American public is on Medicare now and everybody has a tax taken out of their paycheck now. Tell me, you're going to add 84 percent more and there's not going to be higher taxes? At least before he was honest about it.

SANDERS: Joe...

BIDEN: It's going to increase personal taxes. There are going to be...

SANDERS: That's right, we are going to increase personal taxes. But we're eliminating premiums, we're eliminating co-payments, we're eliminating deductibles, we're eliminating all out-of-pocket expenses, and no family in America will spend more than $200 a year on prescription drugs.

KLOBUCHAR: OK.

ALBERTA: Senator Klobuchar...

(CROSSTALK)

SANDERS: ... our plan will save the average worker...

(CROSSTALK)

ALBERTA: Senator Klobuchar, we'd like to hear from -- we'd like to hear from you...

(CROSSTALK)

KLOBUCHAR: Whoa, guys, hey.

BIDEN: It's the first time I did this.

KLOBUCHAR: OK, that's true. I'll say this. First of all, Bernie, I promise, when I am your president, I will get our pharmaceutical bills done. And we have worked together on this time and time again. And I agree with you on that.

But where I disagree is, I just don't think anyone has a monopoly on bold ideas. I think you can be progressive and practical at the same time. That is why I favor a public option, which is a nonprofit option, to bring the cost down. And, yes, it does bring the costs down immediately for 13 million people, and then we'll expand coverage to 12 million people.

But here's the political problem. This fight that you guys are having isn't real. Your fight, Bernie, is not with me or with Vice President Biden. It is with all those -- bunch of those new House members, not every one by any means, that got elected in that last election in the Democratic Party. It is with the new governor, Democratic governor of Kentucky, that wants to build on Obamacare.

And the way I look at it, if you want to bridge -- build -- if you want cross a river over some troubled waters, you build a bridge, you don't blow one up. And I think that we should build on the Affordable Care Act.

(APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: She mentioned my name...

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator Klobuchar. Senator Warren, we would like to bring you in.

SANDERS: Excuse me. She mentioned -- she took my name in vain.

KLOBUCHAR: Oh.

(LAUGHTER)

SANDERS: She hurt my feelings. I am crushed. Can I respond?

KLOBUCHAR: I would never do that to you. I would never, never, never.

SANDERS: My fight, Amy...

ALBERTA: All right. Forty-five seconds, Senator Sanders.

SANDERS: All right. My fight, Amy, is not with the governor of Kentucky. My fight and all of our fights must be with the greed and corruption of the pharmaceutical industry, with the greed and corruption of the insurance industry. These guys last year made $100 billion in profit and tens of millions of Americans cannot afford to go to a doctor tonight.

The day has got to come -- and Joe is not talking about it, Amy is not talking about it -- the day has got to come, and I will bring that day about, when we finally say to the drug companies and the insurance companies, the function of health care is to provide it for all of our people in a cost-effective way, not to make massive profits for the drug companies and the insurance companies.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator Sanders. Senator Warren...

(CROSSTALK)

ALBERTA: We'd like -- we'd like to bring you into this discussion. The same question to you that I posed to Senator Sanders, if Congress rejects a Medicare for all proposal and you're the president, are there smaller specific measures that you could pursue with bipartisan support to decrease costs and expand coverage?

WARREN: So this is about costs. It's about costs on middle-class families. Last year, 36 million Americans didn't have a prescription filled because they couldn't afford it. And those are people with health insurance, as well. People who can't do the co-pays, people who can't do the deductibles, people who find out that the drug is not covered.

So here's how I approach this. I want to do the most good I can for the most people as quickly as possible. On day one, I'm going to attack the prices on commonly used drugs, like EpiPens and insulin, and bring down those prices. The president can do that -- I love saying this -- all by herself. And I will do it. That's going to save families hundreds of millions of dollars.

And then in the first 100 days, because I found a way to pay for full health care coverage for everyone without raising taxes on middle-class families...

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator.

WARREN: ... I'm going to make available to people for a full health care coverage for 135 million people. It will be at no cost at all. And they can opt into that system.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator Warren.

WARREN: For others, it will be at a low cost. We have got to start moving and move fast.

ALBERTA: We do have to move on.

WARREN: We can do that -- we can do that on 50 votes.

ALBERTA: Thank you, Senator. Judy?

WOODRUFF: We are coming to the end of our time. A lot of hands up, we apologize for that.

But in the spirit of the season, I'd like to ask each one of you, is there someone else among these candidates that you would -- you have two options, one, a candidate from whom you would ask forgiveness for something maybe that was said tonight or another time, or -- or a candidate to whom you would like to give a gift. And I'm going to start with you, Mr. Yang.

YANG: Wow.

(LAUGHTER)

WARREN: We can do a labor action and just all go on strike on this one, Andrew.

(LAUGHTER)

YANG: I don't think I have much to ask forgiveness for. You all can correct me on this. In terms of a gift, Elizabeth has done me the honor of starting to read my book.

WARREN: Yes.

YANG: I would love to give each of you a copy of my book.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

It's about how we're going through the greatest economic transformation in our country's history, the fourth industrial revolution. It is grinding up our communities. And D.C. is out to lunch on this. Our media organizations are not covering it adequately. I wrote a book on it, and if you like data, this book is for you. This goes for the people at home, too, if you like data and books.

(LAUGHTER)

WOODRUFF: Mayor Buttigieg. Mayor Buttigieg, ask forgiveness or give a gift?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, first of all, I love data and books, so I think we should all be excited about this. And come to think of it, I should probably send my book around more, too. Look...

YANG: Your publisher will thank you.

BUTTIGIEG: I think all of us will want the same thing at the end of the day. We know what a gift it would be to the future and to the country for literally anybody up here to become president of the United States compared to what we've got.

(APPLAUSE)

And we've got to remember, there are I don't know how many now -- we're up to 25 something have run for president in the Democratic president. The moment we've got a nominee, the 24 who aren't that nominee are going to have to rally around the one who does. Let's make sure there's not too much to ask forgiveness for by the time that day comes.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Senator Warren?

WARREN: I will ask for forgiveness. I know that sometimes I get really worked up, and sometimes I get a little hot. I don't really mean to.

What happens is, when you do 100,000 selfies with people...

(LAUGHTER)

... you hear enough stories about people who are really down to their last moments. You know, I met someone just last week in Nevada who said that he has diabetes and that he has access to a prescription because he's a veteran. But his sister has diabetes and his daughter has diabetes, and they simply can't afford insulin. So the three of them spend all of their time figuring out how to stretch one insulin prescription among three people.

When I think about what we could do if we get a majority in the House, a majority in the Senate, and get back the White House, we could make this country work for people like that man. And that's why I'm in this fight.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: I think everyone up here on this stage, and those who are not on this stage who've run, we owe them, because they're all pushing for the exact same thing. You're not the only one that does selfies, Senator. I've done thousands of them, thousands of them. And the crew that follows me can tell you, there's not one line I go through that I don't have at least a half a dozen people come up and hug me and say, can you help me? I just lost my daughter 10 days ago. Can you help me? Tell me I'm going to be OK. Can you help me? I just lost -- and they go and lay out their problems.

My wife and I have a call list of somewhere between 20 and 100 people that we call at least every week or every month to tell them, I'm here. I give them my private phone number. They keep in touch with me.

The little kid who says, I can't talk, what do I do? I have scores of these young women and men who I keep in contact with. And the reason I would give everyone here a gift is because they want to do something like I do of making their lives better, because there's a lot of people who are hurting very, very, very badly.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Senator Sanders, forgiveness or a gift?

SANDERS: Well, I can give out any one of four books that I wrote.

(LAUGHTER)

But I think the gift that all of us need to give to the American people is a very, very different vision of the reality of the Trump administration. And the vision that we need to bring forth is to create a government and a nation based on love and compassion, not greed and hatred.

(APPLAUSE)

We need a vision which says that in our great country, all of our people should be able to earn a decent standard of living, have health care, have the ability to send their kids to college, regardless of their income. So we need a new vision which brings our people together around an agenda that works for all, not the Trump vision of dividing us up to benefit the billionaire class. That's my vision.

WOODRUFF: Senator Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: Well, I would ask for forgiveness any time any of you get mad at me. I can be blunt. But I am doing this because I think it is so important to pick the right candidate here. I do.

I think when you see what's going on around the country, yes, it's the economic check that Elizabeth and Bernie have so well pointed out on this stage, but there's something else going on here, and it is a decency check. It is a values check. It is a patriotism check.

When you see people -- and we've all had this happen -- that come to our meetings and say, you know, yeah, I voted for Donald Trump, but I don't want to do it again, because I want my kids to be able to watch the president on TV and not mute the TV.

We have to remember as Democrats, and if I get worked up about this, it's because I believe it so much in my heart, that we have to bring people with us and not shut them out. That is the gift we can give America in this election.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Mr. Steyer?

STEYER: So, look, this is the holiday season. And what I'm hearing from every single one of these candidates is that they've gone around the United States and what they've seen from this administration and what they've seen from the Republican Party is cruelty towards the people of the United States for money.

So when I think about the gift that I'd like to give -- and I've seen that, too. I mean, I think it starts with cruelty when children are born and it goes right through life into pre-K, education, health care, a living wage. There is cruelty to working people, there is cruelty to seniors.

And so the gift that I would like to give everyone on this stage, which was the original question, is the gift of teamwork. Because the question up here is, how are we together going to change this framework? How are we together going to beat this corrupt and criminal president? How are we going to stand up for the people of the United States together, not by tearing each other down, but by supporting each other and by realizing that what we stand for is the true value of America? And as a team, that's how we're going to do it. And as Americans, we're going to come together to stand up for the original values -- freedom, equality, justice, teamwork.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: That -- we are going to take a very short break. That does conclude our questions tonight here at Loyola Marymount University. We'll be back in just two minutes to hear the candidates' closing statements.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOODRUFF: Welcome back to the PBS NewsHour Democratic debate with Politico. And now it's time for closing statements. Each have 60 seconds, beginning with Mr. Steyer.

STEYER: I'm different from everybody else on this stage, and here's why. I'm running because corporations have bought our government and we need to return power to the people. And for the last 10 years, that's exactly what I've been doing, taking on unchecked corporate power.

That's why I'm for term limits, because if we're going to have bold change, then we need new people in charge and new ideas. I'm the only person on this stage who's built a large, multibillion-dollar international business. I know how to grow prosperity. I can take on Mr. Trump on the economy and beat him.

I'm the only one on this stage who said climate is my number-one priority. It's a crisis we have to deal with, but it's also our greatest opportunity to create millions of good-paying union jobs across the country and clean up the air and water in the black and brown communities where it's so essential.

So if you want to break the corporate stranglehold, beat Mr. Trump on the economy, and solve our climate crisis, I can deliver. And I'm asking for your vote.

WOODRUFF: Mr. Yang. I'm sorry. My apology for interrupting.

(APPLAUSE)

Mr. Yang?

YANG: I know what you're thinking, America. How am I still on this stage with them?

(APPLAUSE)

Our campaign is growing all the time because we are laser-focused on solving the real problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place. I spent seven years helping create thousands of jobs in Detroit, Baltimore, New Orleans, and other cities, serving as an ambassador of entrepreneurship under President Obama, and I saw firsthand what many of you already know. Our country is falling apart.

Our senior citizens are working until the day they die. Our kids are addicted to smartphones or drugs. We're seeing record high levels of depression and suicides, overdoses. Our companies are recording record profits while our people are literally dying younger.

Our way of life is changing faster than ever, and the simple fact is this. Our politicians in D.C. succeed whether we the people succeed or fail. Washington, D.C., today is the richest city in our country. What do they produce? Bad decisions?

(LAUGHTER)

We need to get the money out of D.C. and into your hands, the hands of the American people. Join us at yang2020.com and help us rewrite the rules of the 21st century economy to work for us.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Thank you. Senator Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: We have had quite a debate tonight, but I want to debate Donald Trump. This primary comes down to some simple questions. Who has the best ideas, the best experience? Mostly, who can beat Donald Trump, and how will she do it?

So Donald Trump built his fortune on, over time, over $413 million that he got from his dad. My grandpa, he was an iron ore miner, a union member, who worked 1,500 feet underground, and he saved money in a coffee can in the basement to send my dad to a community college. That's my family trust.

And I figure if you are given opportunity, you don't go into the world with a sense of entitlement. You go into it with a sense of obligation, an obligation to lift people up instead of hoarding what you have for yourself.

Our politics right now, because of Donald Trump, are toxic. We need a leader who can bring people together and who can win that way. So if you are tired of the extremes in our politics and the noise and the nonsense, you have a home with me. If you want a bigger tent and a wider coalition and longer coattails, join me. We will win at amyklobuchar.com.

WOODRUFF: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Mayor Buttigieg?

BUTTIGIEG: So the nominee is going to have to do two things: defeat Donald Trump and unite the country as president. It's a tall order. And in order to do it, we're going to need a nominee and a president who can respond to the crisis of belonging that is gripping our nation today. That means building up a politics that is defined not by who we exclude, not by who we reject, but by how many people we can call to this side.

I have seen so many people capable of forming that multiracial, multigenerational coalition. And I am seeing more and more people who maybe have not felt welcome in the Democratic Party before but belong here now because they're definitely not on board with what's going on in the Trump White House.

I am asking you to join me, to vote for me, to caucus for me, and to help us build that future defined not by exclusion, but by belonging.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: Senator Warren?

WARREN: Did you call my name?

This is a dark moment in America, and yet I come here tonight with a heart filled with hope. All three of my brothers served in the military. They're all retired. They're all back in Oklahoma. One is a Democrat. Two are Republicans. But you know what unites my three brothers? Amazon. They are furious that Amazon reported $10 billion in profits and paid zero in taxes.

My brothers are part of why America is ready to root out corruption and fight back. And that gives us a base to work from. America is ready for a two cent wealth tax. It's supported by Republicans, Democrats, and independents. And it lets us invest in all of our children.

America is ready to expand Social Security payments and disability payments by $200 a month. And we can do it. You know, someone asked what this would mean. You just give somebody $200 a month, they asked me this in a town hall. And a lady who wanted it said, you know what it will mean to me? It will mean I can get a prescription filled and I can still buy toilet paper the same week. That's where Americans are right now.

I am not working for millionaires and billionaires. I'm here to work for the tens of millions of people across this country who are ready to build an America that won't just work for those at the top, but that will work for everyone.

WOODRUFF: Thank you, Senator.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: For 45 years, Americans have been listening to great speeches. And at the end of the day, the average American worker is not making a nickel more than he or she did in real wages over those 45 years.

The truth is that real change always takes place -- real change -- always takes place from the bottom on up, never from the top on down. And that is why in this campaign I am so proud that we have over a million volunteers. We have some of the strongest grassroots organizations. We have raised more individual contributions than any candidate in American history.

Please join the political revolution at berniesanders.com. Let's defeat Trump. Let's transform this country. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

WOODRUFF: And finally, Vice President Biden.

BIDEN: I want to thank everyone listening seven days out from Christmas. Thank you very much.

Look, we all have big progressive plans. And the question is, who can deliver on those plans? And it seems to me, we have to ask ourselves three questions straight up and honestly. Who has the best chance, the most likely chance of defeating Donald Trump? Who is the one who's most likely to do that?

Number two, who can help elect Democrats to the United States Senate in states like North Carolina and Georgia and Arizona and other states?

And thirdly, who can deliver legislatively? That requires you to look at our records. I have a significant record of getting significant things done, from Violence Against Women Act to the chemical weapons treaty, in foreign and domestic policy alike.

And so I think asking those questions, I believe, as you would expect, that I'm the most qualified to answer those three questions. But most of all, we've got to level with the American people. Don't play games with them. Tell them the truth and be authentic.

God bless you all, and may you have a great, great holiday season. And thank you guys for doing this, as well.

WOODRUFF: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you very much. And that concludes the PBS NewsHour-Politico debate. I do want to thank my colleagues here at the moderator table, Tim Alberta of Politico, Amna Nawaz and Yamiche Alcindor of the PBS NewsHour.

Thank you all for joining us. Please stick around and watch PBS for some analysis. Thank you to the candidates.

END

ANNOUNCER: The MSNBC-Washington Post Democratic presidential debate, live from Atlanta, Georgia, and the Tyler Perry Studios. Here is Rachel Maddow.

(APPLAUSE)

MADDOW: Hello, and welcome to the MSNBC-Washington Post Democratic candidates debate. At least some of us are very, very happy to be here tonight. I'm Rachel Maddow here in Atlanta, Georgia, tonight with my fellow moderators. Andrea Mitchell is NBC news foreign affairs correspondent and the host of "Andrea Mitchell Reports" on MSNBC. Ashley Parker is White House reporter for the Washington Post. And Kristen Welker is NBC News White House correspondent.

MITCHELL: We'll be covering a wide range of topics tonight, including national security, race, and climate. Each candidate will have one minute and 15 seconds to answer our questions and 45 seconds if we need to follow up. And we ask the audience to respect the candidates and please don't interrupt.

MADDOW: There's 10 candidates here tonight. No time to waste. Let's get right to it.

We're in the middle of the fourth presidential impeachment proceedings in our nation's history. Ambassador Gordon Sondland delivered testimony today in the House impeachment inquiry that buttressed the case that President Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine and a White House meeting with President Zelensky because he wanted the Ukrainian president to announce investigations that would benefit President Trump politically.

Senator Warren, you have said already that you've seen enough to convict the president and remove him from office. You and four of your colleagues on this stage tonight who are also U.S. senators may soon have to take that vote. Will you try to convince your Republican colleagues in the Senate to vote the same way? And if so, how?

WARREN: Of course I will. And the obvious answer is to say, first, read the Mueller report, all 442 pages of it, that showed how the president tried to obstruct justice, and when Congress failed to act at that moment, and that the president felt free to break the law again and again and again. And that's what's happened with Ukraine.

We have to establish the principle: no one is above the law. We have a constitutional responsibility, and we need to meet it.

But I want to add one more part based on today's testimony, and that is, how did Ambassador Sondland get there? You know, this is not a man who had any qualifications, except one: He wrote a check for a million dollars. And that tells us about what's happening in Washington, the corruption, how money buys its way into Washington.

You know, I raised this months ago about the whole notion that donors think they're going to get ambassadorships on the other side. And I've taken a pledge. Anyone who wants to give me a big donation, don't ask to be an ambassador, because I'm not going to have that happen.

I asked everyone who's running for president to join me in that and not a single person has so far. I hope what we saw today during the testimony means lots of people will sign on and say we are not going to give away these ambassador posts to the highest bidder.

MADDOW: Senator Warren, thank you.

Senator Klobuchar, you've said that you support the impeachment inquiry but you want to wait for a Senate trial to hear the evidence and make a decision about convicting the president. After the bombshell testimony of Ambassador Sondland today, has that view changed for you?

KLOBUCHAR: I have made it very clear that this is impeachable conduct and I've called for an impeachment proceeding. I just believe our job as jurors is to look at each count and make a decision.

But let me make very clear that what this impeachment proceeding about is really our democracy at stake. This is a president that not only with regard to his conduct with Ukraine, but every step of the way puts his own private interests, his own partisan interests, his own political interests in front of our country's interest, and this is wrong.

This is a pattern with this man. And it goes to everything from how he has betrayed our farmers and our workers to what he has done with foreign affairs, leaving the Kurds for slaughter, sucking up to Vladimir Putin every minute of the day. That is what this guy does.

And I think it is very, very important that we have a president that's going to put our country first. I was thinking about this when I was at the Carter Presidential Museum. And on the wall are etched the words of Walter Mondale when he looked back at their four years, not perfect. And he said this: We told the truth, we obeyed the law, we kept the peace. We told the truth, we obeyed the law, we kept the peace. That is the minimum that we should expect in a president of the United States.

MADDOW: Senator, thank you.

Senator Sanders, I'd like to go to you. Americans are watching these impeachment hearings. At the same time, they're also focused on their more immediate, daily economic and family concerns. How central should the president's conduct uncovered by this impeachment inquiry be to any Democratic nominee's campaign for president? How central would it be to yours?

SANDERS: Well, Rachel, sadly, we have a president who is not only a pathological liar, he is likely the most corrupt president in the modern history of America. But we cannot simply be consumed by Donald Trump, because if we are, you know what? We're going to lose the election.

Right now, you've got 87 million people who have no health insurance or are underinsured. We're facing the great existential crisis of our time in terms of climate change. You've got 500,000 people sleeping out on the street and you've got 18 million people paying half of their limited incomes for housing.

What the American people understand is that the Congress can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time. In other words, we can deal with Trump's corruption, but we also have to stand up for the working families of this country. We also have to stand up to the fact that our political system is corrupt, dominated by a handful of billionaires, and that our economy is rigged with three people owning more wealth than the bottom half of America. We can do it all when we rally the American people in the cause of justice.

MADDOW: Mayor Buttigieg, let me put the same question to you. How central should the president's conduct uncovered by the impeachment inquiry be to a Democratic nominee's campaign? How central would it be to yours?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, the constitutional process of impeachment should be beyond politics. And it is not a part of the campaign. But the president's conduct is. The impeachable conduct that we have seen in the abuse of power that we're learning more about in the investigations -- but just to be clear, the president's already confessed to it on television. But that's just part of what we've seen.

Under normal circumstances, a president would leave office after something that was revealed recently that barely got any attention at all, which was the president had to confess in writing, in court, to illegally diverting charitable contributions that were supposed to go to veterans. We are absolutely going to confront this president for his wrongdoing, but we're also each running to be the president who will lead this country after the Trump presidency comes to an end one way or the other.

I'm running to be the president for that day the sun comes up and the Trump presidency is behind us, which will be a tender moment in the life of this country. And we are going to have to unify a nation that will be as divided as ever and, while doing it, address big issues that didn't take a vacation for the impeachment process or for the Trump presidency as a whole: a climate approaching the point of no return, the fact we've still got to act on health care, kids learning active shooter drills before they learn to read, and an economy where even when the Dow Jones is looking good, far too many Americans have to fight like hell just to hold on to what they've got.

MADDOW: Mr. Mayor.

BUTTIGIEG: Those are the crises that will be awaiting the next president and will be at the heart of our campaign.

MADDOW: Mr. Mayor, thank you. Andrea?

MITCHELL: Vice President Biden, you've suggested in your campaign that if you defeat President Trump, Republicans will start working with Democrats again. But right now, Republicans in Congress, including some of whom you've worked with for decades, are demanding investigations not only of you but also of your son. How would you get those same Republicans to work with you?

BIDEN: Well, look, the next president of the United States is going to have to do two things. Defeat Donald Trump, that's number one. And, number two, going to have to be able make be -- be able to go into states like Georgia and North Carolina and other places and get a Senate majority. That's what I'll do.

You have to ask yourself up here, who is most likely to be able to win the nomination in the first place, to win the presidency in the first place? And, secondly, who is most likely to increase the number of people who are Democrats in the House and in the Senate?

And by the way, I learned something about these impeachment trials. I learned, number one, that Donald Trump doesn't want me to be the nominee. That's pretty clear. He held up aid to make sure that -- while at the same time innocent people in the Donbas are getting killed by Russian soldiers.

Secondly, I found out that Vladimir Putin doesn't want me to be president. So I -- I've learned a lot about these things early on from these hearings that -- that are being held. But the bottom line is, I think we have to ask ourselves the honest question: Who is most likely to do what needs to be done, produce a Democratic majority in the United States Senate, maintain the House, and beat Trump?

MITCHELL: Senator Harris, your thoughts about that?

HARRIS: Well, first of all, we have a criminal living in the White House. And there is no question that in 2020 the biggest issue before us, until we get to that tender moment, is justice is on the ballot.

And what we saw today is Ambassador Sondland by his own words told us that everyone was in the loop. That means it is a criminal enterprise engaged in by the president, from what we heard today, the vice president, the secretary of state, and the chief of staff.

And so this not only points to the corrupt nature of this administration and the need for these impeachment proceedings to go forward, but it also points to another issue, and back to the question that you asked earlier, which is, what does this mean for the American people?

Because what it means, when I watch this, is that there are clearly two different set of rules for two different groups of people in America: the powerful people who with their arrogance think they can get away with this and then everybody else.

Because here's the thing. For those working people who are working two or three jobs, if they don't pay that credit card by the end of the month, they get a penalty. For the people who don't pay their rent, they get evicted. For the people who shoplift, they go to jail. We need the same set of rules for everybody. And part of the reason I'm running for president is to say that we have to bring justice back to America for all people, and not just for some.

MITCHELL: Thank you, Senator.

Senator Warren, you have cast yourself as a fighter. If you were elected, though, you would be walking into an existing fight, a country that is already very divided over the Trump presidency, among other things. Do you see that divide as permanent? Or do you need to bring the country together if you become president to achieve your goals?

WARREN: So I think the way we achieve our goals and bring our country together is we talk about the things that unite us, and that is that we want to build an America that works for the people, not one that just works for rich folks.

You know, I have proposed a two cent wealth tax. That is a tax for everybody who has more than $50 billion in assets, your first $50 billion is free and clear. But your 50 billionth and first dollar, you've got to pitch in 2 cents. And when you hit a billion dollars, you've got to pinch in a few pennies more.

Here's the thing. Doing a wealth tax is not about punishing anyone. It's about saying, you built something great in this country? Good for you. But you did it using workers all of us helped pay to educate. You did it using -- you're getting your goods on roads and bridges all of us helped pay for. You did it protected by police and firefighters all of us helped pay the salaries for.

So when you make it big, when you make it really big, when you make it top one tenth of one percent big, pitch in two cents so everybody else gets a chance to make it.

And here's the thing. That's something that Democrats care about, independents care about, and Republicans care about, because regardless of party affiliation, people understand across this country, our government is working better and better for the billionaires, for the rich, for the well-connected, and worse and worse for everyone else. We come together when we acknowledge that and say we're going to make real change.

MITCHELL: Thank you, Senator. Thank you.

Senator Booker, do you agree with that strategy?

BOOKER: Well, first of all, I think we all agree that we need to bring in a lot more revenue in this country. We actually have a real problem with the tax rates, tax loopholes, tax cheats. And I don't agree with the wealth tax, the way that Elizabeth Warren puts it, but I agree that we need to raise the estate tax. We need to tax capital gains as ordinary income. Real strategies will increase revenue.

But here's the challenge. We as Democrats need to fight for a just taxation system. But as I travel around the country, we Democrats also have to talk about how to grow wealth, as well.

When I stood in church recently and asked folks in a black church how many people here want to be entrepreneurs, half the church raised their hands. If we as a country don't start -- if we as a party don't start talking not just about how to tax wealth, but how to give more people opportunities to create wealth, to grow businesses, to have their American dream -- because, yeah, we need to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, $15 an hour.

But the people in communities I frequent, they're not -- aspiration for their lives is not just to have those fair wages. They want to have an economy that provides not just equalities in wealth, but they want to have equalities in opportunity. And that's what our party has to be about, as well.

MITCHELL: Senator Warren, you wanted to respond?

WARREN: Sure. So let me just tell you what we can do with that two cent wealth tax. Two cents on the top one-tenth of one percent in this country, and we can provide universal child care for every baby in this country ages zero to five. That is transformative.

We can provide universal pre-K for every 3-year-old and 4-year-old in America. We can stop exploiting the women, largely black and brown women, who do this work. And we can raise the wages of every childcare worker and pre-schoolteacher in America.

We can put $800 billion new federal dollars into all of our public schools. We can make college tuition-free for every kid. We can put $50 billion into historically black colleges and universities. And we can cancel student loan debt for 95 percent of the folks who've got it. Two cent wealth tax and we can invest in an entire generation's future.

MITCHELL: All right. Let me let Senator Booker respond.

WARREN: Sure.

BOOKER: You know, again, I agree with the need to do all of those things. We're all united in wanting to see universal preschool. And I'll fight for that. We're all united in wanting to fund HBCUs. Heck, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for two parents that went to HBCUs.

But the tax the way we're putting it forward right now, the wealth tax, I'm sorry, it's cumbersome. It's been tried by other nations. It's hard to evaluate. We can get the same amount of revenue through just taxation.

But, again, we as Democrats have got to start talking not just about how we tax from a stage, but how we grow wealth in this country amongst those disadvantaged communities that are not seeing it. Look at VC dollars in this country. Seventy-five percent of them go to three metropolitan areas. There is worth in the inner city. There is value in our rural areas.

If I am president of the United States, we're going to have a fair, just taxation where millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share, but, dear God, we're going to have pathways to prosperity for more Americans. We're going to see a change in what we see right now. Small businesses, new startups are going down in this country.

MITCHELL: Thank you, Senator.

BOOKER: We need to give more new entrepreneurs access to wealth.

MITCHELL: Senator Warren, briefly, just your last thoughts on this.

WARREN: So I just -- the idea behind what is fair, today, the 99 percent in America are on track to pay about 7.2 percent of their total wealth in taxes.

BOOKER: I'm not disagreeing with that.

WARREN: The top one-tenth of one percent that I want to say pay two cents more, they'll pay 3.2 percent in America. I'm tired of freeloading billionaires. I think it's time that we ask those at the very top to pay more so that every single one of our children gets a real...

(CROSSTALK)

MITCHELL: ... Senator Booker, Senator Warren...

BOOKER: Everybody's tired of corporations getting away with paying zero taxes.

MITCHELL: Thank you.

BOOKER: I'm not disagreeing with that.

MITCHELL: Thank you very much, Senator Warren. Thank you.

Mayor Buttigieg, you have said, quote, "I will never allow us to get so wrapped up in the fighting that we start to think fighting is the point." The Republican Party never stopped fighting President Obama in his eight years in office. So what would you do that President Obama didn't do to change that?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, as President Obama commented recently, we are now in a different reality than we were even 12 years ago. And to me, the extraordinary potential of the moment we're in right now is that there is an American majority that stands ready to tackle big issues that didn't exist in the same way even a few years ago.

Even on issues where Democrats have been on defense, like immigration and guns, we have a majority to do the right thing, if we can galvanize, not polarize that majority. For example, on health care, the reason I insist on Medicare for all who want it as the strategy to deliver on that goal we share of universal health care is that that is something that as a governing strategy we can unify the American people around, creating a version of Medicare, making it available to anybody who wants it, but without the divisive step of ordering people onto it whether they want to or not.

And I believe that commanding people to accept that option, whether we wait three years, as Senator Warren has proposed, or whether you do it right out of the gate, is not the right approach to unify the American people around a very, very big transformation that we now have an opportunity to deliver.

MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Kristen Welker?

WELKER: Let's talk about Medicare for all. Senator Warren, you are running on Medicare for all. Democrats have been winning elections even in red states with a very different message on health care: protecting Obamacare. Democrats are divided on this issue. What do you say to voters who are worried that your position on Medicare for all could cost you critical votes in the general election?

WARREN: So I look out and I see tens of millions of Americans who are struggling to pay their medical bills, 37 million people who decided not to have a prescription filled because they just can't afford it, people who didn't take the tests the doctor recommended because they just can't afford it.

So here is my plan. Let's bring as many people in and get as much help to the American people as we can as fast as we can. On day one as president, I will do -- bring down the cost of prescription drugs on things like insulin and EpiPens. That's going to save tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars for people. I'm going to defend the Affordable Care Act from the sabotage of the Trump administration.

And in the first 100 days, I want to bring in 135 million people into Medicare for all at no cost to them. Everybody under the age of 18, everybody who has a family of four income less than $50,000. I want to lower the age of Medicare to 50 and expand Medicare coverage to include vision and dental and long-term care.

And then in the third year, when people have had a chance to feel it and taste it and live with it, we're going to vote and we're going to want Medicare for all.

WELKER: Thank you, Senator.

Senator Sanders, let me bring you into this conversation and ask you the question...

SANDERS: Thank you. I wrote the damn bill.

(LAUGHTER)

WELKER: I want to ask you the question this way, Senator Sanders. You described your campaign, including your plans for Medicare for all, as a political revolution.

SANDERS: Yes.

WELKER: President Obama explicitly said the country is, quote, "less revolutionary than it is interested in improvement. The average American doesn't think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it," end quote. Is President Obama wrong?

SANDERS: No, he's right. We don't have to tear down the system, but we do have to do what the American people want. And the American people understand today that the current health care system is not only cruel, it is dysfunctional.

Now, you tell me how we have a system in which we spend twice as much as do the people of any other country, and yet we've got 87 million uninsured, underinsured. In some cases, we pay 10 times more for prescription drugs as do the people of Canada or other countries. Five hundred thousand people go bankrupt because of medically related issues. They come down with cancer, and that's a reason to go bankrupt?

Now, some of the people up here think that we should not take on the insurance industry, we should not take on the pharmaceutical industry. But you know what? If you think back to FDR and if you think back to JFK and Harry Truman and Barack Obama, as a matter of fact, people have been talking about health care for all. Well, you know what? I think now is the time.

And in the first week of my administration, we will introduce Medicare for all. Medicare for all, that means no deductibles, no co-payments, no out-of-pocket expenses. That's where we've got to go.

WELKER: Thank you, Senator Sanders. Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: You know, we can do this without charging people -- raising $30 trillion, $40 trillion. The fact is that right now the vast majority of Democrats do not support Medicare for all.

SANDERS: Not true.

BIDEN: It couldn't pass the United States Senate right now with Democrats. It couldn't pass the House. Nancy Pelosi is one of those people who doesn't think it makes sense.

We should build on Obamacare, provide the plan I put forward before anybody in here, adding a Medicare option in that plan, and not make people choose. Allow people to choose, I should say. If you go the route of my two friends on my right and my left, you have to give up your private insurance. A hundred and sixty million people like their private insurance. And if they don't like it, they can buy into a Medicare-like proposal in my plan. Drug prices go down, premiums go down across the board.

But here's the deal, they get to choose. I trust the American people to make a judgment what they believe is in their interest and not demand of them what the insurance companies -- they want no -- no competition. And my friends say you have to only go Medicare for all.

WELKER: Vice President Biden, thank you.

Ashley?

PARKER: Congresswoman Gabbard, you have criticized Hillary Clinton as the, quote, "personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party." What is the rot you see in the Democratic Party?

GABBARD: That our Democratic Party, unfortunately, is not the party that is of, by, and for the people. It is a party that has been and continues to be influenced by the foreign policy establishment in Washington, represented by Hillary Clinton and others' foreign policy, by the military industrial complex, and other greedy corporate interests.

I'm running for president to be the Democratic nominee that rebuilds our Democratic Party, takes it out of their hands, and truly puts it in the hands of the people of this country. A party that actually hears the voices of Americans who are struggling all across this country and puts it in the hands of veterans and fellow Americans who are calling for an end to this ongoing Bush-Clinton-Trump foreign policy doctrine of regime change wars, overthrowing dictators in other countries, needlessly sending my brothers and sisters in uniform into harm's way to fight in wars that actually undermine our national security and have cost us thousands of American lives.

These are wars that have cost us as American taxpayers trillions of dollars since 9/11 alone, dollars that have come out of our pockets, out of our hospitals, out of our schools, out of our infrastructure needs. As president, I will end this foreign policy, end these regime change wars, work to end this new cold war and arms race, and instead invest our hard-earned taxpayer dollars actually into serving the needs of the American people right here at home.

PARKER: Thank you, Congresswoman.

Senator Harris, any response?

HARRIS: Oh, sure.

(LAUGHTER)

I think that it's unfortunate that we have someone on this stage who is attempting to be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, who during the Obama administration spent four years full time on Fox News criticizing President Obama...

GABBARD: That's ridiculous, Senator Harris. That's ridiculous.

HARRIS: ... who has spent full time -- who has spent full time criticizing people on this stage as affiliated with the Democratic Party, when Donald Trump was elected, not even sworn in, buddied up to Steve Bannon to get a meeting with Donald Trump in the Trump Tower, fails to call a war criminal by what he is as a war criminal, and then spends full time during the course of this campaign, again, criticizing the Democratic Party.

What we need on the stage in November is someone who has the ability to win. And by that, we need someone on that stage who has the ability to go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump and someone who has the ability to rebuild the Obama coalition and bring the party and the nation together. I believe I am that candidate.

PARKER: Thank you, Senator.

(APPLAUSE)

Congresswoman Gabbard, I'll give you a chance to respond.

GABBARD: What Senator Harris is doing is unfortunately continuing to traffic in lies and smears and innuendos because she cannot challenge the substance of the argument that I'm making, the leadership and the change that I'm seeking to bring in our foreign policy, which only makes me guess that she will as president continue the status quo, continue the Bush-Clinton-Trump foreign policy of regime change wars, which is deeply destructive.

This is personal to me because I served in Iraq. I left my seat in the state legislature in Hawaii, volunteered to deploy to Iraq where I served in the medical unit where every single day I saw the terribly high human cost of war. I take very seriously the responsibility that the president has to serve as commander-in-chief, to lead our armed forces, and to make sure always -- no, I'm not going to put party interests first. I will put the interests of the American people above all else.

PARKER: Thank you, Congresswoman. I want to -- I want to briefly give Senator Harris a final second to respond.

HARRIS: I believe that what our nation needs right now is a nominee who can speak to all people. I've spent my entire career standing mostly in a courtroom speaking five words: Kamala Harris for the people. And it was about all the people, regardless of their race, regardless of their gender, regardless of where they lived geographically, regardless of the party with which they're registered to vote or the language their grandmother speaks.

We need someone on this debate stage in November who has the ability to unify the country and to win the election. And I believe, again, I am that candidate.

PARKER: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: Thank you.

PARKER: Mr. Steyer, you have denounced the special interests that pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the political process to influence it. But, in fact, you have spent over $300 million of your own money in support of your political goals. How do you respond to critics who see you as the embodiment of a special interest?

STEYER: What I've done over the last decade is to put together coalitions of ordinary American citizens to take on unchecked corporate power. We have a broken government in Washington, D.C. It's been purchased by corporations. Over the last decade, with the help of the American people, we have taken on and beaten the oil companies, we have taken on and beaten the tobacco companies, we have taken on and beaten utilities, we've taken on and beaten the drug companies.

I've also built one of the largest grassroots organizations in the United States. Last year, NextGen America did the largest youth voter mobilization in American history, also, in partnership with seven national unions, knocked on 15 million doors in 2016 and 10 million in 2018.

What I've done is to try to push power down to the America people, to take power away from the corporations who've bought our government. And I'm talking now about structural reform in Washington, D.C.

Term limits. If you want bold change in the United States, you're going to have to have new and different people in charge. I'm the only person on this stage who will talk about term limits. Vice President Biden won't. Senator Sanders won't. Even Mayor Pete Buttigieg will not talk about term limits and structural change. I would let the American people pass laws themselves through direct democracy. It's time to push the power back to the people and away from D.C.

PARKER: Thank you, Mr. Steyer. Mr. Steyer, thank you. Senator Klobuchar, a brief response.

(CROSSTALK)

KLOBUCHAR: Well, I just -- I'm someone that doesn't come from money, and I appreciate the work of Mr. Steyer. But right now, we have a system that's not fair, and it's not just fair for money. And so I would do is start a constitutional amendment and pass it to overturn Citizens United. That's what we should do, so that we stop this dark money and outside money from coming into our politics.

I have led the way on voting. And I can tell you right now, one solution that would make a huge difference in this state would be to allow every kid in the country to register to vote when they turn 18. If we had a system like this, and we did something about gerrymandering, and we stopped the voting purges, and we did something significant about making sure we don't have money in politics from the outside, Stacey Abrams would be governor of this state right now.

(APPLAUSE)

PARKER: Thank you, Senator.

KLOBUCHAR: And that's what should happen. So while I appreciate his work, I am someone that doesn't come from money. I see my husband out there. My first Senate race, I literally called everyone I knew and I set what is still an all-time Senate record. I raised $17,000 from ex-boyfriends.

(LAUGHTER)

And I'd like to point out, it is not an expanding base.

(CROSSTALK)

KLOBUCHAR: So I don't just think this with my head. I feel it in my heart.

PARKER: Thank you. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar.

BUTTIGIEG: Since I was named, I'd like to have time...

(CROSSTALK)

PARKER: Mr. Yang, I want to bring you in. Mr. Yang -- Mr. Yang, you've made a virtue of your outsider status. You've never served in military or in government. What has prepared you to respond to a terrorist attack or a major disaster?

YANG: Well, first, I just want to stick up for Tom. We have a broken campaign finance system, but Tom has been spending his own money fighting climate change. You can't knock someone for having money and spending it in the right way, my opinion.

(APPLAUSE)

STEYER: Thanks, Andrew.

YANG: No problem.

(LAUGHTER)

As commander-in-chief, I think we need to be focused on the real threats of the 21st century. And what are those threats? Climate change, artificial intelligence, loose nuclear material, military drones, and non-state actors.

And if you look up, we're in the process of potentially losing the AI arms race to China right now, because they have more access to more data than we do, and their government is putting billions of dollars to work subsidizing the development of AI in a way that we are not.

We are 24 years behind on technology. And I can say that with authority, because we got rid of the Office of Technology Assessment in 1995. Think about that timing. I guess they thought they'd invented everything.

The next commander-in-chief has to be focused on the true threats of tomorrow. And that's what I will bring to the table as commander-in-chief.

PARKER: Thank you, Mr. Yang.

Andrea?

(APPLAUSE)

MITCHELL: Mayor Buttigieg, let's talk about your record as a candidate. You were elected mayor in a Democratic city receiving just under 11,000 votes. And in your only statewide race, you lost by 25 points. Why should Democrats take the risk of betting on you?

BUTTIGIEG: Because I have the right experience to take on Donald Trump. I get that it's not traditional establishment Washington experience, but I would argue we need something very different right now.

In order to defeat this president, we need somebody who can go toe-to-toe who actually comes from the kinds of communities that he's been appealing to. I don't talk a big game about helping the working class while helicoptering between golf courses with my name on them. I don't even golf.

(LAUGHTER)

As a matter of fact, I never thought I'd be on a Forbes magazine list, but they did one of all the candidates by wealth, and I am literally the least wealthy person on this stage.

I also wore the uniform of this country and know what is at stake in the decisions that are made in the Oval Office and in the Situation Room. And I know how to bring people together to get things done. I know that from the perspective of Washington, what goes on in my city might look small, but frankly, where we live, the infighting on Capitol Hill is what looks small. The usual way of doing business in Washington is what looks small.

And I believe we need to send somebody in who has a different kind of experience, the experience on the ground, solving problems, working side by side with neighbors on some of the toughest issues that come up in government, recognizing what is required of executive leadership, and bringing that to Washington so that Washington can start looking a little more like our best-run communities in the heartland before the other way around starts to happen.

MITCHELL: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor.

Senator Klobuchar, you've said this of Mayor Buttigieg, quote, "Of the women on the stage, do I think that we would be standing on that stage if we had the experience he had? No, I don't. Maybe we're held to a different standard." Senator, what did you mean by that?

KLOBUCHAR: First of all, I've made very clear I think that Pete is qualified to be up on this stage, and I am honored to be standing next to him. But what I said was true. Women are held to a higher standard. Otherwise, we could play a game called name your favorite woman president, which we can't do, because it has all been men.

(APPLAUSE)

And including all vice presidents being men. And I think any working woman out there, any woman that's at home knows exactly what I mean. We have to work harder, and that's a fact.

But I want to dispel one thing, because for so long why has this been happening? I don't think you have to be the tallest person on this stage to be president. I don't think you have to be the skinniest person. I don't think you have the loudest voice on this stage. I don't think that means that you will be the one that should be president. I think what matters is if you're smart, if you're competent, and if you get things done.

I am the one that has passed over a hundred bills as the lead Democrat in that gridlock of Washington in Congress on this stage. I think you've got to win. And I am the one, Mr. Vice President, that has been able to win every red and purple congressional district as a lead on a ticket every time. I govern both with my head and my heart. And if you think a woman can't beat Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi does it every single day.

(APPLAUSE)

MITCHELL: Mr. Vice President, Mr. Vice President, just a quick response?

BIDEN: I think a woman is qualified to be president, and there's no reason why -- if you think the woman is the most qualified person now, you should vote for them. The reason why I think I should be president and be the nominee is, number one, I have brought people together my entire career. In the United States Senate, I've passed more major legislation than everybody on this stage combined, from the Violence Against Women Act to making sure we have the chemical weapons treaty to dealing with Milosevic, the whole range of things that I've been engaged in my whole career.

I've done it. I've brought people together. I'm always told by everybody around here things have changed, you can't do that anymore. If we can't -- I thought the question was initially asked of the senator, how do you unify this country? We have to unify this country. I have done it. I have done it repeatedly.

And lastly, to be commander-in-chief, there's no time for on-the-job training. I've spent more time in the Situation Room, more time abroad, more time than anybody up here. I know every major world leader. They know me, and they know when I speak, if I'm the president of the United States, who we're for, who we're against, and what we'll do, and we'll keep our word.

(APPLAUSE)

MITCHELL: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Ashley?

PARKER: Senator Booker, one of the defining characters of the Trump presidency is that the American people hear from him directly all the time about everything, on Twitter and just about everywhere else. Setting aside your views of his tone, is that unfiltered communication something you as president would continue? Is this one of the norms broken by President Trump that needed to change?

BOOKER: So, look, this president has broken norms, as you've said. He used his platforms to demean, degrade, and divide this country in ways that are repugnant and appalling. But the next president, whoever they are, is going to have to be someone who can heal and bring this nation together, this whole nation.

So, absolutely, in that office I will do whatever it takes to make sure we bring this country together. But it's not for a Kumbaya moment. We are a nation that achieves great things when we stand together and work together and fight together. So, absolutely.

When I was mayor of the largest city in my state -- and this is where I agree with Mayor Pete -- mayoral experience is very important. And I happen to be the other Rhodes Scholar mayor on this stage.

(APPLAUSE)

And what I learned there is that you have to be an executive that can heal. In my city, we have racial divides, we have geographic divides that go from wealth to people that are struggling. The success of my city was because we brought us all together and did things that other people said couldn't be done.

When I am president of the United States, my campaign from the very beginning has not changed. My charge is to see a nation right now which has so much common pain, to channel that back into a sense of common purpose. And I will do whatever it takes, bringing creativity to that office like has never been seen before.

PARKER: Thank you, Senator.

Rachel?

MADDOW: Chants of "Lock Her Up" are still heard at President Trump's rallies today. Now some opponents of the president are turning the same slogan against him. They've chanted "Lock Him Up" at a recent World Series game in Washington and at a Veterans Day event in New York and, Senator Sanders, at at least two of your campaign events recently. Senator, should Democrats discourage this? Or are you OK with it?

SANDERS: Well, I think the people of this country are catching on to the degree that this president thinks he is above the law. And what the American people are saying: Nobody is above the law. And I think what the American people are also saying is, in fact, that if this president did break the law, he should be prosecuted like any other individual who breaks the law.

But at the end of the day, what we need to do is to bring our people together not just in opposition to Trump. The initial question I think that you wrote -- that somebody raised here was that we are a divided nation. You know what? I kind of reject that.

I think when you talk about the pain of working families in this country, majority of the American people want to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. When you talk about the climate crisis, the overwhelming majority of the American people know that it is real, they know we have to take on the fossil fuel industry, they know we have to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy sufficiency and sustainable energy.

Even on issues like guns, the American people are coming together to end the horrific level of gun violence. So I believe, yeah, we've got to deal with Trump, but we also have to have an agenda that brings our people together so that the wealth and income doesn't just go to the people on top but to all of us.

MADDOW: Vice President Biden, let me ask you to pick up on the issue that Senator Sanders just raised about no one being above the law. When President Ford pardoned President Nixon, he said it was to heal the country. Would you support a potential criminal investigation into President Trump after he leaves office, even if you thought it might further inflame the country's divisions?

BIDEN: Look, I would not direct my Justice Department like this president does. I'd let them make their independent judgment. I would not dictate who should be prosecuted or who should be exonerated. That's not the role of the president of the United States. It's the attorney general of the United States, not the president's attorney, private attorney.

And so I would -- whatever was determined by the attorney general I supported, that I appointed, let them make an independent judgment. If that was the judgment that he violated the law and he should be, in fact, criminally prosecuted, then so be it. But I would not direct it.

And I don't think it's a good idea that we mock -- that we model ourselves after Trump and say lock him up. Look, we have to bring this country together. Let's start talking civilly to people and treating -- you know, the next president starts tweeting should -- anyway.

(LAUGHTER)

Look, it's just -- look, it's about civility. We have to restore the soul of this country. And that's not who we are, that's not who we've been, that's not who we should be. Follow the law, let the Justice Department make the judgment as to whether or not someone should be prosecuted, period.

MADDOW: Senator Sanders, let me ask you briefly to respond to that, the difference of opinion there with Vice President Biden.

SANDERS: Well, I think Joe is right. I think that it is the function of the attorney general. But what I am of the opinion is that the American people now do believe, and the more they see these impeachment hearings on television, they do believe that we have a president who thinks he's above the law. We have a president who has engaged in corruption. We have a president who has obstructed justice and, in my view, somebody who's violated the emoluments clause.

I think Joe is right, that is the function of an independent Department of Justice. But my inclination is that the American people do believe that this president is in violation of the law.

BIDEN: Can I respond very quickly?

MADDOW: Briefly, Senator.

BIDEN: Distinction, should he be impeached and should he be thrown out of office? That's one question. He's very close to -- he's indicted himself. Number two, after he's thrown out of office or after he's defeated, should he be then prosecuted? Should he be prosecuted for a criminal offense while he was president? That's a judgment to be made by an attorney general.

MADDOW: Mr. Vice President, thank you.

Ashley?

PARKER: We now focus on an issue facing many Americans, childcare and paid family leave. Here in Georgia, the average price of infant daycare can be as much as $8,500 per child per year. That's more than instate tuition at a four-year public college in Georgia. Mr. Yang, what would you do as president to ease that financial burden?

YANG: There are only two countries in the world that don't have paid family leave for new moms, the United States of America and Papua New Guinea. That is the entire list. And we need to get off this list as soon as possible.

(LAUGHTER)

I would pass paid family leave as one of the first things we do. I have two kids myself who are four and seven, one of whom is autistic and has special needs, and it's breaking families' backs. We need to start supporting our kids and families from the beginning, because by the time they're showing up to pre-K and kindergarten, in many cases, they're already years behind.

Studies have shown that two-thirds of our kids' educational outcomes are determined by what's happening to them at home. This is stress levels, number of words read to them as children, type of neighborhood, whether a parent has time to spend with them.

So we need to have a freedom dividend in place from day one, $1,000 a month for every American adult, which would put in many cases $2,000 a month into families' pockets, so that they can either pay for childcare or if they want stay home with the child. We should not be pushing everyone to leave the home and go to the workforce. Many parents see that tradeoff and say if they leave the home and work, they're going to be spending all the money on childcare anyway. In many cases, it would be better if the parent stays home with the child.

PARKER: Thank you, Mr. Yang.

(APPLAUSE)

Sticking with this topic, no parent in the United States is federally guaranteed a single day of paid leave when they have a new baby. A number of you on stage tonight have plans to address this. Senator Harris, you're one of the candidates proposing legislation to guarantee up to six months of paid family leave. And Senator Klobuchar, you're one of the candidates proposing up to three months. I want to hear from both of you on this, starting with you, Senator Klobuchar. Why three months?

KLOBUCHAR: I've looked at this economically, and I want to make sure that we help people. Because as just pointed out, we are way behind the curve, our country is, when it comes to providing paid family leave and childcare. We must do this and we will do this if we have the right person heading up the ticket so we can win big.

But what I have done with all of my plans is I have shown how I'm going to pay for them meticulously. I think that is really, really important when we have a president in the White House right now one who has told over 10,000 lies.

So when you look at my website, at amyklobuchar.com, you will see my plans and you're also going to see how I'm going to pay for it. And I think that is so important, because this president is literally increasing the debt, treating our farmers and workers like poker chips in a bankrupt casino, and really putting this country in a worst financial situation every single day.

So, yes, my plan is three months. I think that's good. I'd love to do more. As I've said before, I'd love to staple free diplomas under people's chairs. I just am not going to go for things -- and this is not -- I'm talking about Senator Harris' plan here, but I'm talking about some of the other ideas that have been out here. I am not going to go for things just because they sound good on a bumper sticker and then throw in a free car.

I think that we have an obligation -- we have an obligation as a party to be, yes, fiscally responsible, yes, think big, but make sure we have people's backs and are honest with them about what we can pay for. And that is everything from sending rich kids to college for free, which I don't support, to kicking 149 million off their health insurance -- current health insurance in four years.

PARKER: Thank you, Senator. Thank you.

KLOBUCHAR: I just think we have to be smart about how we do this.

PARKER: Thank you, Senator. And, Senator Harris, why six months? And also, how would you pay for that?

HARRIS: Sure. And, everybody, please visit my website, kamalaharris.org, for the details on everything I talk about. Six months, so part of how I believe we're going to win this election is, it is going to be because we are focused on the future, we are focused on the challenges that are presented today and not trying to bring back yesterday to solve tomorrow.

So on paid family leave, it is no longer the case in America that people are having children in their 20s. People are having children in their 30s, often in their 40s, which means that these families and parents are often raising young children and taking care of their parents, which requires a lot of work, from traveling back and forth to a hospital to daycare to all of the activities that are required, much less the health care needs that are required.

And what we are seeing in America today is the burden principally falls on women to do that work. And many women are having to make a very difficult choice whether they're going to leave a profession for which they have a passion to care for their family, or whether they are going to give up a paycheck that is part of what that family relies on. So six months paid family leave is meant to and is designed to adjust to the reality of women's lives today.

The reality also is that women are not paid equal for equal work in America. We passed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, but fast forward to the year of our lord 2019, and women are paid 80 cents on the dollar, black women 61 cents, Native American women 58 cents, Latinas 53 cents.

PARKER: Thank you.

HARRIS: So my policy is about -- there's a whole collection of the work that I am doing that is focused on women and working women in America and the inequities and, therefore, the injustice that women in America are facing that needs to be resolved and addressed.

PARKER: Thank you, Senator.

Kristen?

WELKER: Mr. Steyer, millions of working Americans are finding that housing has become unaffordable, especially in metropolitan areas. It is particularly acute in your home state of California, in places like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Why are you the best person to fix this problem?

STEYER: When you look at inequality in the United States of America, you have to start with housing. Where you put your head at night determines so many things about your life. It determines where your kids go to school. It determines the air you breathe, where you shop, how long it takes you to get to work.

What we've seen in California is, as a result of policy, we have millions too few housing units. And that affects everybody in California. It starts with a homeless crisis that goes all through the state, but it also includes skyrocketing rents which affect every single working person in the state of California.

I understand exactly what needs to be done here, which is we need to change policy and we need to apply resources here to make sure that we build literally millions of new units.

But the other thing that's going to be true about building these units is, we're going to have to build them in a way that's sustainable, that, in fact, how we build units, where people live has a dramatic impact on climate and on sustainability.

So we are going to have to direct dollars, we're going to have to change policy and make sure that the localities and municipalities who have worked very hard to make sure that there are no new housing units built in their towns, that they have to change that and we're going to have force it, and then we're going to have to direct federal dollars to make sure that those units are affordable so that working people can live in places and not be spending 50 percent of their income on rent.

WELKER: Thank you, Mr. Steyer. Thank you, Mr. Steyer. Senator Warren, I see your hand raised.

WARREN: Yes. Think of it this way. Our housing problem in America is a problem on the supply side, and that means that the federal government stopped building new housing a long time ago, affordable housing.

Also, private developers, they've gone up to McMansions. They're not building the little two bedroom, one bath house that I grew up in, garage converted to be a bedroom for my three brothers.

So I've got a plan for 3.2 million new housing units in America. Those are housing units for working families, for the working poor, for the poor poor, for seniors who want to age in place, for people with disabilities, for people who are coming back from being incarcerated. It's about tenants' rights.

But there's one more piece. Housing is how we build wealth in America. The federal government has subsidized the purchase of housing for decades for white people and has said for black people you're cut out of the deal. That was known as red-lining.

When I built a housing plan, it's not only a housing plan about building new units. It's a housing plan about addressing what is wrong about government-sponsored discrimination, how we need to address it, and we need to say we're going to reverse it.

WELKER: Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senator. Senator Booker?

(APPLAUSE)

BOOKER: I'm so grateful, again, as a mayor who was a mayor during a recession, who was a mayor during a housing crisis, who started my career as a tenants' rights lawyer, these are all good points, but we're not talking about something that is going on all over America, which is gentrification and low-income families being moved further and further out, often compounding racial segregation.

And so all these things we need to put more federal dollars in it, but we've got to start empowering people. We use our tax code to move wealth up, the mortgage interest deduction. My plan is very simple. If you're a renter who pays more than a third of your income in rent, then you will get a refundable tax credit between the amount you're paying and the area median rent. That empowers people in the same way we empower homeowners.

And what that does is it actually slashes poverty, 10 million people out. And by the way, for those people who are facing eviction, it is about time that the only people when they show up in rentals court that have a lawyer is not the landlord, it is also low-income families struggling to stay in their homes.

WELKER: Thank you, Senator.

Rachel?

MADDOW: We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with these candidates from the MSNBC-Washington Post Democratic candidates debate in Atlanta, Georgia. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: Welcome back to the MSNBC-Washington Post Democratic candidates debate. Let's get right back into it.

American farmers are struggling under the effects of President Trump's trade war with China. The Trump administration's payments to farmers to offset those losses already have a price tag that is more than double what was spent on the Obama administration's auto bailout.

Mayor Buttigieg, would you continue those farm subsidies?

BUTTIGIEG: We shouldn't have to pay farmers to take the edge off of a trade war that shouldn't have been started in the first place. I will support farmers, but not long ago, I was in Boone, Iowa, a guy came up to me, he said I got my Trump bailout check, but I would have rather spent that money on conservation.

By the way, this isn't even making farmers whole. If you're in soybeans, for example, you're getting killed. And it's not just what this president has done with the trade war. In a lot of parts of the country, the worst thing is these so-called small refinery waivers, which are killing those who are involved in ethanol.

Look, I don't think this president cares one bit about farmers. He keeps asking them to take one for the team, but more and more I'm talking to people in rural America who see that they're not going to benefit from business as usual under this president.

I believe that so many of the solutions lie with American farmers, but we have to stand up for them, not just with direct subsidies and support, but with making sure we do something about the consolidation, the monopolies that leave farmers with fewer places to purchase supplies from and fewer places to sell their product to.

And American farming should be one of the key pillars of how we combat climate change. I believe that the quest for the carbon negative farm could be as big a symbol of dealing with climate change as the electric car in this country. And it's an important part of how we make sure that we get a message out around dealing with climate change that recruits everybody to be part of the solution, including conservative communities where a lot of people have been made to feel that admitting climate science would mean acknowledging they're part of the problem.

MADDOW: Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I need you to answer the question. Would you continue those subsidies or not?

BUTTIGIEG: Yes, but we won't need them because we're going to fix the trade war.

MADDOW: Thank you, sir.

The U.N. recently reported that what was once called climate change is now a climate crisis, with drastic results already being felt. Climate is also an issue important to our audience. We received thousands of questions from our viewers, and many of them were about climate.

Calista from Minneapolis writes this. Leading the world in resolving the climate crisis will be a multi-decade project, spanning far beyond even a two-term presidency. If you are elected president, how would you ensure that there is secure leadership and bipartisan support to continue this project?

Congresswoman Gabbard?

GABBARD: This is an issue that impacts all of us as Americans and people all over the world. This is not a Democrat issue or a Republican issue. This is about the environmental threats that each and every one of us face. These are the kinds of conversations that we're having in our town hall meetings and house parties in different parts of the country where we have Democrats, Republicans, libertarians, and independents coming together, saying, hey, we are all concerned about making sure that we have clean water to drink for our families, that we have clean air to breathe, that we're able to raise our kids in a community that's safe.

It is the hyper-partisanship in Washington, unfortunately, that has created this gridlock that has stood in the way of the kinds of progress that I would bring about as president, transitioning our country off of fossil fuels and ending the nearly $30 billion in subsidies that we as taxpayers are currently giving to the fossil fuel industry, instead investing in a green renewable energy economy that leads us into the 21st century with good-paying jobs, a sustainable economy, investing in infrastructure, and transitioning our agriculture -- that is a great contributor to the environmental threats we face -- towards an agriculture system that focuses on local and regional production of food, healthy food that will actually feed the health and well-being of our people, leading as a -- as a leader in the world to make the global change necessary to address these threats.

MADDOW: Thank you. Thank you, Congresswoman. I want to bring in Mr. Steyer on this. You've made climate change a central point of your political career. To this issue of making change -- changes that last, making changes that are permanent, could you address that, sir?

STEYER: Rachel, I'm the only person on this stage who will say that climate is the number-one priority for me. Vice President Biden won't say it. Senator Warren won't say it. It's a state of emergency, and I would declare a state of emergency on day one. I would use the emergency powers of the presidency.

I know that we have to do this. I've spent a decade fighting and beating oil companies, stopping pipelines, stopping fossil fuel plants, ensuring clean energy across the country. I know that we have to do this. I also know that we can do this.

I would make this the number-one priority of my foreign policy, as well. We can do this and create literally millions of good-paying union jobs across this country. I would make sure that my climate policy was led by environmental justice and members of the communities where this society has chosen to put our air and water pollution, which are low-income black and brown communities. And when we ask, how are we going to pull this country together, how about this: We take on the biggest challenge in history, we save the world, and we do it together. Do you think that would pull America together? I do.

MADDOW: Quickly, Vice President Biden, you were name-checked there. I'd like to give you a chance to respond.

BIDEN: Yeah, I was. I think it is the existential threat to humanity. It's the number-one issue. And I might add, I don't really need a kind of a lecture from -- from my friend. While I was passing the first climate change bill and that PolitiFact said was a game-changer, while I managed the $90 billion recovery plan, investing more money in infrastructure that related to clean energy than any time we've ever done it, my friend was introducing more coal mines and produced more coal around the world, according to the press, than all of Great Britain produces.

Now, he's -- I welcome him back into the fold here, and he's been there for a long while. But the idea that we talk about where we started and how we are, let's get this straight. I think it is the existential threat of all time.

(CROSSTALK)

STEYER: Can I respond to that, Rachel?

MADDOW: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. You may respond, Mr. Steyer.

STEYER: Look, I came to the conclusion over 10 years ago that climate was the absolute problem of our society and it was the unintended consequence of our whole country being based on fossil fuels. Everybody in this room has lived in an economy based on fossil fuels. And we all have to come to the same conclusion that I came to over a decade ago.

If we're waiting for Congress to pass one of the bills -- and I know everybody on this stage cares about this. But Congress has never passed an important climate bill ever. This is a problem which continues to get worse. That's why I'm saying it's a state of emergency. That's why I'm saying it's priority one. If it isn't priority one, it's not going to get done.

And this is something where we absolutely have to address it upfront. We have to make it the most important thing. And we can use it to rebuild and reimagine what the United States is. We can be the moral leaders of the world again, while we clean up our air and water and create millions of good-paying jobs.

MADDOW: Senator Sanders, I'm going to ask you to jump in here.

WARREN: I was also named in that.

SANDERS: Tom, you stated...

MADDOW: You were.

SANDERS: You talked about the need to make climate change a national emergency. I've introduced legislation to just do that.

Now, I disagree with the thrust of the original question, because your question has said, what are we going to do in decades? We don't have decades. What the scientists are telling us, if we don't get our act together within the next eight or nine years, we're talking about cities all over the world, major cities going underwater, we're talking about increased drought, talking about increased extreme weather disturbances.

The United Nations is telling us that in the years to come there are going to be hundreds of millions of climate refugees causing national security issues all over the world.

What we have got to do tonight, and I will do as president, is to tell the fossil fuel industry that their short-term profits are not more important than the future of this planet. And by the way, the fossil fuel industry is probably criminally liable, because they have lied and lied and lied when they had the evidence that their carbon products were destroying the planet, and maybe we should think about prosecuting them, as well.

MADDOW: Thank you, Senator Sanders.

(APPLAUSE)

Andrea?

MITCHELL: President Trump has dramatically changed America's approach to our adversaries by holding summits with Kim Jong Un, getting out of the Iran nuclear deal, and at times embracing Vladimir Putin and other strongmen. So let's talk about what kind of commander-in-chief you would be.

Senator Harris, North Korea is now threatening to cancel any future summits if President Trump does not make concessions on nuclear weapons. If you were commander-in-chief, would you make concessions to Kim Jong-un in order to keep those talks going?

HARRIS: With all due deference to the fact that this is presidential debate, Donald Trump got punked. He was -- he has conducted foreign policy since day one born out of a very fragile ego that fails to understand that one of the most important responsibilities of the commander-in-chief is to concern herself with the security of our nation and homeland.

(APPLAUSE)

And to do it in a way that understands that part of the strength of who we are as a nation -- and therefore, an extension of our ability to be secure -- is not only that we have a vibrant military, but that when we walk in any room around the globe, we are respected because we keep to our word, we are consistent, we speak truth, and we are loyal.

What Donald Trump has done from pulling out of the Paris agreement to pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal to consistently turning a back on people who have stood with us in difficult times, including most recently the Kurds, points out that Donald Trump is the greatest threat to the national security of our nation at this moment.

MITCHELL: But would you make concessions to North Korea to keep talks...

HARRIS: Not at this point. There are no concessions to be made. They -- he has traded a photo-op for nothing. He has abandoned the -- by shutting down the operations with South Korea for the last year-and-a-half, so those operations, which should be -- and those exercises, which should be active, because they are in our best national security, the relationship that we have with Japan, he has in every way compromised our ability to have any influence on slowing down or at least having a check and balance on North Korea's nuclear program.

MITCHELL: Thank you, Senator.

Mr. Vice President, President Trump inherited the North Korea problem from past presidents, over decades. What would a President Biden do that President Obama didn't do in eight years?

BIDEN: Well, first of all, I'd go back in making sure we had the alliances we had before since he became president. He has absolutely ostracized us from South Korea. He has given North Korea everything they wanted, creating the legitimacy by having a meeting with Kim Jong-un, who's a thug -- although he points out that I'm a rabid dog who needs to be beaten with a stick, very recently was his comment.

SANDERS: But other than that, you like him.

BIDEN: Other than that, I like him.

(LAUGHTER)

And in Japan and Australia, and being a Pacific power, and putting pressure on China in order -- for them to make sure that it is a non -- it is a nuclear-free peninsula. And the way we do that is, we make clear to China, which I have done personally with -- with the president of China, and that is we're going to move up our defenses, we're going to continue to make sure we increase our relationship with South Korea, and if they view that as a threat, it's an easy thing to respond to. They, in fact, can, in fact, put pressure on North Korea.

But the fact is that we're in a position where he has done this across the world. He's embraced thugs. Look what Putin is doing in Europe. Putin is -- his whole effort is to break up NATO, to increase his power. Look what he's done to -- and so this guy has no idea what he's doing. He has no notion how to go about it. And we need a commander-in-chief who when he stands everybody knows what he or she is talking about.

MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Two more U.S. soldiers were killed today in Afghanistan tragically in America's longest war. Senator Sanders, you've long said you wanted to bring the troops back home from Afghanistan. Would you cut a deal with the Taliban to end the war, even if it means the collapse of the Afghan government that America has long supported?

SANDERS: Well, let me just say this. One of the big differences between the vice president and myself is he supported the terrible war in Iraq and I helped lead the opposition against it. And not only that, I voted against the very first Gulf War, as well.

And I think we need a foreign policy which understands who our enemies are, that we don't have to spend ten -- more than -- more money on the military than the next 10 nations combined.

But to answer your question, yeah, I think it is time after spending many trillions of dollars on these endless wars, which have resulted in more dislocation and mass migrations and pain in that region, it is time to bring our troops home.

But unlike Trump, I will not do it through a tweet at 3 o'clock in the morning. I will do it working with the international community. And if it's necessary to negotiate with the Taliban, of course we will do that. But at the end of the day, we have to rethink the entire war on terror, which has caused so much pain and lost so many lives, not only for our own men and women in the armed forces, but for people in that region, as well.

MITCHELL: Thank you, Senator.

Ashley?

PARKER: Thank you. Mr. Yang, if you win the 2020 election, what would you say in your first call with Russian President Vladimir Putin?

(LAUGHTER)

YANG: Well, first, I'd say I'm sorry I beat your guy.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

WARREN: It's a sorry, not sorry.

YANG: Or not sorry.

(LAUGHTER)

And, second, I would say the days of meddling in American elections are over and we will take any undermining of our democratic processes as an act of hostility and aggression. The American people would back me on this. We know that they've found an underbelly and they've been clawing at it, and it's made it so that we can't even trust our own democracy.

The third thing I would say is that we're going to live up to our international commitments. We're going to recommit to our partnerships and alliances, including NATO. And it was James Mattis that said that the more you invest in diplomats and diplomacy, the less you have to spend on ammunition.

That has to be the path forward to help build an international consensus not just against Russia, but also to build a coalition that will help us put pressure on China, in terms of their treatment of their ethnic minorities, and what's going on in Hong Kong.

I want to propose a new world data organization, like a WTO for data, because right now, unfortunately, we're living in a world where data is the new oil and we don't have our arms around it. These are the ways that we'll actually get Russia to the table and make it so they have to join the international community and stop resisting appeals to the world order.

PARKER: Thank you, Mr. Yang.

(APPLAUSE)

Rachel?

MADDOW: On the issue of China, Senator Booker, China is now using force against demonstrators in Hong Kong where millions have taken to the streets advocating for democratic reforms. Many of the demonstrators are asking the United States for help. If you were president, would the U.S. help their movement, and how?

BOOKER: Well, first of all, this is president who seems to want to go up against China in a trade war by pulling away from our allies and, in fact, attacking them, as well. We used a national security waiver to put tariffs on Canada. And so at the very time that China is breaking international rules, is practicing unfair practices, stealing technology, forcing technology transfer, and violating human rights, this nation is pulling away from critical allies we would need to show strength against China.

There's a larger battle going on, on the planet Earth right now between totalitarian, dictatorial countries and free democracies. And we see the scorecard under this president not looking so good, with China actually shifting more towards an authoritarian government, with its leader now getting rid of even his -- getting rid of term limits.

And so I believe we need a much stronger policy, one that's not led, as President Trump seems to want to do, in a transactional way, but one that's led by American values. So, yes, we will call China out for its human rights violations.

But not only that, we will stop engaging in things that violate American rights. Because it is a human rights violation when people at our border, children are thrown in cages. It's a human right violations without coming to the United States Congress for an authorization for the use of military force for us to refuel Saudi jets to bomb Yemeni children. It is about time that this country is led by someone who will say the values of freedom and democracy are what we are going to lead with and begin to check China, check Putin, and the other folks that are trying to undermine American values and democratic values around the globe.

MADDOW: Thank you, Senator. Andrea?

MITCHELL: Mr. Vice President, the CIA has concluded that the leader of Saudi Arabia directed the murder of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The State Department also says the Saudi government is responsible for executing nonviolent offenders and for torture. President Trump has not punished senior Saudi leaders. Would you?

BIDEN: Yes, and I said it at the time. Khashoggi was, in fact, murdered and dismembered, and I believe on the order of the crown prince. And I would make it very clear we were not going to, in fact, sell more weapons to them, we were going to, in fact, make them pay the price and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are. There's very little social redeeming value of the -- in the present government in Saudi Arabia.

And I would also, as pointed out, I would end -- end subsidies that we have, end the sale of material to the Saudis where they're going in and murdering children, and they're murdering innocent people. And so they have to be held accountable.

And with regard to China, we should -- look, unless we make it clear that we stand for human rights, we should be going to the United Nations seeking condemnation of China, what they're doing with the million Uighurs that are there, essentially in concentration camps in the west. We should be vocally, vocally speaking out about the violation of the commitment they made to Hong Kong. We have to speak out and speak loudly about violations of human rights.

MITCHELL: Senator Klobuchar, just to follow up, would you go against the Saudis, even though that would potentially help Iran, their adversaries?

KLOBUCHAR: We need a new foreign policy in this country, and that means renewing our relationships with our allies. It means rejoining international agreements. And it means reasserting our American values.

And so when the president did not stand up the way he should have to that killing and that dismemberment of a journalist with an American newspaper, that sent a signal to all dictators across the country that -- across the world that that was OK, and that's wrong.

And I want to add a few things to what my colleagues have said, first of all, the question about Russia. When we look at international agreements, we must start negotiating back with Russia, which has been a horrible player on the international scene, but the president precipitously got out of the nuclear agreement with Russia and we must start negotiating, even though they were cheating, for the good of this world. And we must also start the negotiations for the New START Treaty.

And when it comes to China, we need someone that sees the long term, like I do, just like the Chinese do, because we have a president that literally makes decisions based on his next tweet, and they are in it for the long game.

MITCHELL: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: I think I may have been the first person up here to make it clear that Saudi Arabia not only murdered Khashoggi, but this is a brutal dictatorship which does everything it can to crush democracy, treats women as third-class citizens. And when we rethink our American foreign policy, what we have got to know is that Saudi Arabia is not a reliable ally.

We have got to bring Iran and Saudi Arabia together in a room under American leadership and say we are sick and tired of us spending huge amounts of money and human resources because of your conflicts.

And by the way, the same thing goes with Israel and the Palestinians. It is no longer good enough for us simply to be pro-Israel. I am pro-Israel. But we must treat the Palestinian people as well with the respect and dignity that they deserve.

(APPLAUSE)

What is going on in Gaza right now, where youth unemployment is 70 percent or 80 percent, is unsustainable. So we need to be rethinking who our allies are around the world, work with the United Nations, and not continue to support brutal dictatorships.

MITCHELL: Thank you, Senator. Rachel?

MADDOW: Senator Warren, only about 1 percent of Americans serve in the United States military right now. Should that number be higher?

WARREN: Yes, I think it should be. You know, all three of my brothers served in the military. One was career military. The other two also served. I think it's an important part of who we are as Americans. And I think the notion of shared service is important.

It's how we help bring our nation together. It's how people learn to work together from different regions, people who grew up differently. It's also about how families share that sacrifice.

I remember what it was like when I was a little girl. My brother, my oldest brother, who served five-and-a-half years off and on in combat in Vietnam, what it was like for my mother every day to check the mailbox, had we heard from Don Reed? How is he doing? And if there was a letter, she was brighter than the day. And if there wasn't, she would say, well, maybe tomorrow.

This is about building for our entire nation. And I believe we should do that. I also believe we should have other service opportunities in this country. So, for example, what I want to do is for our federal lands, I want to bring in 10,000 people who want to be able to serve in our federal lands to be able to help rebuild our national forests and national parks as a way to express both their public service and their commitment to fighting back against climate change. We can do this as a nation.

MADDOW: Thank you, Senator. In President Trump's first two years in office, the Pentagon budget ballooned. Mayor Buttigieg, would you cut military spending? Or would you keep it on the same upward trajectory?

BUTTIGIEG: We need to re-prioritize our budget as a whole and our military spending in particular. It's not just how much, although we certainly need to look at the runaway growth in military spending. It's also where.

Right now, we are spending a fraction of the attention and resources on things like the artificial intelligence research that China is doing right now. If we fall behind on artificial intelligence, the most expensive ships that the United States is building just turned into bigger targets.

We do not have a 21st century security strategy coming from this president. After all, he's relying on 17th century security technologies, like a moat full of alligators or a big wall.

(LAUGHTER)

There is no concept of strategic planning for how civilian, diplomatic, and military security work needs to take place for the future.

BOOKER: Can I respond?

MADDOW: Mayor Buttigieg, thank you.

WARREN: Could I respond on this?

WELKER: Coming up, we will have much more from the candidates. We're going to take a quick break, just a moment. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WELKER: Welcome back, everyone, to the fifth Democratic debate. Let's move now to the issue of race in America. FBI Director Christopher Wray recently told Congress, quote, "The majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we've investigated are motivated by white supremacist violence."

Congresswoman Gabbard, to you. As president, would you direct the federal government to do something about this problem that it is not currently doing?

GABBARD: Yes, I would. We have seen for far too long the kind of racial bigotry, divisiveness, and attacks that unfortunately have taken the lives of our fellow Americans. Leadership starts at the top. It's important that we set the record straight and correct the racial injustices that exist in a very institutional way in our country, beginning with things that have to do with our criminal justice system, where predominantly the failed war on drugs that has been continuing to be waged in this country has disproportionately impacted people of color and people in poverty.

This is something that I'll do as president and commander-in-chief, is to overhaul our criminal justice system, working in a bipartisan way to do things like end the failed war on drugs, end the money bail system, enact the kinds of prison reforms and sentencing reforms that we need to see that will correct the failures of the past.

The most important thing here is that we recognize that we have to treat each other with respect, all of us as fellow Americans, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, orientation, and our politics. That kind of leadership starts at the top. As president, I will usher in a 21st century White House that actually represents the interests of all Americans, first and foremost.

WELKER: Congresswoman Gabbard, thank you for that.

Mr. Yang, what would you do about the issue of white supremacist violence?

YANG: Well, first, we have to designate white supremacist terrorism as domestic terrorism so that the Department of Justice can properly measure it.

(APPLAUSE)

I talked to an anti-hate activist named Christian Picciolini who told me about how he was radicalized over a 10-year period. He said he was a lonely 14-year-old and that he was reached out to by a hate group and he wound up joining it for a decade. Now he's out and he's helping convert people out of those hate groups and back into the rest of society.

But what he told me was that if anyone had reached out to him when he was that hurt, broken 14-year-old boy, he would have gone with them. He said if it had been a coach, I would have gone with him, if it had been a mentor or a teacher, I would have gone with them, but instead it was a hate group.

So what we have to do is we have to get into the roots of our communities and create paths forward for men in particular who right now are falling through the cracks. And when you look at gun violence in this country, 96 percent-plus of the shooters we're talking about are young boys and young men. We have to as a country start finding ways to turn our boys into healthy, strong young men who do not hate, but instead feel like they have paths forward in today's economy.

WELKER: Mr. Yang, thank you for that.

Vice President Biden, the "Me, Too" movement has forced a cultural reckoning around the issue of sexual violence and harassment against women in America. Are there specific actions that you would take early in your administration to address this problem?

BIDEN: Yes. And by the way, it's one of the reasons -- the first thing I would do is make sure we pass the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, which I wrote. The fact -- I didn't write the reauthorization. I wrote the original act.

The fact is that what happens now is that we, in fact, have to fundamentally change the culture, the culture of how women are treated. That's why as vice president -- and when I asked the president, I could start the movement on the college campuses to say it's on us. It's everyone's responsibility.

We do not spend nearly enough time dealing with -- I was stunned when I did a virtual town meeting that told me 30,000 people were on the call, young people between 15 and 25, and found out I said, what do you need -- what do you need to make you safer on college campuses and on your schools? You know what they said? Get men involved, engage the rest of the community.

And that's when we started this movement on the college campuses to fundamentally change the culture. No man has a right to raise a hand to a woman in anger, other than in self-defense, and that's -- rarely ever occurs. And so we have to just change the culture, period, and keep punching at it and punching at it and punching at it. It will be a big -- no, I really mean it. It's a gigantic issue. And we have to make it clear from the top, from the president on down, that we will not tolerate it. We will not tolerate this culture.

WELKER: Mr. Vice President, thank you.

Senator Harris, this week, you criticized Mayor Pete Buttigieg's outreach to African-American voters. You said, quote, "The Democratic nominee has got to be someone who has the experience of connecting with all of who we are, as the diversity of the American people," end quote. What exactly prompted you to say that, Senator Harris?

HARRIS: Well, I was asked a question that related to a stock photograph that his campaign published. But, listen, I think that it really speaks to a larger issue, and I'll speak to the larger issue. I believe that the mayor has made apologies for that.

The larger issue is that for too long I think candidates have taken for granted constituencies that have been the backbone of the Democratic Party and have overlooked those constituencies and have -- you know, they show up when it's, you know, close to election time and show up in a black church and want to get the vote, but just haven't been there before.

I mean, you know, the -- there are plenty of people who applauded black women for the success of the 2018 election, applauded black women for the election of a senator from Alabama. But, you know, at some point, folks get tired of just saying, oh, you know, thank me for showing up and -- and say, well, show up for me.

Because when black women...

(APPLAUSE)

When black women are three to four times more likely to die in connection with childbirth in America, when the sons of black women will die because of gun violence more than any other cause of death, when black women make 61 cents on the dollar as compared to all women, who tragically make 80 cents on the dollar, the question has to be, where you been? And what are you going to do? And do you understand who the people are?

(APPLAUSE)

And I'm running for president because I believe that we have to have leadership in this country who has worked with and have the experience of working with all folks. And we've got to re-create the Obama coalition to win. And that means about women, that's people of color, that's our LGBTQ community, that's working people, that's our labor unions. But that is how we are going to win this election, and I intend to win.

WELKER: Senator Harris, thank you.

Mayor Buttigieg, your response to that.

BUTTIGIEG: My response is, I completely agree. And I welcome the challenge of connecting with black voters in America who don't yet know me.

And before I share what's in my plans, let me talk about what's in my heart and why this is so important. As mayor of a city that is racially diverse and largely low income, for eight years, I have lived and breathed the successes and struggles of a community where far too many people live with the consequences of racial inequity that has built-up over centuries but been compounded by policies and decisions from within living memory.

I care about this because my faith teaches me that salvation has to do with how I make myself useful to those who have been excluded, marginalized, and cast aside and oppressed in society.

And I care about this because, while I do not have the experience of ever having been discriminated against because of the color of my skin, I do have the experience of sometimes feeling like a stranger in my own country, turning on the news and seeing my own rights come up for debate, and seeing my rights expanded by a coalition of people like me and people not at all like me, working side by side, shoulder to shoulder, making it possible for me to be standing here. Wearing this wedding ring in a way that couldn't have happened two elections ago lets me know just how deep my obligation is to help those whose rights are on the line every day, even if they are nothing like me in their experience.

WELKER: Mayor Buttigieg, thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Harris, quick response?

HARRIS: Look, there's a lot at stake in this election, and I've said it many times, I think justice is on the ballot in 2020. And it's about economic justice. It's about justice for children. It's about justice for our teachers. I could go on down the list.

And so the issue really is not what is the fight. The issue has to be, how are we going to win? And to win, we have to build a coalition and rebuild the Obama coalition. I keep referring to that because that's the last time we won.

And the way that that election looked and what that coalition looked like was it was about having a leader who had worked in many communities, knows those communities, and has the ability to bring people together. And everyone is going to have to be judged on their experience and, therefore, ability to bring folks together around our commonalities, of which I believe there are many.

WELKER: Thank you, Senator.

Senator Warren, quickly?

WARREN: So I think it is really important that we actually talk about what we're willing to get in the fight for. And I just want to give one example around this. Senator Harris rightly raised the question of economic justice.

Let me give a specific example, and that is student loan debt. Right now in America, African-Americans are more likely to borrow money to go to college, borrow more money while they're in college, and have a harder time paying that debt off after they get out. Today in America, a new study came out, 20 years out, whites who borrowed money, 94 percent of them have paid off their student loan debt, 5 percent of African-Americans have paid it off.

I believe that means everyone on this stage should be embracing student loan debt forgiveness. It will help close the black-white wealth gap. Let's do something tangible and real to make change in this country.

WELKER: Senator Warren, thank you. Ashley?

PARKER: Senator Warren, back to you. You've said that the border wall that President Trump has proposed is, quote, "a monument to hate and division." Would you ask taxpayers to pay to take down any part of the wall on the nation's southern border?

WARREN: If there are parts of the wall that are not useful in our defense, of course we should do it. The real point here is that we need to stop this manmade crisis at the border.

Trump is the one who has created this crisis, and he has done it in no small part by helping destabilize the governments even further in Central America. He has withdrawn aid. That means that families have to flee for their lives, have to flee for any economic opportunity.

You know, when I found out that our government was actually taking away children from their families, I went down to the border. I went down there immediately. I was in McAllen, Texas, and I just hope everyone remembers what this looks like. There's like a giant Amazon warehouse filled with cages of women, cages of men, and cages of little girls and little boys.

I spoke to a woman who was in the cage of nursing mothers, and she told me she'd given a drink to a police officer and that the word had come down from the gangs that she was helping the police. She knew what that meant. She wrapped up her baby and she ran for the border.

We need to treat the people who come here with dignity and with respect. A great nation does not separate children from their families. We need to live our values at the border every single day.

(APPLAUSE)

PARKER: Thank you, Senator.

Senator Booker, a quick response.

BOOKER: Look, I want to be quick on this because I'd like to get back to something I wasn't included in, is...

WARREN: So would we all.

BOOKER: Absolutely, if this is not effective, we see people cutting holes in this wall, his wall, the way he brags about it, it's just wrong. We need to have policies that respect dignity, keep us safe and strong.

I wanted to return back to this issue of black voters. I have a lifetime of experience with black voters; I've been one since I was 18.

(LAUGHTER)

Nobody on this stage should need a focus group to hear from African-American voters. Black voters are pissed off, and they're worried. They're pissed off because the only time our issues seem to be really paid attention to by politicians is when people are looking for their vote. And they're worried because the Democratic Party, we don't want to see people miss this opportunity and lose because we are nominating someone that doesn't -- isn't trusted, doesn't have authentic connection.

And so that's what's on the ballot. And issues do matter. I have a lot of respect for the vice president. He has sworn me into my office as a hero. This week, I hear him literally say that I don't think we should legalize marijuana. I thought you might have been high when you said it.

(LAUGHTER)

And let me tell you, because -- because marijuana -- marijuana -- marijuana in our country is already legal for privileged people. And it's -- the war on drugs has been a war on black and brown people.

(APPLAUSE)

And so let me just -- let me just say this. With more African-Americans under criminal supervision in America than all the slaves since 1850, do not roll up into communities and not talk directly to issues that are going to relate to the liberation of children, because there are people in Congress right now that admit to smoking marijuana, while there are people -- our kids are in jail right now for those drug crimes.

(APPLAUSE)

And so these are the kind of issues that mean a lot to our community. And if we don't have somebody authentically -- we lost the last election. Let me just give you this data example.

PARKER: Quickly. Quickly, please.

BOOKER: We lost in Wisconsin because of a massive diminution -- a lot of reasons, but there was a massive diminution in the African-American vote. We need to have someone that can inspire, as Kamala said, to inspire African-Americans to the polls in record numbers.

PARKER: Thank you, Senator Booker. Vice President Biden, you can respond to that.

BIDEN: I'll be very brief. Number one, I think we should decriminalize marijuana, period. And I think everyone -- anyone who has a record should be let out of jail, their records expunged, be completely zeroed out.

But I do think it makes sense, based on data, that we should study what the long-term effects are for the use of marijuana. That's all it is. Number one, everybody gets out, record expunged.

Secondly, I'm -- you know, I'm part of that Obama coalition. I come out of a black community, in terms of my support. If you notice, I have more people supporting me in the black community that have announced for me because they know me, they know who I am. Three former chairs of the black caucus, the only African-American woman that's ever been elected to the United States Senate, a whole range of people...

HARRIS: No, that's not true.

BOOKER: That's not true.

HARRIS: The other one is here.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: No, I said the first. I said the first African-American woman. The first African-American woman.

(LAUGHTER)

So my point is -- my point is that one of the reasons I was picked to be vice president was because of my relationship, longstanding relationship with the black community. I was part of that coalition.

PARKER: Thank you. Kristen?

WELKER: And we do have to take another quick break, but we are going to hear much more from the candidates when we come right back here in Atlanta, Georgia. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: Welcome back to the MSNBC-Washington Post Democratic candidates debate. Many states, including right here where we are tonight in Georgia, have passed laws that severely limit or outright ban abortion. Right now, Roe v. Wade protects a woman's right to abortion nationwide. But if Roe gets overturned and abortion access disappears in some states, would you intervene as president to try to bring that access back?

Senator Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: Well, of course. We should codify Roe v. Wade into law. That is what we should do.

(APPLAUSE)

And this president indicated early on what he was going to do, and he's done it. When he was running for office, he literally said women should go to jail. Then he dialed it back and said doctors should go to jail. So no surprise that we're seeing these kinds of laws in Georgia, in Alabama, where his allies are passing these bills.

And what we have to remember is that the people are with us. And I predict this will be a big election -- issue in the general election. And I just can't wait to stand across from Donald Trump and say this to him. You know what? The people are with us. Over 70 percent of the people support Roe v. Wade. Over 90 percent of the people support funding for Planned Parenthood and making sure that women can get the health care they need.

(APPLAUSE)

He is off the track on this, and he will hear from the women of America, and this is how we're going to win this election.

MADDOW: Just this weekend, Louisiana re-elected a Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards. He has signed one of the country's toughest laws restricting abortion. Is there room in the Democratic Party for someone like him, someone who can win in a deep red state but who does not support abortion rights?

Senator Warren?

WARREN: Look, I believe that abortion rights are human rights. I believe that they are also economic rights. And protecting the right of a woman to be able to make decisions about her own body is fundamentally what we do and what we stand for as a Democratic Party.

Understand this. When someone makes abortion illegal in America, rich women will still get abortions. It's just going to fall hard on poor women. It's going to fall hard on girls, women who don't even know that they're pregnant because they have been molested by an uncle. I want to be an America where everybody has a chance.

And I know it can be a hard decision for people. But here's the thing. When it comes down to that decision, a woman should be able to call on her mother, she should be able to call on her partner, she should be able to call on her priest or her rabbi. But the one entity that should not be in the middle of that decision is the government.

(APPLAUSE)

MADDOW: Senator Warren, I'm going to push you on this a little bit for a specific answer to the question. Governor John Bel Edwards in Louisiana is an anti-abortion governor who has signed abortion restrictions in Louisiana. Is there room for him in the Democratic Party with those politics?

WARREN: I have made clear what I think the Democratic Party stands for. I'm not here to try to drive anyone out of this party. I'm not here to try to build fences. But I am here to say, this is what I will fight for as president of the United States. The women of America can count on that.

MADDOW: Senator Warren, thank you. Senator Sanders, I'll give you 30 seconds.

SANDERS: Let me just -- Amy mentioned that women feel strongly on it. Well, let me just tell you that if there's ever a time in American history where the men of this country must stand with the women, this is the moment.

(APPLAUSE)

And I get very tired, very tired of hearing the hypocrisy from conservatives who say get the government off our backs, we want small government. Well, if you want to get the government out of the backs of the American people, then understand that it is women who control their own bodies, not politicians.

MADDOW: Senator Sanders, thank you.

BOOKER: This is a voting issue.

MADDOW: Senator Booker?

BOOKER: This is a voting issue. This is a voter suppression issue. Right here in this great state of Georgia, it was the voter suppression, particularly of African-American communities, that prevented us from having a Governor Stacey Abrams right now.

(APPLAUSE)

And that is, when you have undemocratic means, when you suppress people's votes to get elected, those are the very people you're going to come after when you're in office. And this bill, opposed by over 70 percent -- the heartbeat bill here -- opposed by over 70 percent of Georgians, is the result from voter suppression. This gets back to the issue about making sure we are fighting every single day, that whoever is the nominee, they can overcome the attempts to suppress the votes, particularly of low-income and minority voters, and particularly in the black community, like we saw here in Georgia.

MADDOW: Senator Booker, thank you.

And to that point, individual states, as you all know, set their own rules for voting and for elections. Depending on where you live, you may be required to show ID or not. You might have a lot of days for early voting or fewer days or none. You might have a polling place in walking distance or you might have to drive or take a bus to the edge of town.

With that in mind, our next question comes from Jenna in Maryland, who asks, what will you do at the executive level to ensure that every American has equal access to the ballot box?

Mayor Buttigieg?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, we need federal leadership to establish voting rights for the 21st century, because this affects every other issue that we care about. Now, the House of Representatives passed a pro-democracy, anti-corruption bill, which is one of many good bills to die in Mitch McConnell's hands in the United States Senate.

We know that with the White House in the right hands, we can make, for example, Election Day a federal holiday. We can use carrots and sticks to induce states to do the right thing with automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration, making it easier for people to vote and, in particular, recognizing that we cannot allow the kind of racially motivated or partisan voter suppression or gerrymandering that often dictates the outcome of elections before the voting even begins.

Right now, we have politicians picking out their voters, rather than the other way around. That compounding with what is being done to restrict the right to vote means that our democracy is not worthy of the name.

KLOBUCHAR: I just -- I want to add this...

BUTTIGIEG: And while these process issues are not always fashionable, we must act to reform our democracy itself, including when it comes to choosing our presidency...

(CROSSTALK)

MADDOW: Senator Klobuchar...

BUTTIGIEG: ... like we do in every other election, giving it to the person who got the most votes.

KLOBUCHAR: I want to point out...

(CROSSTALK)

KLOBUCHAR: I agree with what the mayor has just said, but this is a good example where he has said the right words, but I actually have the experience and of leading 11 of the bills that are in that House-passed bill you just referred to.

And I think this kind of experience matters. I have been devoted to this from the time that I've got to the Senate. And I think having that experience, knowing how you can get things done, leading the bills to take the social media companies to task, a bipartisan bill to say, yeah, you have to say where these ads come from and how they're paid for, and stop the unbelievable practice where we still have 11 states that don't have backup paper ballots. That is my bipartisan bill. And I am so close to getting it done. And the way I get it done is if I'm president.

But just like I have won statewide and mayor, I have all appreciation for your good work as a local official, and you did not when you tried, I also have actually done this work. I think experience should matter.

MADDOW: Mayor Buttigieg, I'll let you respond to that.

BUTTIGIEG: So, first of all, 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 right now as a country?

I have the experience of bringing people together to get something done. I have the experience of being commanded into a war zone by an American president. I have the experience of knowing what is at stake as the decisions made in those big white buildings come into our lives, our homes, our families, our workplaces, and our marriages. And I would submit that this is the kind of experience we need, not just to go to Washington, but to change it before it is too late.

MADDOW: Mr. Mayor, thank you. Congresswoman Gabbard, on the original question of voting rights, please.

GABBARD: Thank you. I mean, voting rights are essential for our democracy. Securing our elections is essential for our democracy. I've introduced legislation called the Securing Americas Elections Act that mandates paper ballots to make sure that every single voter's voice is heard.

But I want to get back to Pete Buttigieg and his comments about experience. Pete, you'll agree that the service that we both have provided to our country as veterans by itself does not qualify us to serve as commander-in-chief. I think the most recent example of your inexperience in national security and foreign policy came from your recent careless statement about how you as president would be willing to send our troops to Mexico to fight the cartels.

As commander-in-chief, leader of our armed forces, I bring extensive experience, serving for seven years in Congress, on the Foreign Affairs Committee, on the Armed Services Committee, on the Homeland Security Committee, meeting with leaders of countries around the world, working with military commanders of different commands...

MADDOW: Congresswoman, thank you.

GABBARD: ... dealing with high-level national security briefings, understanding what's necessary, the preparation that I've gotten to walk in on day one to serve as commander-in-chief.

MADDOW: Congresswoman, thank you. Mr. Mayor, I'll allow you to respond.

BUTTIGIEG: So I've got to respond to that. I know that it's par for the course in Washington to take remarks out of context, but that is outlandish even by the standards of today's politics.

GABBARD: Are you saying that you didn't say that?

BUTTIGIEG: I was talking about U.S.-Mexico cooperation. We've been doing security cooperation with Mexico for years, with law enforcement cooperation and a military relationship that could continue to be developed with training relationships, for example. Do you seriously think anybody on this stage is proposing invading Mexico?

(LAUGHTER)

GABBARD: That's not what I said. That's not what I said.

BUTTIGIEG: I'm talking about building up -- I'm talking about building up alliances. And if your question is about experience, let's also talk about judgment. One of the foreign leaders you mentioned meeting was Bashar al-Assad. I have in my experience, such as it is, whether you think it counts or not since it wasn't accumulated in Washington, enough judgment that I would not have sat down with a murderous dictator like that.

(APPLAUSE)

MADDOW: Congresswoman Gabbard, let me allow you to respond.

GABBARD: Thank you. You were asked directly whether you would send our troops to Mexico to fight cartels and your answer was yes. The fact-checkers can check this out.

BUTTIGIEG: No.

GABBARD: But your point about judgment is absolutely correct. Our commander-in-chief does need to have good judgment. And what you've just pointed out is that you would lack the courage to meet with both adversaries and friends to ensure the peace and national security of our nation. I take the example of those leaders who have come before us, leaders like JFK, who met with Khrushchev, like Roosevelt, who met with Stalin.

BUTTIGIEG: Like Donald Trump who met with Kim.

GABBARD: Like Reagan, who met -- like Reagan, who met and worked with Gorbachev. These issues of national security are incredibly important. I will meet with and do what is necessary to make sure that no more of our brothers and sisters in uniform are needlessly sent into harm's way fighting regime change wars that undermine our national security. I'll bring real leadership and experience to the White House.

(APPLAUSE)

MADDOW: Congresswoman Gabbard...

BUTTIGIEG: I've got to respond to this. This is a direct...

(CROSSTALK)

MADDOW: Senator Sanders, I'm going to have you respond.

SANDERS: To your original point, the American people understand that the political system we have today is corrupt. And it is not just voter suppression, which cost the Democratic Party a governorship here in this state, not just denying black people and people of color the right to vote, but we also have a system through Citizens United which allows billionaires to buy elections.

So what we need to do, simple and straightforward, in every state in this country through the federal government, if you are 18, you have a right to vote, end of discussion.

(APPLAUSE)

We have to overturn Citizens United. We need to move toward public funding of elections.

MADDOW: On this last point, Mr. Steyer.

STEYER: I agree exactly with what Bernie said, but I want to talk about how we're going to win in 2020. I don't mean to change the subject, but I think it's sort of important that the Democratic Party not only beat Donald Trump in 2020 but have a sweeping victory across the country. And what that's going to mean is turnout.

In the United States of America, the Democratic Party keeps talking about trying to persuade a few people who are Republicans to like us, when up to half the people don't vote at all because they think neither party tells the truth, no one deals with my issues, the system is broken, why would we vote?

But what we've found at NextGen America is that is the start of a conversation about why votes are so important. And if you look at 2018 and flipping the House, what really happened was Democratic voting went up by three-quarters. In the 38 congressional districts where NextGen America was turning out young people, the turnout went up by more than 100 percent, more than double.

MADDOW: Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

STEYER: So for us to win, for everybody on this stage, for whoever's the candidate, to have a Senate that's Democratic, for us to have the sweeping victory that we absolutely...

MADDOW: Mr. Steyer, thank you.

STEYER: ... are going to have next year, it's a turnout question. We're going to have to tell the truth and we're going to have organize across this country.

MADDOW: Thank you very much.

SANDERS: Exactly right. That's exactly right.

MADDOW: It is time -- at this point, it is well past time, if I'm honest, to start closing statements. And we are going to start tonight with Senator Booker. The floor is yours.

BOOKER: Thank you, Rachel. It's an honor to be here tonight.

I have not yet qualified for the December stage and need your help to do that. If you believe in my voice and that I should be up here, please go to corybooker.com. Please help.

I had a closing statement prepared, but I saw in the audience during the break a man named John Lewis. And perhaps it's interesting and important for me to mention why I'm so grateful to him.

I've been calling in this whole election for our need to fight and fight the right way, by bringing people together to create transformative change, not just beat Donald Trump. That's the floor. We need to go to the ceiling. We need to go to the mountaintop.

I am literally here on this stage right now because 50 years ago there was a lawyer on a couch who changed his life, changed his mind to get up and start representing families, one of them mine, who were discriminated against. The house I grew up in is because of that lawyer's activity.

When I asked him why, why he did what he did, he told me that on March 7, 1965, he was watching a movie called "Judgment at Nuremberg" on TV and they interrupted that movie to show a bridge in Alabama called the Edmund Pettus Bridge. And there he saw John Lewis and other marchers who were beaten viciously by Alabama state troopers.

We all owe a debt that we cannot repay. We all drink deeply from wells of freedom and liberty that we did not dig. This is the moment in America where we need a leader that can inspire us to get up and fight again, that we have truly a moral moment in America, like it was back in 1965.

If you give me a chance to lead, I will cause what John Lewis says is good trouble. I will challenge us. I will ask more from you than any other president has ever asked before, because we...

MADDOW: Thank you, Senator.

BOOKER: ... need to mobilize a new American movement. Keep me on this stage. Keep me on this race. It is time we fight and fight together. Please go to corybooker.com.

MADDOW: Senator Booker, thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

MITCHELL: Mr. Steyer, your closing statement.

STEYER: Last time I was on this stage, I started by saying that everybody here is more patriotic and more competent than the criminal in the White House. And I stand by that statement.

But I'm different from everybody else on this stage. I know that the government in Washington, D.C., is broken. I know that it's been purchased by corporations. And I've spent a decade putting together coalitions of ordinary American citizens to beat those corporations.

I'm the only one on this stage who's willing to talk about structural change in Washington itself, term limits, that if we're going to make bold changes, we're going to need new and different people in charge. I'm the only person on this stage who spent decades building an international business. Whoever of us is the Democratic nominee is going to have to face Mr. Trump or the Republican and talk about the economy, talk about growth, understand that we can make Mr. Trump what he is, a fraud and a failure, on the economy, which is his strong point.

I'm the only person on this stage who will say that climate is my first priority, that it's our biggest challenge, but it's our biggest opportunity to recreate this country.

If you want to beat Mr. Trump, if you want to break the corporate stranglehold on this government, if you want to pass all of the progressive policies that everyone on this stage wants, I'm the person who can do it.

MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

STEYER: I have spent a decade trusting the American people...

(LAUGHTER)

MITCHELL: Thank -- thank -- thank you, Mr. Steyer.

STEYER: I'm asking you to trust me.

MITCHELL: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

PARKER: Congresswoman Gabbard, go ahead.

GABBARD: My personal commitment to you, to all of my fellow Americans, is to treat you with respect and compassion, something that we in Hawaii called aloha. Every single person deserves to be treated with respect, regardless of race, religion, or gender, or even your politics. Inclusion, unity, respect, aloha, these will be the operating principles for my administration.

Now, Dr. Martin Luther King visited Hawaii first back in 1959, where he expressed his appreciation for what we call the aloha spirit. He said we look to you for inspiration as a bold example for what you have already succeeded in the areas of racial harmony and racial justice, where we are still struggling to achieve in other sections of the country. He later went on to say, as I looked out at the various faces and various colors mingled together like the waters of the sea, I see only one face, the face of the future.

Working side by side, let's defeat the divisiveness of Donald Trump, come together and usher in a 21st century of racial harmony, of racial justice, peace, inclusion, and true equality, working side by side. Let's make Dr. King's dream our reality.

PARKER: Thank you, Congresswoman.

WELKER: Mr. Yang, your turn.

YANG: I'm here with my wife, Evelyn, tonight. We have two young boys, Christopher and Damian. How many of you all are parents like us here in the room?

So if you're a parent, you've had this thought. Maybe you've been afraid to express it. And it is this: Our kids are not all right. They're not all right because we're leaving them a future that is far darker than the lives that we have led as their parents.

We are going through the greatest economic transformation in our country's history, the fourth industrial revolution, and it is pushing more and more of our people to the side. We talk as if Donald Trump is the cause of all of our problems. He is not. He is a symptom. And we need to cure the disease.

Now, my first move was not to run for president of the United States, because I am not insane.

(LAUGHTER)

My first move was to go to D.C., talk to our leaders and say technology is ripping us apart, immigrants are being scapegoated, our kids are being left behind, and the American dream that my parents came here to find is dying before our eyes. And the people in Washington, D.C., had nothing for this. They don't want to touch it. They don't want to talk about an issue they don't think they have a solution for.

I'm not running for president because I fantasized about being president. I'm running for president because, like many of you here in this room tonight, I'm a parent and a patriot and I have seen the future that we're leaving for our kids, and it is not something I'm willing to accept.

We need to create a new way forward for our people. If you want to join us in rewriting the rules of the 21st century economy, go to yang2020.com and make it so that we can look our kids in the eyes and say to them, and believe it: Your country loves you, your country values you, and you will be all right.

WELKER: Thank you, Mr. Yang.

MADDOW: Senator Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: The nation was riveted this week by the testimony in Washington. One of the people we heard from yesterday was Lieutenant Colonel Vindman. And what he said was -- as he spoke to his immigrant father and he said, in this country, you can tell the truth and it's going to be fine. It reminded me of Army counsel years and years ago in the McCarthy hearing, someone from Iowa, actually, Mr. Welch, who said, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

I want us to remember that this election is, yes, an economic check on this president, and I have bold ideas that we can do to go forward as a country to make college more affordable and bring down the costs of health care, yes.

But this is also a patriotism check, a value check, a decency check. And when you look at the people that turned out in Kentucky and turned out in Virginia, people turned out that didn't vote in 2016, African-Americans are turning out like we didn't see before. But we also -- and they must be with us, and we must get our fired-up Democratic base with us.

But we also, let's get those independents and moderate Republicans who cannot stomach this guy anymore. This is how we build a coalition, so we don't just beat Donald Trump. We bring the U.S. Senate to some sense. We send Mitch McConnell packing. This is how we win.

So if you want to join us -- and remember that this won't be for me a personal victory, it will be a national victory, of someone that wins in red districts and suburban, purple districts, and bright blue districts every single time. If you want to join us and if you believe that our work doesn't end on Election Day, but begins on Inauguration Day, join us, amyklobuchar.com.

MADDOW: Senator Klobuchar, thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

MITCHELL: Senator Harris?

HARRIS: So, we're in a fight. This is a fight for our rule of law, for our democracy, and for our system of justice. And it's a fight we need to win.

And to fight this fight, I believe we have to have the ability to not only have a nominee who can go toe to toe with Donald Trump -- and I have taken on Jeff Sessions, I've taken on Bill Barr, I have taken on Brett Kavanaugh. I know I have the ability to do that.

We also need someone who can unify the party and the country and who has the experience of having done that. I've done that work. I believe we need someone who has the ability to speak to all the people regardless of their race, their gender, their party affiliation, where they live geographically or the language their grandmother speaks.

My entire career has been spent having one client and one client only: the people. I have never represented a corporation. I've never represented a special interest. And in this election, justice and the various injustices people are facing regardless of where they live or their race or gender are very much on the ballot, from economic justice to reproductive justice to health care justice to educational justice.

And I truly believe that when we overcome these injustices, we will then unlock the potential of the American people and the promise of America, and that's the America I believe in. That's the America I see. And that is why I'm running for president.

MITCHELL: Thank you, Senator Harris.

(APPLAUSE)

PARKER: Mayor Buttigieg, go ahead.

BUTTIGIEG: Well, first of all, I want to remark that we're in the city of Atlanta, a city where a great local leader, Maynard Jackson, helped create the black middle class that Atlanta is known by, by ensuring that taxpayer dollars were spent in a way that reflected the need to expand opportunity to those who were excluded.

And just as local leaders have shown great leadership, we need to use the powers of the presidency on challenges like this, expanding opportunity and expanding a sense of belonging to those who have been excluded in this country.

I'm not only running to defeat Donald Trump. I am running to prepare for the day that begins when Donald Trump has left office, to launch the era that must come after Trump. That era must be characterized not by exclusion, but by belonging. And so must our campaign.

I am inviting progressives who have agreed on these issues we've been talking about tonight all along, moderates who are ready to be part of this coalition, and a lot of future former Republicans, who I know are watching this, disgusted by what is happening in their own party and in this country. I want you to know that everybody is welcome in this movement that we're building and everybody is welcome in this future that we must create.

I hope you go to peteforamerica.com, join this effort, and help us create a better era for the American people beginning in November 2020.

PARKER: Thank you.

WELKER: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: Thank you. Let me say a word about myself, unusual as it may seem.

(LAUGHTER)

I am the son of an immigrant, young man of 17 who came to this country without a nickel in his pocket. I have some sense of the immigrant experience. I will stand with the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country.

At the age of 21, as a member of a civil rights group at the University of Chicago, I was arrested, spent the night in jail, and I have been committed to the fight against all forms of discrimination -- racial discrimination, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and religious bigotry. I will lead an administration that will look like America, will end the divisiveness brought by Trump, and bring us together.

During this campaign, I am proud to say that I have received more campaign contributions than any candidate at this point in an election in American history, over 4 million contributions, averaging $18 apiece.

(APPLAUSE)

If you want to be part of a movement that is not only going to beat Trump, but transform America, that doesn't have a super PAC, doesn't do fundraisers at wealthy people's homes, please join us at berniesanders.com. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

MADDOW: Senator Warren, the floor is yours.

WARREN: So, thank you. You know, I've listened to this debate tonight and I hear a lot of really good ideas. But I take a look at the issues we've talked about. We've talked about climate change. We've talked about defense spending. We've talked about private health insurance. We should have talked about gun violence.

What do these issues have in common? Well, first, they touch people all over this country in their everyday lives. And what is the second thing they have in common? We know what we need to do. We have a lot of good ideas for how to fix it, and the majority of Americans are with us on it, and yet we don't make change. Why not?

Because of corruption. Because we have a government that works better for big drug companies than it does for people trying to fill a prescription. It works better for a giant defense industry than it does for everyone who worries about the money that goes into arms instead of into our public schools. We have a government that works for those at the top and not for anyone else.

I have the biggest anti-corruption plan since Watergate. It involves ending lobbying as we know it, blocking the revolving door between industry and Washington, making everyone who runs for federal office put their tax returns online.

(APPLAUSE)

We have to have the courage not to make just individual changes, not to fight for little pieces. We want to make real progress on climate. Then we have to start by attacking the corruption that gives the oil industry and other fossil fuel industries a stranglehold over this country.

I am so grateful to be here and I am grateful to an America that gave the daughter of a janitor a chance to become a public school teacher, a chance to become a college professor, a chance to become a United States senator...

MADDOW: Thank you, Senator.

WARREN: ... and a chance to become candidate for president of the United States. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

MITCHELL: Vice President Biden, your closing statement.

BIDEN: I assume we're only talking about the corruption of the federal government. We weren't talking about Barack Obama and his spotless administration who made so much progress.

But one thing we haven't talked about here today, we haven't talked -- we talked about everything, but we haven't talked about the one thing I think is most consequential.

You know, the American people have an enormous opportunity. There's an incredible -- incredible -- I've never been more optimistic about our prospects in my entire career, and I got elected when I was a 29-year-old kid to the United States Senate.

Folks, we are in a position where we have -- we're the wealthiest nation in the world, our workers are more productive than workers around the world, three times as productive as workers in Asia. We have more great research universities that the people own than all the rest of the world combined. We're in a position where we've led not by the example of our power, but by the power of our example.

I'm so tired of everybody walking around like woe is me, what are we going to do? Let's remember, this is the United States of America. There has never, ever, ever been a time when we have set our mind to do something we've been unable to do it. Never. Never, never.

So it's time to remember, get up, let's take back this country and lead the world again. It's within our power to do it. Get up and take it back.

(APPLAUSE)

MADDOW: Vice President Biden, thank you.

And let me take this opportunity to thank all of the candidates for a spirited and excellent debate. I want to thank all of you, and I want to tell you that on MSNBC tonight, my colleague, Brian Williams, is going to pick up our coverage in just a moment. I also, before we go, want to thank everybody here in the audience. I want to thank the city of Atlanta. And from all of us here at the dais, thank you so much for watching. Good night.

COOPER: And live from Otterbein University, just north of Columbus, Ohio, this is the CNN-New York Times Democratic presidential debate.

We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and watching around the world, watching us on CNN, CNN International, CNN En Espanol, Cnn.com, thenewyorktimes.com, CNN's Facebook page, and listening on the Westwood One radio network, SiriusXM satellite radio, NPR, and the American Forces Network.

I'm Anderson Cooper moderating tonight's debate, along with Anderson Cooper and New York Times national editor Mark Lacey. We are in Ohio tonight, because it's one of the most critical battleground states. Ohio has backed all but two presidential winners in every election since 1896.

BURNETT: The top 12 Democratic presidential candidates are at their positions behind the podiums. This is a record number of candidates for a presidential primary debate, so to accommodate the large group, there are no opening statements tonight.

LACEY: Before we begin, a reminder of the ground rules. You'll each receive 75 seconds to answer questions, 45 seconds for responses and rebuttals, and 15 seconds for clarifications. Please refrain from interrupting your fellow candidates, as that will count against your time.

COOPER: And we remind our audience here in the Rike Center at Otterbein to be respectful so the candidates can hear the questions and each other. All right, let's begin.

Since the last debate, House Democrats have officially launched an impeachment inquiry against President Trump, which all the candidates on this stage support. Senator Warren, I want to start with you. You have said that there's already enough evidence for President Trump to be impeached and removed from office. But the question is, with the election only one year away, why shouldn't it be the voters who determine the president's fate?

WARREN: Because sometimes there are issues that are bigger than politics. And I think that's the case with this impeachment inquiry.

When I made the decision to run for president, I certainly didn't think it was going to be about impeachment. But when the Mueller report came out, I read it, all 442 pages. And when I got to the end, I realized that Mueller had shown, too, a fare-thee-well, that this president had obstructed justice and done it repeatedly. And so at that moment, I called for opening an impeachment inquiry.

Now, that didn't happen. And look what happened as a result. Donald Trump broke the law again in the summer, broke it again this fall. You know, we took a constitutional oath, and that is that no one is above the law, and that includes the president of the United States.

Impeachment is the way that we establish that this man will not be permitted to break the law over and over without consequences. This is about Donald Trump, but, understand, it's about the next president and the next president and the next president and the future of this country. The impeachment must go forward.

COOPER: Thank you, Senator Warren. You're all going to get in on this, by the way. Senator Sanders, do Democrats have any chance but to impeach President Trump? Please respond.

SANDERS: No, they don't. In my judgment, Trump is the most corrupt president in the history of this country. It's not just that he obstructed justice with the Mueller Report. I think that the House will find him guilty of -- worthy of impeachment because of the emoluments clause. This is a president who is enriching himself while using the Oval Office to do that, and that is outrageous.

And I think in terms of the recent Ukrainian incident, the idea that we have a president of the United States who is prepared to hold back national security money to one of our allies in order to get dirt on a presidential candidate is beyond comprehension. So I look forward, by the way, not only to a speedy and expeditious impeachment process, but Mitch McConnell has got to do the right thing and allow a free and fair trial in the Senate.

COOPER: Vice President Biden, during the Clinton impeachment proceedings, you said, and I quote, "The American people don't think that they've made a mistake by electing Bill Clinton, and we in Congress had better be very careful before we upset their decision." With the country now split, have Democrats been careful enough in pursuing the impeachment of President Trump?

BIDEN: Yes, they have. I said from the beginning that if, in fact, Trump continued to stonewall what the Congress is entitled to know about his background, what he did, all the accusations in the Mueller Report, if they did that, they would have no choice -- no choice -- but to begin an impeachment proceeding, which

[20:05:00]

gives them more power to seek more information.

This president -- and I agree with Bernie, Senator Sanders -- is the most corrupt president in modern history and I think all of our history. And the fact is that this president of the United States has gone so far as to say, since this latest event, that, in fact, he will not cooperate in any way at all, will not list any witnesses, will not provide any information, will not do anything to cooperate with the impeachment. They have no choice but to move.

COOPER: Senator Harris, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that members of Congress have to be, in her words, fair to the president and give him a chance to exonerate himself. You've already said that based on everything you've seen, you would vote to remove him from office. Is that being fair to the president?

HARRIS: Well, it's just being observant, because he has committed crimes in plain sight. I mean, it's shocking, but he told us who he was. Maya Angelou told us years ago, listen to somebody when they tell you who they are the first time.

During that election, Donald Trump told us he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. And he has consistently since he won been selling out the American people. He's been selling out working people. He's been selling out our values. He's been selling out national security. And on this issue with Ukraine, he has been selling out our democracy.

Our framers imagined this moment, a moment where we would have a corrupt president. And our framers then rightly designed our system of democracy to say there will be checks and balances. This is one of those moments. And so Congress must act.

But the reality of it is that I don't really think this impeachment process is going to take very long, because as a former prosecutor, I know a confession when I see it. And he did it in plain sight. He has given us the evidence. And he tried to cover it up, putting it in that special server. And there's been a clear consciousness of guilt. This will not take very long. Donald Trump needs to be held accountable. He is, indeed, the most corrupt and unpatriotic president we have ever had.

COOPER: Senator Booker, you have said that President Trump's, quote, "moral vandalism" disqualifies him from being president. Can you be fair in an impeachment trial? Please respond.

BOOKER: So, first of all, we must be fair. We are talking about ongoing proceedings to remove a sitting president for office. This has got to be about patriotism and not partisanship.

Look, I share the same sense of urgency of everybody on this stage. I understand the outrage that we all feel. But we have to conduct this process in a way that is honorable, that brings our country together, doesn't rip us apart.

Anybody who has criticisms about a process that is making all the facts bare before the American public, that works to build consensus, that's what this nation needs, in what is a moral moment and not a political one. So I swore an oath to do my job as a senator, do my duty. This president has violated his. I will do mine.

COOPER: Thank you, Senator Booker. Senator Klobuchar, you have -- what do you say to those who fear that impeachment is a distraction from issues that impact people's day-to- day lives, health care, the economy, and could backfire on Democrats?

KLOBUCHAR: We can do two things at once. That's our job. We have a constitutional duty to pursue this impeachment, but we also can stand up for America, because this president has not been putting America in front of his own personal interests.

He has not been standing up for the workers of Ohio. He's not been standing up for the farmers in Iowa. And I take this even a step further. You know, when he made that call to the head of Ukraine, he's digging up dirt on an opponent. That's illegal conduct. That's what he was doing. He didn't talk to him about the Russian invasion. He talked to him about that.

So I'm still waiting to find out from him how making that call to the head of Ukraine and trying to get him involved in interfering in our election makes America great again. I'd like to hear from him about how leaving the Kurds for slaughter, our allies for slaughter, where Russia then steps in to protect them, how that makes America great again. And I would like to hear from him about how coddling up to Vladimir Putin makes America great again.

It doesn't make America great again. It makes Russia great again. And that is what this president has done. So whether it is workers' issues, whether it is farmers' issues, he has put his own private interests...

COOPER: Thank you.

KLOBUCHAR: ... and I will not do that.

COOPER: Thank you. Secretary Castro, is impeachment a distraction?

CASTRO: Not at all. We can walk and chew gun at the same time. And all of us are out there every single day talking about what we're going to do to make sure that more people cross a graduation stage, that more families have great health care, that more folks are put to work in places like Ohio, where Donald Trump has broken his promises, because Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania actually in the latest jobs data have lost jobs, not gained them.

[20:10:00]

Not only that, what we have to recognize is that not only did the Mueller Report point out 10 different instances where the president obstructed justice or tried to, and he made that call to President Zelensky of the Ukraine, but he is in ongoingly -- in an ongoing way violating his oath of office and abusing his power.

We have to impeach this president. And the majority of Americans not only support impeachment, they support removal. He should be removed.

COOPER: Mayer Buttigieg, you have said that impeachment should be bipartisan. There's been, obviously, very little Republican support to date, yet Democrats are proceeding. Is that a mistake?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, it's a mistake on the part of Republicans, who enable the president whose actions are as offensive to their own supposed values as they are to the values that we all share.

Look, the president has left the Congress with no choice. And this is not just about holding the president accountable, for not just the things emerging in these investigations, but actions that he has confessed to on television. It's also about the presidency itself, because a president 10 years or 100 years from now will look back at this moment and draw the conclusion either that no one is above the law or that a president can get away with anything.

But everyone on this stage, by definition, is competing to be a president for after the Trump presidency. Remember, one way or the other, this presidency is going to come to an end. I want you to picture what it's going to be like, what it's actually going to feel like in this country the first day the sun comes up after Donald Trump has been president.

It starts out feeling like a happy thought; this particular brand of chaos and corruption will be over. But really think about where we'll be: vulnerable, even more torn apart by politics than we are right now. And these big issues from the economy to climate change have not taken a vacation during the impeachment process.

I'm running to be the president who can turn the page and unify a dangerously polarized country while tackling those issues that are going to be just as urgent then as they are now.

COOPER: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Congresswoman Gabbard, you're the only sitting House member on this stage. How do you respond?

GABBARD: If impeachment is driven by these hyperpartisan interests, it will only further divide an already terribly divided country. Unfortunately, this is what we're already seen play out as calls for impeachment really began shortly after Trump won his election. And as unhappy as that may make us as Democrats, he won that election in 2016.

The serious issues that have been raised around this phone call that he had with the president of Ukraine and many other things that transpired around that are what caused me to support the inquiry in the House. And I think that it should continue to play its course out, to gather all the information, provide that to the American people, recognizing that that is the only way forward.

If the House votes to impeach, the Senate does not vote to remove Donald Trump, he walks out and he feels exonerated, further deepening the divides in this country that we cannot afford.

COOPER: Thank you, Congresswoman.

Mr. Steyer, you've been calling for impeachment for two years. Does there need to be bipartisan support? STEYER: Well, Anderson, this is my first time on this stage, so I just want to start by reminding everybody that every candidate here is more decent, more coherent, and more patriotic than the criminal in the White House.

(APPLAUSE)

But I also want to point out that Anderson's right. Two years ago, I started the Need to Impeach movement, because I knew there was something desperately wrong at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that we did have the most corrupt president in the country, and that only the voice and the will of the American people would drag Washington to see it as a matter of right and wrong, not of political expediency. So, in fact, impeaching and removing this president is something that the American people are demanding. They're the voice that counts, and that's who I went to, the American people.

COOPER: Mr. Yang, do you think there's already enough evidence out there to impeach the president? Please respond.

YANG: I support impeachment, but we shouldn't have any illusions that impeaching Donald Trump will, one, be successful or, two, erase the problems that got him elected in 2016. We're standing in the great state of Ohio, the ultimate purple state, the ultimate bellwether state.

Why did Donald Trump win your state by eight points? Because we got rid of 300,000 manufacturing jobs in your towns. And we are not stopping there. How many of you have noticed stores closing where you work and live here in Ohio? Raise your hands.

It's not just you. Amazon alone is closing 30 percent of America's stores and malls, soaking up $20 billion in business while paying zero in taxes. These are the problems that got Donald Trump elected, the fourth industrial revolution. And that is going to accelerate and grow more serious regardless of who is in the Oval Office.

The fact is, Donald Trump, when we're talking about him, we are losing. We need to present a new vision, and that even includes talking about impeaching Donald Trump.

COOPER: Congressman O'Rourke, on impeachment, please respond.

[20:15:00]

O'ROURKE: You know, I think about everyone who's ever served this country in uniform. We have two examples here on this stage tonight in Mayor Buttigieg and Congresswoman Gabbard, those who have willingly sacrificed their lives to defend this country and our Constitution. We are the inheritors of their service and their sacrifice.

And we have a responsibility to be fearless in the face of this president's criminality and his lawlessness. The fact that as a candidate for the highest office in the land, he invited the participation, the invasion of a foreign power in our democracy. As president, he lied to investigators, obstructed justice, fired James Comey, head of the FBI, tried to fire Mueller, head of the investigation, then invited President Zelensky to involve himself in our politics, as well as China, in exchange for favorable trade terms in an upcoming trade deal.

COOPER: Thank you, Congressman.

O'ROURKE: If we do not hold him to account, if there is not justice, not only have we failed this moment, our Constitution and our country, but we have failed everyone who has sacrificed and laid their lives down on the line.

COOPER: Thank you.

O'ROURKE: And we cannot do that.

COOPER: Thank you, Congressman. The impeachment inquiry is centered on President Trump's attempts to get political dirt from Ukraine on Vice President Biden and his son, Hunter. Mr. Vice President, President Trump has falsely accused your son of doing something wrong while serving on a company board in Ukraine. I want to point out there's no evidence of wrongdoing by either one of you.

Having said that, on Sunday, you announced that if you're president, no one in your family or associated with you will be involved in any foreign businesses. My question is, if it's not OK for a president's family to be involved in foreign businesses, why was it OK for your son when you were vice president? Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: Look, my son did nothing wrong. 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.

And what I wanted to make a point about -- and my son's statement speaks for itself. He spoke about it today. My son's statement speaks for itself. What I think is important is we focus on why it's so important to remove this man from office.

On the -- look, the fact that George Washington worried on the first time he spoke after being elected president that what we had to worry about is foreign interference in our elections, it was the greatest threat to America. This president on three occasions -- three occasions -- has invited foreign governments and heads of government to get engaged in trying to alter our elections. The fact is that it is outrageous.

Rudy Giuliani, the president, and his thugs have already proven that they, in fact, are flat lying. What we have to do now is focus on Donald Trump. He doesn't want me to be the candidate. He's going after me because he knows, if I get the nomination, I will beat him like a drum.

(UNKNOWN): Anderson -- Anderson...

COOPER: Hold on, sorry, just to follow up. Mr. Vice President, as you said, your son, Hunter, today gave an interview, admitted that he made a mistake and showed poor judgement by serving on that board in Ukraine. Did you make a mistake by letting him? You were the point person on Ukraine at the time. You can answer.

BIDEN: Look, my son's statement speaks for itself. I did my job. I never discussed a single thing with my son about anything having do with Ukraine. No one has indicated I have. We've always kept everything separate. Even when my son was the attorney general of the state of Delaware, we never discussed anything, so there would be no potential conflict.

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.

COOPER: Senator Sanders, your response?

SANDERS: Let me make a point. I think that it is absolutely imperative we go forward with impeachment. I hope that he is impeached. But I think what would be a disaster, if the American people believe that all we were doing is taking on Trump and we're forgetting that 87 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. We're forgetting about the existential threat of climate change. We are forgetting about the fact that half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. So what we have got to do is end this corruption, set a precedent for future history that says presidents like this cannot behave this way.

But we cannot and must not turn our backs on the pain of the working class of this country.

COOPER: Senator Sanders, thank you. Mark?

LACEY: We want to move now to the economy.

MORE

XXX to the economy.

(UNKNOWN): May I get in, please?

LACEY: You've proposed some sweeping plans...

(CROSSTALK)

LACEY: ... free public college...

(CROSSTALK)

(UNKNOWN): It is wrong to move on.

LACEY: Thank you. We're going to -- Senator Warren.

(UNKNOWN): It is wrong to move on.

LACEY: Senator Warren, we've proposed -- you've proposed some sweeping plans, free public college, free universal childcare, eliminating most Americans' college debt. [20:20:00]

And you've said how you're going to pay for those plans. But you have not specified how you're going to pay for the most expensive plan, Medicare for all. Will you raise taxes on the middle class to pay for it, yes or no?

WARREN: So 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. You know, the way I see this is, I have been out all around this country. I've done 140 town halls now, been to 27 states and Puerto Rico. Shoot, I've done 70,000 selfies, which must be the new measure of democracy.

And this gives people a chance to come up and talk to me directly. So I have talked with the family, the mom and dad whose daughter's been diagnosed with cancer. I have talked to the young woman whose mother has just been diagnosed with diabetes. I've talked to the young man who has MS.

And here's the thing about all of them. They all had great health insurance right at the beginning. But then they found out when they really needed it, when the costs went up, that the insurance company pulled the rug out from underneath them and they were left with nothing.

Look, the way I see this, it is hard enough to get a diagnosis that your child has cancer, to think about the changes in your family if your mom has diabetes, or what it means for your life going forward if you've been diagnosed with MS. But what you shouldn't have to worry about is how you're going to pay for your health care after that.

LACEY: Senator Warren, to be clear, Senator Sanders acknowledges he's going to raise taxes on the middle class to pay for Medicare for all. You've endorsed his plan. Should you acknowledge it, too?

WARREN: So the way I see this, it is about what kinds of costs middle- class families are going to face. So let me be clear on this. Costs will go up for the wealthy. They will go up for big corporations. And for middle-class families, they will go down. I will not sign a bill into law that does not lower costs for middle-class families.

LACEY: Mayor Buttigieg, you say Senator Warren has been, quote, "evasive" about how she's going to pay for Medicare for all. What's your response?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, we heard it tonight, a yes or no question that didn't get a yes or no answer. Look, this is why people here in the Midwest are so frustrated with Washington in general and Capitol Hill in particular. Your signature, Senator, is to have a plan for everything. Except this.

No plan has been laid out to explain how a multi-trillion-dollar hole in this Medicare for all plan that Senator Warren is putting forward is supposed to get filled in. And the thing is, we really can deliver health care for every American and move forward with the boldest, biggest transformation since the inception of Medicare itself.

But the way to do it without a giant multi-trillion-dollar hole and without having to avoid a yes-or-no question is Medicare for all who want it. We take a version of Medicare. We let you access it if you want to. And if you prefer to stay on your private plan, you can do that, too. That is what most Americans want, Medicare for all who want it, trusting you to make the right decision for your health care and for your family. And it can be delivered without an increase on the middle-class taxes.

LACEY: Thank you, Mayor. Senator, your response?

WARREN: So, let's be clear. Whenever someone hears the term Medicare for all who want it, understand what that really means. It's Medicare for all who can afford it. And that's the problem we've got.

Medicare for all is the gold standard. It is the way we get health care coverage for every single American, including the family whose child has been diagnosed with cancer, including the person who's just gotten an MS diagnosis. That's how we make sure that everyone gets health care.

We can pay for this. I've laid out the basic principles. Costs are going to go up for the wealthy. They're going to go up for big corporations. They will not go up for middle-class families. And I will not sign a bill into law that raises their costs, because costs are what people care about.

I've been studying this, you know, for the biggest part of my life...

LACEY: Thank you, Senator. Can the -- can the...

WARREN: ... why people go bankrupt.

LACEY: ... mayor respond?

WARREN: Sure.

BUTTIGIEG: I don't think the American people are wrong when they say that what they want is a choice. And the choice of Medicare for all who want it, which is affordable for everyone, because we make sure that the subsidies are in place, allows you to get that health care. It's just better than Medicare for all whether you want it or not.

And I don't understand why you believe the only way to deliver affordable coverage to everybody is to obliterate private plans, kicking 150 million Americans off of their insurance in four short years, when we could achieve that same big, bold goal -- and once again, we have a president -- we're competing to be president for the day after Trump. Our country will be horrifyingly polarized, even more than now, after everything we've been through, after everything we are about to go through, this country

[20:25:00]

will be even more divided. Why unnecessarily divide this country over health care when there's a better way to deliver coverage for all?

LACEY: Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Senator Sanders?

WARREN: I'd like to be able to respond...

SANDERS: Well, as somebody who wrote the damn bill, as I said, let's be clear. Under the Medicare for all bill that I wrote, premiums are gone. Co-payments are gone. Deductibles are gone. All out-of-pocket expenses are gone. We're going to do better than the Canadians do, and that is what they have managed to do.

At the end of the day, the overwhelming majority of people will save money on their health care bills. But I do think it is appropriate to acknowledge that taxes will go up. They're going to go up significantly for the wealthy. And for virtually everybody, the tax increase they pay will be substantially less -- substantially less than what they were paying for premiums and out-of-pocket expansions.

BUTTIGIEG: Well, at least that's a straightforward answer, but there's a better way.

LACEY: Senator Warren, will you acknowledge what the senator just said about taxes going up?

WARREN: So my view on this, and what I have committed to, is costs will go down for hardworking, middle-class families. I will not embrace a plan like Medicare for all who can afford it that will leave behind millions of people who cannot. And I will not embrace a plan that says people have great insurance right up until you get the diagnosis and the insurance company says, "Sorry, we're not covering your expensive cancer treatments, we're not covering your expensive treatments for MS."

LACEY: Thank you, Senator. Senator Klobuchar...

WARREN: "We're not covering what you need."

KLOBUCHAR: 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. 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.

I believe the best and boldest idea here is to not trash Obamacare but to do exactly what Barack Obama wanted to do from the beginning and that's have a public option that would bring down the cost of the premium and expand the number of people covered and take on the pharmaceutical companies. That is what we should be doing instead of kicking 149 million people off their insurance in our years.

And I'm tired of hearing, whenever I say these things, oh, it's Republican talking points. You are making Republican talking points right now in this room by coming out for a plan that's going to do that. I think there is a better way that is bold, that will cover more people, and it's the one we should get behind.

LACEY: Senator Warren?

WARREN: You know, I didn't spend most of my time in Washington. I spent most of my time studying one basic question, and that is why hardworking people go broke. And one of the principal reasons for that is the cost of health care.

And back when I was studying it, two out of every three families that ended up in bankruptcy after a serious medical problem had health insurance. The problem we've got right now is the overall cost of health care. And, look, you can try to spin this any way you want. I've spent my entire life on working on how America's middle class has been hollowed out and how we fight back. I've put out nearly 50 plans on how we can fight back and how we can rebuild an America that works. And a part is that is we have got to stop...

LACEY: Thank you, Senator.

WARREN: ... Americans from going bankrupt over health care costs.

LACEY: Senator Klobuchar, do you want to respond?

KLOBUCHAR: Yes, I do. And I appreciate Elizabeth's work. But, again, the difference between a plan and a pipe dream is something that you can actually get done. And we can get this public option done. And we can take on the pharmaceutical companies and bring down the prices.

But what really bothers me about this discussion, which we've had so many times, is that we don't talk about the things that I'm hearing about from regular Americans. That is long-term care. We are seeing -- I once called it a silver tsunami. The aging -- and then someone told me that was too negative, so I call it the silver surge -- the aging of the population.

We need to make easier to get long-term care insurance and strengthen Medicaid. In this state, the state of Ohio, that has been hit by the opioid epidemic, we need to take on those pharma companies and make them pay for the addictions that they have caused and the people that they have killed.

LACEY: Thank you. Thank you, Senator.

KLOBUCHAR: Those are the issues that I hear about when I'm in Toledo.

LACEY: Thank you, Senator. Vice President Biden...

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: I'd like to be...

LACEY: Let me -- let me bring you in here, Vice President, for your response. Are Senators Warren and Sanders being realistic about the difficulty of enacting their plans?

BIDEN: First of all, the plan we're hearing discussed is the Biden plan, the one I built forward. Build on Obamacare, add a public option. We can go into that. I can talk about that if you'd like. But here's the deal. On the single most important thing facing the American public, I think it's awfully important to be straightforward with them. The plan is going to cost at least $30 trillion over 10 years.

[20:30:00]

That is more on a yearly basis than the entire federal budget.

And we talk about how we're going to pay for it. The study recently came out showing that, in fact, it will reduce costs. But for people making between $50,000 and $75,000 a year, their taxes are going to go up about $5,000, because the fact is they'll pay more in new taxes, 7.4 percent plus, or 5 percent, plus a 4 percent income tax. If you're making -- if a fireman and a schoolteacher are making $100,000 a year, their taxes are going to go up about $10,000. That is more than they will possibly save on this health care plan. We have a plan put forward that will work.

LACEY: Senator Sanders, do you want to respond to -- we were coming to you.

WARREN: I get a little bit tired -- I must say -- of people defending a system which is dysfunctional, which is cruel, 87 million uninsured, 30,000 people dying every single year, 500,000 people going bankrupt for one reason, they came down with cancer.

I will tell you what the issue is here. The issue is whether the Democratic Party has the guts to stand up to the health care industry, which made $100 billion in profit, whether we have the guts to stand up to the corrupt, price-fixing pharmaceutical industry, which is charging us the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.

(APPLAUSE)

And if we don't have the guts to do that, if all we can do is take their money, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

LACEY: Thank you, Senator Sanders.

BIDEN: We can stand up to them.

LACEY: Senator Harris, your response?

HARRIS: This is the sixth debate we have had in this presidential cycle and not nearly one word, with all of these discussions about health care, on women's access to reproductive health care, which is under full-on attack in America today.

(APPLAUSE)

And it's outrageous. There are states that have passed laws that will virtually prevent women from having access to reproductive health care. And 3it is not an exaggeration to say women will die, poor women, women of color will die, because these Republican legislatures in these various states who are out of touch with America are telling women what to do with our bodies.

Women are the majority of the population in this country. People need to keep their hands off of women's bodies and let women make the decisions about their own lives.

(APPLAUSE)

LACEY: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: And let's talk about that.

LACEY: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: That is a significant health care issue in America today.

LACEY: Thank you, Senator.

BURNETT: I want to turn now to jobs. According to a recent study, about a quarter of American jobs could be lost to automation in just the next 10 years. Ohio is one of the states likely to be hardest hit.

Senator Sanders, you say your federal jobs guarantee is part of the answer to the threat from automation, but tens of millions of Americans could end up losing their jobs. Are you promising that you will have a job for every single one of those Americans?

SANDERS: Damn right we will. And I'll tell you why. If you look at what goes on in America today, we have an infrastructure which is collapsing. We could put 15 million people to work rebuilding our roads, our bridges, our water systems, our wastewater plants, airports, et cetera.

Furthermore -- and I hope we will discuss it at length tonight -- this planet faces the greatest threat in its history from climate change. And the Green New Deal that I have advocated will create up to 20 million jobs as we move away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.

We need workers to do childcare. We need workers, great teachers to come in to school systems which don't have the teachers that we need right now. We need more doctors. We need more dentists. We need more carpenters. We need more sheet metal workers. And when we talk about making public colleges and universities tuition fee and cancelling student debt, we're going to give those people the opportunity to get those good jobs.

BURNETT: Senator Sanders, thank you. Mr. Yang, your main solution to job loss from automation is a universal basic income. Why is giving people $1,000 a month better than Sanders' plan to guaranteeing them a job?

YANG: I am for the spirit of a federal jobs guarantee, but you have to look at how it would actually materialize in practice. What are the jobs? Who manages you? What if you don't like your job? What if you're not good at your job? The fact is, most Americans do not want to work for the federal government. And saying that that is the vision of the economy of the 21st century to me is not a vision that most Americans would embrace.

Also, Senator Sanders, the description of a federal jobs guarantee does not take into account the work of people like my wife, who's at home with our two boys, one of whom is autistic. We have a freedom dividend of $1,000 a month. It actually recognizes the work that is happening in our families and our communities. It helps all Americans transition.

Because the fact is -- and you know this in Ohio -

[20:35:00]

if you rely upon the federal government to target its resources, you wind up with failed retraining programs and jobs that no one wants. When we put the money into our hands, we can build a trickle-up economy from our people, our families, and our communities up. It will enable us to do the kind of work that we want to do. This is the sort of positive vision in response to the fourth industrial revolution that we have to embrace as a party.

BURNETT: Senator Booker, a federal jobs guarantee or $1,000 a month, are those the best solutions there? Please respond.

BOOKER: Well, first of all, I'm happy to get in finally. And I just want to say, as a great -- as a great New Jersian, Yogi Berra, said, "I am having deja vu all over again."

I'm having deja vu all over again, first of all, because I saw this play in 2016's election. We are literally using Donald Trump's lies. And the second issue we cover on this stage is elevating a lie and attacking a statesman. That was so offensive. He should not have to defend ourselves. And the only person sitting at home that was enjoying that was Donald Trump seeing that we're distracting from his malfeasance and selling out of his office.

(APPLAUSE)

And I'm having deja vu all over again. And I'm having deja vu all over again because we have another health care debate, and we're not talking about the clear and existential threat in America that we're in a state that has had two Planned Parenthoods close. We are seeing all over this country women's reproductive rights under attack. And God bless Kamala, but you know what? Women should not be the only ones taking up this cause and this fight.

(APPLAUSE)

And men...

BURNETT: Thank you.

BOOKER: It is not just because women are our daughters and our friends and our wives. It's because women are people. And people deserve to control their own bodies.

BURNETT: Senator, thank you. We are going to get to that issue later on tonight.

Senator Warren, you wrote that blaming job loss on automation is, quote, "a good story, except it's not really true." So should workers here in Ohio not be worried about losing their jobs to automation?

WARREN: So the data show that we have had a lot of problems with losing jobs, but the principal reason has been bad trade policy. The principal reason has been a bunch of corporations, giant multinational corporations who've been calling the shots on trade, giant multinational corporations that have no loyalty to America. They have no loyalty to American workers. They have no loyalty to American consumers. They have no loyalty to American communities. They are loyal only to their own bottom line.

I have a plan to fix that, and it's accountable capitalism. It says, you want to have one of the giant corporations in America? Then, by golly, 40 percent of your board of directors should be elected by your employees. That will make a difference when a corporation decides, gee, we could save a nickel by moving a job to Mexico, when there are people on the board in the boardroom saying, no, do you know what that does to our company, do you know what that does to our community, to what it does to our workers?

We also need to make it easier to join a union and give unions more power when they negotiate.

(APPLAUSE)

We need to restructure strength in this economy, and that's where it starts.

BURNETT: Thank you, Senator.

Secretary Castro, what's your response to Senator Warren's claim that automation is a good story, except it's not really true?

CASTRO: Well, I think -- I think what folks have said is that that is only part of the issue, right? You know, I believe that we need to address communities that are being impacted by automation. I'm even willing to pilot something like UBI and to see how that would work.

But I think we need to focus on making sure that we spark job opportunity for people across this country. As I mentioned earlier, here in Ohio, in the latest job data, Ohio is losing jobs under Donald Trump. He has broken his promises to Ohio and the industrial Midwest. I would invest in infrastructure to put people back to work. I would invest in a Green New Deal to unleash millions of new jobs in a clean energy economy.

I was in Newton, Iowa, a few weeks ago and I visited a place called TPI. Newton, Iowa, had a Maytag washing machine manufacturing facility, and then it closed down. TPI manufactures wind turbines. They're putting hundreds of people to work at decent-paying jobs and creating a better future for those families.

On top of that, let me just say this. We need to support working families. We need to invest in things like...

BURNETT: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

CASTRO: ... universal childcare, so that people can afford childcare instead of having to pay 20 percent of their income for it.

YANG: Senator Warren, I just need -- I just need to address this.

BURNETT: Go ahead, Mr. Yang.

YANG: Senator Warren, I've been talking to Americans around the country about automation. And they're smart. They see what's happening around them. Their Main Street stores are closing. They see a self- serve kiosk in every McDonalds, every grocery store, every CVS. Driving a truck is the most common job in 29 states, including this one; 3.5 million truck drivers in this country. And my friends in California are piloting self-driving trucks.

What is that going to mean for the 3.5 million truckers or the 7 million Americans who work in truck stops, motels, and diners that rely upon the truckers getting out and having a meal? Saying this is a rules problem is ignoring the reality that Americans see around us every single day.

[20:40:00]

BURNETT: Senator Warren, respond, please.

(CROSSTALK)

(APPLAUSE)

WARREN: So I understand that what we're all looking for is how we strengthen America's middle class. And actually, I think the thing closest to the universal basic income is Social Security. It's one of the reasons that I've put forward a plan to extend the solvency of Social Security by decades and add $200 to the payment of every person who receives Social Security right now and every person who receives disability insurance right now.

That $200 a month will lift nearly 5 million families out of poverty. And it will sure loosen up the budget for a whole lot more. It also has a provision for your wife, for those who stay home to do caregiving for children or for seniors, and creates an opportunity for them to get credit on their Social Security.

BURNETT: Thank you.

WARREN: So after a lifetime of hard work, people are entitled to retire with dignity.

BURNETT: Thank you, Senator Warren.

WARREN: I see this as an important question about just -- I want to understand the data on this.

BURNETT: Senator, thank you very much.

WARREN: And I want to make sure we're responding to make this work.

BURNETT: Your time is up.

(CROSSTALK)

BURNETT: I want to give Congresswoman Gabbard a chance to respond.

GABBARD: Thank you. You know, really what this is about is getting to the heart of the fear that is well founded. As people look to this automation revolution, they look to uncertainty. They don't know how this is going to affect their jobs and their everyday lives.

And I agree with my friend, Andrew Yang. I think universal basic income is a good idea to help provide that security so that people can have the freedom to make the kinds of choices that they want to see.

This has to do with bad trade deals that we've seen in the past that have also driven fear towards people losing the way that they provide for their families. Really what we need to do is look at how we can best serve the interests of the American people. I do not believe a federal jobs guarantee is the way to do that. The value that someone feels in themselves and their own lives is not defined by the job that they have but is intrinsic to who we all are as Americans, whatever we choose to do with our lives, and we can't forget that.

BURNETT: Thank you very much.

LACEY: One of the industries most at risk from a changing economy is the auto industry. General Motors used to be the largest employer in Ohio. Now it's 72nd. Today, thousands of GM workers here in Ohio and across the country are on strike. All of you on the stage have voiced support for these workers.

Senator Booker, one of the latest impasses in negotiations involves bringing jobs back from Mexico. As president, how would you convince GM to return production to the United States?

BOOKER: Well, first of all, the one point I wanted to make about the UBI conversation -- and I hope that my friend, Andrew Yang, will come out for this -- doing more for workers than UBI would actually be just raising the 33minimum wage to $15 an hour. It would put more money in people's pockets than giving them $1,000 a month.

We have to start putting the dignity back in work. And, number one, you start having trade deals, not like this thing that the president is trying to push through Congress right now that gives pharmaceutical companies and other corporations benefits and doesn't put workers at the center of every trade deal.

We must make sure we are not giving corporate tax incentives for people to move jobs out of our country, but start to put the worker at the center of that and make sure that they have the resources to succeed.

But it's more than that. I stood with these workers because we're seeing this trend all over our country. I stood with unions because, right now, unions in America are under attack. As union membership has gone down, we have seen a stratification of wealth and income in this country.

So the other thing that I'll do as president of the United States is begin to fight again to see union strength in this country spread, to make sure we have sectoral bargaining so that unions from the auto workers all the way to fast food workers can ensure that we improve workers' conditions and make sure that every American has a living wage in this country.

LACEY: Thank you, Senator.

Congressman O'Rourke, same question for you. How would you convince GM to bring production back to the United States from Mexico?

O'ROURKE: I've met with these members of the UAW who are striking outside of facilities in Cincinnati, in Lordstown, Ohio, which has just been devastated, decimated by GM and their malfeasance, paying effectively zero in taxes last year. The people of Ohio investing tens of millions of dollars in the infrastructure around there.

What they want is a shot. And they want fairness in how we treat workers in this country, which they are not receiving today. Part of the way to do that is through our trade deals, making sure that if we trade with Mexico, Mexican workers are allowed to join unions, which they are effectively unable to do today. Not only is that bad for the Mexican worker, it puts the American worker at a competitive disadvantage.

[20:45:00]

If we complement that with investment in world-class pre-K through 12 public education, get behind our world-class public school educators, if we make sure that cost is not an object to be able to attend college, and if we elevate the role of unions in this country, and create more than 5 million apprenticeships over the next eight years, we will make sure that every single American has a shot.

They don't want a handout. They don't want a job guarantee. They just want a shot. And as president, I will give them that shot.

LACEY: Thank you, Congressman.

BURNETT: Income inequality is growing in the United States at an alarming rate. The top 1 percent now own more of this nation's wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. Senator Sanders, when you introduced your wealth tax, which would tax the assets of the wealthiest Americans, you said, quoting you, Senator, "Billionaires should not exist." Is the goal of your plan to tax billionaires out of existence?

WARREN: When you have a half-a-million Americans sleeping out on the street today, when you have 87 people -- 87 million people uninsured or underinsured, when you've got hundreds of thousands of kids who cannot afford to go to college, and millions struggling with the oppressive burden of student debt, and then you also have three people owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society, that is a moral and economic outrage.

And the truth is, we cannot afford to continue this level of income and wealth inequality. And we cannot afford a billionaire class, whose greed and corruption has been at war with the working families of this country for 45 years.

So if you're asking me do I think we should demand that the wealthy start paying -- the wealthiest, top 0.1 percent, start paying their fair share of taxes so we can create a nation and a government that works for all of us? Yes, that's exactly what I believe.

BURNETT: Thank you, Senator.

(APPLAUSE)

Mr. Steyer, you are the lone billionaire on this stage. What's your plan for closing the income gap?

STEYER: Well, first of all, let me say this. Senator Sanders is right. There have been 40 years where corporations have bought this government, and those 40 years have meant a 40-year attack on the rights of working people and specifically on organized labor. And the results are as shameful as Senator Sanders says, both in terms of assets and in terms of income. It's absolutely wrong. It's absolutely undemocratic and unfair.

I was one of the first people on this stage to propose a wealth tax. I would undo every Republican tax cut for rich people and major corporations. But there's something else going on here that is absolutely shameful, and that's the way the money gets split up in terms of earnings.

As a result of taking away the rights of working people and organized labor, people haven't had a raise -- 90 percent of Americans have not had a raise for 40 years. If you took the minimum wage from 1980 and just adjusted it for inflation, you get $11 bucks. It's $7.25. If you included the productivity gains of American workers, it would be over $20 bucks.

There's something wrong here, and that is that the corporations have bought our government. Our government has failed. That's why I'm running for president, because we're not going to get any of the policies that everybody on this stage wants -- health care, education, Green New Deal, or a living wage...

BURNETT: Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

STEYER: ... unless we break the power of these corporations.

BURNETT: Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

(APPLAUSE)

Vice President Biden, you have warned against demonizing rich people. Do you believe that Senator Sanders and Senator Warren's wealth tax plans do that?

BIDEN: No, look, demonizing wealth -- what I talked about is how you get things done. And the way to get things done is take a look at the tax code right now. The idea -- we have to start rewarding work, not just wealth. I would eliminate the capital gains tax -- I would raise the capital gains tax to the highest rate, of 39.5 percent.

I would double it, because guess what? Why in God's name should someone who's clipping coupons in the stock market make -- in fact, pay a lower tax rate than someone who, in fact, is -- like I said -- the -- a schoolteacher and a firefighter? It's ridiculous. And they pay a lower tax.

Secondly, the idea that we, in fact, engage in this notion that there are -- there's $1,640,000,000,000 in tax loopholes. You can't justify a minimum $600 billion of that. We could eliminate it all. I could go into detail had I the time.

Secondly -- I mean, thirdly, what we need to do is we need to go out and make it clear to the American people that we are going to -- we are going to raise taxes on the wealthy.

[20:50:00]

We're going to reduce tax burdens on those who are not.

And this is one of the reasons why these debates are kind of crazy, because everybody tries to squeeze everything into every answer that is given. The fact is, everybody's right about the fact that the fourth industrial revolution is costing jobs. It is. The fact is also corporate greed is th33ey're going back and not investing in our employees, they're reinvesting and buying back their stock.

BURNETT: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

BIDEN: See, I'm doing the same thing.

BURNETT: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

(LAUGHTER)

Senator Warren, your response.

WARREN: So I think this is about our values as a country. Show me your budget, show me your tax plans, and we'll know what your values are.

And right now in America, the top 0.1 percent have so much wealth -- understand this -- that if we put a 2 cent tax on their 50 millionth and first dollar, and on every dollar after that, we would have enough money to provide universal childcare for every baby in this country, age zero to five, universal pre-K for every child, raise the wages of every childcare worker and preschool teacher in America, provide for universal tuition-free college, put $50 billion into historically black colleges and universities...

BURNETT: Thank you, Senator Warren.

WARREN: ... and cancel -- no, let me finish, please, and cancel student loan debt for 95 percent of the people who have it. My question is not why do Bernie and I support a wealth tax. It's why is it does everyone else on this stage think it is more important to protect billionaires than it is to invest in an entire generation of Americans?

BURNETT: Thank you, Senator Warren.

BIDEN: No one is supporting billionaires.

BURNETT: Mayor Buttigieg? Mayor Buttigieg, your response?

BUTTIGIEG: I'm all for a wealth tax. I'm all for just about everything that was just mentioned in these answers. Let me tell, though, how this looks from the industrial Midwest where I live.

Washington politicians, congressmen and senators, saying all the right things, offering the most elegant policy prescriptions, and nothing changes. I didn't even realize it was unusual to have empty factories that I would see out the windows of my dad's Chevy Cavalier when he drove me to school, I didn't know that wasn't every city until I went away to college. Now I drive my own Chevy. It's a Chevy Cruze. It used to be built right in Lordstown, which is now one more symbol of the broken promises that this president has made to workers.

But why did workers take a chance on this president in the first place? It's because it felt like nobody was willing to actually do anything. And while he's unquestionably made it dramatically worse, this is time to realize that we're paying attention to the wrong things. We're paying attention...

BURNETT: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor Buttigieg.

BUTTIGIEG: ... to who sounded better on a debate stage or in a committee hearing...

(CROSSTALK)

BURNETT: Senator Klobuchar -- Senator Klobuchar...

BUTTIGIEG: This is what it's going to take to get something done.

BURNETT: Will a wealth tax -- will a wealth tax work?

KLOBUCHAR: It could work. I am open to it. But I want to give a reality check here to Elizabeth, because no one on this stage wants to protect billionaires. Not even the billionaire wants to protect billionaires.

(LAUGHTER)

We just have different approaches. Your idea is not the only idea. And when I look at this, I think about Donald Trump, the guy that after that tax bill passed went to Mar-a-Lago, got together with his cronies, and said, guess what, you guys all got a lot richer. That was the one time in his presidency he told the truth.

So we have different ways -- I would repeal significant portions of that tax bill that help the rich, including what he did with the corporate tax rate, including what he did on international taxation. You add it all up, you got a lot of money that, one, helps pay for that childcare, protects that dignity of work, makes sure we have decent retirement, and makes sure that our kids can go to good schools.

BURNETT: Thank you. Senator...

KLOBUCHAR: It is not one idea that rules here.

BURNETT: Thank you, Senator Klobuchar. Senator Warren, please respond.

(APPLAUSE)

WARREN: So understand, taxing income is not going to get you where you need to be the way taxing wealth does, that the rich are not like you and me. The really, really billionaires are making their money off their accumulated wealth, and it just keeps growing. We need a wealth tax in order to make investments in the next generation.

Look, I understand that this is hard, but I think as Democrats we are going to succeed when we dream big and fight hard, not when we dream small and quit before we get started.

KLOBUCHAR: I would like to respond to that.

BURNETT: Senator Klobuchar, respond, please.

KLOBUCHAR: You know, I think simply because you have different ideas doesn't mean you're fighting for regular people. I wouldn't even be up on this stage if it wasn't for unions and the dignity of work. If my grandpa didn't have unions protecting him in those mines, he wouldn't have survived. If my mom didn't have unions as a teacher, she wouldn't have been able to make the wages she made when my parents got divorced.

So just because we have different ideas, and

[20:55:00]

get to the same place in terms of beating Donald Trump and taking this on, we are in Ohio. We can win Ohio in the presidency, but only if we unite, if we unite around ideals and don't go fighting against each other and instead take the fight to him.

BURNETT: Thank you, Senator.

Senator Harris, you want to give working families a tax credit of up to $6,000 a year to help close the income gap.

HARRIS: Right.

BURNETT: Is that a better solution than a wealth tax?

HARRIS: Well, here's how I think about it. When I was growing up, my mother raised my sister and me. We would often come home from school before she came home from work. She'd come home, she'd cook dinner, and at some point we'd go to bed, and she'd sit up at the kitchen table trying to figure out how to make it all work.

And when I think about where we are right now in 2020, I do believe justice is on the ballot. It's on the ballot in terms of impeachment, it's on the ballot in terms of economic justice, health justice, and so many other issues.

So when I think about this issue, I'm thinking about that dad who tonight is going to be sitting at his kitchen table, after everyone's gone to sleep, and sitting there with his cup of tea or coffee trying to figure out how it's going to make -- how he's going to make it work. And he's probably sitting there deciding that on that minimum wage job that does not pay enough for him to meet the bills at the end of the month, he's going to have to start driving an Uber. And what does that mean? That means that with those two jobs, he's going to miss his kids' soccer games.

That's the reality for Americans today, which is why, yes, when I get elected and pass this bill, which will give the American family who makes less than $100,000 a year a tax credit of up to $6,000 a year that they can take home at up to $500 a month, that's going to make a real difference in that man's life. And don't tell him that's not a big deal...

BURNETT: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: ... when he's trying to get through to the end of the month.

BURNETT: Mr. Yang, your response. Would you impose a wealth tax?

YANG: Senator Warren is 100 percent right that we're in the midst of the most extreme winner-take-all economy in history. And a wealth tax makes a lot of sense in principle. 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.

If we can't learn from the failed experiences of other countries, what can we learn from? We should not be looking to other countries' mistakes. Instead, we should look at what Germany, France, Denmark, and Sweden still have, which is a value-added tax. If we give the American people a tiny slice of every Amazon sale, every Google search, every robot truck mile, every Facebook ad, we can generate hundreds of billions of dollars and then put it into our hands, because we know best how to use it.

BURNETT: Thank you. Thank you.

Congressman O'Rourke, do you think a wealth tax is the best way to address income inequality? Your response.

O'ROURKE: I think it's part of the solution. But I think we need to be focused on lifting people up. And sometimes I think that Senator Warren is more focused on being punitive and pitting some part of the country against the other instead of lifting people up and making sure that this country comes together around those solutions.

I think of a woman that I met in Las Vegas, Nevada. She's working four jobs, raising her child with disabilities, and any American with disabilities knows just how hard it is to make it and get by in this country already. Some of those jobs working for some of these corporations, she wants to know how we are going to help her, how we're going to make sure that her child has the care that she needs, that we strengthen protections for those with disabilities, that she just has to work one job because it pays a living wage.

And Senator Warren said show me your budget, show me your tax plan, and you'll show me your values. She has yet to describe her tax plan and whether or not that person I met would see a tax increase. Under my administration, if you make less than $250,000 a year as a family, you will not see a tax increase. That family needs to know that.

(CROSSTALK)

BURNETT: Thank you, Congressman.

(UNKNOWN): Erin, let me say...

BURNETT: I want to give Senator Warren a chance to respond.

WARREN: So I'm really shocked at the notion that anyone thinks I'm punitive. Look, I don't have a beef with billionaires. My problem is you made a fortune in America, you had a great idea, you got out there and worked for it, good for you. But you built that fortune in America. I guarantee you built it in part using workers all of us helped pay to educate. You built it in part getting your goods to markets on roads and bridges all of us helped pay for. You built it at least in part protected by police and firefighters all of us help pay the salaries for.

And all I'm saying is, you make it to the top, the top 0.1 percent, then pitch in two cents so every other kid in America has a chance to make it.

BURNETT: Senator, thank you.

WARREN: That's what this is about.

BURNETT: Senator Castro, your response?

O'ROURKE: There's no argument there. I just want to make sure that we're lifting up those families who are working and need help through an expanded earned income tax credit or child tax credit...

WARREN: But that is...

(CROSSTALK)

O'ROURKE: ... which we will do in my administration.

BURNETT: Go ahead, Senator.

WARREN: That is the point. This is universal childcare for every baby in this country, early educational opportunities for every child, universal pre-K no matter where you live for every 3-year-old and 4- year-old.

O'ROURKE: But in addition to that, will they see a tax increase?

WARREN: Raising the wages -- no, raising the wages of every childcare worker and preschool teacher in this country. This is about universal college, about investment in our HBCUs, about making sure that we get rid of the student loan debt burden that is crushing...

BURNETT: Thank you, Senator...

(CROSSTALK)

O'ROURKE: ... I just want to know if working families are going to see a tax increase.

(CROSSTALK)

BURNETT: I want to get Secretary Castro in here, please, Congressman. Go ahead, Secretary.

CASTRO: Thanks a lot, Erin. And you see that everybody has their own plans. And let me just say that the way that I view this is born out of my own experience.

I grew up like I bet a lot folks in this room grew up and folks that are watching on TV. I grew up with my twin brother, Joaquin, in a single-parent household where my mom was working hard to support us and also her mom, my grandmother. And we knew what it was like to wonder whether we were going to be able to pay the rent at the first of the month or sometimes have the electricity turned off.

And when I was a kid, to look at the grocery list that seemed to get shorter and shorter, and that's what's happening to a lot of families these days. I was in Las Vegas a few months ago, and I visited people who were homeless, who are living in storm drainage tunnels under the Las Vegas strip in the shadow of hotels and casinos that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, where people from around the world are spending so much money on vacations.

We can do better than that. I believe that wealth and equality tax, as I've proposed, is part of the answer, but also I've proposed an inheritance tax, raising the top marginal tax rate...

BURNETT: Thank you, Secretary. CASTRO: ... and investing in things like universal childcare and affordable housing.

BURNETT: All right. Senator Booker, please respond.

BOOKER: Well, first of all, I just want to be respond by -- you know, we've got one shot to make Donald Trump a one-term president. And how we talk about each other in this debate actually really matters.

I've had the privilege of working with or being friends with everybody on this stage, and tearing each other down because we have a different plan to me is unacceptable. I have seen this script before.

(APPLAUSE)

It didn't work in 2016, and it will be a disaster for us in 2020. And so I have a different plan than Elizabeth Warren. I have a different plan than many people on this stage. And it involves, again, fair taxes for the richest. We have a lot of work to do there. But we've had 20 years of presidential debates, and we have never talked about the violence in America of child poverty.

We have got to begin to talk more eloquently and persuasively and urgently about doing the things not just to make sure fair taxes are paid by people on the top, but that we deal with the moral obscenity of having the highest levels of child poverty in the industrial world.

My plan will focus on that, and these are some of the issues we should be talking about, not defining ourselves just by what we're against, but we need to win this election by talking about who and what we are for.

BURNETT: Thank you, Senator Booker.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: We've got to take a quick break. We've got to take a quick break right now. The CNN-New York Times debate live from Otterbein University in Ohio will be right back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: And welcome back to the CNN-New York Times Democratic presidential debate live from Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio.

[21:08:07]

I want to turn now to foreign policy. President Trump ordered the withdrawal of all American forces from northern Syria, abandoning America's long-time Kurdish allies. As a result, Turkey has now evaded Syria, ISIS detainees have escaped, and the Kurds have announced a new deal with the government in Damascus, a victory for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, and Russia, and Iran.

Vice President Biden, we know you would not have withdrawn troops from northern Syria in this way, but that is already in process. So would you send American troops back into northern Syria to prevent an ISIS resurgence and protect our Kurdish allies?

BIDEN: I would not have withdrawn the troops and I would not have withdrawn the additional thousand troops who are in Iraq, which are in retreat now, being fired on by Assad's people. And the president of the United States saying, if those ISIS folks escape from the prisons they're in, they'll only go to Europe and won't affect us.

It has been the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history -- excuse me, in terms of foreign policy. And the fact of the matter is, I've never seen a time -- and I've spent thousands of hours in the Situation Room, I've spent many hours on the ground in those very places, in Syria and in Iraq, and guess what? Our commanders across the board, former and present, are ashamed of what's happening here.

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.

COOPER: Just to clarify, Mr. Vice President, would you want American troops back in northern Syria?

BIDEN: I would want those thousand troops to be protected by air cover, those thousand troops that are being -- having to withdraw under fire, make it clear that they're not going anywhere, and have them protected, and work my way back toward what, in fact, needs to be done, protecting those Kurds.

[21:10:00]

They lost their lives. This is shameful, shameful what this man has done.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Congresswoman Gabbard, last week you said that American troops should get out of Syria now. You don't agree with how the president handled the withdrawal. What would you have done differently? How would you have pulled out troops without the bloodshed we're seeing now?

GABBARD: 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.

Donald Trump has the blood of the Kurds on his hand, but so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have supported this ongoing regime change war in Syria that started in 2011, along with many in the mainstream media, who have been championing and cheerleading this regime change war. Not only that, but the New York Times and CNN have also smeared veterans like myself for calling for an end to this regime change war. Just two days ago, the New York Times put out an article saying that I'm a Russian asset and an Assad apologist and all these different smears. This morning, a CNN commentator said on national television that I'm an asset of Russia. Completely despicable.

As president, I will end these regime change wars by doing two things -- ending the draconian sanctions that are really a modern-day siege the likes of which we are seeing Saudi Arabia wage against Yemen, that have caused tens of thousands of Syrian civilians to die and to starve, and I would make sure that we stop supporting terrorists like Al Qaida in Syria who have been the ground force in this ongoing regime change war.

COOPER: Thank you.

GABBARD: I'd like to ask Senator Warren if she would join me in calling for an end to this regime change war in Syria, finally.

WARREN: So, look, I think that we ought to get out of the Middle East. I don't think we should have troops in the Middle East. But we have to do it the right way, the smart way.

What this president has done is that he has sucked up to dictators, he has made impulsive decisions that often his own team doesn't understand, he has cut and run on our allies, and he has enriched himself at the expense of the United States of America. In Syria, he has created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis. He has helped ISIS get another foothold, a new lease on life.

I sit on the Armed Services Committee. I talk with our military leaders about this.

COOPER: Thank you, Senator.

WARREN: I was in Iraq and went through the neighborhoods that ISIS destroyed.

COOPER: Thank you.

WARREN: We need to get out, but we need to do this through a negotiated solution. There is no military solution in this region.

COOPER: Thank you, Senator. Mayor Buttigieg, Mayor Buttigieg, like many of your fellow candidates on the stage, you've been calling for an end to endless wars. What's your response on Syria?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, respectfully, Congresswoman, I think that is dead wrong. 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.

Look, I didn't think we should have gone to Iraq in the first place. I think we need to get out of Afghanistan. But it's also the case that a small number of specialized, special operations forces and intelligence capabilities were the only thing that stood between that part of Syria and what we're seeing now, which is the beginning of a genocide and the resurgence of ISIS.

Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country has done. We saw the spectacle, the horrifying sight of a woman with the lifeless body of her child in her arms asking, what the hell happened to American leadership?

And when I was deployed, I knew one of the things keeping me safe was the fact that the flag on my shoulder represented a country known to keep its word. And our allies knew it and our enemies knew it.

COOPER: Thank you, Mayor.

BUTTIGIEG: You take that away, you are taking away what makes America America.

COOPER: Thank you, Mayor.

BUTTIGIEG: It makes our troops and the world a much more dangerous place.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Congresswoman Gabbard, your response?

GABBARD: Yeah, absolutely. So, really, what you're saying, Mayor Pete, is that you would continue to support having U.S. troops in Syria for an indefinite period of time to continue this regime change war that has caused so many refugees to flee Syria, that you would continue to have our country involved in a war that has undermined our national security, you would continue this policy of the U.S. actually providing arms in support to terrorist groups in Syria, like Al Qaida, HTS, al-Nusra and others, because they are the ones who have been the ground force in this regime change war? That's really what you're saying?

COOPER: Mayor Pete -- Mayor Buttigieg?

[21:15:00]

BUTTIGIEG: No, you can embrace -- or you can put an end to endless war without embracing Donald Trump's policy, as you're doing.

GABBARD: Will you end the regime change war, is the question.

BUTTIGIEG: What we are doing...

GABBARD: What is an endless war if it's not a regime change war?

COOPER: Allow him to respond. Please allow him to respond.

BUTTIGIEG: What we are doing -- or 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.

When I was deployed, not just the Afghan National Army forces, but the janitors put their lives on the line just by working with U.S. forces. I would have a hard time today looking an Afghan civilian or soldier in the eye after what just happened over there. And it is undermining the honor of our soldiers. You take away the honor of our soldiers, you might as well go after their body armor next.

This president has betrayed American values. Our credibility has been tattered.

COOPER: Thank you.

BUTTIGIEG: I will restore U.S. credibility before it is finally too late.

COOPER: Senator Sanders, is Turkey still a U.S. ally? Should they remain in NATO?

SANDERS: I'm sorry. Say that again?

COOPER: Is Turkey still a U.S. ally? Should they remain in NATO?

SANDERS: No, Turkey is not a U.S. ally when they invade another country and engage in mass slaughter.

The crisis here, as I think Joe said and Pete said, is when you begin to betray people, in terms of the Kurds, 11,000 of them died fighting ISIS, 20,000 were wounded. And the United States said, "We're with you, we're standing with you." And then suddenly, one day after a phone call with Erdogan, announced by tweet, Trump reverses that policy.

Now, you tell me what country in the world will trust the word of the president of the United States. In other words, what he has done is wreck our ability to do foreign policy, to do military policy, because nobody in the world will believe this pathological liar.

(APPLAUSE)

BUTTIGIEG: But this is really important, because what this president has done shows that American leadership shapes the behavior of our allies, or sometimes allies, too. Remember, the problem right now is not just that -- with our competitors. And, for example a place like China, the people of Hong Kong rise up for democracy and don't get a peep of support from the president. It's just not the behavior of adversaries like Russia.

But our one-time allies, like Saudi Arabia, which the CIA just concluded was responsible, as we all knew, for murdering and dismembering an American resident and journalist.

And Turkey, which was an American ally. That's the point. We had leverage. But when we abandon the international stage, when we think our only choices are between endless war or total isolation, the consequence is the disappearance of U.S. leadership... COOPER: Thank you, Mayor.

BUTTIGIEG: ... from the world stage.

COOPER: Senator...

BUTTIGIEG: And that makes this entire world a more dangerous place.

COOPER: Senator Klobuchar, should Turkey remain in NATO? Your response?

KLOBUCHAR: We need to work with our allies, to work with Turkey and bring them out. This is an outrageous thing that happened here. And I think we need to talk about this not only in terms of the horror of what happened here with Turkey, but the fact that our president blew it and now he's too proud to say it.

And what do we do now? We continue that humanitarian aid, but then we work with our allies to say come back, Turkey, and stop this, because what Mayor Pete has just said is true. Think about our other allies, Israel. How do they feel right now? Donald Trump is not true to his word when they are a beacon of democracy in the Mideast.

Think about our allies in Europe when he pulls out of the Iranian agreement and gives them holding the bag and gives the power to China and Russia.

COOPER: Thank you, Senator.

KLOBUCHAR: Think about the nuclear agreement with Russia that he precipitously pulled out of. This is part of a pattern. It's not an isolated incident.

COOPER: Thank you, Senator.

Senator Harris, given that the U.S. abandoned our Kurdish allies, what would you do as president to convince the rest of the world that we can still be trusted?

HARRIS: That's a great question, Anderson, because the commander-in- chief of the United States of America has as one of her greatest priorities and responsibilities to concern herself with the security of our nation and homeland.

I serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee. I have over a period of time received classified information about the threats to our security and hot spots around the world.

What has happened in Syria is yet again Donald Trump selling folks out. And in this case, he sold out the Kurds, who, yes, fought with us and thousands died in our fight against ISIS.

And let's be clear. What Donald Trump has done, because of that phone call with Erdogan, is basically giving 10,000 ISIS fighters a "get out of jail free" card. And you know who the winner is in this? There are four: Russia, Iran, Assad, and ISIS. This is a crisis of Donald Trump's making. And it is on a long list of crises of Donald Trump's making. And that's why dude got to go. And when I am commander-in-chief, we will stop this madness.

[21:20:00]

COOPER: Secretary Castro, your response.

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XXX Castro, your response.

(APPLAUSE)

CASTRO: Well, I mean, you asked the question of, how are we going to get people to trust us again? The first thing is we got to boot Donald Trump out of the Oval Office so that people will trust us again.

You know, I also want people to think -- the folks this week that saw those images of ISIS prisoners running free to think about how absurd it is that this president is caging kids on the border and effectively letting ISIS prisoners run free.

(APPLAUSE)

He has made a tremendous mistake, a total disaster there in Syria. And just to connect the dots for a second, if you're Kim Jong-un, for instance, why in the world would you believe anything that this president says to contain your nuclear weapons program, when he tore up an Iran nuclear agreement that we just signed four years ago, which was the strongest agreement to contain Iran's nuclear weapons program, and now he's abandoned the very people that we gave our word to?

I would make sure that we work with our allies to pressure Syria to stop the aggression, and I support efforts at stronger sanctions than this president has announced.

COOPER: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

LACEY: Senator Booker, the American intelligence community says that Russia is trying to capitalize on the power vacuums around the world as we're seeing right now in northern Syria. What specifically would you do as president to check Vladimir Putin's power on the world stage?

BOOKER: So, first of all, understand that this president is turning the moral leadership of this country into a dumpster fire. We literally have great generals like Mattis who said on the world stage, the United States of America, there can be no better friend than the United States of America and no better -- no greater enemy than the United States of America. This president has turned that upside down and now is doing things to undermine our critical alliances and partner with Russia.

And so clearly, to your question, number one, we cannot allow the Russians to continue to grow in influence by abandoning the world stage. We cannot allow Russia to not only interfere in the democracies of the Ukraine, and Latvia, and Lithuania, but even not calling them out for their efforts to interfere in this democracy are unacceptable.

Russia and Putin understand strength, and this president time and time again is showing moral weakness. He makes promises to the American people that he's going to protect this nation. Well, instead of doing something to defeat ISIS, he's now given them a foothold again.

This is an American president that even right now is lying to the American public and saying he's bringing our troops home, at the same time he's increasing troop presence with the Saudis, while they're involved in an unjust war that is killing tens of thousands of children in Yemen.

This president is making us less safe. He is partnering more with Putin than he is with Merkel and Macron. And as president of the United States, I will stop this and restore American integrity abroad.

LACEY: Thank you, Senator. Vice President?

BIDEN: I think I maybe -- it doesn't make me any better or worse, but maybe the only person who spent extensive time alone with Putin, as well as with Erdogan. And Erdogan understands that -- you talk about should he stay in or out of NATO -- he understands if he's out of NATO, he's in real trouble.

But the fact of the matter is, we have been unwilling in this administration, because we have an erratic, crazy president who knows not a damn thing about foreign policy and operates out of fear for his own re-election.

(APPLAUSE)

Think what's happened. The fact of the matter is, you have Russia influencing and trying to break up NATO. What does the president do? He says, "I believe Vladimir Putin. I believe Vladimir Putin. I don't believe our intelligence community."

SANDERS: You're suggesting I'm Vladimir Putin here.

BIDEN: No, no, I'm not. No, I'm not. I'm not.

SANDERS: I know.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: But here -- look, but here's the deal. Think what that did. He turns around and he questions whether or not he'll keep the sacred commitment of Article 5 for the NATO members. If he is re-elected, I promise you, there will be no NATO. Our security will be vastly underrated, under -- we will be in real trouble.

And with regard to regime change in Syria, that has not been the policy we change the regime. It has been to make sure that the regime did not wipe out hundreds of thousands of innocent people between there and the Iraqi border. And lastly, and I apologize for going on, but lastly, what is happening in Iraq is going to -- I mean, excuse me, in Afghanistan, as well as all the way over to Syria, we have ISIS that's going to come here. They are going to, in fact, damage the United States of America. That's why we got involved in the first place and not ceded the whole area to Assad and to the Russians.

LACEY: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Congressman O'Rourke, Senate Democrats put out a report last year on Russia's hostile actions around the world. They suggest the next president could fight back by publicly

[21:25:00]

revealing what the U.S. knows about Putin's corruption and work with allies to freeze his bank accounts. Would you take either of those actions, even in the face of possible retaliation?

O'ROURKE: Yes. We must be unafraid in ensuring that we hold Russia accountable for invading the world's greatest democracy and being able to do it thanks to Donald Trump functionally with impunity so far, so much so that they are invading this democracy right now as we speak, still at the invitation of this president. So if there are not consequences, we will continue to see this problem going forward.

But in addition, y ademas, to answer the previous question that you asked, how do we stand up to Russia on the global stage, we do that by renewing our alliances and our friendships. That is what makes America stronger. There isn't enough money in this country, there aren't enough servicemembers as brave and courageous as they are to do everything that we want to accomplish militarily around the world.

And the Kurds are case in point. In fact, because we turned our backs on them, those Kurds who fought for us in Syria, helped to defeat ISIS not just for themselves, but for the United States of America, it makes it more likely that we will have to send another generation of servicemembers to fight those battles there.

And then lastly, as General Mattis, who was invoked earlier, has said, we have two powers, one of intimidation and one of inspiration. We need to now focus on that latter power and make sure that we invest in diplomacy and our State Department and peacefully and non-violently resolving our foreign policy goals not on the backs of 18-, and 19-, and 20-year-olds any more, but making sure that our diplomats are invested in, have the focus necessary by this next president to make that they can accomplish those goals for this country and for the world.

LACEY: Thank you, Congressman. Thank you, Congressman.

Mr. Steyer, would you publicly reveal what the U.S. knows about Putin's corruption or work to freeze his bank accounts? Please respond.

STEYER: Absolutely. As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Trump's America first program, which involves having no plans, having no process, and having no partners, has proved to be a disaster in Syria, it's proved to be a disaster in terms of our response to Russia's attacking our democracy, and more than that, when we look at the problems around the world, the idea that the United States is going to act unilaterally against a country without the support of our traditional allies makes absolutely no sense.

Let's go to the most important international problem that we're facing, which no one has brought up, which is climate. We can't solve the climate crisis in the United States by ourselves. It's an international crisis. I've been working on it for 10 years, taking on the corporations. But we have to work with our allies and our frenemies around the world.

So if you look at what Mr. Trump is doing, of course he's been bought by the oil and gas companies. But any problem that we're going to do, but specifically climate, we're going to have to lead the world morally, we're going to have to lead it technologically, financially, and commercially.

This is the proof that this kind of America first, go-it-alone, trust nobody and be untrustworthy is the worst idea I have ever heard and I would change it on day one in every single light.

LACEY: Mr. Yang, your response to Putin and Russia.

YANG: Of course. We have to look at the chain of events. How did we get here? The fact is, we were falling apart at home, so we voted in Donald Trump, and he's now led us down this dangerous path with erratic and unreliable foreign policy.

We have to let Russia know, look, we get it. We've tampered with other elections, you've tampered with our elections. And now it has to stop. And if it does not stop, we will take this as an act of hostility against the American people. I believe most Americans would support me on this.

But Russian hacking of our democracy is an illustration of the 21st century threats. Artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, climate change, loose nuclear material, military drones, and non-state actors, these are the threats that are going to require our administration to catch up in terms of technology.

We all know we are decades behind the curve on technology. We saw when Mark Zuckerberg testified at Congress the nature of the questioning. As commander-in-chief, I will help pull us forward...

LACEY: Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

KLOBUCHAR: I want to respond to Mr. Yang.

YANG: ... and that's going to be the responsibility of the next president. KLOBUCHAR: I want to respond to Mr. Yang. I don't see a moral equivalency between our country and Russia. Vladimir Putin is someone who has shot down planes over Ukraine, who has poisoned his opponent, and we have not talked about what we need to do to protect ourselves from Russia invading our election.

This wasn't meddling. That's what I do when I call my daughter on a Saturday night and ask her what she's doing. Sorry.

(CROSSTALK)

KLOBUCHAR: This was much more serious than that. This was actually invading our election. So to protect ourselves in 2020, what we need, one, backup paper ballots in every single state. That is a bill that I need, and we need to stop Mitch McConnell from stopping that from happening.

[21:30:02]

And then we need to stop the social media companies from running paid political ads, including ones last time in rubles, without having to say where those ads came from and who paid for them. That's the Honest Ads Act. That's a bipartisan bill that I lead. And we can't wait...

LACEY: Thank you, Senator.

KLOBUCHAR: ... to become president to get that done. We need to get it done now.

LACEY: Thank you, Senator.

COOPER: We want to turn back to domestic issues and the epidemic of gun violence in this country. We're less than 100 miles from Dayton, Ohio, where two months ago a gunman killed nine people using an AR-15- style weapon with a high-capacity magazine.

Congressman O'Rourke, in the last debate, you said, quote, "Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47," but when you were asked how you'd enforce a mandatory buyback, you said police wouldn't be going door to door. So how exactly are you going to force people to give up their weapons? You don't even know who has those weapons.

O'ROURKE: Look, we're going to make sure that the priority is saving the lives of our fellow Americans. I think almost everyone on this stage agrees that it's not right and as president would seek to ban the sale of AR-15s and AK-47s.

Those are weapons of war. They were designed to kill people effectively, efficiently on a battlefield. You mentioned the massacre in Dayton. Nine people killed in under 40 seconds. In El Paso, Texas, 22 were killed in under three minutes. And the list goes on throughout the country.

So if the logic begins with those weapons being too dangerous to sell, then it must continue by acknowledging, with 16 million AR-15s and AK- 47s out there, they are also too dangerous to own. Every single one of them is a potential instrument of terror.

Just ask Hispanics in Texas. Univision surveyed them. More than 80 percent feared that they would be a victim of a mass terror attack like the one in El Paso that was targeted at Mexican Americans and immigrants, inspired in part by this president's racism and hatred that he's directed at communities like mine in El Paso.

COOPER: Congressman...

O'ROURKE: So I expect my fellow Americans to follow the law, the same way that we enforce any provision, any law that we have right now.

COOPER: OK.

O'ROURKE: We don't go door to door to do anything in this country to enforce the law. I expect Republicans, Democrats, gun-owners, non-gun- owners alike to respect and follow the law.

COOPER: Congressman, let me follow up. Just to follow up, your expectations aside, your website says you will fine people who don't give up their weapons. That doesn't take those weapons off the street. So to be clear, exactly how are you going to take away weapons from people who do not want to give them up and you don't know where they are?

O'ROURKE: 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. If they persist, they will be other consequences from law enforcement.

But the expectation is that Americans will follow the law. I believe in this country. I believe in my fellow Americans. I believe that they will do the right thing.

COOPER: Thank you. Mayor Buttigieg, just yesterday, you referred to mandatory buybacks as confiscation and said that Congressman O'Rourke has been picking a fight to try to stay relevant. Your response on guns?

BUTTIGIEG: Look, Congressman, you just made it clear that you don't know how this is actually going to take weapons off the streets. If you can develop the plan further, I think we can have a debate about it. But we can't wait. People are dying in the streets right now.

We can't wait for universal background checks that we finally have a shot to actually get through. We can't wait to ban the sale of new weapons and high-capacity magazines so we don't wind up with millions more of these things on the street. We can't wait for red flag laws that are going to disarm domestic abusers and prevent suicides, which are not being talked about nearly enough as a huge part of the gun violence epidemic in this country. We cannot wait for purity tests. We have to just get something done.

COOPER: Congressman O'Rourke, your response. O'ROURKE: This is not a purity test. This is a country that loses 40,000 of our fellow Americans every year to gun violence. This is a crisis. We've got to do something about it.

And those challenges that you described are not mutually exclusive to the challenges that I'm describing. I want to make sure we have universal background checks and red flag laws and that we end the sale of these weapons of war, but to use the analogy of health care, it would be as though we said, look, we're for primary care, but let's not talk about mental health care because that's a bridge too far. People need that primary care now, so let's save that for another day.

No, let's decide what we are going to believe in, what we're going to achieve. And then let's bring this country together in order to do that. Listening to my fellow Americans, to those moms who demand action, to those students who march for our lives, who, in fact, came up with this extraordinary bold peace plan...

COOPER: Thank you, Congressman.

O'ROURKE: ... that calls for mandatory buybacks, let's follow their inspiration and lead and not be limited by the polls and the consultants and the focus groups. Let's do what's right...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Mayor Buttigieg, your response? Mayor Buttigieg?

BUTTIGIEG: The problem isn't the polls. The problems is the policy. And I don't need lessons from you on courage, political or personal. Everyone on this stage is determined to get something done.

[21:35:05]

Everyone on this stage recognizes, or at least I thought we did, that the problem is not other Democrats who don't agree with your particular idea of how to handle this.

The problem is the National Rifle Association and their enablers in Congress, and we should be united in taking the fight to them.

(APPLAUSE)

O'ROURKE: That's a mischaracterization. Anderson, I've got to answer this. Never took you or anyone else on who disagrees with me on this issue. But when you, Mayor Buttigieg, described this policy as a shiny object, I don't care what that meant to me or my candidacy, but to those who have survived gun violence, those who've lost a loved one to an AR-15, an AK-47, marched for our lives, formed in the courage of students willing to stand up to the NRA and conventional politics and poll-tested politicians, that was a slap in the fact to every single one of those groups and every single survivor of a mass casualty assault with an AR-15 and an AK-47.

COOPER: Thank you.

O'ROURKE: We must buy them back.

COOPER: Congressman...

BUTTIGIEG: What we owe to those survivors is to actually deliver a solution. I'm glad you offered up that analogy to health care, because this is really important. We are at the cusp of building a new American majority to actually do things that congressmen and senators have been talking about with almost no impact for my entire adult life.

COOPER: Thank you, Mayor.

BUTTIGIEG: No, this is really important, OK? On guns, we are this close to an assault weapons ban. That would be huge. And we're going to get wrapped around the axle in a debate over whether it's "hell, yes, we're going to take your guns"? We have an opportunity...

COOPER: Thank you, Mayor. Your time is up.

BUTTIGIEG: ... to deliver health care to everybody, and some on this stage are saying it doesn't count unless we obliterate...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: I want to give somebody -- I want to give other -- I want to give other candidates a chance. Senator Booker, what's your response to Mayor Buttigieg?

BOOKER: Well, look, I again, worry about how we talk to each other and about each other and what this last week has shown. There was a young man in my neighborhood, I watched him grow up. I lived in some high- rise projects with him named Shahad, and he was murdered on my block last year with an assault rifle.

I'm living with a sense of urgency on this problem, because when I go home to my community, like millions of Americans, we live in communities where these weapons, where these gun shots are real every single day.

And I know where the American public is. This is not about leadership. This is why when I talk about things like gun licensing and point out the differences between us, I'm not attacking people or their character or their courage on these issues. We all have courage.

But it's frustrating that when the American people, 77 percent of Americans agree on licensing, we don't need leadership right now. We just need folks that are going to stand up and follow where the people already are, because there are millions of Americans where this is a daily nightmare, where we're surrendering our freedoms...

COOPER: Thank you.

BOOKER: ... to fear in this country. This is the first time in American history, this fall, where we have sent our children to school, the strongest nation on the Planet Earth, and said to them, "We can't protect you"... COOPER: Thank you, Senator.

BOOKER: ... "so in school, we're going to teach you how to hide." There are more duck-and-cover drills and shelter-in-place drills in America now than fire drills.

COOPER: Thank you, Senator.

BOOKER: If I'm president of the United States, I will bring an urgency to this issue and make sure that we end the scourge of mass violence in our country.

COOPER: Senator Klobuchar -- Senator Klobuchar, Senator Warren -- Senator Warren supports a voluntary -- excuse me, Senator Klobuchar, you support a voluntary buyback, if I'm correct, right. What is wrong with a mandatory buyback? Your response.

KLOBUCHAR: I just keep thinking of how close we are to finally getting something done on this. I'm looking at the mayor of Dayton. I met one of the survivors from that shooting, 30 seconds, nine people killed.

The public is with us on this in a big way. The majority of Trump voters want to see universal background checks right now. The majority of hunters want to see us move forward with gun safety legislation. There are three bills right now on Mitch McConnell's desk, the background check bill, my bill to close the boyfriend loophole so domestic abusers don't get guns, the bill to make it easier for police to vet people before they get a gun. That's what we should be focusing on.

And I just don't want to screw this up. When I'm president, I do want to bring in an assault weapon ban and I do want to put a limitation on magazines so what happened in Dayton, Ohio, will never happen again. But let's not mess this up with this fight.

COOPER: Senator Warren, you support a voluntary gun buyback of assault-style weapons, as well. Why not a mandatory one?

WARREN: So, look, I want to get what works done. I want to use the method we used, for example, with machine guns. We registered them, we put in a huge penalty if you didn't register them, and a huge tax on them, and then let people turn them in, and it got machine guns out of the hands of people.

But the problem here that we need to focus on is, first, how widespread gun violence is. As you've rightly identified, it's not just about mass shootings. It's what happens in neighborhoods all across this country. It is about suicide, and it is about domestic violence.

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XXX about domestic violence.

This is not going to be a one and done, that we do one thing or two things or three things and then we're done. [21:40:00]

We have to reduce gun violence overall. And the question we have to ask is, why hasn't it happened?

You say we're so close. We have been so close. I stood in the United States Senate in 2013...

COOPER: Thank you.

WARREN: ... when 54 senators voted in favor of gun legislation and it didn't pass because of the filibuster.

COOPER: Thank you, Senator. Senator...

WARREN: We have got to attack the corruption and repeal the filibuster or the gun industry will always have a veto over what happens.

COOPER: Senator Harris? Senator Harris, you disagree with Senator Warren. You think the buyback should be mandatory. Please respond.

HARRIS: Five million assault weapons are on the streets of America today. During the course of this debate, eight people will die from gun violence. The leading cause of death of young black men in America is gun violence, more than the top other six reasons total.

This is a serious matter. I have personally hugged more mothers of homicide victims than I care to tell you. I have looked at more autopsy photographs than I care to tell you. I have attended more police officer funerals than I care to tell you. I'm done. And we need action.

And Congress has had years to act and failed because they do not have the courage. When I'm elected, I'll give them 100 days to pull their act together, put a bill on my desk for signature, and if they don't, I will take executive action and put in place a comprehensive background check requirement and ban the importation of assault weapons into our country because it is time to act.

COOPER: Senator Biden -- Vice President Biden, your response.

BIDEN: I'm the only one on this stage who has taken on the NRA and beat them, and beat them twice. We were able to get assault weapons off the streets and not be able to be sold for 10 years. Recent studies show that mass violence went down when that occurred.

The way to deal with those guns and those AR-15s and assault weapons that are on the street -- or not on the street, that people own, is to do what we did with the National Firearms Act as it related to machine guns. You must register that weapon. You must register it. When you register it, the likelihood of it being used diminishes exponentially.

I'm the only one that got -- got -- moved the -- to make sure that we could not have a magazine that had more than 10 rounds in it. I've done this. I know how to get it done. If you really want to get it done, go after the gun manufacturers and take back the exemption they have of not being able to be sued. That would change it.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Secretary Castro, the vast majority of homicides committed with a gun in this country are from handguns, not assault-style weapons. What's your plan to prevent those deaths?

CASTRO: Thank you very much for the question. You know, I grew up in neighborhoods where it wasn't uncommon to hear gunshots at night. And I can remember ducking into the back seat of a car when I was a freshman in high school, across the street from my school, my public school, because folks were shooting at each other.

You know, in the neighborhoods -- let me answer this question about voluntary versus mandatory. There are two problems I have with mandatory buybacks. Number one, folks can't define it. And if you're not going door to door, then it's not really mandatory.

But also, in the places that I grew up in, we weren't exactly looking for another reason for cops to come banging on the door. And you all saw a couple days ago what happened to Atatiana Jefferson in Fort Worth. A cop showed up at 2:00 in the morning at her house when she was playing video games with her nephew. He didn't even announced himself. And within four seconds, he shot her and killed her through her home window. She was in her own home.

And so I am not going to give these police officers another reason to go door to door in certain communities, because police violence is also gun violence, and we need to address that.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Secretary Castro, thank you.

LACEY: Turning to another key issue here in Ohio and around the country, the opioid epidemic, Senator Klobuchar, CNN reached out to Ohio Democratic voters for their most pressing questions. Brie, a teacher in Proctorville, asks, in rural Ohio, the opioid epidemic has affected our communities and schools. I have many high school students who have lost one or both parents to heroin. Teachers are on the front lines daily, witnessing these tragedies. How will you tackle this problem in general, but specifically what will you offer people in rural communities where rehabilitation is not easily accessed and access to jobs is difficult?

KLOBUCHAR: Well, I want to thank her for this question. This is something that should never have happened to begin with. I remember, when I was a prosecutor, these were not the kind of cases that were coming in our door. And it's gotten worse and worse. And we now know why.

[21:45:00]

As the evidence is coming out of those lawsuits, probably one of the most horrible things that I saw was the e-mail from one of the pharma executives that actually said, "Keep pumping them out. They're eating them like Doritos."

So my first answer to that question, and which is included in my plan, is that the people that should pay for this, that should pay for the treatment, are the very people that got people hooked and killed them in the first place. And that is the people that are manufacturing these opioids. That's the first way.

And you can, with a 2 cents per milligram tax, bring in the money, plus with the federal master settlement, to help rural areas where they're so isolated, and also in urban areas, where it's, by the way, not just opiates. There are still mental health issues and crack cocaine issues.

This is personal for me. My dad, he struggled with alcoholism his whole life. And by his third DWI, they said to him, the prosecutor, you've got to face jail or you got to go to treatment. He picked treatment, and he was pursued by grace. And he has been sober ever since. And now he's 91 and in assisted living, and he said to me last year, it's hard to get a drink around here, anyway. But he still has an AA group that visits him there.

And so for me, I believe that everyone in this country, including the people in rural America, have that same right to be pursued by grace.

LACEY: Thank you, Senator. Mr. Steyer, how would you address the opioid epidemic that exists here in Ohio and around the country? Please respond.

STEYER: Well, I think this is one of the most heartbreaking experiences that America has had, 72,000 people died of opioid overdoses last year, and that's not only a tragedy for them, it's a tragedy for their family and their communities.

And so I think we have to treat this as a health citizens. We have to move the resources and the support there to try and help people.

But I think that Senator Klobuchar makes a good point. The reason I'm running for president is that we have a broken government. And we have a broken government because corporations have bought it. And every single one of these conversations is about that broken government. It's about drug companies buying the government and getting what they want. It's about the gun manufacturers buying the government and get what we want.

We need to break the corporate stranglehold on our government. I've put forward actual structural changes, including term limits, a natural referendum, the end to the idea that corporations are people and have the rights of American citizens politically, and make it a lot easier to vote

These corporations have taken over our government. And 72,000 deaths...

LACEY: Thank you, Mr. Steyer. STEYER: ... last year are the tragic result.

LACEY: Thank you, Mr. Steyer. Mr. Yang, you want to decriminalize the possession and use of small amounts of opioids, including heroin. How would that solve the crisis?

YANG: That's exactly right. And we have to recognize this is a disease of capitalism run amok. There was a point when there were more opiate prescriptions in the state of Ohio than human beings in the state of Ohio. And for some reason, the federal government thought that was appropriate.

They ended up levying a $600 million fine against Purdue Pharma, which sounds like a lot of money, until you realize that company made $30 billion. They got a 2 percent fine, and they killed tens of thousands of Americans, eight an hour.

So if the government turned a blind eye to this company spreading a plague among its people, then the least we can do is put the resources to work in our community so our people have a fighting chance to get well, even though this is not a money problem. We all know this is a human problem.

And part of helping people get the treatment that they need is to let them know that they're not going to be referred to a prison cell. They will be referred to treatment and counseling. I talked to an EMT in New Hampshire, and he said he saves the same addicts over and over again, because the fact is, after you save someone who's OD'ing, you just bring them back to their house and they OD again the following week.

So we need to decriminalize opiates for personal use. We have to let the country know this is not a personal failing. This was a systemic government failing. And then we need to open up safe consumption and safe injection sites around the country, because they save lives.

LACEY: Thank you, Mr. Yang. Congressman O'Rourke, is decriminalizing opioids part of the solution? Please respond.

O'ROURKE: Yes, it is, for many of the reasons that Mr. Yang just described. And also just from some personal experiences I've had as a member of Congress where constituents of mine have come forward, in some cases publicly, at a town hall meeting to describe their addictions.

I remember a veteran telling me that he bought heroin off the street because he was originally prescribed an opioid at the V.A. Now, imagine if that veteran, instead of being prescribe an opioid, had been prescribed marijuana because we made that legal in America, ensured the V.A....

YANG: Yes, preach, Beto.

O'ROURKE: ... could prescribe it, expunge the arrest records for those who've been arrested for possession, and make sure that he was not prescribed something to which he would become addicted. I also want to agree with Senator Klobuchar. Until we hold those responsible accountable for their actions, Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, we're going to continue to have this problem going on again.

[21:50:00]

So that veteran that I met, and anyone with drug addiction today, is not a problem for the criminal justice system.

LACEY: Thank you.

O'ROURKE: They're an opportunity for our public health system in America.

LACEY: Thank you, Congressman. Senator Harris, you want to hold the drug manufacturers that fueled the crisis accountable. Are you in favor of sending those drug company executives to jail?

HARRIS: I am. And I will tell you, as a former prosecutor, I do think of this as being a matter of justice and accountability, because they are nothing more than some high-level dope dealers. They have been engaged...

(APPLAUSE)

And I've seen it happen before. I've taken on the pharmaceutical companies when I was attorney general of California and led the second largest Department of Justice. I've seen what they do.

The biggest pharmaceutical companies, the eight biggest pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies last year profited $72 billion on the backs of people like the families that we are talking about that have been overwhelmed by this crisis, which is a public health epidemic.

And they knew what they were doing. They were marketing false advertising. They knew what they were pushing in communities and states like Ohio, without any concern about the repercussions because they were profiting and making big bucks. And, yes, they should be held accountable. This is a matter of justice.

And so as president of the United States, I would ensure that the United States Department of Justice, understand that you want to deal with who is really a criminal? Let's end mass incarceration and end that failed war on drugs, and let's go after these pharmaceutical companies for what they've been doing to destroy our country and states like Ohio.

LACEY: Thank you, Senator. Secretary Castro, are you in favor of sending those drug company executives to prison? Please respond.

CASTRO: Yes, I am. They need to be held accountable, not only financially, but also with criminal penalties. And, you know, you can draw a straight line between making sure that we hold executives accountable, whether it's these drug manufacturers or Wall Street executives that should have been held accountable a decade-and-a-half ago.

LACEY: Thank you.

BURNETT: Now to the issue of candidates and their health. Senator Sanders, I want to start with you. We're moving on, Senator. I'm sorry.

SANDERS: I'm healthy. I'm feeling great, but I would like to respond to that question.

BURNETT: I want to -- I want start by saying...

(APPLAUSE)

BOOKER: And Senator Sanders is in favor of medical marijuana. I want to make sure that's clear, as well.

BURNETT: Senator Sanders, this debate does mark your...

SANDERS: I do. I'm not on it tonight.

(LAUGHTER)

BURNETT: This debate -- this debate, sir, does mark your return to the campaign trail. Go ahead and finish your point and then I'll ask my question, Senator.

SANDERS: I'm more than happy to answer your question, but I wanted to pick up on what Kamala and Cory and others have said. Let's take a deep breath. Take a look at this opioid epidemic.

You have executives, CEOs of major pharmaceutical companies, making tens of millions of dollars a year. And in this particular case with the opioids, they knew that they were selling a product to communities all over this country which were addicting people and killing them. And last year, the top 10 drug companies made $69 billion in profit.

This is what unfettered capitalism is doing to this country. And it's not just the drug companies. Right now, the CEOs in the fossil fuel industry know full well that their product is destroying this world. And they continue to make huge profits.

BURNETT: Senator...

SANDERS: That is why we need a political revolution...

BURNETT: Thank you, Senator.

SANDERS: ... that says enough is enough to this behavior.

(APPLAUSE)

BURNETT: Senator, we are all very glad you're feeling well...

SANDERS: Thank you. BURNETT: ... as you just said. But there is a question on a lot of people's minds, and I want to address it tonight. You're 78 years old, and you just had a heart attack. How do you reassure Democratic voters that you're up to the stress of the presidency?

SANDERS: Well, let me invite you all to a major rally we're having in Queens, New York, berniesanders.com. We're going to have a special guest at that event. And we are going to be mounting a vigorous campaign all over this country. That is how I think I can reassure the American people.

But let me take this moment, if I might, to thank so many people from all over this country, including many of my colleagues up here, for their love, for their prayers, for their well wishes. And I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. And I'm so happy to be back here with you this evening.

(APPLAUSE)

BURNETT: Vice President Biden, if you're elected, you will turn 80 during your first term. Last month, former President Jimmy Carter said he could not have undertaken the duties of the presidency at 80 years old. Why are you so sure that you can?

[21:55:00]

BIDEN: Because I've watched it. I know what the job is. I've been engaged.

Look, one of the reasons I'm running is because of my age and my experience. With it comes wisdom. We need someone to take office this time around who on day one can stand on the world stage, command the respect of world leaders, from Putin to our allies, and know exactly what has to be done to get this country back on track.

It is required now more than any time in any of our lifetimes to have someone who has that capacity on day one. That's one of the reasons why I decided to run, why I decided to run this time, because I know what has to be done. I've done it before. I've been there when we pulled the nation out of the worst financial recession in history. I've been there, and I've got so many pieces of legislation passed, including the Affordable Care Act, as well as making sure that we had the Recovery Act, which kept us from going into a depression.

I know what has to be done. I will not need any on-the-job training the day I take office. And I will release my medical records, as I have 21 years of my tax records, which no one else on this stage has done, so that you can have full transparency as to my health and what I am doing.

BURNETT: Just to be clear, Mr. Vice President, when will you release those records?

BIDEN: Before the first vote.

BURNETT: Before Iowa? BIDEN: Yes.

BURNETT: Not by the end of this year?

BIDEN: Well, before Iowa. I mean, look, I've released them before. I released 55 pages of my -- I'm the only guy that's released anything up here.

BURNETT: Senator Warren, like Senator Sanders and Vice President Biden, if you win the presidency, you would be the oldest president ever inaugurated in a first term. You would be 71. Forty percent of Democratic primary voters say they think a candidate under the age of 70 is more likely to defeat President Trump. What do you say to them?

WARREN: Well, I say, I will out-work, out-organize, and outlast anyone, and that includes Donald Trump, Mike Pence, or whoever the Republicans get stuck with.

(LAUGHTER)

Look, the way I see this, the way we're going to win is by addressing head-on what millions of Americans know in their bones, and that is that the wealthy and the well-connected have captured our democracy, and they're making it work for themselves and leaving everyone else behind.

And political pundits and Washington insiders and, shoot, people in our own party don't want to admit that. They think that running some kind of vague campaign that nibbles around the edges of big problems in this country is a winning strategy. They are wrong.

If all Democrats can promise is after Donald Trump it will be business as usual, then we will lose. Democrats win when we call out what's broken and we show how to fix it. Democrats will win when we fight for the things that touch people's lives, things like childcare and health care and housing costs. Democrats will win when we give people a reason to get in the fight.

BURNETT: Thank you, Senator Warren.

Congresswoman Gabbard, you're 38 years old, and you would be the youngest president if elected. Should age matter when choosing a president?

GABBARD: I'm glad you asked, because I was going to say it's not fair to ask these three about their health and their fitness to serve as president but not every other one of us. I am grateful to have been trained very well by the Army and do my best to stay in shape.

But here's the real question I believe you should be asking is: Who is fit to serve as our commander-in-chief? This is the most important responsibility that the president has. What Donald Trump has been doing in Syria and what we have just seen with him, inviting Turkey to come in and slaughter the Kurds, show what an unfit president looks like. It highlights how critical it is that we have a president and commander-in-chief who is ready on day one, bringing experience and understanding in foreign policy and national security.

Bringing the experience that I have, both serving in Congress now for nearly seven years, serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee, serving on the Armed Services Committee, subcommittees related to terrorism and upcoming threats, serving on the Homeland Security Committee, the experience that I have as a soldier, serving for over 16 years in the Army National Guard, deploying twice to the Middle East, being able to serve in different capacities, joint training exercises, training the Kuwait National Guard.

I understand the importance of our national security. I am prepared to do this job, to fulfill this responsibility as commander-in-chief on day one.

BURNETT: Thank you, Congresswoman.

GABBARD: I'd like to ask our other candidates this question. I'd like to start with Senator Warren...

BURNETT: Sorry, Congressman, I'm sorry.

GABBARD: ... what her experience and background is to serve as commander-in-chief.

BURNETT: I'm sorry, thank you. We're going to take another break now. The CNN-New York Times debate live from Otterbein University here in Ohio will be back in just a few moments.

[21:55:59]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: And welcome back to the CNN-New York Times Democratic presidential debate. Mark Lacey from the New York Times starts off our questioning. Mark?

LACEY: Thank you. Let's turn to the growing concerns over the power of big tech companies.

[22:05:00]

Mr. Yang, Senator Warren is calling for companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google to be broken up. Is she right? Does that need to happen?

YANG: As usual, Senator Warren is 100 percent right in diagnosing the problem. There are absolutely excesses in technology and in some cases having them divest parts of their business is the right move.

But we also have to be realistic that competition doesn't solve all the problems. It's not like any of us wants to use the fourth best navigation app. That would be like cruel and unusual punishment. There is a reason why no one is using Bing today. Sorry, Microsoft. It's true.

So it's not like breaking up these big tech companies will revive Main Street businesses around the country. And as the parent of two young children, I'm particularly concerned about screen use and its effect on our children. Studies clearly show that we're seeing record levels of anxiety and depression coincident with smartphone adoption and social media use.

Breaking up the tech companies does nothing to make our kids healthier. What we have to do is we have to hone in on the specific problems we're trying to solve and use 21st century solutions for 21st century problems. Using a 20th century antitrust framework will not work. We need new solutions and a new toolkit.

LACEY: Thank you. Senator Warren, is Mr. Yang wrong? Your response, please.

WARREN: Look, I'm not willing to give up and let a handful of monopolists dominate our economy and our democracy. It's time to fight back. Think about it this way. When you talk about how it works in competition, about 8 percent, 9 percent of all retail sales happen at bricks and sticks stores, happen at Walmart. About 49 percent of all sales online happen in one place: that's Amazon.

It collects information from every little business, and then Amazon does something else. It runs the platform, gets all the information, and then goes into competition with those little businesses. Look, you get to be the umpire in the baseball game, or you get to have a team, but you don't get to do both at the same time. We need to enforce our antitrust laws, break up these giant companies that are dominating, big tech, big pharma, big oil, all of them.

LACEY: Thank you, Senator.

Mr. Steyer, your response?

STEYER: Look, I agree with Senator Warren that, in fact, monopolies have to be dealt with. They either have to be broken up or regulated, and that's part of it.

But we have to understand that Mr. Trump is going to be running on the economy. He's going to be saying he's the person who can make it grow. I started a business from scratch -- one room, no employers -- and built a multi-billion-dollar international business. We're going to have to show the American people that we don't just know how to tax and have programs to break up companies but also talk about prosperity, talk about investing in the American people, talk about harnessing the innovation and competition of the American private sector.

In fact, if we want to beat Mr. Trump, I think somebody who can go toe to toe with him and show him to be a fraud and a failure as a businessperson, and a fraud and a failure as a steward of the American economy is going to be necessary. He is one. His tax plan's a failure. His trade war is a failure. I would love to take him on as a real businessman and show that, in fact, he's failed the American people, and he has to go.

LACEY: Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

Senator Booker, how do you respond? Would a President Booker break up big tech companies like Facebook and Amazon?

BOOKER: Anybody that does not think that we have a massive crisis in our democracy with the way these tech companies are being used, not just in terms of anti-competitive practices, but also to undermine our democracy -- we have seen it in the '16 election practices being used that have not been corrected now. We need regulation and reform.

And antitrust, I mean Robert Bork right now is laughing in his sleep. We have a reality in this country where antitrust, from pharma to farms, is causing trouble, and we have to deal with this. As president of the United States, I will put people in place that enforce antitrust laws.

And I want to say one last thing, and I feel qualified to say this as the vegan on the stage. Going back to the fact that we -- it's rich to me that we asked three people about their health when looking at this stage we know that the most unhealthy person running for the presidency in 2020 is Donald Trump.

(APPLAUSE)

LACEY: Thank you, Senator.

Congressman O'Rourke, you say you're not sure if it's appropriate for a president to designate which companies should be broken up. So what's the proper level of oversight here?

O'ROURKE: Yeah, we need to set very tough, very clear, transparent rules of the road, the kind of rules that we do not have today, that allow these social media platforms, where we, the people, have become the product, to abuse that public trust, and to do so at extraordinary profits.

Right now, we treat them functionally as a utility, when,

[22:10:00]

in reality, they're more akin to a publisher. They curate the content that we see. Our pictures and personal information that they share with others, we would allow no publisher to do what Facebook is doing, to publish that ad that Senator Warren has rightfully called out, that CNN has refused to air because it is untrue and tells lies about the vice president, treat them like the publisher that they are. That's what I will do as president.

And we will be unafraid to break up big businesses if we have to do that, but I don't think it is the role of a president or a candidate for the presidency to specifically call out which companies will be broken up. That's something that Donald Trump has done, in part because he sees enemies in the press and wants to diminish their power. It's not something that we should do.

So tough rules of the road, protect your personal information, privacy, and data, and be fearless in the face of these tech giants.

LACEY: Senator Sanders, your response?

SANDERS: When we talk about a rigged economy, it's not just the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality. It is also the fact that in sector after sector, whether it is Wall Street, where you have six banks that have assets equivalent to half of the GDP of the United States, whether it is media, where you have 10 media companies that control about 90 percent of what the American people see, hear, or read, whether it is agribusiness, where we see merger after merger which is resulting in the decline of family-based farming in this country, we need a president who has the guts to appoint an attorney general who will take on these huge monopolies, protect small business, and protect consumers by ending the price fixing that we see every day.

LACEY: Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senator. Senator Harris, to you, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that splitting up big tech companies will make election interference more likely because the companies won't be able to work together to fight it. Could breaking up these companies make the spread of disinformation worse?

HARRIS: No, I don't agree with that at all. And serving on the Senate Intelligence Committee, working with Amy Klobuchar on what we need to do to upgrade the elections infrastructure, knowing that Russia needs to be held accountable for the fact that they interfered in the election of the president of the United States and will attempt to do it again, that's -- that's a ridiculous argument he's making.

But I do want to also say this. What we're talking about is a grave injustice, when rules apply to some but not equally to all, and in particular when the rules that apply to the powerless don't apply to the powerful.

And so, Senator Warren, I just want to say that I was surprised to hear that you did not agree with me that on this subject of what should be the rules around corporate responsibility for these big tech companies, when I called on Twitter to suspend Donald Trump's account, that you did not agree, and I would urge you to join me.

Because here we have Donald Trump, who has 65 million Twitter followers and is using that platform as the president of the United States to openly intimidate witnesses, to threaten witnesses, to obstruct justice, and he and his account should be taken down.

We saw in El Paso that that shooter in his manifesto was informed by how Donald Trump uses that platform, and this is a matter of corporate responsibility. Twitter should be held accountable and shut down that site. It is a matter of safety and corporate accountability.

LACEY: Thank you. Senator Warren, you can respond.

WARREN: So, look, I don't just want to push Donald Trump off Twitter. I want to push him out of the White House. That's our job.

HARRIS: Well, join me -- join me in saying that his Twitter account should be shut down.

WARREN: But let's figure -- no. Let's figure out...

HARRIS: No?

WARREN: ... why it is that we have had laws on the books for antitrust for over a century, and yet for decades now, we've all called on how the big drug companies are calling the shots in Washington, big ag, how the gun industry, big tech -- you know, we really need to address the elephant in the room, and that is how campaigns are financed.

HARRIS: You can't say you're for corporate responsibility if it doesn't apply to everyone.

WARREN: I announced this morning -- I announced this morning that I'm not going to take any money from big tech executives, from Wall Street executives. We've already agreed, Bernie and I, we're not taking any money from big pharma executives.

You can't go behind closed doors and take the money of these executives and then turn around and expect that these are the people who are actually finally going to enforce the laws. We need campaign finance rules and practices...

LACEY: Thank you, Senator Warren. Senator Harris?

WARREN: ... that support us all.

HARRIS: You -- it does not represent a system of justice to say that the rules will apply differently to different people. This is a matter, you are saying, of holding big tech accountable.

WARREN: Yes.

[22:15:00]

HARRIS: Holding big tech accountable because they have an outsized influence on people's perceptions about issues, and they actually influence behaviors. We all have to agree this is their power. It is immense.

LACEY: Senator Klobuchar, let me bring you in here.

(CROSSTALK)

LACEY: Your response?

HARRIS: I'm not finished. I'm not finished.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: And so what I am saying is that it seems to me that you would be able to join me in saying the rule has to apply to Twitter the same way it does to Facebook.

WARREN: Look, I think all of the rules should apply across the board. I don't have a problem with that.

HARRIS: So you will join me in saying Twitter should shut down that account?

WARREN: What I do have a problem with is that if we're going to talk seriously about breaking up big tech, then we should ask if people are taking money from the big tech executives. If we're going to talk seriously about breaking up big drug companies, we should ask if people are financing their campaigns by taking money from big drug executives. If we are going to talk about Wall Street and having some serious regulation over Wall Street, we should ask if people are funding their campaigns by taking money from those executives.

LACEY: Thank you, Senator. Senator Klobuchar, let's bring you in here. (CROSSTALK)

KLOBUCHAR: I would like to have a different take on this. I was in the private sector for 14 years, represented companies that were fighting to get into the telecom markets. I had a life before government.

And what I saw was when we got more competition there, the prices went down in a big way in the long distance market. Well, right now we have another gilded age going on, and I am the lead Democrat on the Antitrust Committee. I have the lead legislation, which means, one, changing the standard so we can do a better job of doing just what we've been talking about here, is breaking down some of this consolidation, and also making sure that the enforcers have the resources to take them on because they're so overwhelmed.

But the issue here is this. Start talking about this as a pro- competition issue. This used to be a Republican and Democratic issue, because America, our founding fathers, actually wanted to have less consolidation. We were a place of entrepreneurship. We are seeing a startup slump in this country.

LACEY: Thank you, Senator. Secretary Castro, would you like to weigh in?

KLOBUCHAR: And this means everything from tech on down.

LACEY: Please respond.

CASTRO: Yeah, I think that we're on the right track in terms of updating how we look at monopolistic practices and setting, as Congressman O'Rourke said, rules for the road that match the challenges that we face today.

And, you know, whether that's Amazon that is leveraging its size I think to help put small businesses out of business, and then at the same time shortchanging a lot of its workers, not paying them as they should, not giving them the benefits that they should, or it's a number of other companies, big tech companies. We need to take a stronger stance when it comes to cracking down on monopolistic trade practices, and that's what I would do as president.

LACEY: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

(CROSSTALK)

YANG: The best way we can fight back -- the best way we can fight back against big tech companies is to say our data is our property. Right now, our data is worth more than oil. How many of you remember getting your data check in the mail? It got lost. It went to Facebook, Amazon, Google. If we say this is our property and we share in the gains, that's the best way we can balance the scales against the big tech companies.

BURNETT: Thank you, Mr. Yang.

GABBARD: There's a bigger issue here... BURNETT: Turning to women's reproductive rights, Ohio is now one of several states that has banned abortions after as early as six weeks of pregnancy. Many women don't even know they're pregnant at that time. The Ohio law, like many others, is being challenged in the courts and has not yet taken effect. Senator Harris, if states prevail on restricting abortion, what's your plan to stop them?

HARRIS: My plan is as -- as follows. For any state that passes a law that violates the Constitution, and in particular Roe v. Wade, our Department of Justice will review that law to determine if it is compliant with Roe v. Wade and the Constitution, and if it is not, that law will not go into effect. That's called pre-clearance.

Because the reality is that while we still have -- as I said earlier -- these state legislators who are outdated and out of touch, mostly men who are telling women what to do with their bodies, then there needs to be accountability and consequence.

(APPLAUSE)

But, you know, I'll go further. You may have seen it. I questioned Brett Kavanaugh when I was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and asked him as a nominee to serve on the United States Supreme Court, could he think of any law that tells a man what to do with his body? And the answer was, uh, uh, no.

The reality of it is, this is still a fundamental issue of justice for women in America. Women have been given the responsibility to perpetuate the human species. Our bodies were created to do that. And it does not give any other person the right to tell a woman what to do with that body. It is her body. It is her right. It is her decision.

(APPLAUSE)

BURNETT: Senator Harris, thank you.

[22:20:00]

Senator Klobuchar, what would you do to stop states from prevailing? Your response?

KLOBUCHAR: I would codify Roe v. Wade and make it the law of the land. But what I want to do right now is just say, what if Donald Trump was standing up here on the debate stage with me? You know what I would say to him? I said, you knew -- you said you wanted to do this in your race for president. You actually said that you wanted to put women in jail. Then you tried to dial it back, and you said you wanted to put doctors in jail.

That is exactly what the Alabama law is. It put doctors in jail for 99 years. You, Donald Trump, are not on the side of women. You are not on the side of people of this country, when over 75 percent of people want to keep Roe v. Wade on the book, when over 90 percent of people want to make sure we have available contraception. You defunded Planned Parenthood. I would fund it again.

BURNETT: Senator, thank you.

Senator Booker, if states prevail on restricting abortion, how would you stop them? Please respond.

BOOKER: Well, first of all, let's be clear about these laws we see from Alabama to Ohio. They're not just attacks on one of the most sacrosanct ideals in our country -- liberty, the ability to control your own body -- but they're particularly another example of people trying to punish, trying to penalize, trying to criminalize poverty, because this is disproportionately affecting low-income women in this country, people in rural areas in this country. It is an assault on the most fundamental ideal that human beings should control their own body.

And so the way as president of the United States I'm going to deal with this is, first of all, elevating it like we have with other national crises to a White House-level position. And I will create the Office of Reproductive Freedom and Reproductive Rights in the White House and make sure that we begin to fight back on a systematic attempt that's gone on for decades to undermine Roe v. Wade.

I will fight to codify it, and I will also make sure that we fight as this country to repeal the Hyde amendment, so that we are leading the Planet Earth in defending the global assault we see on women right now.

BURNETT: Thank you, Senator.

Congresswoman Gabbard, your response?

GABBARD: This is often one of the most difficult decisions that a woman will ever have to make, and it's unfortunate to see how in this country it has for so long been used as a divisive political weapon.

I agree with Hillary Clinton on one thing, disagree with her on many others, but when she said abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, I think she's correct. We see how the consequences of laws that you're referring to can often lead to a dangerous place, as we've seen them as they're passed in other countries, where a woman who has a miscarriage past that six weeks could be imprisoned because abortion would be illegal at that point.

I do, however, think that there should be some restrictions in place. I support codifying Roe v. Wade while making sure that, during the third trimester, abortion is not an option unless the life or severe health consequences of a woman are at risk.

BURNETT: Thank you very much.

The Supreme Court is currently made up of five Republican-appointed justices and four appointed by Democrats. The court just announced it will hear arguments in a case challenging some abortion rights.

Vice President Biden, the Constitution does not specify the number of justices that serve on the Supreme Court. If Roe v. Wade is overturned on your watch and you can't pass legislation in Congress, would you seek to add justices to the Supreme Court to protect women's reproductive rights?

BIDEN: I would not get into court packing. We had three justices. Next time around, we lose control, they add three justices. We begin to lose any credibility the court has at all.

I want to point out that the justices I've supported, when I defeated Robert Bork -- and I say when I defeated Robert Bork, I made sure we guaranteed a woman's right to choose for the better part of a generation. I would make sure that we move and insist that we pass, we codify Roe v. Wade.

The public is already there. Things have changed. And I would go out and I would campaign against those people in the state of Ohio, Alabama, et cetera, who in fact are throwing up this barrier. Reproductive rights are a constitutional right. And, in fact, every woman should have that right.

And so I would not pack the court. What I would do is make sure that the people that I recommended for the court, from Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Elena Kagan, who used to work for me, to others, that they, in fact, support the right of privacy, on which the entire notion of a woman's right to choose is based. And that's what I would do. No one would get on the court.

And by the way, if, in fact, at the end of this -- beginning next year, if, in fact, one of the justices steps down, God forbid, in fact, I would make sure that we would do exactly what McConnell did last time out. We would not allow any hearing to be held for a new justice.

BURNETT: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

Mayor Buttigieg, you have discussed expanding the court from 9 to 15 justices. What's your response to the vice president?

[22:25:00]

BUTTIGIEG: That's right. When I proposed reforming the Supreme Court, some folks said that was too bold to even contemplate. Now, I'm not talking about packing the court just with people who agree with me, although I certainly will appoint people who share my values, for example, the idea that women's reproductive freedom is an American right.

What I'm talking about is reforms that will depoliticize the court. We can't go on like this, where every single time there is a vacancy, we have this apocalyptic ideological firefight over what to do next.

Now, one way to fix this would be to have a 15-member court where five of the members can only be appointed by unanimous agreement of the other 10. Smarter legal minds than mine are discussing this in the Yale Law Journal and how this could be done without a constitutional amendment. But the point is that not everybody arrives on a partisan basis.

There are other reforms that we could consider, from term limits -- don't forget, justices used to just retire like everybody else -- to a rotation off the appellate bench.

BURNETT: Thank you.

BUTTIGIEG: I'm not wedded to a particular solution, but I am committed to establishing a commission on day one...

BURNETT: Thank you, Mayor Buttigieg.

BUTTIGIEG: ... that will propose reforms to depoliticize the Supreme Court, because we can't go on like this.

BURNETT: Thank you very much, Mayor Buttigieg. Secretary Castro, he's talking about making the court bigger. Your response? Is it a good idea?

CASTRO: I don't think it is. I wouldn't pack the court. You know, I think the plan that Mayor Pete mentioned is an interesting one, but I actually believe, if we were selecting from one of those things, that the smarter move might be to look at term limits or having people cycle off from the appellate courts so that you would have a replenishment of perspective.

I would also make sure that I appoint as president people who respect the precedent of Roe v. Wade, that we codify Roe v. Wade, and that we do away with things like the Hyde amendment, because you shouldn't only be able to have reproductive freedom if you have money. We have to think about people who do not, people who are poor. And we have to concern ourselves not only with reproductive freedom, but also reproductive justice and invest in the ability of every woman to be able to make a choice and to be able to have her health care needs met.

BURNETT: Senator Warren, would you consider adding more justices to the Supreme Court to protect Roe v. Wade? Your response?

WARREN: I think there are a number of options. I think, as Mayor Buttigieg said, there are many different ways. People are talking about different options, and I think we may have to talk about them.

But on Roe v. Wade, can we just pause for a minute here? I lived in an America where abortion was illegal, and rich women still got abortions, because they could travel, they could go to places where it was legal.

What we're talking about now is that the people who are denied access to abortion are the poor, are the young, are 14-year-olds who were molested by a family member. And we now have support across this country. Three out of four Americans believe in the rule of Roe v. Wade. When you've got three out of four Americans supporting it, we should be able to get that passed through Congress.

BURNETT: Senator, thank you.

WARREN: We should not leave this to the Supreme Court. We should do it through democracy, because we can.

BURNETT: Thank you very much, Senator.

COOPER: As some of you have indicated, the differences between all of you on this stage are tiny compared to the differences between you and President Trump. There are, however, fundamental differences between many of you on this stage.

Vice President Biden, just on either side of you, Senator Warren is calling for big structural change. Senator Sanders is calling for a political revolution. Will their visions attract the kind of voters that the Democrats need to beat Donald Trump?

BIDEN: Well, I think their vision is attracting a lot of people, and I think a lot of what they have to say is really important. But, you know, Senator Warren said we can't be running any vague campaigns. We've got to level with people. We've got to level with people and tell them exactly what we're going to do, how we're going to get it done, and if you can get it done.

I'm going to say something that is probably going to offend some people here, but I'm the only one on this stage that has gotten anything really big done, from the Violence Against Women Act to making sure that we pass the Affordable Care Act to being in a position where we, in fact, took almost a $90 billion act that kept us from going into a depression, making us -- putting us in a position where I was able to end roe -- excuse me, able to end the issue of gun sales in terms of assault weapons.

And so the question is, who is best prepared? We all have good ideas. The question is, who is going to be able to get it done? How can you get it done? And I'm not suggesting they can't, but I'm suggesting that that's what we should look at. And part of that requires you not being vague. Tell people what it's going to cost, how you're going to do it, and why you're going to do it. That's the way to get it done. Presidents are supposed to be able to persuade.

COOPER: Just to clarify, Vice President, who are you saying is being vague?

[22:30:00]

BIDEN: Well, the senator said -- she's being vague on the issue of -- actually, both are being vague on the issue of Medicare for all. No, look, here's the deal. Come on. It costs $30 trillion. Guess what? That's over $3 trillion -- it's more than the entire federal budget -- let me finish, OK?

COOPER: You'll both get in.

BIDEN: If you eliminated the entire Pentagon, every single thing, plane, ship, troop, the buildings, everything, satellites, it would get you -- it would pay for a total of four months. Four months. Where do you get the rest? Where does it come from?

SANDERS: Two things. Let me explain in two ways.

COOPER: Senator Sanders, respond. SANDERS: Joe, you talked about working with Republicans and getting things done. But you know what you also got done? And I say this as a good friend. You got the disastrous war in Iraq done. You got a bankruptcy bill, which is hurting middle-class families all over this country. You got trade agreements, like NAFTA and PNTR, with China done, which have cost us 4 million jobs.

Now, let's get to Medicare for all. Let's be honest. We spend twice as much per person as do the people of any other major country on Earth. And the answer is, if we have the guts that I would like to see the Democratic Party have that guts, to stand up to the drug companies and the insurance companies and tell them that the function of health care is to guarantee care to all people, not to make $100 billion in profit.

COOPER: Thank you, Senator.

SANDERS: If we stood together, we could create the greatest health care system in the world.

COOPER: Vice President Biden, you can respond, and then Senator Warren.

BIDEN: We can do that without Medicare for all. We can do that by adding a public option.

SANDERS: No.

BIDEN: We can.

SANDERS: No, you can't.

BIDEN: And we can afford to do it.

SANDERS: You've got to take on the greed and the profiteering of the health care industry.

BIDEN: By the way, the greed and...

COOPER: Let him respond. Mr. Vice President?

BIDEN: The greed and profiteering of those insurance companies, they are as much against my bill as they are anybody else. They were strongly against Obamacare. They know it cost them. And it's going to take away the right of people to choose, the 160 million people out there who've negotiated their health insurance, and they want to keep it. They should have a right to keep it.

COOPER: Senator Warren, your response?

WARREN: So you started this question with how you got something done. You know, following the financial crash of 2008, I had an idea for a consumer agency that would keep giant banks from cheating people. And all of the Washington insiders and strategic geniuses said, don't even try, because you will never get it passed. And sure enough, the big banks fought us. The Republicans fought us. Some of the Democrats fought us. But we got that agency passed into law. It has now forced big banks to return more than $12 billion directly to people they cheated.

I served in the Obama administration. I know what we can do by executive authority, and I will use it. In Congress, on the first day, I will pass my anti-corruption bill, which will beat back the influence of money...

COOPER: Thank you, Senator.

WARREN: ... and repeal the filibuster. And the third, we want to get something done in America, we have to get out there and fight...

COOPER: Thank you, Senator.

WARREN: ... for the things that touch people's lives.

COOPER: Mayor...

BIDEN: I agree. Let me -- she referenced me. I agreed with the great job she did, and I went on the floor and got you votes. I got votes for that bill. I convinced people to vote for it. So let's get those things straight, too.

COOPER: Senator Warren, do you want to respond?

(APPLAUSE)

WARREN: I am deeply grateful to President Obama, who fought so hard to make sure that agency was passed into law, and I am deeply grateful to every single person who fought for it and who helped pass it into law. But understand...

BIDEN: You did a hell of a job in your job.

WARREN: Thank you.

(LAUGHTER)

But understand this. It was a dream big, fight hard. People told me, go for something little, go for something small, go for something that the big corporations will be able to accept.

COOPER: Thank you, Senator.

WARREN: I said, no, let's go for an agency that will make structural change in our economy.

COOPER: Senator, thank you.

WARREN: And President Obama said, I will fight for that, and he sometimes had to fight against people in his own administration. We have...

BIDEN: Not me.

WARREN: We have to be willing to make good, big, structural change.

COOPER: Mayor Buttigieg, which is the right vision for a Democrat to beat Donald Trump? That's the essential question.

BUTTIGIEG: If I had a buck for every argument that I've witnessed like this, I could pay for college for everybody. We need to move past what has been consuming this whole political space for as long as I've been alive.

We're being offered a false choice. I don't agree with the vice president that Trump is an aberration.

[22:35:00]

I don't agree that there's any such thing as back to normal. Because here in the industrial Midwest, definitely where I live, normal didn't work. That's part of how we got here. That's part of how a guy like Donald Trump managed to get within cheating distance of the Oval Office in the first place.

But I also don't agree with Senator Warren that the only way forward is infinite partisan combat. Yes, we have to fight -- absolutely, we have to fight for the big changes at hand, but it's going to take more than fighting. Once again, I want to take you back to that day after Trump has stopped being president. Think about what the president can do to unify a new American majority for some of the boldest things we've attempted in my lifetime -- Medicare for all who want it, actually getting something done on immigration for the first time since the '80s, an assault weapons ban, which would be a huge deal, making college free for low- and middle-income students.

Yet there are some here on this stage who say it doesn't count unless we go even further, free college for low- and middle-income students isn't good enough unless we're also paying for the children of billionaires. Immigration reform isn't enough unless we also decriminalize border crossings. We have an opportunity to do the biggest things we've done...

COOPER: Thank you, Mayor.

BUTTIGIEG: ... in my lifetime...

COOPER: Senator?

BIDEN: I did not say back to normal.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Thank you, Mayor. Senator Klobuchar? Senator Klobuchar?

(CROSSTALK)

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you. You know, this isn't a flyover part of the country to me. The heartland is where I live. And I want to win those states that we lost last time, and I have bold ideas to get us there. And I think just because they're different than Elizabeth's doesn't mean they're bold.

But we can't get any of this done on climate change or immigration reform unless they win. And what I have done is win and the only one up here, time and time again, the reddest of red districts, Michele Bachmann's, I -- I won that district three times, rural districts that border Iowa and North and South Dakota. And I do it by going not just where it's comfortable but where it's uncomfortable.

And that is why I have been in Pennsylvania and in Michigan and in Wisconsin and all over Ohio and in Iowa, because I think we need to build a blue Democratic wall around those states and make Donald Trump pay for it.

COOPER: Thank you. Senator Warren, she referenced you, so you can respond.

WARREN: Now, people who are struggling to pay health care are fighting today. People who are getting crushed by student loans are in a fight today. People who are getting stopped by the police or paid less because of the color of their skin are in a fight today.

And anyone who doesn't understand that Americans are already in these fights is not someone who is likely to win them. For me, this is about knowing what's broken, knowing how to fix it, and, yes, I'm willing to get out there and fight for it.

COOPER: Senator Sanders...

BUTTIGIEG: There's a missing people, and that is...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Senator Sanders, why is your approach more likely to beat President Trump?

SANDERS: I'll tell you why.

COOPER: Please respond.

SANDERS: And here's the radical reason why. It's what the American people want.

WARREN: Yes.

SANDERS: All right, the American people do not want tax breaks for billionaires. They want the rich to start paying their fair share of taxes. A poll came out yesterday, 71 percent of Democrats support Medicare for all. The people of this country understand that we've got to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. And more and more Americans, including Republicans, understand we need bold action if we're going to save this planet for our children and our grandchildren.

The way you win an election in this time in history is not the same old, same old. You have to inspire people. You have to excite people. You've got to bring working people and young people and poor people into the political process...

COOPER: Thank you. Thank you.

SANDERS: ... because they know you stand for them, not corporate America.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Congressman O'Rourke, is political revolution what the American people want? Your response.

O'ROURKE: There was some talk about getting big things done. When I was first elected to Congress, I found that El Paso, Texas, had the worst wait times in the country to see a mental health care provider at the V.A. I don't know how sensational or exciting that was to everyone in the country or even most people in El Paso, but it was important to those veterans who I serve.

So we set about turning around the V.A., hiring up the psychiatrists and psychologists and therapists to take care of those women and men who had put their lives on the line for this country. And we were able to do that, and we took what we learned, and we applied it to a national law as a member of the minority working with Republicans and Democrats alike to expand mental health care access for veterans nationally.

And then in Texas, one of what was thought to be the reddest states in the country, going to every single county...

COOPER: Thank you, Congressman.

O'ROURKE: ... talking about this progressive agenda, and winning more votes than any Democrat has ever won, that's the way that we defeat Donald Trump in November of 2020.

COOPER: Congressman O'Rourke, thank you. We have to take a quick break. The CNN-New York Times debate live from Ohio will continue right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:44:29]

COOPER: We are back with the CNN-New York Times Democratic presidential debate. We have time for one more question that we would like all of you to weigh in on.

Last week, Ellen DeGeneres was criticized after she and former President George W. Bush were seen laughing together at a football game. Ellen defended their friendship, saying, we're all different and I think that we've forgotten that that's OK that we're all different.

So in that spirit, we'd like you to tell us about a friendship that you've had that would surprise us and what impact it's had on you and your beliefs.

Secretary Castro, let's begin with you.

[22:45:00]

CASTRO: Well, first of all, thank you to Marc, thank you, Anderson, and thank you, Erin, and CNN, and New York Times and everybody who is here tonight.

You know, some of the most interesting friendships that I've had have been with people different from me, either people older than me that had a lot to teach me, or people who grew up very different from me. Also, teachers, as I was growing up, people that had a life experience that when I was growing up was beyond mine.

And sometimes also -- and this goes to the heart of your question, I think -- people who thought differently from me, folks that I considered and have considered friends, and I think that there's a value to that. I think that that should be reflected more in our public life.

I also believe, to just speak about the incident last week with Ellen and George W. Bush, I completely understood what she was saying about being kind to others. I believe that we should be more kind to other folks.

I also believe that we should hold people to account for what they've done, especially public servants who have a record of having done something or not done something. And I think that we can do both of those things. I think that we can be kind to people and also hold them accountable for their actions.

And there are people, whether it's our former president, George W. Bush, or others that should be held accountable. Just as we should be kind, we shouldn't be made to feel shameful about holding people accountable for what they've done.

COOPER: Congresswoman Gabbard?

GABBARD: Thank you. You know, where I come from in Hawaii, many of you know, we greet each other with "aloha." It's not a word that means hello and goodbye. It actually means something much more powerful than that. It means I come to you with respect and a recognition that we're all connected, we're all brothers and sisters, we're all God's children.

So I've developed friendships that some people may be surprised about within the Washington circles, especially, with Republicans, like Trey Gowdy, for example. He and I disagree a lot and very strongly on a lot of political issues. We've developed a friendship that's based on respect. And he's been there for me during some personally challenging times.

The challenge before us today is that our country is very divided. Donald Trump must be defeated. But we must do more than just defeat Donald Trump. We need to deliver a win for the American people. We must stand united as Americans, remembering that we are all brothers and sisters, that we are all connected. This is the kind of leadership that I seek to bring as president, inspired by the example of presidents like Abraham Lincoln, who talked about how we should have malice for none and charity for all.

When I look out at our country, I don't see deplorables, I see fellow Americans, people who I treat with respect, even when we disagree and when we disagree strongly. I will work to restore a White House that represents light and compassion and respect for every American regardless of race, religion, orientation, gender, or political affiliation.

So I want to ask everyone to join me. Join me in bringing about this government of, by, and for the people that serves all the people of this country. You can visit my website, tulsi2020.com, for more information.

COOPER: Thank you, Congresswoman.

Senator Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: For me, it's John McCain, and I miss him every day. I traveled all over the world with him. And he would sometimes, when we were seated with world leaders, and they would look away from me, he'd say, "Senator Klobuchar is the lead Democrat on this trip, and she will go next."

And I still remember being there at his ranch. John and I went to visit him and Cindy when he was dying. And he pointed to some words in his book, because he could hardly talk. And the words says this: "There is nothing more liberating in life than fighting for a cause larger than yourself."

That's what we're doing right now. And while we have had major debates about policy, we have to remember that what unites us is so much bigger than what divides us. And we have to remember that our job is to not just change policy, but to change the tone in our politics, to look up from our phones, to look at each other, to start talking to each other, because the way we win -- and not just win the presidency, but take back the U.S. Senate -- is by winning big.

And the way we win big is with that fired up Democratic base that's out there today, but it is also about bringing in independents and moderate Republicans. I can lead this. And I ask you to join me because I've done it before and I will do it again, amyklobuchar.com. Join our team. Thank you.

COOPER: Senator, thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Mr. Steyer, tell us about your most surprising friendship.

STEYER: So I'm friends with a woman from Denmark, South Carolina, named Deanna Berry, who's fighting for clean water and environmental justice in her community. [22:50:00]

She's a different gender. She's a different race. She's from a different part of the country. But she reminds me of my parents in terms of her courage and her optimism and her honor.

My mother was a schoolteacher in the New York Public Schools and in the Brooklyn House of Detention. My father was the first generation in his family to go to college. My grandfather was a plumber. He interrupted his law degree to go into the Navy in World War II and he ended up prosecuting the Nazis at Nuremberg. And when I asked him what that experience meant, he said, when you see something wrong in your society, you fight it from the first day and every single day after.

And that's why I started the Need to Impeach movement two years ago, because there was something terribly wrong at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And over 10 years ago, I saw that there was a terrible threat to the safety and health of every American in terms of the climate crisis. And I've been fighting those companies with the help of the American people ever since successfully, and that's why I'm running for the president, because our government has failed, it's been bought by corporations, and it's absolutely essential to return power to the people.

I have been doing exactly what my parents taught me to do, which is to take on the biggest problems in America directly and fight for them every single day.

COOPER: Thank you, Mr. Steyer.

(APPLAUSE)

Congressman O'Rourke?

O'ROURKE: I've always tried to bring people in to the solutions that we have to our common challenges, regardless of the differences. I did that as a small-business owner more than 20 years ago, making sure that we could get a small tech company off the ground in El Paso, Texas.

Did it as a member of the City Council, where I saw my colleagues not as Republicans or Democrats, but my fellow El Pasoans who had a responsibility to deliver for our community.

As a member of Congress, I remember being in San Antonio. I was visiting the V.A. there, March of 2017. Found that my flight had been snowed in, in Washington, D.C. I happened to be in the elevator with a Republican member of Congress, Will Hurd. And on a whim, I said, do you want to just rent a car and drive from San Antonio to Washington?

And he called my bluff. We got in that Chevy Impala, last car on the lot. It was spring break. Drove 1,600 miles across the country. Live streamed the conversation, a Republican and a Democrat finding out what we had in common.

By the end of that trip, not only had we formed a friendship, but we had formed trust. We worked with each other on each other's bills. I got Will to work with me on an immigration bill, showing party leaders from either side that Republicans and Democrats could work together on an otherwise contentious issue.

And then across Texas, I mentioned winning more votes than any Democrat. We won independents and Republicans in record numbers, as well. I will bring people in and together to face the common challenges that we have and to make sure that America rises to this opportunity.

COOPER: Senator Booker, tell us about your most surprising friendship.

BOOKER: Well, look, I have so many, I don't even know where to count. I was the mayor of a large city with a Republican governor. He and I had to form a friendship, even though I can write a dissertation on our disagreements. When I got to the United States Senate, I went there with the purpose of making friendships across the aisle.

I go to Bible study in Chairman Inhofe's office. He and I pass legislation together to help homeless and foster kids. I went out to try to invite every one of my Republican colleagues to dinner. And let me again say, finding a dinner at a restaurant, agreeing on one with Ted Cruz was a very difficult thing. I'm a vegan, and he's a meat- eating Texan.

But I'll tell you this right now, this is the moment in America that this is our test. The spirit of our country, I believe in the values of rugged individualism and self-reliance, but think about our history. Rugged individualism didn't get us to the Moon. It didn't beat the Nazis. It didn't map the human genome. It didn't beat Jim Crow. Everything we did in this country big.

And, Vice President, we have done so many big things. The fact that there's an openly gay man, a black woman, all of us on the stage are because we in the past are all inheritors of a legacy of common struggle and common purpose.

This election is not a referendum on one guy in one office. It's a referendum on who we are and who we must be to each other. The next leader is going to have to be one amongst us Democrats that can unite us all, not throw elbows at other Democrats that are unfair, because the preparation is being the leader that can revive civic of grace in our country, teach us a more courageous empathy, and remind America that patriotism is love of country, and you cannot love your country unless you love your fellow countrymen and women.

And love is not sentimentality. It's not anemic. Love is struggle. Love is sacrifice. Love is the words of our founders who said at the end of the Declaration of Independence that if we're ever going to make it as a nation, we must mutually pledge to each other...

COOPER: Thank you.

BOOKER: ... our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. I am running for president to restore that sacred honor.

COOPER: Thank you.

BOOKER: And if you believe in that like I do, please join me by going to corybooker.com. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Thank you, Senator. Mr. Yang?

YANG: First, I want to thank all the voters tuned in at home.

[22:55:00]

And if you don't feel like you answered your -- you got your question answered tonight, it's understandable. There are 12 of us.

I'm going to be answering voter questions for 10 straight hours this Friday. My web site, yang2020.com. And if you ask your question tonight, there's a better chance I'll get to it.

My surprising friendship, it's been so much fun running for president, because I've gotten to meet so many Americans I never would have gotten to meet otherwise. The friendship that sticks out for me is a guy named Fred, who's an avid Trump supporter, a trucker. He let me ride in his truck for hours. He spent some time in jail. I heard about his experiences trying to get other people off of drugs.

And I'm happy to say that, after our ride together, he actually said that he would move from Donald Trump to my campaign, which was a thrill for me. And we remained in touch ever since.

The truth is that what happened to the 4 million manufacturing workers here in Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Iowa did not care about our political party. The fourth industrial revolution is now migrating from manufacturing workers to retail, call centers, transportation, as well as to white-collar workers like attorneys, pharmacists, and radiologists. It does not care about our party.

Donald Trump had a set of solutions in 2016. What did he say? He said we're going to build a wall, we're going to turn the clock back, we're going to bring the old jobs back. America, we have to do the opposite of all of these things. We have to turn the clock forward. We have to accelerate our economy and society as quickly as possible. We have to evolve in the way we think about ourselves and our work and our value. It is not left. It is not right. It is forward. And that is where we must take the country in 2020.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Mr. Yang, thank you very much. Senator Harris?

HARRIS: Thank you. Probably Rand Paul. He and I -- actually, I invited him to join me on a bill to end the money bail system in the United States. He and I agree on almost nothing, but we agree on that. And after we joined forces, he said to me, "Kamala, you know, Appalachia loves this." And it really made the point that the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us. And I guess that's why I'm running. I do believe that to beat Donald Trump, but also to heal our country, we need a leader who has the ability to unify our country and see that the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us.

And I'll tell you, my mother was 19 when she left India alone. And she wanted to travel to learn science because her mission in life was to cure cancer. And so she arrived in California. She got -- you know, she was supposed to have an arranged marriage, but she got involved in the civil rights movement, she met my father, and that produced my sister and me. They got married. But when I was five, that marriage ended.

But my mother convinced us that we could do anything. And so I became the first woman attorney general of California, the second black woman elected to the United States Senate, and I will tell you, that's part of why I'm running, because Donald Trump, if he had his way, my story would not be possible. And I am running to make sure that that dream, the American dream, American values, American ideas will always hold true.

And so that's what is at stake in this election. And I believe I am uniquely able to see the commonalities among us and to speak the story of the American dream and the need to reclaim it.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Thank you, Senator Harris. Mayor Buttigieg?

BUTTIGIEG: Well, I think about the friendships that I formed in the military, people who were radically different from me, different generation, different race, definitely different politics. And we learned to trust each other with our lives.

When they got into my vehicle and when we went outside the wire, they didn't care if I was going home to a boyfriend or a girlfriend, they didn't care what country my dad immigrated from and whether he was documented or not. We just learned to trust each other.

In fact, the fact that I want every American to have that experience without having to go to war to get there is one of the reasons why I believe national service is so important. I guess I'll follow in the pattern tonight and point out you can go to peteforamerica.com and read all about it.

It's also about building a sense of belonging in this country, because I think that's what friendship and that's what service can create. And I think we have a crisis of belonging in this country that is helping to explain so many of our problems, from our politics being what it is to the fact that people are self-medicating and we're seeing a rise in the deaths from despair.

I believe only the president can build a sense of belonging and purpose for the entire country. The purpose of the presidency is not the glorification of the president. It is the unification of the American people. And I'm asking for your vote to be that president, when the dust clears over the rubble of our norms and institutions at the end of the Trump presidency, pick up the pieces and guide us toward a better future.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Mr. Mayor, thank you. Senator Sanders?

[23:00:00]

SANDERS: When I was chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, I tried to get through the most comprehensive piece of veterans legislation in modern American history. And I failed. I only had two Republicans to vote with me in the Senate. So we had to go back to the drawing board.

And I worked with John McCain. I certainly did not get in that legislation working with McCain all that I wanted. But it turned out that we were able to pass a very, very significant piece of legislation, including $5 billion more for the Veterans Administration.

More recently, I worked with a very conservative Republican from Utah, Mike Lee. And Mike understood, although he and I disagree on everything, that the U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led war in Yemen was a catastrophic disaster for the people of Yemen. And for the first time in 45 years, we were able to get the War Powers Act utilized and get U.S. -- get the votes to get the U.S. troops out of that area.

But I think, at the end of day, what I appreciate is that we have got to end the hatred that Trump is fostering on our people, the divisiveness, trying to divide us up by the color of our skin or where we were born or our sexual orientation or our religion.

And there is no job that I would undertake with more passion than bringing our people together around an agenda that works for every man, woman, and child in this country rather than the corporate elite and the 1 percent. A progressive agenda that stands for all is the way that we transform this country.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Senator Sanders, thank you. Senator Warren?

WARREN: You ask about a surprising friend. For me, it would be Charles Fried. Twenty-seven years ago, when I was under consideration for a job, he was someone who had been George Bush, the first, solicitor general, a deeply principled Republican.

And we didn't agree on much. I was far more liberal than he was. But he also was willing to listen to my work about what's happening to America's middle class. And Charles engaged with it over and over and ultimately is the person who made sure I got the job.

You know, I grew up out in Oklahoma. I have three elder brothers. They all served in the military. Two of the three are still Republicans. I love all three of my brothers. And there are a lot of things that we're divided on, but there are core things that we believe in together.

We want to see all of our children get a good start in life. We don't want to see any of our friends or neighbors not get covered by health care. We're willing to get out there for the things we believe in.

Look, people across this country, whether they're Democrats, independents, or Republicans, they know what's broken. They know that we have an America that's working better and better and better for a thinner and thinner and thinner slice at the top and leaving everyone else behind.

People across this country, regardless of party, are ready to say no more, we want an America that works for everyone. 2020 is our moment in history. It is a deep honor to be here, to be in this fight.

COOPER: Thank you.

WARREN: I know what's broken. I know how to fix it. And we are building a grassroots movement to get it done that includes everyone.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Thank you, Senator Warren. Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: This is reassuring in the fact that we're all acknowledging that we have to reach across the aisle, get things done. No other way to get anything done in this country.

The two people maybe would surprise you the most were -- he's been mentioned twice, but John McCain. John McCain worked for me when he worked in the Navy, and he was -- he was my assigned to me to travel around the world. We became close friends. He became very close friends with my wife, Jill. Visited our home. He was there with his children.

And on his death bed, he asked me to do his eulogy. John, I would say to John, "John, you didn't see a war you never wanted to fight." And he'd say, "You didn't see a problem you never wanted to solve." But he was a great man of principle. He was honorable. He was honorable.

And one of the things -- that's the reason why I'm running. We have to restore the soul of this country. That's why I'm doing this. In fact, this president has ripped the soul out of this country, divided us in ways that are absolutely outrageous. A liar, he cheats, he does not do anything to promote people generally.

Secondly, we have to rebuild the middle class. The only way we're going to do that is to be able to reach across the aisle. My dad used to say a job is about a lot more than a paycheck, Joey. It's about your dignity. We have to restore people's dignity.

And lastly, we have to unite the country, because, folks, it's time we stopped walking around with our heads down. We are better positioned than any country in the world to own the 21st century. So for god's sake, get up. Get up and remember, there is the United States of America. There's nothing, nothing we're unable to do when we decide we're going to do it. Nothing at all. Period.

(APPLAUSE)

COOPER: Candidates, thank you. That concludes the fourth Democratic presidential debate. We want to thank Otterbein University for hosting us. Now please stay tuned to CNN for special coverage of tonight's debate with Jake Tapper and Chris Cuomo.

[BEGIN]

STEPHANOPOULOS: The stage is set. The field has been narrowed. For one night only, the top 10 candidates are here. Our Democratic primary debate starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is an ABC News special.

BIDEN: I will be a president for every American.

WARREN: This is our moment.

SANDERS: We are in a struggle for the future of this country.

HARRIS: We fight for our country. That's the nature of who we are.

SANDERS: Right now we can act.

YANG: We're in the midst of the greatest economic transformation.

BOOKER: We have overcome worse times and darker moments than this.

O'ROURKE: We will make the most of this moment that we have here together.

KLOBUCHAR: We are on a march together.

CASTRO: We're going to win by being bold. We're going to win by being fearless.

ANNOUNCER: Live from Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas, here now, chief anchor George Stephanopoulos.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Good evening, and welcome to Houston. We are live from Texas Southern University for tonight's Democratic debate. The top 10 candidates are here. It's going to start right now.

And on the stage, you see them. They have all met the criteria set by the Democratic National Committee. At least 10 others have not met the threshold. So, for the first time in this primary, a single debate in a single night with all the top candidates facing off.

It is a critical test for the candidates and their campaigns at a critical time for our country. They're going to lay out their vision for the country, their records, their differences with President Trump and each other. And we're going to do our best to bring you a lively, informative, and civil debate.

I'm joined here tonight by my ABC colleague, "World News Tonight" anchor David Muir, our national correspondent, Linsey Davis, and Jorge Ramos from our partner network, Univision.

Jorge?

RAMOS: George, thank you very much. We appreciate the opportunity to welcome Latinos across the country and to ask about Latinx issues during these challenging times.

(SPEAKING SPANISH)

Let me just give you a little translation here. I'm telling Latinos that, despite the fact that we are facing difficult times, this is our country, too. Linsey?

(APPLAUSE)

DAVIS: We are delighted to be on the beautiful campus of Texas Southern University, one of the largest historically black colleges and universities in the country. And here in the Health and Physical Education Building tonight, we are joined by a live audience of 3,500 people, most invited by the Democratic National Committee, and, of course, some of the brightest minds of the student body here at TSU. Go Tigers.

(APPLAUSE)

MUIR: We can feel the energy in the room, can't we, Linsey? The rules of this debate are very basic tonight and have been agreed to by all the campaigns in advance. Candidates will have one minute, 15 seconds to answer a direct question and 45 seconds for a rebuttal or response as directed by one of the moderators. Candidates will each see green and yellow lights -- there you see them right there -- indicating how much time they have remaining. And when time is up, the light will turn red. Candidates who interrupt will be subject to having their time reduced later on.

But this is democracy, the great American experiment, and the candidates are here tonight to make their case.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The podium placement was based on their current standings in nationally recognized polls with the leading candidates in the center. All candidates have been told they can have one minute to make an opening statement. And we're going to begin in reverse polling order with Secretary Julian Castro.

(APPLAUSE)

CASTRO: Good evening, y bienvenidos a Texas. Welcome to Texas.

(APPLAUSE)

It's great to be here at TSU, home of the Tigers. You know, on January 20, 2021, at 12:01 p.m., we're going to have a Democratic president, a Democratic House, and a Democratic Senate.

(APPLAUSE)

There will be life after Donald Trump. But the truth is that our problems didn't start just with Donald Trump, and we won't solve them by embracing old ideas. We need a bold vision: universal pre-K and universal health care, unleashing millions of new jobs in the clean energy economy, a tax system that rewards people who have to work for a living.

But first, we have to win. And that means exciting a young, diverse coalition of Americans who are ready for a bold future. That's what Kennedy did, it's what Carter did, it's what Clinton did, it's what Barack Obama did, and it's what I can do in this race. Get back Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, and Arizona, and finally turn Texas blue and say goodbye to Donald Trump.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: Good evening, Texas Southern. I believe that what unites us up here, the 10 of us, is much stronger than what divides us. And I think that's true of our country, too.

Now, I may not be the loudest person up here, but I think we've already got that in the White House.

(APPLAUSE)

Houston, we have a problem. This -- we have a guy there that is literally running our country like a game show. He would rather lie than lead. I think we need something different.

I am someone that tells the truth. I don't make promises that I can't keep. I have people's back. And I believe that to win, you bring people with you and that is how you govern, as well.

So, you're going to hear a lot of ideas up here. Some will be great. But if you see that some of them seem a little off-track, I've got a better way. If you feel stuck in the middle of the extremes in our politics and you are tired of the noise and the nonsense, you've got a home with me, because I don't want to be the president for half of America. I want to be the president for all of America.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressman Beto O'Rourke?

O'ROURKE: It's an honor to be on this debate stage. It is wonderful to be back in Texas, in Houston, back here at TSU.

On August 3rd, in El Paso, Texas, two things became crystal clear for me, and I think produced a turning point for this country. The first is just how dangerous Donald Trump is, the cost and the consequence of his presidency.

A racism and violence that had long been a part of America was welcomed out into the open and directed to my hometown of El Paso, Texas, where 22 people were killed, dozens more grievously injured by a man carrying a weapon he should never have been able to buy in the first place, inspired to kill by our president.

The second is how insufficient our politics is to meet the threat that we have right now. The bitterness, the pettiness, the smallness of the moment, the incentives to attack one another and try to make differences without distinctions, mountains out of mole hills, we have to be bigger. We have to see clearly, we have to speak honestly, and we have to act decisively. That's what I want to do for you as president of the United States. Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Cory Booker?

BOOKER: It was over 20 years ago that I was a law student and moved to inner city Newark, New Jersey, to serve as a tenants rights lawyer to try to address the challenges in my community. And I was sobered by them -- the gun violence, the sub-standard housing.

But it was my greatest mentor, a woman named Ms. Virginia Jones, who challenged me. She said, boy, if all you see in this neighborhood is problems, that's all there's ever going to be. But if you're stubborn and defiant and can put forth a vision that can unify people, then we can make transformative change. She was a church woman that said, without vision, the people will perish.

Well, that's exactly what we did. We created extraordinary unity in our community, and we did things that other people think -- thought was impossible.

That's the story of America. At our best, we unify, we find common cause and common purpose. The differences amongst us Democrats on the stage are not as great as the urgency for us to unite as a party, not just to beat Donald Trump, but to unite America in common cause and common purpose. That's why I'm running for president, and that's how I will lead this nation.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Entrepreneur Andrew Yang?

YANG: In America today, everything revolves around the almighty dollar -- our schools, our hospitals, our media, even our government. It's why we don't trust our institutions anymore. We have to get our country working for us again, instead of the other way around. We have to see ourselves as the owners and shareholders of this democracy rather than inputs into a giant machine.

(APPLAUSE)

When you donate money to a presidential campaign, what happens? The politician spends the money on TV ads and consultants and you hope it works out. It's time to trust ourselves more than our politicians.

That's why I'm going to do something unprecedented tonight. My campaign will now give a freedom dividend of $1,000 a month for an entire year to 10 American families, someone watching this at home right now. If you believe that you can solve your own problems better than any politician, go to yang2020.com and tell us how $1,000 a month will help you do just that. This is how we will get our country working for us again, the American people.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Mayor Pete Buttigieg?

BUTTIGIEG: It's original, I'll give you that.

The American people are divided and doubtful at the very moment we need to rise to some of the greatest challenges we've ever seen. As a mayor of an industrial city coming back from the brink, as a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, I know what's at stake in our national leadership.

We keep sending politicians to Washington asking them to fight for us, but then when they get there, they seem more interested in the part about fighting than the part about us. Good politics is supposed to be not about the day-to-day fights of the politicians, but about the day-to-day lives of Americans.

We just marked the anniversary of 9/11. All day today, I've been thinking about September 12th, the way it felt when for a moment we came together as a country. Imagine if we had been able to sustain that unity. Imagine what would be possible right now with ideas that are bold enough to meet the challenges of our time, but big enough, as well, that they could unify the American people. That's what presidential leadership can do. That's what the presidency is for. And that is why I'm asking for your vote.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Kamala Harris?

HARRIS: Thank you. It's great to be back at TSU.

So I plan on spending tonight talking with you about my plans to address the problems that keep you up at night. But first, I have a few words for Donald Trump, who we all know is watching.

(LAUGHTER)

So, President Trump, you've spent the last two-and-a-half years full-time trying to sow hate and division among us, and that is why we've gotten nothing done. You have used hate, intimidation, fear, and over 12,000 lies as a way to distract from your failed policies and your broken promises. The only reason you've not been indicted is because there was a memo in the Department of Justice that says a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime.

But here's what you don't get: What you don't get you is that the American people are so much better than this. And we know that the vast majority of us have so much more in common than what separates us, regardless of our race, where we live, or the party with which we're registered to vote. And I plan on focusing on our common issues, our common hopes and desires, and in that way, unifying our country, winning this election, and turning the page for America.

And now, President Trump, you can go back to watching Fox News.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Bernie Sanders? Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: Let me be blunt and tell you what you don't hear much about in Congress or in the media, and that is, it goes without saying that we must and will defeat Trump, the most dangerous president in the history of this country.

(APPLAUSE)

But we must do more. We must do more. We have got to recognize that this country is moving into an oligarchic form of society where a handful of billionaires control the economic and political life of this country. And as president, I am prepared to take them on.

Yes, we will raise the minimum wage to a living wage. Yes, we will finally make sure that every American has health care as a human right, not a privilege. And, yes, we will address the catastrophic crisis of climate change and transform our energy system away from fossil fuel.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Elizabeth Warren?

WARREN: So, I was born and raised in Oklahoma, but I'm sure glad to be in Texas tonight.

(APPLAUSE)

All three of my brothers served in military bases here in Texas. That was their ticket to the middle class. Me, I got my big opportunity about a half-mile down the road from here at the University of Houston, back when it cost $50 a semester.

(APPLAUSE)

For a price that I could pay for, on a part-time waitressing job, I got to finish my four-year degree and I became a special needs teacher. And after law school, my first big job was back here in Houston.

By then, I had two little kids, and when childcare nearly brought me down, my Aunt Bee moved in and saved us all.

The paths to America's middle class have gotten a lot smaller and a lot narrower. Today, service-members are preyed upon by predatory lenders. Students are crushed by debt. And families cannot afford childcare.

(APPLAUSE)

I know what's broken. I know how to fix it. And I'm going to lead the fight to get it done.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Vice President Joe Biden.

BIDEN: You know, when President Kennedy announced the moon shot, he used a phrase that sticks with me my whole life. He said, we're doing it because we refuse to postpone. Well, I refuse to postpone one more minute spending billions of dollars on curing cancer, Alzheimer's, and other diseases which, if we invest in them, we can find cures.

I refuse to postpone giving single child in America, no matter their zip code, pre-K all the way through high school and beyond. I refuse to postpone any longer taking on climate change and leading the world in taking on climate change.

Look, this is the United States of America. There has never been a single solitary time when we've set our mind to something we've been unable to do it. We're walking around with our heads down like woe is me. We're the best-equipped nation in the world to take this on. It's no longer time to postpone. We should get moving. There's enormous, enormous opportunities once we get rid of Donald Trump.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Candidates, thank you. Several of you said you are more united than divided, and that is certainly true. All of you agree on one big thing, the goal of defeating President Trump, driving the country in a new direction. But out on the campaign trail, you have outlined big differences over how far to go and how fast to go.

And, Vice President Biden, the differences between you and the senators on either side of you tonight strike at the heart of this primary debate. Both senators Warren and Sanders want to replace Obamacare with Medicare for All. You want to build on Obamacare, not scrap it. They propose spending far more than you to combat climate change and tackle student loan debt. And they would raise more in taxes than you to pay for their programs.

Are senators Warren and Sanders pushing too far beyond where Democrats want to go and where the country needs to go?

BIDEN: That will be for the voters to decide that question. Let me tell you what I think. I think we should have a debate on health care. I think -- I know that the senator says she's for Bernie, well, I'm for Barack. I think the Obamacare worked. I think the way we add to it, replace everything that has been cut, add a public option, guarantee that everyone will be able to have affordable insurance, number one.

Number two, I think we should be in a position of taking a look at what costs are. My plan for health care costs a lot of money. It costs $740 billion. It doesn't cost $30 trillion, $3.4 trillion a year, it turns out, is twice what the entire federal budget is. That's before -- exists now, without interest on the debt. How are we going to pay for it? I want to hear that tonight how that's happened.

Thus far, my distinguished friend, the senator on my left, has not indicated how she pays for it. And the senator has, in fact, come forward and said how he's going to pay for it, but it gets him about halfway there. There's a lot of other things that need to be done.

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. But I go down the line and these are things we're talking about, I lay out how I can pay for it, how I can get it done, and why it's better.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Warren, let me take that to you, particularly on what Senator Biden was saying there about health care. He has actually praised Bernie Sanders for being candid about his health care plan, that Senator -- says that Sanders has been candid about the fact that middle class taxes are going to go up and most of private insurance is going to be eliminated. Will you make that same admission?

WARREN: So, let's be clear about health care. And let's actually start where vice president did. We all owe a huge debt to President Obama, who fundamentally transformed health care in America and committed this country to health care for every human being.

(APPLAUSE)

And now the question is, how best can we improve on it? And I believe the best way we can do that is we make sure that everybody gets covered by health care at the lowest possible cost. How do we pay for it? We pay for it, those at the very top, the richest individuals and the biggest corporations, are going to pay more. And middle class families are going to pay less. That's how this is going to work.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Direct question. You said middle class families are going to pay less. But will middle class taxes go up to pail for pay for the program? I know you believe that the deductibles and the premiums will go down. Will middle class taxes go up? Will private insurance be eliminated?

WARREN: Look, what families have to deal with is cost, total cost. That's what they have to deal with. And understand, families are paying for their health care today. Families pay every time an insurance company says, sorry, you can't see that specialist. Every time an insurance company says, sorry, that doctor is out of network, sorry, we are not covering that prescription.

Families are paying every time they don't get a prescription filled because they can't pay for it. They don't have a lump checked out because they can't afford the co-pay. What we're talking about here is what's going to happen in families' pockets, what's going to happen in their budgets.

And the answer is on Medicare for All, costs are going to go up for wealthier individuals and costs are going to go up for giant corporations. But for hard-working families across this country, costs are going to go down and that's how it should work under Medicare for All in our health care system.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Sanders, you were invoked by the vice president, also take on that question about taxes.

SANDERS: Well, Joe said that Medicare for All would cost over $30 trillion.

That's right, Joe.

Status quo over 10 years will be $50 trillion. Every study done shows that Medicare for All is the most cost-effective approach to providing health care to every man, woman, and child in this country. I, who wrote the damn bill, if I may say so...

(APPLAUSE)

... intend to eliminate all out-of-pocket expenses, all deductibles, all co-payments. Nobody in America will pay more than $200 a year for prescription drugs, because we're going to stand up to the greed and corruption and price-fixing of the pharmaceutical industry.

(APPLAUSE)

We need -- we need a health care system that guarantees health care to all people as every other major country does, not a system which provides $100 billion a year in profit for the drug companies and the insurance companies.

And I'll tell you how absurd the system is tonight on ABC, the health care industry will be advertising, telling you how bad Medicare for All is, because they want to protect their profits. That is absurd.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Vice president Biden...

KLOBUCHAR: If I could respond, George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You get a response and then we're going to broaden out the discussion.

BIDEN: OK, number one, my health care plan does significantly cut the costs of -- the largest out-of-pocket payment you'll pay is $1,000. You'll be able to get into a -- anyone who can't afford it gets automatically enrolled in the Medicare-type option we have, et cetera.

But guess what? Of the 160 million people who like their health care now, they can keep it. If they don't like it, they can leave. Number one.

Number two, the fact of the matter is, we're in a situation where, if you notice, he hasn't answered the question. This is about candor, honesty, big ideas. Let's have a big idea. The tax of 2 percent that the senator is talking about, that raises about $3 billion. Guess what? That leaves you $28 billion short.

The senator said before, it's going to cost you in your pay -- there will be a deductible, in your paycheck. You're going to -- the middle class person, someone making 60 grand with three kids, they're going to end up paying $5,000 more. They're going to end up paying 4 percent more on their income tax. That's a reality. Now, it's not a bad idea if you like it. I don't like it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK, now I want everybody to keep to the time, but you did invoke both senators. I have to get responses from them...

BIDEN: Sure, no, that's good.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... and then we will broaden it out.

Senator Warren, you go first.

WARREN: So, let's be clear, I've actually never met anybody who likes their health insurance company.

(APPLAUSE)

I've met people who like their doctors. I've met people who like their nurses. I've met people who like their pharmacists. I've met people who like their physical therapists. What they want is access to health care. And we just need to be clear about what Medicare for All is all about.

Instead of paying premiums into insurance companies and then having insurance companies build their profits by saying no to coverage, we're going to do this by saying, everyone is covered by Medicare for All, every health care provider is covered. And the only question here in terms of difference is where to send the bill?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Sanders.

SANDERS: Let us be clear, Joe, in the United States of America, we are spending twice as much per capita on health care as the Canadians or any other major country on earth.

BIDEN: This is America.

SANDERS: Yes, but Americans don't want to pay twice as much as other countries. And they guarantee health care to all people. Under my Medicare for All proposal, when you don't pay out-of-pocket and you don't pay premiums, maybe you've run into people who love their premiums, I haven't.

What people want is cost-effective health care, Medicare for All will save the average American substantial sums of money on his or her health care bill.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Klobuchar, you said in your opening statement you don't -- you want to represent the people stuck in the middle of the extremes. Who represents the extreme on this stage?

KLOBUCHAR: I think you know that I don't agree with some of these proposals up here, George, so I'm talking about...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Which ones?

KLOBUCHAR: If I could -- if I could respond to some of the proposals from my friends. First of all, Senator Sanders and I have worked valiantly to bring down the cost of pharmaceuticals. That was a Klobuchar-Sanders Amendment to allow for drugs to come in from less expensive countries like Canada.

We have worked to bring down the cost by fighting to allow 43 million seniors, that's a bill I lead, to negotiate for better prices under Medicare. I figure that's a lot of seniors and they should be allowed to get a better price.

But when it comes to our health care and when it comes to our premiums, I go with the doctor's creed, which is, do no harm. And while Bernie wrote the bill, I read the bill. And on page eight -- on page eight of the bill, it says that we will no longer have private insurance as we know it. And that means that 149 million Americans will no longer be able to have their current insurance.

That's in four years. I don't think that's a bold idea, I think it's a bad idea. And what I favor is something that what Barack Obama wanted to do from the very beginning. And that is a public option. A non-profit choice that would bring down the cost of insurance, cover 12 million more people, and bring down the prices for 13 million more people. That is a bold idea.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Warren, page eight of the bill, she says, 149 people will lose their health insurance.

WARREN: I'm sorry.

STEPHANOPOULOS: She said, page eight of the bill, 149 million people will lose their health insurance.

KLOBUCHAR: Current health insurance.

BIDEN: One hundred forty-nine million.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Million, excuse me.

WARREN: So let's be clear about this. People will have access to all of their doctors, all of their nurses, their community hospitals, their rural hospitals. Doctors won't have to hire people to fill out crazy forms. They won't have to spend time on the phone arguing with insurance companies. People who have sick family members won't have to get into these battles.

What this is about is making sure that we have the most efficient way possible to pay for health care for everyone in this country. Insurance companies last year sucked $23 billion in profits out of the system. How did they make that money? Every one of those $23 billion was made by an insurance company saying no to your health care coverage.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Mayor Buttigieg?

BUTTIGIEG: The problem, Senator Sanders, with that damn bill that you wrote, and that Senator Warren backs, is that it doesn't trust the American people. I trust you to choose what makes the most sense for you. Not my way or the highway.

Now look, I think we do have to go far beyond tinkering with the ACA. I propose Medicare for all who want it. We take a version of Medicare, we make it available for the American people, and if we're right, as progressives, that that public alternative is better, then the American people will figure that out for themselves. I trust the American people to make the right choice for them. Why don't you?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Sanders, 45 seconds.

SANDERS: George, you talked about, was it 150 million people on private insurance? Fifty million of those people lose their private insurance every year when they quit their jobs or they go unemployed or their employer changes their insurance policy. Medicare for All is comprehensive health care. Covers all basic needs, including home health care.

It allows you to go to any doctor you want, which many private insurance company programs do not. So, if you want comprehensive health care, freedom of choice regarding doctor or hospital, no more than $200 a year for prescription drugs, taking on the drug companies and the insurance companies, moving to Medicare for All is the way to go.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Harris, you startled out co-sponsoring Senator Sanders's bill, you now say you're uncomfortable with it. Why?

HARRIS: I want to give credit first to Barack Obama for really bringing us this far. We would not be here if he hadn't the courage, the talent, or the will to see us this far.

I want to give credit to Bernie. Take credit, Bernie. You know, you brought us this far on Medicare for All. I support Medicare for All, I always have, but I wanted to make the plan better, which I did.

Which is about offering people choice, not taking that from them.

So, under my Medicare for all plan, people have the choice of a private plan or a public plan, because that's what people want. And I agree, we shouldn't take choice from people.

But here's the thing. Everybody on this stage, I do believe, is well intentioned and wants that all Americans have coverage and recognizes that right now 30 million Americans don't have coverage. But at least five people have talked, some repeatedly on this subject, and not once have we talked about Donald Trump.

So let's talk about the fact that Donald Trump came into office and spent almost the entire first year of his term trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. We all fought against it. And then the late, great John McCain, at that moment at about 2 o'clock in the morning, killed his attempt to take health care from millions of people in this country.

(APPLAUSE)

Fast forward to today, and what is happening? Donald Trump's Department of Justice is trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. Donald Trump's administration is trying to get rid of the ban that we placed on denying people who have pre-existing conditions coverage. Donald Trump is trying to say that our kids up to the age of 26 can no longer be on our plans.

And frankly, I think this discussion has given the American public a headache. What they want to know is that they're going to have health care and cost will not be a barrier to getting it. But let's focus on the end goal. If we don't get Donald Trump out of office, he's going to get rid of all of it.

BIDEN: George, 15 seconds? Fifteen seconds?

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me get to Congressman O'Rourke and then bring you -- go ahead, Mr. Vice President.

BIDEN: Fifteen seconds. Look, everybody says we want an option. The option I'm proposing is Medicare for all -- Medicare for choice. If you want Medicare, if you lose the job from your insurance -- from your employer, you automatically can buy into this. You don't have -- no pre-existing condition can stop you from buying in. You get covered, period.

And if you notice, nobody's yet said how much it's going to cost the taxpayer. I hear this large savings, the president thinks -- my friend from Vermont thinks that the employer's going to give you back if you negotiated as a union all these years, got a cut in wages because you got insurance. They're going to give back that money to the employee?

SANDERS: As a matter of fact, they will in our bill.

BIDEN: Well, let me tell you something. For a socialist, you've got -- for a socialist, you've got a lot more confidence in corporate America than I do.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: OK, one minute, George?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Go ahead.

SANDERS: All right. Two points. You got to defend the fact that today not only do we have 87 million people uninsured and underinsured, you got to defend the fact that 500,000 Americans are going bankrupt. You know why they're going bankrupt? Because they suffered a terrible disease -- cancer or heart disease.

Under my legislation, people will not go into financial ruin because they suffered with a diagnosis of cancer. And our program is the only one that does that.

BIDEN: I know a lot about cancer, let me tell you something. It's personal to me. Let me tell you something. Every single person who is diagnosed with cancer or any other disease can automatically become part of this plan. They will not go bankrupt because of that. They will not go bankrupt because of that. They can join immediately.

And we're talking four, six, eight, ten years, depending on who you talk about, before we get to Medicare for all. Come on. I've been there. You've been there. You know what it's like. People need help now, hope now, and do something now.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressman O'Rourke?

O'ROURKE: Yeah. Thank you. Listen, I'm grateful that we all agree about the urgency of this challenge and the fact that Donald Trump is undermining the limited protections that we have right now.

But I also think we're being offered a false choice between those who propose an all-or-nothing gambit, forcing tens of millions off of insurance that they like, that works for them, to force them onto Medicare, and others who want to, as the vice president does, incrementally improve what we have, which will still leave many, maybe millions uninsured and uncared for.

In a state like Texas, where the largest provider of mental health care services is the county jail system, we've got to do better. In my proposal, Medicare for America, says everyone who's uninsured will be enrolled in Medicare. Everyone who's insufficiently insured, cannot afford it, can move over to Medicare. And those, like members of unions who've fought for the health care plans that work for them and their families, are able to keep them. This is the best possible path forward.

BIDEN: You just described my plan (ph).

STEPHANOPOULOS: This is -- health care is the top issue for everyone in the country. I want to make sure everyone gets one minute to respond. So, Secretary Castr, Andrew Yang, and then Senator Booker, you will get a minute.

CASTRO: Thank you. And, you know, I also want to recognize the work that Bernie has done on this. And, of course, we owe a debt of gratitude to President Barack Obama. Of course, I also worked for President Obama, Vice President Biden, and I know that the problem with your plan is that it leaves 10 million people uncovered.

Now, on the last debate stage in Detroit, you said that wasn't true, when Senator Harris brought that up. There was a fact check of that, and they said that was true.

You know, I grew up with a grandmother who had type 2 diabetes, and I watched her condition get worse and worse. But that whole time, she had Medicare. I want every single American family to have a strong Medicare plan available.

If they choose to hold on to strong, solid private health insurance, I believe they should be able to do. But the difference between what I support and what you support, Vice President Biden, is that you require them to opt in and I would not require them to opt in. They would automatically be enrolled. They wouldn't have a buy in.

That's a big difference, because Barack Obama's vision was not to leave 10 million people uncovered. He wanted every single person in this country covered. My plan would do that. Your plan would not.

BIDEN: They do not have to buy in. They do not have to buy in.

CASTRO: You just said that. You just said that two minutes ago. You just two minutes ago that they would have to buy in.

BIDEN: Do not have to buy in if you can't afford it.

CASTRO: You said they would have to buy in.

BIDEN: Your grandmother would not have to buy in. If she qualifies for Medicaid, she would automatically be enrolled.

CASTRO: Are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago? Are you forgetting already what you said just two minutes ago? I mean, I can't believe that you said two minutes ago that they had to buy in and now you're saying they don't have to buy in. You're forgetting that.

BIDEN: I said anyone like your grandmother who has no money.

CASTRO: I mean, look, look, we need a health care system...

BIDEN: She -- you're automatically enrolled.

CASTRO: It automatically enrolls people regardless of whether they choose to opt in or not. If you lose your job, for instance, his health care plan would not automatically enroll you. You would have to opt in. My health care plan would. That's a big difference. I'm fulfilling the legacy of Barack Obama, and you're not.

BIDEN: That'll be a surprise to him.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Andrew Yang?

YANG: Come on, guys.

BUTTIGIEG: This is why presidential debates are becoming unwatchable.

KLOBUCHAR: Yeah.

BUTTIGIEG: This reminds everybody of what they cannot stand about Washington, scoring points against each other, poking at each other, and telling each other that -- my plan, your plan. Look, we all have different visions for what is better...

CASTRO: Yeah, that's called the Democratic primary election, Pete. That's called an election.

(APPLAUSE)

That's an election. You know? This is what we're here for. It's an election.

KLOBUCHAR: Yes, but a house -- a house divided cannot stand. And that is not how we're going to win this.

(APPLAUSE)

YANG: Look, everyone, we know we're on the same team here. We know we're on the same team. We all have a better vision for health care than our current president.

And I believe we're talking about this the wrong way. As someone who has run a business, I know that our current health care system makes it harder to hire people, makes it harder to give them benefits and treat them as full-time employees. You instead pretend their contractors. It's harder to change jobs. It's certainly harder to start a business.

The pitch we have to make to the American people is, we will get the health care weight off of your backs and then unleash the hopes and dreams of the American people.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Booker...

YANG: Now, I am Asian, so I know a lot of doctors, and they tell me that they spend a lot of time on paperwork, avoiding being sued, and navigating the insurance bureaucracy. We have to change the incentives so instead of revenue and activity, people are focused on our health in the health care system.

And the Cleveland Clinic, where they're paid not based upon how many procedures they prescribe -- shocker -- they prescribe fewer procedures, and patient health stays the same or improves. That is the pitch to the American people.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Booker, close out this discussion.

BOOKER: Thank you very much. Look, there are a lot of people watching at home right now, listening to us that are afraid because they are in crisis. They don't have health insurance. Their health insurance doesn't go far enough. They can't afford their prescription drugs.

Look, I'm clear in what I believe. I believe in Medicare for all. I believe it's the best way to rationalize the system. But dear God, I know every one of my colleagues on this stage is in favor of universal health coverage and comes at this with the best of intentions.

And I'll tell you, there is an urgency right now in this nation. Everybody feels it. And as a person who has an ideal, I know we cannot sacrifice progress on the altar of purity, because people in my community, they need help right now. They have high blood pressure right now. They have unaffordable insulin right now.

And this must be a moment where we as Democrats can begin to show that we cannot only stake and stand our ground, but find common ground, because we've got one shot to make Donald Trump a one-term president.

(APPLAUSE)

And we cannot lose it by the way we talk about each other or demonize and degrade each other. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. If I am the leader, I will work towards the ideal of health insurance, health coverage being a right for all Americans. But every single day, I'll join with other Democrats to make progress happen in our nation for the people that are struggling and suffering today.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Candidates, thank you. Linsey Davis?

DAVIS: Thanks, George. Since we're here at an HBCU, I'd like to start with young black voters. Several recent polls indicate their number-one concern is racism. This campus, this state, and this nation are still raw from that racially motivated attack on Latinos in El Paso.

Now, we know that the racial divide started long before President Trump and President Obama, but each of you on this stage has said that President Trump has made that divide worse. Congressman O'Rourke, coming to you first, why are you the most qualified candidate to address this divide?

O'ROURKE: You know, I called this out in no uncertain terms on August 3rd and every day since then. And I was talking about it long before then, as well.

Racism in America is endemic. It is foundational. We can mark the creation of this country not at the Fourth of July, 1776, but August 20, 1619, when the first kidnapped African...

(APPLAUSE)

... was brought to this country against his will and in bondage and as a slave built the greatness and the success and the wealth that neither he nor his descendants would ever be able to fully participate in and enjoy.

We have to be able to answer this challenge. And it is found in our education system, where in Texas, a 5-year-old child in kindergarten is five times as likely to be disciplined or suspended or expelled based on the color of their skin.

(APPLAUSE)

In our health care system, where there's a maternal mortality crisis three times as deadly for women of color, or the fact that there's 10 times the wealth in white America than there is in black America.

I'm going to follow Sheila Jackson Lee's lead and sign into law a reparations bill that will allow us to address this at its foundation.

(APPLAUSE)

But we will also call out the fact that we have a white supremacist in the White House and he poses a mortal threat to people of color all across this country.

(APPLAUSE)

DAVIS: Secretary Castro, 45 seconds to respond.

CASTRO: Look, you know, I want to commend Beto for how well he has spoken to the passion and the frustration and the sadness after what happened in his hometown of El Paso. He's done a great job with that.

Look, a few weeks ago, a shooter drove 10 miles inspired by this -- 10 hours inspired by this president to kill people who look like me and people who look like my family. White supremacy is a growing threat to this country, and we have to root it out.

I'm proud that I put forward a plan to disarm hate. I'm also proud that I was the first to put forward a police reform plan, because we're not going to have any more Laquan McDonalds or Eric Garners or Michael Browns or Pamela Turners or Walter Scotts or Sandra Bland, here from the Houston area. We need to root out racism, and I believe that we can do that, because that doesn't represent the vast majority of Americans who do have a good heart. They also need a leader to match that, and I will be a president that matches that.

DAVIS: Senator Booker, you have said, quote, "The real question isn't who is or isn't a racist. It's who is going to do something about it." Senator, what do you plan to do about it?

BOOKER: Well, first and foremost, I want to hit that point, because we know Donald Trump's a racist, but there is no red badge of courage for calling him that. Racism exists. The question isn't who isn't a racist. It's who is and isn't doing something about racism.

And this is not just an issue that started yesterday. It's not just an issue that we hear a president that can't condemn white supremacy. We have systemic racism that is eroding our nation from health care to the criminal justice system. And it's nice to go all the way back to slavery, but dear God, we have a criminal justice system that is so racially biased, we have more African-Americans under criminal supervision today than all the slaves in 1850.

We have to come at this issue attacking systemic racism, having the courage to call it out, and having a plan to do something about it. If I am president of the United States, we will create an office in the White House to deal with the problem of white supremacy and hate crimes.

(APPLAUSE)

And we will make sure that systemic racism is dealt with in substantive plans, from criminal justice reform to the disparities in health care to even one that we don't talk about enough, which is the racism that we see in environmental injustice in communities of color all around this country.

(APPLAUSE)

DAVIS: Mayor Buttigieg, you've been struggling with issues around race in your own community. You've also said that anyone who votes to re-elect President Trump is, at best, looking the other way on racism. Does that sort of talk alienate voters and potentially deepen divisions in our country?

BUTTIGIEG: I believe what's deepened divisions in the country is the conduct of this president, and we have a chance to change all of that.

Look, systemic racism preceded this president, and even when we defeat him, it will be with us. That's why we need a systemic approach to dismantle it. It's -- it's not enough to just take a racist policy, replace it with a neutral one and expect things will just get better on their own. Harms compound. In the same way that a dollar saved compounds, so does a dollar stolen.

And we know that the generational theft of the descendants of slaves is part of why everything from housing to education to health to employment basically puts us in two different countries.

I have proposed the most comprehensive vision to tackle systemic racism in every one of these areas, marshaling as many resources as went into the Marshall plan that rebuilt Europe, but this time, a Douglass plan that we invest right here at home, to make sure that we're not only dealing with things like the overincarceration of black Americans, but also black solutions, entrepreneurship, raising to 25 percent...

(APPLAUSE)

... the target for the federal government to do business with minority-owned businesses, investing in HBCUs that are training and educating the next generation of entrepreneurs.

(APPLAUSE)

We can and must do that. But that means transcending this framework that pits us against each other, that pits a single black mother of three against a displaced auto worker. Because when I -- where I come from, a lot of times that displaced auto worker is a single black mother of three. We've got to say that...

(APPLAUSE)

... and bring people together.

DAVIS: Also a concern for people of color is criminal justice reform.

Senator Harris, you released your plan for that just this week. And it does contradict some of your prior positions. Among them, you used to oppose the legalization of marijuana; now you don't. You used to oppose outside investigations of police shootings; now you don't. You've said that you changed on these and other things because you were, quote, "swimming against the current, and thankfully the currents have changed."

But when you had the power, why didn't you try to effect change then?

(APPLAUSE) (ph)

HARRIS: So, there have been -- there have been -- I'm glad you asked me this question, and there have been many distortions of my record.

Let me be very clear. I made a decision to become a prosecutor for two reasons. One, I've always wanted to protect people and keep them safe. And second, I was born knowing about how this criminal justice system in America has worked in a way that has been informed by racial bias. And I could tell you extensively about the experiences I and my family members have personally had. But I made a decision that, if I was going to have the ability to reform the system, I would try to do it from the inside.

And so I took on the position that allowed me, without asking permission, to create one of the first in the nation initiatives that was a model and became a national model around people who were arrested for drugs and getting them jobs.

I created one of the first in the nation requirements that a state law enforcement agency would have to wear cameras and keep them on full-time.

I created one of the first in the nation trainings for a police officer on the issue of racial bias and the need to reform the system.

Was I able to get enough done? Absolutely not. But my plan has been described by activists as being a bold and comprehensive plan that is about ending mass incarceration, about taking the profit out of the criminal justice system. I plan on shutting down for-profit prisons on day one.

(APPLAUSE)

It will be about what we need to do to hold law enforcement, including prosecutors, accountable.

And finally, my plan is about making sure that, in America's criminal justice system, we de-incarcerate women and children, that we end solitary confinement and that we work on keeping families intact.

And as president of the United States, knowing the system from the inside, I will have the ability to be an effective leader and get this job complete.

DAVIS: Thank you, Senator Harris.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Klobuchar, during your eight years as a prosecutor in Minnesota, there were dozens of incidents where black men were killed by police. Critics say that too often you sided with police in these cases.

The ACLU's legal director in Minnesota has said that you showed no interest in racial justice. Do you wish now that you had done more?

KLOBUCHAR: That's not my record.

(UNKNOWN): (inaudible)

KLOBUCHAR: We are here at a historically black college. And I think of an alum of that college, Barbara Jordan, and something that she once said. She said, "What the people want is simple; they want a country as good as its promise."

And that same can be said of the criminal justice system. So when I was there, the way we handled these police shootings, I actually took a stand to make sure outside investigators handled them. I took on our major police chief in Minneapolis.

But in the prosecutor's office, they were handled with a grand jury. That's how they were all handled across our state. I now believe it is better for accountability if the prosecutor handles them and makes those decisions herself.

That aside, I am proud of the work our staff did, 400 people in our office. The cases that came to us, the African-American community that came to us, they said there was no justice for their little kids.

There was a kid named Byron Phillips that was shot on his front porch. No one had bothered to figure out who did it. When I came into that office, we worked with the community groups; we put up billboards; we found the shooter and we put him in jail. We did the same for the killer of a little girl named Tyesha Edwards who was doing her homework at her kitchen table and was shot through the window.

What changes did we make? Go after white-collar crimes in a big way, diversity the office in a big way, work with the Innocence Project to make sure we do much better with eyewitness ID.

And as a senator and as your president, I will make sure that we don't just do the First Step Act when it comes to criminal sentencing, that we move to the Second Step Act, which means the 90 percent of people that are incarcerated in local and state jails, let's reduce those sentences for nonviolent offenders and let's get them jobs and let them vote when they get out of prison.

(APPLAUSE)

DAVIS: Thank you, Senator Klobuchar.

You all believe that the war on drugs has put too many Americans behind bars.

Vice President Biden, you have a plan to release many nonviolent drug offenders from prison. Senator Booker says that your plan is not ambitious enough. Your response?

BIDEN: Well, first of all, let me say that, when I came back from law school, I had a job with a great -- a big-time law firm. I left and became a public defender because my state was under siege when Dr. King was assassinated. We were occupied by the National Guard for 10 months.

I've been involved from the beginning. As a young congressman -- as a young councilman, I introduced legislation to try to keep them from putting a sewer plant in a poor neighborhood. I made sure that we dealt with redlining; banks should have to lend where they operate, et cetera.

The fact of the matter is that what's happened is that we're in a situation now where there are so many people who are in jail and shouldn't be in jail. The whole means by which this should change is the whole model has to change. We should be talking about rehabilitation.

Nobody should be in jail for a nonviolent crime. As -- when we were in the White House, we released 36,000 people from the federal prison system. Nobody should be in jail for a drug problem. They should be going directly to a rehabilitation. We build more rehabilitation centers, not prisons.

(APPLAUSE)

We -- I'm the guy that put in the drug courts to divert people from the criminal justice system. And so we have to change the whole way we look at this. When we put people in prison, we have to equip them that when they get out -- nobody who got in prison for marijuana, for example, immediately upon being released -- they shouldn't be in there; that should be a misdemeanor. They should be out and their record should be expunged. Every single right should be returned.

When you finish your term in prison, you should be able not only to vote but have access to Pell grants, have access to be able to get housing...

(APPLAUSE)

... have access to be able to move along the way. I've laid out a detailed plan along those lines. And the fact is, we've learned so much more more...

DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

BIDEN: Thank you.

DAVIS: Senator Booker, 45 seconds to respond.

BOOKER: Our criminal justice system is so savagely broken. There's no difference in America between blacks, whites and Latinos for using drugs or dealing drugs. But if you are African-American, you are almost four times more likely to be arrested and incarcerated, destroying your lives.

And so much of this comes down to privilege. We have a criminal justice system that Brian Stephenson (ph) says treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent.

And so I have challenged this whole field. We can specifically and demonstrably now show that there are 17,000 people unjustly incarcerated in America, and all of us should come forward and say, when we are president of the United States; when I am president of the United States, we will release them.

And let me be specific. I joined together and led in the United States Senate the only major bipartisan bill to pass under this president, for criminal justice reform, that has already led to thousands of people coming out of jail.

If 87 members of the United States Senate says that these sentences are way too long, and we changed it, but we didn't make it retroactive, we could literally point to the people that are in jail unjustly right now.

Everyone on this stage should say that we are going to give clemency to these 17,000 people. And I challenge you. Don't just say a big statement; back it up with details of the people in prison right now looking for one of the most sacrosanct ideals of this nation, which is liberty and freedom. We need to reform this system and we must do it now. Every day we wait is too long.

DAVIS: Thank you, Senator Booker.

(APPLAUSE)

David?

MUIR: Thank you, Linsey.

I want to turn to the deadly mass shootings here in this country. And of course we are all mindful tonight of where we stand. We are here in Texas tonight, where 29 people have lost their lives in just the last month alone, El Paso, which we've discussed; in Odessa. And I know there are survivors from El Paso right here in the hall tonight.

Vice President Biden, I do want to direct this to you, because we all remember Sandy Hook. Twenty-six people died in that school, 20 of them children. Those first graders would be in eighth grade today.

MUIR: At the time, there was a groundswell in this country to get something done. President Obama asked you to lead the push for gun control.

You have often pointed to your ability to reach across the aisle to get things done, but four months after Sandy Hook, a measure to require expanded background checks died on the Senate floor.

If you couldn't get it done after Sandy Hook, why should voters give you another chance?

BIDEN: Because I got it done before. I'm the only one up here that's ever beat the NRA --only one ever to beat the NRA nationally. I'm the guy that brought the Brady bill into -- into focus and became law.

And so that's number one. Number two, after Sandy Hook, a number of things happened. It went from a cause to a movement. Look what's happened now. Mothers -- the organization -- mothers against violence -- gun violence. We've seen what's happened again. Now we have all these young people marching on Washington, making sure that things are going to change.

There has been a sea change. Those proposals I put forward for the president had over 50 percent of gun -- of gun -- of members of the NRA supporting them, and overwhelmingly the rest of the people supporting them. Now the numbers are much higher, because they realize what I've been saying and we've all been saying is correct.

Over 90 percent of the American people think we have to get assault weapons off the street -- period. And we have to get buy-backs and get them out of their basements.

(APPLAUSE)

So the point is, things have changed. And things have changed a lot. And now what's happening is -- and, by the way, the way Beto handled -- excuse me for saying Beto. What the congressman...

O'ROURKE: That's all right. Beto's good.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: The way he handled what happened in his hometown is meaningful, to look in the eyes of those people, to see those kids...

(APPLAUSE)

... to understand those parents, you understand the heartache.

(UNKNOWN): But this is the problem.

BIDEN: We are ready to do this.

(APPLAUSE)

MUIR: Mr. Vice President...

(UNKNOWN): This is the problem.

O'ROURKE: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

MUIR: ... you did bring up assault weapons here.

(APPLAUSE)

You did bring up assault weapons here, and many of you on this stage have talked about executive order.

Senator Harris, you have said that you would take executive action on guns within your first 100 days...

HARRIS: Correct.

MUIR: ... including banning imports of AR-15 assault weapons.

HARRIS: That's right.

MUIR: President Obama, after Sandy Hook, more than 23 executive actions, and yet here we all are today.

In recent days former Vice President Biden has said about executive orders, "Some really talented people are seeking the nomination. They said 'I'm going to issue an executive order.'" Biden saying, "There's no constitutional authority to issue that executive order when they say 'I'm going to eliminate assault weapons,'" saying, "you can't do it by executive order any more than Trump can do things when he says he can do it by executive order."

Does the vice president have a point there?

BIDEN: Some things you can. Many things you can't.

MUIR: Let's let the senator answer.

HARRIS: Well, I mean, I would just say, hey, Joe, instead of saying, no, we can't, let's say yes, we can.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: Let's be constitutional. We've got a Constitution.

HARRIS: And yes, we can, because I'll tell you something. The way that I think about this is, I've seen more autopsy photographs than I care to tell you. I have attended more police officer funerals than I care to tell you. I have hugged more mothers of homicide victims than I care to tell you.

And the idea that we would wait for this Congress, which has just done nothing, to act, is just -- it is overlooking the fact that every day in America, our babies are going to school to have drills, elementary, middle and high school students, where they are learning about how they have to hide in a closet or crouch in a corner if there is a mass shooter roaming the hallways of their school.

I was talking about this at one of my town halls, and -- and this child who was eight years old, probably, came up to me -- it was like it was a secret between the two of us, and he tugged on my jacket and he said, "I had to have one of those drills."

It is traumatizing our children. El Paso -- and, Beto, God love you for standing so courageously in the midst of that tragedy. You know, people asked me...

(APPLAUSE)

... in El Paso -- they said, you know, because I have a long-standing record on this issue. They said, "Well, do you think Trump is responsible for what happened?"

And I said, "Well, look, I mean, obviously, he didn't pull the trigger, but he's certainly been tweeting out the ammunition."

(APPLAUSE)

MUIR: Senator Harris, thank you.

Vice President Biden, do you still stand by what you said on an executive order?

BIDEN: No, what I said was -- the question -- speak to constitutional scholars. If in fact we could say, "By the way, you can't own the following weapons, period; they cannot be sold anymore" -- check with constitutional scholars. Now, you can say...

MUIR: Mr. Vice President, thank you.

Congressman O'Rourke, I want to get to you on this.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: John, could I tell you what you could do in 100 days?

MUIR: I'm going to -- I'm going to work down the row here. But I do want to come to Congressman O'Rourke, because I know this is personal to you. El Paso is your hometown. Some on this stage have suggested a voluntary buy-back for guns in this country.

You've gone further. You've said, quote, "Americans who own AR-15s and AK-47s will have to sell them to the government, all of them." You know that critics call this confiscation. Are you proposing taking away their guns? And how would this work?

O'ROURKE: I am, if it's a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield...

(APPLAUSE)

If the high impact, high velocity round, when it hits your body, shreds everything inside of your body, because it was designed to do that, so that you would bleed to death on a battlefield and not be able to get up and kill one of our soldiers.

When we see that being used against children, and in Odessa, I met the mother of a 15-year-old girl who was shot by an AR-15, and that mother watched her bleed to death over the course of an hour because so many other people were shot by that AR-15 in Odessa and Midland, there weren't enough ambulances to get to them in time, hell, yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.

(APPLAUSE)

We're not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore.

(APPLAUSE)

MUIR: Congressman, thank you.

O'ROURKE: And I want to say this. I'm listening to the people of this country. The day after I proposed doing that, I went to a gun show in Conway, Arkansas, to meet with those who were selling AR-15s and AK-47s and those who were buying those weapons. And you might be surprised, there was some common ground there, folks who said, I would willingly give that up, cut it to pieces, I don't need this weapon to hunt, to defend myself. It is a weapon of war.

So, let's do the right thing, but let's bring everyone in America into the conversation, Republicans, Democrats, gun-owners, and non-gun owners alike.

(UNKNOWN): May I make a point?

MUIR: Congressman, thank you. I want to bring in Senator Klobuchar on this, because you've often talked about your uncle and the proud hunters back home in Minnesota. So I wanted to get your response to Congressman O'Rourke tonight. Where do you stand on mandatory gun buybacks?

KLOBUCHAR: I so appreciate what the congressman's been doing. And I want to remind people here that what unites us is so much bigger than what divides us.

Everyone up here favors an assault weapon ban. Everyone up here favors magazine limitations, which, by the way, would have made a huge difference if that was in place in El Paso, in that store, where all those ordinary people showed such extraordinary courage. And certainly in Dayton, Ohio, where in 30 seconds, one man guns down innocent people. The cops got there in one minute, and it still wasn't enough to save those people. That's what unites us.

You know what else unites us? And I'll tell you this. What unites us is that right now, on Mitch McConnell's desk, are three bills -- universal background checks, closing the Charleston loophole, and passing my bill to make sure that domestic abusers don't get AK-47s.

(APPLAUSE)

MUIR: Senator Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: So if we want to get something done -- and I personally think we should start with a voluntary buyback program. That's what I think, David. But I want to finish this, because if you want action now, if you want action now, we got to send a message to Mitch McConnell. We can't wait until one of us gets in the White House. We have to pass those bills right now to get this done.

MUIR: Senator Klobuchar...

KLOBUCHAR: Because we cannot spare another innocent life.

MUIR: Thank you. Thank you.

I want to turn to Senator Booker, because you have said just this week about guns and about the candidates on this stage, that the differences do matter. Those were your words.

You have argued, if you need a license to drive a car in this country, you should have a license to buy a gun. Gun-owners would not only have to pass a background check, they would have to obtain a federal license to buy a gun. This would require, as you know, Congress to pass legislation.

If Democrats can't get universal background checks, how would you get this done? And can you name one Republican colleague of yours in the Senate right now who would be onboard with this idea?

BOOKER: So, background checks and gun licensing, these are agreed to by overwhelmingly the majority of Americans. Eighty-three percent of Americans agree with licensing. This is the issue.

Look, I grew up in the suburbs. It was about 20 years ago that I came out of my home when I moved to inner city Newark, New Jersey, and witnessed the aftermath of a shooting. It's one of the reasons why shooting after shooting after shooting in neighborhoods like mine for decades, this has been a crisis for me. It's why I was the first person to come out for gun licensing. And I'm happy that people like Beto O'Rourke are showing such courage now and coming forward and also now supporting licensing.

But this is what I'm sorry about. I'm sorry that it had to take issues coming to my neighborhood or personally affecting Beto to suddenly make us demand change. This is a crisis of empathy in our nation. We are never going to solve this crisis if we have to wait for it to personally affect us or our neighborhood or our community before we demand action.

You want to know how we get this done? We get this done by having a more courageous empathy, where people don't wait for this hell to visit upon their communities. They stand up and understand the truth of what King said, that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

I will lead change on this issue, because I have seen what the carnage creates in communities like mine, because we forget, national shootings, these mass shootings are tragedies, but the majority of the homicide victims come from neighborhoods like mine. Nobody has ascended to the White House that will bring more personal passion on this issue. I will fight this and bring a fight to the NRA and the corporate gun lobby like they have never seen before.

(APPLAUSE)

MUIR: Senator Booker, thank you. A quick follow-up, though, because Americans watching tonight know the reality of Congress in Washington. I asked do you have a Republican colleague in the Senate who would be onboard with this idea to get this done?

BOOKER: You know, if that was the attitude when Strom Thurmond had the longest filibuster ever on civil rights, if it was this idea that we can't get it done because of the situation in the Senate, I'm looking to lead a movement. The number-one reason why governments are formed is to protect the citizenry.

Think about this. We have had more people die due to gun violence in my lifetime than every single war in this country combined, from the Revolutionary War until now. This is not a side issue to me. It is a central issue to me.

That is the kind of fight -- because the majority of homicide victims -- we have a mass shooting every single day in communities like mine. We must awaken a more courageous empathy in this country so that we stand together and fight together and overwhelm those Republicans who are not even representing their constituency. Because the majority of Americans, the majority of gun-owners agree with me, not the corporate gun lobby. It is time for a movement on this issue, and I will lead it.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: Go beat them (ph).

MUIR: Senator Booker, thank you. Senator Warren, I want to come to you next, because you have actually said in recent days that there are things you can get done with Republicans in the Senate. What can you get done on gun control?

WARREN: So let's start by framing the problem the right way. We have a gun violence problem in this country. The mass shootings are terrible, but they get all the headlines. Children die every day on streets, in neighborhoods, on playgrounds. People die from violence, from suicide and domestic abuse. We have a gun violence problem in this country.

And we agree on many steps we could take to fix it. My view on this is, we're going to -- it's not going to be one and done on this. We're going to do it, and we're going to have to do it again, and we're going to have to come back some more until we cut the number of gun deaths in this country significantly.

But here's the deal. The question we need to ask is, when we've got this much support across the country, 90 percent of Americans want to see us do -- I like registration -- want to see us do background checks, want to get assault weapons off the streets, why doesn't it happen? And the answer is corruption, pure and simple.

(APPLAUSE)

We have a Congress that is beholden to the gun industry. And unless we're willing to address that head-on and roll back the filibuster, we're not going to get anything done on guns. I was in the United States Senate when 54 senators said let's do background checks, let's get rid of assault weapons, and with 54 senators, it failed because of the filibuster.

Until we attack the systemic problems, we can't get gun reform in this country. We've got to go straight against the industry and we've got to change Congress, so it doesn't just work for the wealthy and well-connected, so it works for the people.

(APPLAUSE)

MUIR: Senator Warren, thank you. You bring up eliminating the filibuster, which means you would need simply a simple majority in a Republican Senate to get something done. I want to turn to Senator Sanders on this, because you've said before of this, if Donald Trump supports ending the filibuster, which he's talked about himself, you should be nervous. Would you support ending the filibuster?

SANDERS: No. But what I would support, absolutely, is passing major legislation, the gun legislation the people here are talking about, Medicare for all, climate change legislation that saves the planet. I will not wait for 60 votes to make that happen, and you can do it in a variety of ways. You can do that through budget reconciliation law. You have a vice president who will, in fact, tell the Senate what is appropriate and what is not, what is in order and what is not.

But I want to get back to a point that Elizabeth made and that, in fact, in terms of gun issues, picking up on Cory and Beto and everybody else, what we are looking at is a corrupt political system, and that means whether it is the drug companies or the insurance companies or the fossil fuel industry determining what's happening in Washington or, in this case, you've got an NRA which has intimidated the president of the United States and the Republican leadership.

(APPLAUSE)

I am proud -- I am proud that, year after year, I had an "F" rating from the NRA. And as president, I will not be intimidated by the NRA.

MUIR: Senator Sanders, thank you.

HARRIS: May I respond...

RAMOS: We've been hearing a lot about what's been happening here in Texas. Only a few weeks ago, the deadliest massacre of Latinos, Latinos, in modern U.S. history happened in this state, in El Paso. So the fear among Latinos -- and you know this -- is very real.

So let me start with an issue that is causing a lot of division in this country: immigration. Vice President Biden, as a presidential candidate, in 2008, you supported the border wall, saying, "Unlike most Democrats, I voted for 700 miles of fence." This is what you said.

Then you served as vice president in an administration that deported 3 million people, the most ever in U.S. history. Did you do anything to prevent those deportations? I mean, you've been asked this question before and refused to answer, so let me try once again. Are you prepared to say tonight that you and President Obama made a mistake about deportations? Why should Latinos trust you?

BIDEN: What Latinos should look at is -- comparing this president to the president we have is outrageous, number one. We didn't lock people up in cages. We didn't separate families. We didn't do all of those things, number one.

Number two -- number two, by the time -- this is a president who came along with the DACA program. No one had ever done that before. This is the president that sent legislation to the desk saying he wants to find a pathway for the 11 million undocumented in the United States of America. This is a president who's done a great deal. So I'm proud to have served with him.

What I would do as president is several more things, because things have changed. I would, in fact, make sure that there is -- we immediately surge to the border. All those people who are seeking asylum, they deserve to be heard. That's who we are. We're a nation who says, if you want to flee, and you're freeing oppression, you should come.

I would change the order that the president just changed, saying women who were being beaten and abused could no longer claim that as a reason for asylum.

And by the way, retrospectively, you know, the 25th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act is up. The Republican Congress has not reauthorized it. Let's put pressure on them to pass the Violence Against Women Act. Now (inaudible) back...

RAMOS: Yeah, but you didn't answer the question.

BIDEN: Well, I did answer the question.

RAMOS: No, did you make a mistake with those deportations?

BIDEN: The president did the best thing that was able to be done at the time.

RAMOS: How about you?

BIDEN: I'm the vice president of the United States.

RAMOS: Secretary CASTRO:, would you want to respond to Vice President Biden?

CASTRO: I mean, look...

RAMOS: And let me put this in context, because your party controlled the White House and Congress in 2009 and didn't pass immigration reform, and this broke a promise made by President Barack Obama to Latinos. So why should voters trust Democrats now? I mean, now it is even more difficult, as you know, because you need Republican votes in the Senate. So are you willing, for instance, to give up DACA or give up a path to citizenship or even agree to build a wall in order to legalize 10.5 million undocumented immigrants?

CASTRO: Jorge, thank you very much for that question. And, look, I agree that Barack Obama was very different from Donald Trump. Donald Trump has a dark heart when it comes to immigrants. He built his whole political career so far on scapegoating and fearmongering and otherizing migrants, and that's very different from Barack Obama.

But my problem with Vice President Biden -- and Cory pointed this out last time -- is every time something good about Barack Obama comes up, he says, oh, I was there, I was there, I was there, that's me, too, and then every time somebody questions part of the administration that we were both part of, he says, well, that was the president. I mean, he wants to take credit for Obama's work, but not have to answer to any questions. I mean...

(APPLAUSE)

RAMOS: Vice President Biden, you have -- you have 45 seconds.

CASTRO: Let me just say...

BIDEN: That's not what I said.

CASTRO: Let me just say...

BIDEN: That's not what I said.

CASTRO: Jorge, let me just say that I would -- I was the first candidate in early April to put forward an immigration plan. You know why? Because I'm not afraid of Donald Trump on this issue. I'm not going to back pedal. I'm not going to pretend like I don't have my own vision for immigration.

So we're not going to give up DACA. We're not going to give up protections for anybody. I believe that on January 20, 2021, we're going to have a Democratic president, we're going to throw out Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn and have a Democratic Senate, and a Democratic House, and we're going to pass immigration reform within the first 100 days.

RAMOS: Vice President, 45 seconds.

BIDEN: I did not say I don't -- I stand with Barack Obama all eight years, good, bad and indifferent. That's where I stand. I did not say I did not stand with him.

RAMOS: OK, Senator Warren, hundreds of children have been separated from their parents at the border. And recently, in Mississippi, we saw the largest immigration raid in a decade.

You want ICE, the agency in charge of rounding up undocumented immigrants.

So how would you deal with the millions of immigrants who arrive legally but overstay their visas? And how would you stop hundreds of thousands of Central Americans who want to migrate to the U.S.?

WARREN: Well, I start with a statement of principles, and that is, in this country, immigration does not make us weaker, immigration makes us stronger.

(APPLAUSE)

I want to see us expand legal immigration and create a pathway to citizenship for our DREAMers, but also for their grandparents, and for their cousins, for people who have overstayed student visas, and for people who came here to work in the fields. I want to have a system that is a path to citizenship that is fair and achievable.

Down at the border, we've got to rework this entirely. A system right now that cannot tell the difference in the threat posed by a terrorist, a criminal, and a 12-year-old girl is not a system that is keeping us safer, and it is not serving our values.

(APPLAUSE)

RAMOS: Mr. Yang...

WARREN: We need -- I want to add one more part on this, because I think we have to look at all the pieces. Why do we have a crisis at the border? In no small part because we have withdrawn help from people in Central America who are suffering.

(APPLAUSE)

We need to restore that help. We need to help establish and re-establish the rule of law so that people don't feel like they have to flee for their lives. We have a crisis that Donald Trump has created and hopes to profit from politically. We have to have the courage to stand up and fight back.

(APPLAUSE)

RAMOS: Mr. Yang? It is true that in the last few years we have seen the most severe anti-immigrant measures, from putting kids in cages to limiting asylum for people fleeing gangs and domestic violence. But it is also true about 1 million immigrants enter the U.S. legally every year. So, are you willing to raise the number of legal immigrants from 1 million to 2 million per year? And should there be a merit system, as President Trump wants?

WARREN: So, yes -- oh, I'm sorry. Did you me or...

YANG: It was me.

WARREN: Oh, he said it. OK. Sorry.

YANG: My -- my father grew up on a peanut farm in Asia with no floor and now his son is running for president. That is the immigration story that we have...

(APPLAUSE)

... to be able to share with the American people.

If you look at our history, almost half of Fortune 500 companies were founded by either immigrants or children of immigrants. And rates of business formation are much higher in immigrant communities. We have to say to the American people, immigrants are positive for our economic and social dynamism, and I would return the level of legal immigration to the point it was under the Obama-Biden administration.

I think we have to compete for talent and I am the opposite of Donald Trump in many ways. He says, build a wall. I'm going to say to immigrants, come to America, because if you come here, your son our daughter can run for president. The water is great. And this is where you want to build a company, build a family, and build a life.

This country has been a magnet for human capital for generations. If we lose that, we lose something integral to our continued success. And that is where I would lead as president.

(APPLAUSE)

RAMOS: (SPEAKING SPANISH)

BUTTIGIEG: Gracias.

RAMOS: (INAUDIBLE) Pete, eight out of 10 Latinos in Texas for another mass shooter targeting them. This is according to a new Univision poll. President Trump has called Mexican immigrants rapists and killers, tried to ban Muslims from entering the country separated children from their parents.

He supporters have chanted, build a wall and send her back. Do you think that people who support President Trump and his immigration policies are racist?

BUTTIGIEG: Anyone who supports this is supporting racism.

(APPLAUSE)

(SPEAKING SPANISH)

The only people, though, who actually buy into this president's hateful rhetoric around immigrants are people who don't know any. We have an opportunity to build an American majority around immigration reform. In my community, a group of conservative Republicans rallied around an individual, a beloved local individual who was deported when he went into ICE to try to get his paperwork sorted out, because they never thought it would happen to him.

In some of the most conservative, rural areas of Iowa, I have seen communities that embraced immigration grow. And that's why part of my plan for revitalizing the economies of rural America includes community renewal visas that would allow cities and towns and counties that are hurting not only for jobs but for population to embrace immigration as we have in my city.

You know, the only reason that South Bend is growing right now, after years of shrinking, is immigration. It's one of the reasons we acted, not waiting for Washington, to create city-issued municipal IDs, so that people, regardless of immigration status in our city, had the opportunity to have the benefits of identification.

We have an opportunity to actually get something done. But we cannot allow this continue to be the same debate with the same arguments and the same clever lines often among the same people since the last real reform happened in the 1980s. We have to actually engage the American majority around the opportunities for not just growth in small communities, but our values. Values of welcome, values of faith that all argue for us to manage this humanely and in a way that marries our values with our laws.

RAMOS: (SPEAKING SPANISH)

In an interview eight months ago, you were asked to asked what to do with the so-called "over-stayers," people who come with a visa and then stay. And you said, I don't know. Do you have an answer now?

O'ROURKE: I do. And if you read the rest of that article in The Washington Post, I talked about harmonizing our entry/exit system with Mexico in the same way that we do with Canada. I think that could help us to keep a handle on visa over-stays.

But I think the larger question that we're trying to get at is, how do we rewrite this country's immigration laws in our own image? In the image of Houston, Texas, the most diverse city in the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

In the image of El Paso, Texas, one of the safest cities in the United States of America. Safe, not despite the fact that we are a city of immigrants, safe because we are a city of immigrants.

(SPEAKING SPANISH)

(APPLAUSE)

I will lead an effort to make sure that we rewrite our immigration laws in that way. Never cage another child. Make sure that there is accountability and justice for the seven lives lost under our care and our custody, but also face the fact that Democrats and Republicans alike voted to build a wall that has produced thousands of deaths of people trying to cross to join family or to work a job.

That we have been part of deporting people, hundreds of thousands just in the Obama administration alone, who posed no threat to this country, breaking up their families. Democrats have to get off the back foot, we have to lead on this issue, because we know it is right.

Legalize America, begin with those more than 1 million DREAMers, make them U.S. citizens right now in this, their true home country...

(APPLAUSE)

... and extend that to their parents, their sisters and their brothers, and ensure that we have a legal, safe, orderly system to come to this country and add to our greatness here.

RAMOS: Thank you. George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Jorge, thank you.

We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, national security, foreign policy, homeland security, the impact on American jobs and U.S. troops.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: Live from Texas Southern University in Houston, the "Democratic Debate."

STEPHANOPOULOS: Welcome back. We want to turn now to national security and the foreign policy issue that has such a direct impact here at home. The U.S. relationship with China, trade, and President Trump's tariffs. We received more than 100 questions from viewers wanting to know how all of you are going to handle these tariffs.

And, Mr. Yang, let me begin with you. Would you repeal the tariffs on your first day in office? And if so, would you risk losing leverage in our trade relationship with China?

YANG: I would not repeal the tariffs on day one, but I would let the Chinese know that we need to hammer out a deal, because right now, the tariffs are pummeling producers and farmers in Iowa who have absolutely nothing to do with the imbalances that we have with China.

A CEO friend of mine was in China recently and he said that he saw pirated U.S. intellectual property on worker workstations to the tune of thousands of dollars per head. And he said, one, how can my workers compete against that? And, two, think about all the lost revenue to American companies.

So, the imbalances are real. But we have to let the Chinese know that we recognize that President Trump has pursued an arbitrary and haphazard trade policy that has had victims on both sides.

So, no to repealing the tariffs immediately, but yes to making sure we come to a deal that addresses the concerns of American companies and American producers.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Mayor Pete, let me take that question -- let me take that question to you, because you've seen President Trump's tweets. He says what's going to happen here is the Chinese are just going to wait him out so that they can get a Democrat who they can take advantage of.

How do you think about China? We've seen President Trump call President Xi both an enemy and a friend.

BUTTIGIEG: Well, the president clearly has no strategy.

You know, when I first got into this race, I remember President Trump scoffed and said he'd like to see me making a deal with Xi Jinping. I'd like to see him making a deal with Xi Jinping.

(LAUGHTER)

Is it just me, or was that supposed to happen in, like, April? It's one more example of a commitment not made. When that happens on the international stage, people take note, not just our competitors, our adversaries, but also our allies take note of the inability of the United States to keep its word or follow through on its plans. And when that happens, there are serious consequences.

We saw it at the G7. The leaders of some of the greatest powers and economies of the world sitting to talk about one of the greatest challenges in the world, climate change, and there was literally an empty chair where American leadership could have been.

The problem is, this is a moment when American leadership is needed more than ever, whether it's in Hong Kong, where those protesters for democracy need to know that they have a friend in the United States, or anywhere around the world where increasingly we see dictators throwing their weight around. The world needs America, but it can't be just any America.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Would you repeal the tariffs?

BUTTIGIEG: I would have a strategy that would include the tariffs as leverage, but it's not about the tariffs. Look, what's going on right now is a president who has reduced the entire China challenge into a question of tariffs, when what we know is that the tariffs are coming down on us more than anybody else and there's a lack of a bigger strategy.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Klobuchar, you've actually supported the tariffs on steel.

KLOBUCHAR: What we've got right now, though, George, it's not a focused tariff on steel. What he has done here, he has assessed these tariffs on our allies. He has put us in the middle of this trade war and he is treating our farmers and our workers like poker chips in one of his bankrupt casinos. And if we are not careful, he is going to bankrupt this country.

One forecast recently says that it has already cost us 300,000 jobs, all right? There is soybeans that are mounting up in bins all over the Midwest, in my state of Minnesota and in Iowa.

So what I think we need to do is to go back to the negotiating table -- that's what I would do. I wouldn't have put all these tariffs in place. And I wouldn't have had a trade policy where on August 1st he announces he's going to have tariffs on $300 billion of goods, on August 13th, he cuts it in half, a week later, he says he's going to reduce taxes, the day after that, he says he's going to do it.

The leaders of the world are watching this, and it undermines our strength as a nation. And, yes, we want fair trade, but we must work with the rest of the world. And he has made a mockery of focused trade policy, which I think means enforcement, like we've done in northern Minnesota, passing bills, getting President Obama to do more on that, so that our workers can benefit, so we are importing, exporting goods and making sure that it's a competitive policy where our goal is that we are making things, inventing things, and exporting to the world. He is defeating that goal.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Secretary Castro, you actually, in one of the previous debates, identified China as the most serious national security threat to our country. I want to pick up on what Senator Klobuchar was saying. She said she would go back to the negotiating table. The question is, what do you do for leverage? Where do you get it?

CASTRO: Well, look, I agree with those who have said that this erratic, haphazard trade war is hurting American families. As Senator Klobuchar said, 300,000 American jobs. It's estimated that it's cost $600 to the average American family. Just a couple of days ago, 60 percent of Americans said that they believe that we're in for a recession next year.

So when I become president, I would immediately begin to negotiate with China to ratchet down that trade war. We have leverage there. I also believe, though, that we need to return to a leader when it comes to things like human rights.

We have millions of Uighurs, for instance, in China that right now are being imprisoned and mistreated.

(APPLAUSE)

And in North Korea, this president is elevating a dictator. We need to stop that. We need to return to ensuring that America leads again on human rights. When it comes to this trade war, I would immediately begin ratcheting that trade war down. We have leverage in that discussion.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Warren, let me bring you in on this conversation. President Obama signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In part, it was designed to rein in China, to bring China into some kind of regulation. What do you think he got wrong?

WARREN: So our trade policy in America has been broken for decades, and it has been broken because it works for giant multinational corporations and not for much of anyone else. These are giant corporations that, shoot, if they can save a nickel by moving a job to a foreign country, they'll do it in a heartbeat.

And yet for decades now, who's been whispering in the ears of our trade negotiators? Who has shaped our trade policy? It's been the giant corporations. It's been their lobbyists and their executives.

The way we change our trade policy in America is, first, the procedures. Who sits at the table? I want to negotiate trade with unions at the table. I want to negotiate it with small farmers at the table. I want to negotiate it with environmentalists at the table. I want to negotiate with human rights activists at the table.

And you asked the question about leverage. If I can just respond to that one, the leverage, are you kidding? Everybody wants access to the American market. That means that we have the capacity to say right here in America, you want to come sell goods to American consumers? Then you got to raise your standards. You've got to raise your labor standards. You've got to raise your environmental standards...

(APPLAUSE)

... so our companies can compete on a level playing field. We can use trade not to undermine American workers and not to undermine American farms and not to undermine small businesses in this country. We can use trade to help build a stronger economy.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Harris, how would your trade policy differ from President Obama's?

HARRIS: Well, first of all, I have no criticism of that more than just looking at where we are now, which is we've got a guy in the White House who has been erratic on trade policy. He conducts trade policy by tweet, frankly born out of his fragile ego. It has resulted in farmers in Iowa with soybeans rotting in bins, looking at bankruptcy.

When we look at this issue, my trade policy, under a Harris administration, is always going to be about saying, we need to export American products, not American jobs. And to do that, we have to have a meaningful trade policy.

I am not a protectionist Democrat. Look, we need to sell our stuff. And that means we need to sell it to people overseas. That means we need trade policies that allow that to happen.

You asked earlier about China. It's a complicated relationship. We have to hold China accountable. They steal our products, including our intellectual property. They dump substandard products into our economy. They need to be held accountable.

We also need to partner with China on climate and the crisis that that presents. We need to partner with China on the issue of North Korea. I am on -- and I think the only person on this stage -- the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Homeland Security Committee. We need a partner on the issue of North Korea.

But the bottom line is this. Donald Trump in office on trade policy, you know, he reminds me of that guy in "The Wizard of Oz," you know, when you pull back the curtain, it's a really small dude?

(LAUGHTER)

STEPHANOPOULOS: OK. I'm not even going to take the bait, Senator Harris. But I am going to take...

HARRIS: Oh, George, it wasn't about you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I'm going to take this to Senator Sanders right now.

SANDERS: Well, there is a reason -- there is a reason why, in the last 45 years, the average American today, despite an explosion of technology and worker productivity, is not making a penny more than he or she made 45 years ago. And one of the reasons is that, for decades, we have had disastrous trade policies.

I got to say to my good friend, Joe Biden, Joe and I strongly disagree on trade. I helped lead the opposition to NAFTA and PNTR, which cost this country over 4 million good-paying jobs.

(APPLAUSE)

And what happened is people who had those jobs ended up getting other jobs making 50 percent of what they made in manufacturing.

So Trump, obviously, hasn't a clue. Trump thinks that trade policy is a tweet at 3 o'clock in the morning. What we have got to do is develop a trade policy that represents workers, represents the farmers in the Midwest and elsewhere, who are losing billions right now because of Trump's policy, a trade policy which understands that if a company shuts down in America and goes abroad, and then thinks they're going to get online to get a lucrative federal contract, under Bernie Sanders, they got another guess coming.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Vice President Biden, he invoked your name.

BIDEN: Yeah, well, look, we're either going to make policy or China's going to make the rules of the road. We make up 25 percent of the world economy. We need another 25 percent to join us.

And I think Elizabeth -- Senator Warren is correct. At the table has to be labor and at the table have to be environmentalists. The fact of the matter is, China -- the problem isn't the trade deficit, the problem is they're stealing our intellectual property. The problem is they're violating the WTO. They're dumping steel on us. That's a different issue than whether or not they're dumping agricultural products on us.

In addition to that, we're in a position where, if we don't set the rules, we, in fact, are going to find ourselves with China setting the rules. And that's why you need to organize the world to take on China, to stop the corrupt practices that are underway.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Booker, close out this round.

BOOKER: Sure. There's one point we're really missing on the stage right now, which is the fact that Donald Trump's America first policy is actually an America isolated, an America alone policy.

BIDEN: Exactly right.

BOOKER: From trade to battling China to the global crisis of climate change, the challenges in the Middle East, he is pulling us away from our allies, out of the Iran deal, out of the Paris climate accords.

And on trade, he's deciding to take on China, while at the same time taking on tariff battles with all of our allies. You literally have him using a national security waiver to put tariffs on Canada. Now, look, I'm the only person on this stage that finds Trudeau's hair very menacing, but they are not a national security threat.

(LAUGHTER)

We cannot go up against China alone. This is a president that has a better relationship with dictators, like Duterte and Putin, than he does with Merkel and Macron. We are the strongest nation on the planet Earth, and our strength is multiplied and magnified when we stand with our allies in common cause and common purpose. That's how we beat China. That's how we beat climate change on the planet Earth, and that's how American values are the ones that lead on issues of trade and workers' rights.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: David?

MUIR: George, thank you. I want to turn now to our troops overseas and to America's longest war in Afghanistan. U.S. talks with the Taliban are dead, according to the president. Secret talks at Camp David have been canceled before they could happen. Many of you have weighed in on that already, so I want to move past that tonight to what all of you have promised on the campaign trail.

Many of you on this stage have said you'd bring the troops home in your first term. Others have said in your first year. Senator Warren, we all know the presidency is much different from the campaign trail. President Obama wanted to bring the troops home. President Trump promised to bring the troops home. And you have said of Afghanistan, let's help them reach a peace settlement. It is time to bring our troops home, in your words, starting right now. Would you keep that promise to bring the troops home starting right now with no deal with the Taliban?

WARREN: Yes. And I'll tell you why. What we're doing right now in Afghanistan is not helping the safety and security of the United States. It is not helping the safety and security of the world. It is not helping the safety and security of Afghanistan. We need to bring our troops home.

And then we need to make a big shift. We cannot ask our military to keep solving problems that cannot be solved militarily.

(APPLAUSE)

We're not going to bomb our way to a solution in Afghanistan. We need to treat the problem of terrorism as a worldwide problem, and that means we need to be working with all of our allies, our European allies, our Canadian allies, our Asian allies, our allies in Africa and in South America. We need to work together to root out terrorism.

It means using all of our tools. It means economic investment. It means expanding our diplomatic efforts instead of hollowing out the State Department and deliberately making it so we have no eyes and ears in many of these countries. We need a foreign policy that is about our security and about leading on our values.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Warren, a quick follow on that, because top U.S. leaders, military leaders on the ground in Afghanistan told me you can't do it without a deal with the Taliban. You just said you would, you would bring them home. What if they told you that? Would you listen to their advice?

WARREN: I was in Afghanistan with John McCain two years ago this past summer. I think it may have been Senator McCain's last trip before he was sick. And I talked to people -- we did -- we talked to military leaders, American and local leaders, we talked to people on the ground and asked the question, the same one I ask on the Senate Armed Services Committee every time one of the generals comes through: Show me what winning looks like. Tell me what it looks like.

And what you hear is a lot of, "Uh," because no one can describe it. And the reason no one can describe it is because the problems in Afghanistan are not problems that can be solved by a military.

I have three older brothers who all served in the military. I understand firsthand the kind of commitment they have made. They will do anything we ask them to do. But we cannot ask them to solve problems that they alone cannot solve.

We need to work with the rest of the world. We need to use our economic tools. We need to use our diplomatic tools. We need to build with our allies. And we need to make the whole world safer, not keep troops bombing in Afghanistan.

MUIR: Senator Warren, thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

I do want to stay on this, and I want to turn to Mayor BUTTIGIEG:, because you're the only veteran on this stage. You served in Afghanistan. We heard in recent days from General Joseph Dunford, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said in recent days, "I'm not going to use the word withdrawal right now. It's our judgment the Afghans need support to deal with the level of violence." If he's not even using the word withdrawal, would you put your promise to bring troops home in the first year on hold to follow the advice?

BUTTIGIEG: You know, I served under General Dunford, way under General Dunford, in Afghanistan.

(LAUGHTER)

And today, September 12, 2019, means that today you could be 18 years old, old enough to serve, and had not been alive on 9/11. We have got to put an end to endless war.

And the way we do it is see to it that that country will never again be used for an attack against our homeland, and that does not require an open-ended commitment of ground troops.

Let me say something else, because if there's one thing we've learned about Afghanistan, from Afghanistan, it's that the best way not to be caught up in endless war is to avoid starting one in the first place.

(APPLAUSE)

And so when I am president, an authorization for the use of military force will have a built-in three-year sunset. Congress will be required to vote and a president will be required to go to Congress to seek an authorization. Because if our troops can summon the courage to go overseas, the least our members of Congress should be able to do is summon the courage to take a vote on whether they ought to be there.

(APPLAUSE)

By the way, we also have a president right now who seems to treat troops as props, or worse, tools for his own enrichment. We saw what's going on with flights apparently being routed through Scotland just so people can stay at his hotels?

I'll tell you, as a military officer, the very first thing that goes through your mind, the first time you ever make eye contact with somebody that you are responsible for in uniform, is do not let these men and women down. This president is doing exactly that. I will not.

(APPLAUSE)

MUIR: Mayor Buttigieg, thank you.

I want to turn to Vice President Biden, because the concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan, if you pulled the U.S. troops out, has been heightened by what we've seen in recent days on the ground in Iraq.

When you were vice president, President Obama turned to you to bring the troops home from Iraq. You have said on the campaign trail, quote, "I made sure the president turned to me and said, Joe, get our combat troops out of Iraq." There was a major drawdown of U.S. troops, and then ISIS seized by some estimates 40 percent of the territory in Iraq. You then had to send thousands of troops back in. Was it wrong to pull out of Iraq that quickly? And did the move actually help ISIS take hold?

BIDEN: No, it wasn't wrong to pull out. But I want to answer your Afghanistan question. I've been in and out of Afghanistan, not with a gun, and I admire my friend for his service. But I've been out of Afghanistan I think more than anybody on this -- and it's an open secret, you reported a long time ago, George, that I was opposed to the surge in Afghanistan.

The whole purpose of going to Afghanistan was to not have a counterinsurgency, meaning that we're going to put that country together. It cannot be put together. Let me say it again. It will not be put together. It's three different countries. Pakistan owns the three counties -- the three provinces in the east. They're not any part of -- the Haqqanis run it. I will go on and on.

But here's the point. The point is that it's a counterterrorism strategy. We can prevent the United States from being the victim of terror coming out of Afghanistan by providing for bases -- insist the Pakistanis provide bases for us to air lift from and to move against what we know.

We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home. And Joe Dunford's a fine guy, but this has been an internal argument we've had for eight years.

With regard to -- with regard to Iraq, the fact of the matter is that, you know, I should have never voted to give Bush the authority to go in and do what he said he was going to do. The AUMF was designed, he said, to go in and get the Security Council to vote 15-0 to allow inspectors to go in to determine whether or not anything was being done with chemical weapons or nuclear weapons. And when that happened, he went ahead and went anyway without any of that proof.

I said something that was not meant the way I said it. I said -- from that point on -- what I was argued against in the beginning, once he started to put the troops in, was that in fact we were doing it the wrong way; there was no plan; we should not be engaged; we didn't have the people with us; we didn't have our -- we didn't have allies with us, et cetera.

And it was later, when we came into office, that Barack turned -- the president turned to me and said, "Joe" -- when they said we've got a plan to get out, he turned to the whole security and said, "Joe will organize this. Get the troops home."

My son spent a year in Iraq, and I understand. It made -- and we were right to get the combat troops out. The big mistake that was made, which we predicted, was that you would not have a circumstance where the Shia and the Kurds would work together to keep ISIS from coming -- from moving in.

MUIR: Mr. Vice President, thank you.

I want to turn to Senator Sanders on this. Because the concern over Afghanistan is very similar to what we saw in Iraq when the troops came out. ISIS filled that vacuum.

What do you make of people out there who are worried that if we pull out U.S. troops too quickly from Afghanistan, it will create safe haven all over again, like the plotters of 9/11?

SANDERS: David, let me answer that, but let me just comment on something that the vice president said.

You talked about the big mistake in Iraq and the surge. The truth is, the big mistake, the huge mistake, and one of the big differences between you and me, I never believed what Cheney and Bush said about Iraq...

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: You're right.

SANDERS: I voted against the war in Iraq

(APPLAUSE)

... and helped lead the opposition. And it's sad to say -- I mean, I, kind of, you know, had the feeling that there would be massive destabilization in that area if we went into that war.

As the former chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, I want to pick up on what Pete said. We cannot express our gratitude to all of the men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend them -- defend us, who have responded to the call of duty. But I think, also, I am the only person up here to have voted against all three of Trump's military budgets.

(APPLAUSE)

I don't think we have to spend $750 billion a year on the military when we don't even know who our enemy is.

(APPLAUSE)

I think that what we have got to do is bring this world together -- bring it together on climate change, bring it together in fighting against terrorism. And make it clear that we as a planet, as a global community, will work together to help countries around the world rebuild their struggling economies and do everything that we can to rid the world of terrorism. But dropping bomb on Afghanistan and Iraq was not the way to do it.

MUIR: Senator Sanders, thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

I want to take this to Mr. Yang. You share the stage, as you know, when when we talk about troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the vice president, who was in the Situation Room, with senators who were on the Senate Armed Services, the Foreign Relations Committees, with an Afghanistan veteran who is on the stage tonight.

As you share the stage with these candidates, what makes you the most qualified on this stage to be commander in chief?

YANG: I've signed a pledge to end the forever wars. We've been in a state of continuous armed conflict for 18 years, which is not what the American people want. We have to start owning what we can and can't do. We're not very good at rebuilding countries.

And if you want proof, all you have to do is look within our own country of Puerto Rico.

(APPLAUSE)

We've spent trillions of dollars to unclear benefits, lost thousands of lives -- and thank you, Pete, for your service. And the goal has to be to rebuild the relationships that have made America strong for decades.

I would lead our armed forces with restraint and judgment. What the American people want is simply a president who has the right values and point of view and they can trust to make the right decisions when it comes to putting our young men and women into harm's way. And that's what I would do as president.

MUIR: Mr. Yang, thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Jorge?

RAMOS: Thank you very much.

(SPEAKING IN SPANISH) (ph)

You haven't been asked about Latin America in the previous debates, so let's begin. Senator Sanders, one country where many immigrants are arriving from is Venezuela. A recent U.N. fact-finding mission found that thousands have been disappeared, tortured and killed by government forces in Venezuela.

You admit that Venezuela does not have free elections, but still you refuse to call Nicolas Maduro a dictator -- a dictator. Can you explain why?

And what are the main differences between your kind of socialism and the one being imposed in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua?

SANDERS: Well, first of all, let me be very clear. Anybody who does what Maduro does is a vicious tyrant. What we need now is international and regional cooperation for free elections in Venezuela so that the people of that country can make -- can create their own future.

In terms of democratic socialism, to equate what goes on in Venezuela with what I believe is extremely unfair. I'll tell you what I believe in terms of democratic socialism. I agree with goes on in Canada and in Scandinavia, guaranteeing health care to all people as a human right.

(APPLAUSE)

I believe that the United States should not be the only major country on earth not to provide paid family and medical leave.

(APPLAUSE)

I believe that every worker in this country deserves a living wage and that we expand the trade union movement.

(APPLAUSE)

I happen to believe also that what, to me, democratic socialism means, is we deal with an issue we do not discuss enough, Jorge -- it's not in the media and not in Congress. You've got three people in America owning more wealth than the bottom half of this country. You've got a handful of billionaires controlling what goes on in Wall Street, the insurance companies and in the media.

Maybe, just maybe, what we should be doing is creating an economy...

RAMOS: Thank you.

SANDERS: ... that works for all of us, not 1 percent. That's my understanding of democratic socialism.

(APPLAUSE)

RAMOS: Secretary, you wanted to say a quick response -- 45 seconds?

CASTRO: Sure, thank you, Jorge. I'll call Maduro a dictator, because he is a dictator.

(APPLAUSE)

And what we need to do is to, along with our allies, make sure that the Venezuelan people get the assistance that they need, that we continue to pressure Venezuela so that they'll have free and fair elections, and also, here in the United States, offer temporary protected status, TPS, to Venezuelans.

(APPLAUSE)

That is something that the Trump administration has failed to do. For all of his big talk about supporting the Venezuelan-American community, he has failed. I will not.

I also believe that we need to do things like a 21st century Marshall plan for Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala...

(APPLAUSE)

... so that people can find safety and opportunity at home instead of having to make the dangerous journey to the United States. And under my administration, we're going to put renewed focus on Latin America. It makes sense. They're our neighbors and we have a lot of things in common. It also makes sense that, because we have a country like China that is going around the world to places like Africa and Latin America, making their own relationships, strengthening those, the United States needs to strengthen its partnerships in Latin America immediately.

RAMOS: Thank you, Senator.

CASTRO: And I will

RAMOS: Senator Booker, let me ask you about Brazil. After the recent fires in the Amazon, some experts suggested that eating less meat is one way to help the environment. You are a vegan since 2014. That's obviously a personal choice, but President Trump and Brazil's President Bolsonaro are concerned that climate change regulations could affect economic growth.

So should more Americans, including those here in Texas, and in Iowa...

(LAUGHTER)

... follow your diet?

(LAUGHTER)

BOOKER: Um (ph), you know, first of all, I want to say no. Actually, I want to translate that into Spanish. No.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

Look, on -- let's just be clear. The factory farming going on that's assaulting this corporate consolidation of the agricultural industry, one of the reasons why I have a bill to put a moratorium on this kind of corporate consolidation is because this factory farming is destroying and hurting our environment. And you see independent family farmers being pushed out of business because of the kind of incentives we are giving that don't line up with our values. That's what I'm calling for.

(APPLAUSE)

But I want to -- I want to switch, because we don't have -- a crowded debate stage, we were talking about Afghanistan and Iraq. It annoys me that we had a conversation about our troops overseas and we didn't say one word about veterans in our country.

(APPLAUSE)

We have a shameful reality in America that we send people off to war and they often come home with invisible wounds, hurts and harms. They're disproportionately homeless. You hear stories about women waiting for months for gynecological care through the VA. It is very important that, as we -- as a country, understand that we are not going to solve every problem with this outrageous increased militarism, that we also make sure that we stand up for the people that stood for us.

We end our national anthem with "home of the brave." It's about time we make this a better home for our bravest.

(LAUGHTER)

Congressman O'Rourke, Hurricane Harvey hit this town two years ago. And not only is the Amazon burning, Greenland is melting at a record pace. The last five years have been the hottest ever recorded. And we have a viewer's question about this.

What meaningful action will you take to reverse the effect of climate change? And can we count on you to follow through if your donors are against it?

O'ROURKE: Yes, we will follow through, regardless of the political consequences or who it offends, because this is the very future of our planet and our ability for our children and grandchildren to be able to survive on it.

We will make sure that we get to net zero greenhouse gas emissions no later than the year 2050. That we are halfway there by 2030. That we mobilize $5 trillion over the next 10 years to do that. That we invest here in Houston, Texas, with pre-disaster mitigation grants to protect those communities that are vulnerable to flooding given the fact that this town has seen three 500-year floods in just five years, you'd like to think you're good for 1,500 years, but you're not. They're coming faster and larger and more devastating than ever.

We're also going to make sure that we free ourselves from a dependence on fossil fuels and embrace renewable wind and solar energy technology, as well as the high-paying, high-skill, high-wage jobs that come along with that. And that we're going to pay farmers for the environmental services they want to provide. Planting cover crops, keeping more land under conservation, using no-till farming, regenerative agriculture can pull carbon out of the air and can drive it and sequester it into the soil.

That's the way that we're going to meet this challenge and we're going to bring everyone into the solution.

RAMOS: Many of you want to comment. Let's see if we can go very fast. Senator Klobuchar?

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you.

This is the existential crisis of our time. It's -- you know that movie "The Day after Tomorrow"? It's today. We have seen a warming in our world like never before. We're seeing flooding in the Midwest, flooding in Houston, fires in the West. And I think having someone leading the ticket from the Midwest will allow us to talk about this in a different way and get it done.

On day one, I will get us back into the international climate change agreement. On day two, I will bring back the clean power rules that President Obama had worked on. On day three, I will bring back the gas mileage standards. You can do all that without Congress, which is good.

On day four, five, and six I will, working with Congress and mayors and business people all over the country, introduce sweeping legislation to get at that 2050 goal. And on day seven, you're supposed to rest, but I won't. This is what we need to do if we're going to get at climate change. We have to take this on as a crisis that's happening right now.

RAMOS: Senator Warren, should American foreign policy be based around the principle of climate change?

WARREN: Yes. We need to work on every front on climate change. It is the threat to every living thing on this planet and we are running out of time. Every time the scientists go back, they say, we have less and less time than we thought we had.

But that means we've got to use all the tools. One of the tools we need to use are our regulatory tools. I have proposed following Governor Inslee, that we, by 2028, cut all carbon emissions from new buildings. By 2030, carbon emissions from cars. And by 2035, all carbon emissions from the manufacture of electricity. That alone, those three, will cut our emissions here in the United States by 70 percent.

We can do this. We also need to help around the world to clean, but understand this one more time. Why doesn't it happen? As long as Washington is paying more attention to money than it is to our future, we can't make the changes we need to make. We have to attack the corruption head-on so that we can save our planet.

(APPLAUSE)

RAMOS: Senator Harris, 45 seconds.

HARRIS: When I think about this issue, it really is through the lens of my baby nieces who are one-and-a-half and three years old. When I look at what is going to be the world if we do nothing, when they turn 20, I am really scared. And when I've been in the United States Senate for now the last two-and-a-half years and I look at our counterparts, the Republicans in the United States Senate, they must be looking at their children and then when they look at the mirror, I don't know what they see, but it's a lack of courage.

And this is an issue that, yes, it represents a existential threat. It is also something that we can do something about. This is a problem that was created by human behaviors. And we can change our behaviors in a way that saves our planet. I've seen it happen in California.

I took on -- as the attorney general of California, I ran the second-largest department of justice in the United States, second only to the United States Department of Justice. I took on the big oil companies and we saw progress. If any of you have been to Los Angeles, 20 years ago, you'll remember, that sky was brown. You go there now, the sky is blue and you know why? Because leaders decided to lead and we took on these big fossil fuel companies.

We have some of the most important and strongest laws in the country and we made a difference. And my point being, I've done it before and I will lead as president on this issue because we have no time, the clock is ticking, but we need courage, and we need courageous leadership. We can get this done.

RAMOS: Mr. Yang?

YANG: So, to follow up on what Elizabeth said, why are we losing to the fossil fuel companies?

WARREN: Yes.

YANG: Why are we losing to the gun lobby and the NRA? And is answer is this, we all know, everyone on this stage knows that our government has been overrun by money and corporate interests. Now, everyone here has a plan to try to curb those corporate interests, but we have to face facts. Money finds a way.

Money will find its way back in. So, what is the answer? The answer is to wash the money out with people-powered money.

(APPLAUSE)

My proposal is that we give every American 100 "Democracy Dollars" that you can only give to candidates and causes that you like. This would wash out the lobbyist cash by a factor of eight to one. That is the only way we will win. And as someone running for president, I'll tell you, there's the people on one side and the money on the other, the only way for us to win is if we bring them together.

(APPLAUSE)

RAMOS: Thank you, Mr. Yang.

Linsey.

DAVIS: I'd like to have an academic discussion now about education.

Mr. Yang, we'll stay with you. Here in Houston, the school district is facing yet another year of spending cuts. Like schools across the country, the system faces many challenges. One of them, thousands of students are leaving traditional public schools and going to charter schools.

You're the most vocal proponent on this stage for charter schools. You have said that Democrats who want to limit them are, quote, "just jumping into bed with teachers unions and doing kids a disservice." Why isn't taxpayer money better spent on fixing traditional public schools?

YANG: Let me be clear, I am pro-good school. I've got a kid, one of my little boys just started public school last week and I was not there because I was running for president.

(LAUGHTER)

So, we need to pay teachers more, because the data clearly shows that a good teacher is worth his or her weight in gold.

(APPLAUSE)

We need to lighten up the emphasis on standardized tests, which do not measure anything fundamental about our character or human worth.

(APPLAUSE)

But here's the big one. The data clearly shows that 65 to 70 percent of our students outcomes are determined outside of the school. We're talking about time spent at home with the parents, words read to them when they're young, stress levels in the house, income, type of neighborhood.

We're putting money into schools, and educators know this, we're saying you're 100 percent responsible for educating your kids but you can only control 30 percent. They all know this. The answer is to put money directly into the families and neighborhoods to give our kids a chance to learn and our teachers a chance to teach.

(APPLAUSE)

DAVIS: Mayor Buttigieg, 45 seconds to respond.

BUTTIGIEG: Step one is appoint a secretary of education who actually believes in public education.

(APPLAUSE)

I believe in public education. And in order to strengthen it, some things are very complex, for preparing for a future where knowledge is at your fingertips, but we have got to teach more to do with critical thinking and social and emotional learning. Some of it is extremely simple, we have just got to pay teachers more. And we have got to lift up the teaching profession.

I always think of a story from South Bend of friends who hosted exchange students from Japan. They had a student one year who wanted to be a teacher. And they kept in touch with her when she went back to Japan and to college. She took the exam to try to become a teacher in a society that really regards teachers and compensates teachers well. And she came up just short.

So, you know what she did? Since she was academically good but couldn't quite make the cut to be a teacher, she had a fall-back plan, she became a doctor. That is how seriously some countries treat the teaching profession. If we want to get the results that we expect for our children, we have to support and compensate the teaching profession. Respect teachers the way we do soldiers and pay them more like the way we do doctors.

(APPLAUSE)

DAVIS: Senator Warren, to use Mr. Yang's term, are you just jumping into bed with teachers unions?

WARREN: You know, I think I'm the only person on this stage who has been a public school teacher.

(APPLAUSE)

I had wanted to be a public school teacher since I was in second grade. And let's be clear in all the ways we talk about this, money for public schools should stay in public schools, not go anywhere else.

(APPLAUSE)

I've already made my commitment. I will -- we will have a secretary of education who has been a public school teacher.

(APPLAUSE)

I think this is ultimately about our values. I have proposed a two-cent wealth tax on the top one-tenth of one percent in this country. That would give us enough money to start with our babies by providing universal child care for every baby age zero to five, universal pre-K for every three-year-old and four-year-old in this country...

DAVIS: Thank you, Senator.

WARREN: ... raise the wages of every childcare worker and preschool teacher in this country, cancel student loan debt for 95 percent of the folks who've got it...

(APPLAUSE)

DAVIS: Thank you, Senator.

WARREN: ... and strengthen our unions. This is how we build an America that reflects our values, not just where the money comes from with the billionaires and corporate executives.

DAVIS: Senator Harris, 45 seconds to respond.

HARRIS: My first grade teacher, Mrs. Frances Wilson (ph), God rest her soul, attended my law school graduation. I think most of us would say that we are not where we are without the teachers who believed in us.

I have offered in this campaign a proposal to deal with this, which will be the first in the nation, federal investment, in closing the teacher pay gap, which is $13,500 a year. Because right now, in our public schools, our teachers, 94 percent of them are coming out of their own pocket to help pay for school supplies. And that is wrong.

I also want to talk about where we are here at TSU, and what it means in terms of HBCUs. I have, as part of my proposal that we will put $2 trillion into investing in our HBCUs for teachers, because...

(APPLAUSE)

Because -- because, one, as a proud graduate of a historically black college and university, I will say -- I will say that it is our HBCUs that disproportionately produce teachers and those who serve in these may professions, but also...

DAVIS: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: But this is a critical point, if a black child has a black teacher before the end of third grade, they're 13 percent more likely to go to college.

(APPLAUSE)

If that child has had two black teachers before the end of third grade, they're 32 percent more likely to go to college. So, when we talk about investing in our public education system, it is at the source of so much. When we fix it, that will fix so many other things. We must invest in the potential of our children...

DAVIS: Thank you, Senator.

Senator Sanders, 45 seconds.

HARRIS: ... and I strongly believe you can judge a society based on how it treats its children. And we are failing on this issue.

DAVIS: Thank you, Senator.

(APPLAUSE)

SANDERS: Guess what?

(LAUGHTER)

You're guessing, all right, here's the answer. We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world. And yet, we have the highest child poverty rate of almost any country on earth. We have teachers in this country who are leaving education because they can't work two or three jobs to support themselves.

Which is why, under my legislation, we'll move to see that every teacher in America makings at least $60,000 a year.

(APPLAUSE)

What we will also do is not only have universal pre-K, we will make public colleges and universities and HBCUs debt-free. And what we will always also do, because this is an incredible burden on millions and millions of young people who did nothing wrong except try to get the education they need, we are going to cancel all student debt in this country.

(APPLAUSE)

DAVIS: Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senator.

SANDERS: And we are going to do that by imposing a tax on Wall Street speculation.

(APPLAUSE)

DAVIS: Thank you, Senator.

Mr. Vice president, I want to come to you and talk to you about inequality in schools and race. In a conversation about how to deal with segregation in schools back in 1975, you told a reporter, "I don't feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather, I feel responsible for what the situation is today, for the sins of my own generation, and I'll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago."

You said that some 40 years ago. But as you stand here tonight, what responsibility do you think that Americans need to take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country?

BIDEN: Well, they have to deal with the -- look, there's institutional segregation in this country. And from the time I got involved, I started dealing with that. Red-lining banks, making sure that we are in a position where -- look, you talk about education. I propose that what we take is those very poor schools, the Title I schools, triple the amount of money we spend from 15 to $45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise, the equal raise to getting out -- the $60,000 level.

Number two, make sure that we bring in to help the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home, we need -- we have one school psychologist for every 1,500 kids in America today. It's crazy.

The teachers are -- I'm married to a teacher. My deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them. We have -- make sure that every single child does, in fact, have 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds go to school. School. Not daycare. School. We bring social workers in to homes and parents to help them deal with how to raise their children.

It's not want they don't want to help. They don't -- they don't know quite what to do. Play the radio, make sure the television -- excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the -- the -- make sure that kids hear words. A kid coming from a very poor school -- a very poor background will hear 4 million words fewer spoken by the time they get there.

DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

BIDEN: There's so much we -- no, I'm going to go like the rest of them do, twice over, OK?

(APPLAUSE)

Because here's the deal. The deal is that we've got this a little backwards. And by the way, in Venezuela, we should be allowing people to come here from Venezuela. I know Maduro. I've confronted Maduro.

Number two, you talk about the need to do something in Latin America. I'm the guy that came up with $740 million to see to it those three countries, in fact, changed their system so people don't have to chance to leave. You're all acting like we just discovered this yesterday. Thank you very much.

DAVIS: Thank you very much.

Secretary Castro?

CASTRO: Thank you very much. Well, that's -- that's quite a lot.

BIDEN: (OFF-MIKE)

(LAUGHTER)

CASTRO: But, you know -- I grew up in one of those neighborhoods that folks have talked about and a neighborhood that was grappling with the legacy of segregation. In fact, in two public school districts that were involved in a 1973 Supreme Court case challenging how Texas financed its schools.

And I know that today our schools are segregated because our neighborhoods are segregated. Now, I have an education plan, like a lot of folks up here, that would pay teachers more, that would recruit diverse ranks of teachers, that would invest in our public schools, but I also believe that we have to connect the dots to uplift the quality of life to invest in housing opportunity, to invest in job opportunity, to invest in community schools that offer resources like parents able to go back and get their GED, and health care opportunities, and those things that truly ensure that the entire family can prosper.

Those are the types of things that we need to do, in addition to lifting up our public schools. You asked a second ago about charter schools. Look, it is a myth that charter schools are better than public schools. They're not.

(APPLAUSE)

DAVIS: Thank you, Secretary.

CASTRO: And so while I'm not categorically against charter schools, I would require more transparency and accountability from them than is required right now.

DAVIS: Senator Booker, coming to you now. It was 65 years ago this year that the Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in public schools. Yet for millions of students of color today, segregation remains a reality.

Nonwhite districts typically receive $2,200 less per student than those in white districts. This means older books, less access to computers, and often worse outcomes. What is your plan to address segregation? And I'm not just talking about the achievement gap, but I'm talking about the opportunity gap in education.

BOOKER: So, I'm hearing a lot of conversations on the stage that -- and the way we talk about communities of color. Look, I live in a black and brown community below the poverty line. I've lived in public housing projects almost for a decade and saw the anguish of parents who are just so deeply frustrated that they don't have a school that serves their genius.

I think I'm the only person on the stage -- even though I had no formal authority as mayor to run a school system -- I stepped up and took responsibility for our schools, and we produced results. A lot of folks here are talking about raising teacher salary. We actually did it in Newark, New Jersey.

And we didn't stop there. Yeah, we closed poor-performing charter schools, but, dagnabbit, we expanded high-performing charter schools. We were a city that said we need to find local solutions that work for our community. The results speak for themselves. We're now the number-one city in America for Beat the Odds schools, from high poverty to high performance.

Strategies like investing in our children work. And I'll tell you this. I am tired of us thinking about these problems isolated, disconnected from other issues.

That's why my friend, Secretary Castro, is 100 percent right. We are in the reality we are right now because, Mr. Vice President, of overtly racist policies, not 400 years ago, just in my lifetime, that were red-lining communities, disinvesting in communities, and more than just that, my kids are not only struggling with racial segregation and housing and the challenges of underfunded schools, but they're also struggling with environmental injustice.

If you've talked to someone who's a parent of a child has had permanent brain damage because of lead, you'll know this is a national problem, because there's over 3,000 jurisdictions in America where children have more than twice the blood lead levels of Flint, Michigan.

DAVIS: Thank you, Senator.

BOOKER: And so if I'm president of the United States, it is a holistic solution to education, from raising teacher salary, fully funded special education, but combatting the issues of poverty, combatting the issues of racial segregation, combatting the issues of a criminal justice system...

DAVIS: Thank you, Senator.

BOOKER: ... that takes parents away from their kids, and dealing with environmental justice as a major pillar of any climate policy.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you, Linsey. One final question coming up. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: And we are now back now for a final round of questions. One question for each candidate. We're going to go in reverse order from the opening statement.

And, candidates, the question is on the quality of resilience. No president can succeed without resilience. Every president confronts crises, defeats, and mistakes. So I want to ask each of you, what's the most significant professional setback you've had to face? How did you recover from it? And what did you learn from it?

Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: I -- I never counted any professional setback like I have as a serious setback. There's things that are important. Things that are unimportant.

PROTESTERS: (OFF-MIKE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: We're going to clear the protesters now. Just one minute.

Senator Biden, we'll start the clock again.

PROTESTERS: (OFF-MIKE)

BIDEN: I'm sorry.

STEPHANOPOULOS: We're sorry. Go ahead.

BIDEN: There's setbacks, and there's setbacks. And I think the most critical setback that can occur to anyone is to lose -- well, my dad had an expression. He said, Joey, it's not a question of succeeding, whether you get knocked down, it's how quickly you get up. And he said, you never explain and never complain. And then he would go on to say that the only obligation that really matters, the most important thing, is family.

And so I was raised to believe that that was the center of everything, family, and could be judged on based how you treatment your family and how you went from there. And I -- it took -- you know, Kierkegaard said faith sees best in the dark. Right after I got elected, my wife and daughter were killed in an automobile accident, and my two sons were badly injured. And I just had been elected, not sworn in. And I lost my faith for a while. I came back.

And then later, when my son Beau came home from Iraq and -- with a terminal disease, and a year later, year-and-a-half later, losing him was like losing part of my soul.

But the fact is that I learned that the way you deal with it is you deal with finding purpose, purpose in what you do. And that's why I hope -- I hope he's proud of me today, because he wanted to make sure I didn't run for president, but I stayed engaged, because when you get hit badly, whether you're losing a job or you're raising a family like my dad, where you have to make that longest walk up the stairs to tell your kid you can't live here anymore, Dad lost his job, you know, we've all been through that, in some form or another.

And it just takes -- it just -- for me, the way I've dealt with it is finding purpose. And my purpose is to do what I've always tried to do and stay engaged in public policy. And -- but there's a lot of people been through a lot worse than I have who get up every single morning, put their feet one foot in front of another, without the help I had. There are real heroes out there. Some real heroes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Senator Warren?

(APPLAUSE)

WARREN: I mentioned earlier, I've known what I wanted to be since second grade. I wanted to be a public school teacher. And I invested early. I used to line my dollies up and teach school. I had a reputation for being tough but fair.

(LAUGHTER)

By the time I graduated from high school, my family didn't have money for a college application, much less to send me off to four years at a university. And my story, like a lot of stories, has a lot of twists and turns. Got a scholarship, and then at 19, I got married, dropped out of school, took a minimum wage job, thought my dream was over.

I got a chance down the road at the University of Houston. And I made it as a special needs teacher. I still remember that first year as a special needs teacher. I could tell you what those babies looked like. I had 4- to 6-year-olds.

But at the end of that first year, I was visibly pregnant. And back in the day, that meant that the principal said to me -- wished me luck and hired someone else for the job.

So, there I am, I'm at home, I got a baby, I can't have a job. What am I going to do? Here's resilience. I said, I'll go to law school. And the consequence was -- I practiced law for about 45 minutes and then went back to my first love, which was teaching.

But it let me get into fights. It gave me new tools. And the reason I'm standing here today is because I got back up, I fought back. I know what's broken. I want to be in the fight to fix it in America. That's why I'm here.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you, Senator.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: Resilience, to me, means growing up in a rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn, New York, the son of an immigrant who came to this country without a nickel in his pocket.

Professional resilience means to me, George, running for U.S. Senate in Vermont and getting 1 percent of the vote, running for governor and getting 2 percent of the vote, finally becoming mayor of Burlington, Vermont, with a 10-vote margin.

What resilience means to me is that throughout my political career, I have taken on virtually every powerful special interest in this country, whether it is Wall Street, whether it is the insurance industry, whether it is the pharmaceutical industry whose corruption and greed is killing people today, whether it is a military industrial complex or a prison industrial complex.

And I feel confident that given a lifelong record of taking on powerful special interests, of standing up for the working families of this country, that I will be able to take on the greed and corruption of the corporate elite and create a government and an economy that work for all of us, not just the 1 percent.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you, Senator Sanders.

Senator Harris?

HARRIS: You know, every office I've run for, whether it be district attorney or attorney general, I was told each time, it can't be done. They said nobody like you has done it before, nobody's ready for you. When I ran for D.A., I won and became the first black woman elected D.A. in a state of 40 million people, in San Francisco.

When I ran for attorney general of California, I was elected -- because I didn't listen. And I was the only black elected -- woman black elected attorney general in the state -- in the country.

And each time, people would say, it's not your time, it's not your turn, it's going to be too difficult, they're not ready for you, and I didn't listen. And a part of it probably comes from the fact that I was raised by a mother who said many things that were life lessons for me, including don't you let anybody ever tell you who you are. You tell them who you are.

(APPLAUSE)

And when I look around the town halls that we do in this race for president of the United States, and I look at the -- the meetings that we do and the community meetings, and I see these little girls and boys, sometimes even brought by their fathers, and they bring them to me and I talk to them during these events, and they smile and they're full of joy, and their fathers tell them, see, don't you ever listen and let anybody ever tell you what you can or cannot be. You have to believe in what can be unburdened by what has been.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Harris, thank you very much.

Mayor Buttigieg?

BUTTIGIEG: You know, as a military officer serving under "don't ask/don't tell," and as an elected official in the state of Indiana when Mike Pence was governor, at a certain point, when it came to professional setbacks, I had to wonder whether just acknowledging who I was, was going to be the ultimate career-ending professional setback.

I came back from the deployment and realized that you only get to live one life. And I was not interested in not knowing what it was like to be in love any longer, so I just came out. I had no idea what kind of professional setback it would be, especially because inconveniently it was an election year in my socially conservative community.

What happened was that, when I trusted voters to judge me based on the job that I did for them, they decided to trust me and re-elected me with 80 percent of the vote. And what I learned was that trust can be reciprocated and that part of how you can win and deserve to win is to know what's worth more to you than winning.

And I think that's what we need in the presidency right now. We have to know what we are about. And this election is not about any of us up here. It is not about this president, even though it's hard to talk of anything else some days.

It's about the people who trust us with their lives, a kid wondering if we're actually going to make their schools safe when they've learned active shooter drills before they've learned to read, a generation wondering we will actually get the job done on climate change. And if we hold to that, then it doesn't matter what happens to each of us professionally. Together, we will win a better era for our country.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Mayor Buttigieg, thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Mr. Yang?

YANG: I was an unhappy lawyer for five whole months and I left to start a business. And I'm going to share with you all one of the secrets to entrepreneurship. If you want to start something, tell everyone you know you're going to do it. And then you don't have a choice. You put your heart and soul into that. And even though I did that, my company flopped, had its mini-rise and maximum fall.

I lost investors, hundreds of thousands of dollars, still owed $100,000 in school debt. My parents still told people I was a lawyer. It was a little easier.

So I remember lying on my floor looking up wondering, how did it come to this? Eventually, I picked myself back up. I kept working in small growth companies for another 10 years and eventually had some success.

Then after I did have some success, I still remembered how hard it was, how isolating it was, how it feels like your friends no longer want to spend time with you. And so I spent seven years starting and running a nonprofit that helped train young entrepreneurs around the country, including Sean Nguyen (ph), who's here in the audience tonight, who left his gilded Wall Street job to become a food entrepreneur in San Antonio. Sean, I hope I made the process a little bit easier for you than it was for me.

But the goal of my campaign is to make this an economy that allows us to live our human values and aspirations.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Yang.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Booker?

BOOKER: So my biggest professional setback is embarrassing because a lot of folks know about it. I, with a bunch of tenant leaders in Newark, New Jersey, in 2002 took on the political machine and, boy, did they fight back. I had tires on my car slashed. Our campaign offices were broken into. My phones were tapped. It became a spectacle. And we lost that election.

And here's a bit of advice to everybody. If you're going to have a spectacular failure, have a documentary team there to capture it, because it made for an Oscar-nominated documentary called "Street Fight." But then, unfortunately, another setback. It lost in the Oscars to a movie called "March of the Dagnab Penguins," for crying out loud.

(LAUGHTER)

The people in my community, living in the projects, told me, don't give up on the people and the people won't give up on you. Create bigger and bolder coalitions, and you're going to win. And you know what? We came back four years later and won the largest lopsided victory in our city's history.

But more than that, the lesson was there. We didn't give up. We were taking on America's toughest problems, from crime to poverty, and we transformed our city, creating tens of thousands of new jobs, the biggest economic expansion in our city, and as I said before, turned around our school system.

There's more work to do, but I haven't given up on the people. I still live in that community. But this is a big lesson. My staff and my friends and my community told me, if you want to go fast, you may have won the mayor's race, but that's not what life is about. There's an old African saying that says, if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together.

The lesson I learned of resilience is to trust people, because the power of the people is always greater than the people in power. And the test of America right now is not a referendum on Donald Trump, it's a referendum on us and who we are and who we're going to be together. We need to use this moment in history to unite in common cause and common purpose, and then there's nothing we can't do together as a nation.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Booker, thank you.

Congressman O'Rourke?

O'ROURKE: Thank you, George. Everything that I've learned about resilience I've learned from my hometown of El Paso, Texas. In the face of this act of terror that was directed at our community, in large part by the president of the United States, that killed 22 people and injured many more, we were not defeated by that, nor were we defined by that.

The very thing that drew that killer to us is the very thing that helps us set the example for the rest of this country. We don't see our differences as disqualifying or dangerous. We see them as foundational to our success, to our strength, and to our security, and to our safety.

Yesterday, I was visiting with one of those victims. He's the head coach of the Fusion. This is a girls soccer team of 10- and 11-year-old girls. His name is Luis. He was shot in the legs multiple times. He was shot in the side multiple times. He's still healing from his wounds in the hospital, but from his hospital bed, he's still trying to coach the Fusion girls soccer team.

Memo, his co-coach, is still fighting for his life right now at Del Sol Hospital. Those two men, Jessica and Marcella (ph), their wives, they exemplify resilience to me. And when we end this scourge of gun violence in this country, when we finally confront the racism that exists in America, when we're defined not by our fears, but instead by our aspirations and our ambitions, it will be, in large part, I think, thanks to the example that El Paso has set.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Congressman, thank you.

Senator Klobuchar?

(APPLAUSE)

KLOBUCHAR: Thank you. My challenges and resilience have brought me up here. I grew up with a dad who struggled with alcoholism his whole life. And after his third DWI, he had a choice between jail and treatment. He chose treatment, with his faith, with his friends, with our family. And in his words, he was pursued by grace. And that made me interested in public service, because I feel like everyone should have that same right, to be pursued by grace.

I then got married. My husband's out there somewhere, hopefully smiling, and our daughter. When our daughter was born, I had this expectation, we're going to have this perfect, perfect birth, and she was really sick, and she couldn't swallow. And she was in and out of hospitals for a year-and-a-half.

But when she was born, they had a rule in place that you got kicked out of the hospital in 24 hours. She was in intensive care, and I was kicked out. And I thought, this could never happen to any other mom again.

So I went to the legislature, our state legislator, not an elected official, a mom, and I advocated for one of the first laws in the country guaranteeing new moms and their babies a 48-hour hospital stay. And when they tried to delay the implementation of that law, I brought six pregnant friends to the conference committee so they outnumbered the lobbyists 2 to 1. And when they said, when should it take place, they all raised their hands and said now.

That is what motivated me to go into public service. And when I got to that gridlock of Washington, D.C., I got to work and pass over 100 bills, and I know a lot of my friends here from the left, but remember, I am from the middle of the country. And I believe, if we're going to get things done, that we have to have someone leading the ticket with grit, someone who's going to not just change the policies, but change the tone in the country, and someone who believes in America and believes it from their heart because of where they came from, that everyone should have that same opportunity.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator, thank you.

Secretary Castro?

CASTRO: And thank you, George, to Jorge, to Linsey, and to David, and to all of y'all for tuning in tonight. In many ways, I shouldn't be here on this stage. You know, Castro is my mother's name and was my grandmother's name before her. I grew up in a single-parent household on the west side of San Antonio, going to the public schools. Eventually, my brother, Joaquin, and I became the first in our family to become professionals.

And when I got home, I took a job at the biggest law firm in town. I was making $100,000 a year in the year 2000. A few months later, I got elected to the San Antonio City Council. And the city council at the time was only paying $1,040 a year, so everybody had another job. And my job was at the law firm.

Well, a few months after I got elected, the law firm got a client and the client wanted those of us on the city council to vote for a land deal. The land deal was that they wanted to build a golf course over our water supply, because we relied on an underground aquifer. I didn't think the environmental protection plan was strong enough, so I wanted to vote against it and my constituents wanted me to vote against it.

But under the ethics rules for lawyers in Texas -- because believe it or not, lawyers have ethics rules -- you can't just go against the interest of a client. So I was stuck.

On the one hand, I wanted to do the right thing. On the other hand, my livelihood, my student loans, my new house payment, my car payment, depended on me shutting up, being conflicted out.

So, one day, I walked into my law firm and I quit my job. And then I went and I voted against that land deal on the city council.

(APPLAUSE)

And, you know, it was the first test that I had, and I think back to that, because oftentimes we think of politics and you think of politics as dirty or corrupting. I wondered, before I went in it, whether it was change who I was. And I was proud that when that first test came that I stood up for the people that I was there to represent, and not for big special interests.

There's nobody that gets tested more in a position of public trust than the president of the United States. This president has failed that test. But I want you to know that if you elect me president, I won't. I won't serve anybody except you and your family. And together, we can create an American that's better than ever. Thank you very much.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you, Secretary Castro. Thank you to all of our candidates. It was a great debate. I think we learned a lot tonight thanks to you. Thanks to Texas Southern University for hosting us tonight. It was a great crowd, as well, tonight, thanks to you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thanks to everyone at home. The debate is over. Our coverage continues with Tom Llamas.

[END]

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

JAKE TAPPER, CNN: A pivotal point in the race for the presidency.

DANA BASH, CNN: Ten candidates, each with a chance to alter the course of this primary contest.

DON LEMON, CNN: They're backstage now. It's debate night for the Democrats.

ANNOUNCER: Happening now in Downtown Detroit, the candidates facing off for a second night in Michigan. Donald Trump won this battleground state by fewer than 11,000 votes, and the Democrats want it back.

JOE BIDEN, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: Donald Trump threatens everything.

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS, D-CALIF: I know predators, and we have a predator living in the White House.

ANNOUNCER: Tonight, a critical rematch: Former Vice President Joe Biden aiming to reclaim his momentum.

BIDEN: I don't believe there's anyone in this race more prepared than me.

ANNOUNCER: Senator Kamala Harris, not backing down after clashing with Biden over race.

HARRIS: There is still plenty of disagreement between he and I that remains.

ANNOUNCER: Biden flanked (ph) by Harris. And Senator Cory Booker, who says President Trump is ripping apart the fabric of the nation.

SEN. CORY BOOKER, D-NY: Donald Trump wants us to fight him on his turf. That's not how we win.

ANNOUNCER: For two candidates just beyond center stage, opportunity and enterprise. Former Housing Secretary Julian Castro.

JULIAN CASTRO, FORMER HUD SECRETARY: We're going to make sure that the promise of America is available to everyone.

ANNOUNCER: And entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

ANDREW YANG, ENTREPRENEUR: The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math. ANNOUNCER: The fiercely focused, betting their campaigns on a defining issue. For Senator Michael Bennet, breaking gridlock.

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET, D-COLO: They have immobilized our federal government.

ANNOUNCER: For Governor Jay Inslee, the climate crisis.

GOV. JAY INSLEE, D-WASH: We need to stand up to defeat climate change.

ANNOUNCER: For Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, ending wards.

REP. TULSI GABBARD, D-WASH: The most important responsibility that the president has is to serve as commander-in-chief.

ANNOUNCER: And two New Yorkers, Mayor Bill de Blasio.

NEW YORK MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO, D: Are you ready to fight for change in America?

ANNOUNCER: And Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND: When we join together, brave wins.

ANNOUNCER: Now, the stage is set for candidates for take on hot button issues.

CASTRO: We need to stop playing games with people who are seeking asylum.

HARRIS: I will ban the importation of assault weapons. Done.

CASTRO: Their party platform and the course of American history.

BOOKER: Now, it is our turn.

BIDEN: We choose hope over fear. We are the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

TAPPER: An enthusiastic audience at the historic Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit, Michigan. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world watching us on CNN, CNN International, CNN en Espanol, CNN.com, and listening on SiriusXM and the Westwood One Radio Network.

This is the CNN Democratic presidential debate. And a special welcome to the U.S. military members, diplomatic corps, and their families serving overseas and watching on the American Forces Network.

I'm Jake Tapper, anchor of "The Lead" and "State of the Union," along with CNN's chief political correspondent Dana Bash and Don Lemon, anchor of "CNN Tonight." BASH: The 20 Democratic presidential candidates were divided into two groups by random draw earlier this month. The first 10 appeared last night. Now it's time for the second 10.

LEMON: Please welcome, from Delaware, former Vice President Joe Biden.

(APPLAUSE)

From California, Senator Kamala Harris.

(APPLAUSE)

HARRIS: Hey, Joe.

BIDEN: Go easy on me, kid.

HARRIS: How you doing? You good?

BIDEN: I'm good.

LEMON: From New Jersey, Senator Cory Booker.

(APPLAUSE)

LEMON: From New York, businessman Andrew Yang.

(APPLAUSE)

From Texas, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro.

(APPLAUSE)

LEMON: From Hawaii, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.

(APPLAUSE)

From New York, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

(APPLAUSE)

From Washington state, Governor Jay Inslee.

(APPLAUSE)

From Colorado, Senator Michael Bennet.

(APPLAUSE)

From New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio.

(APPLAUSE)

Ladies and gentlemen, the Democratic candidates for president of the United States. (APPLAUSE)

Now please rise for the presentation of colors from the James Europe VFW Post 2233 and the District Four Honor Guard. And please remain standing for our national anthem, performed by Grammy and Tony Award- winning singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, who was raised in Flint, Michigan.

BRIDGEWATER: (sings National Anthem)

LEMON: The debate will begin right after this short break.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to the CNN Democratic presidential debate. Candidates, we're about to begin opening statements. But first, a quick review of the ground rules that your campaigns agreed to earlier this month to try to ensure a fair debate.

As moderators, we will attempt to guide the discussion. You will each receive one minute to answer questions, 30 seconds for responses and rebuttals, and 15 additional seconds if a moderator asks for a clarification. The timing lights will remind you of these limits. Please respect them, and please refrain from interrupting other candidates during their allotted time. A candidate infringing on another candidate's time will have his or her time reduced.

We, again, remind our audience inside the Fox Theatre to try to remain silent when candidates are actively debating. The candidates need to be able to properly hear the questions and each other.

BASH: Let's start with opening statements. You will each receive one minute. Mayor Bill de Blasio, please begin.

DE BLASIO: To the working people of America, tonight I bring you a message of hope. We can make change in this country. I know from personal experience it can be done.

When I became the mayor of the nation's largest city, I set us on a path of bold change. They said it couldn't be done, but we gave pre-K to every child for free. We got rid of stop-and-frisk and we lowered crime. We raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Yes, it can be done.

Now, tonight we have to get to the heart and soul of who we are as Democrats. There are good people on this stage, but there are real differences.

Joe Biden told wealthy donors that nothing fundamentally would change if he were president. Kamala Harris said she's not trying to restructure society. Well, I am.

For 40 years, working people have taken it on the chin in this country. For 40 years, the rich have gotten richer and they've paid less and less in taxes. It cannot go on this way. When I'm president, we will even up the score and we will tax the hell out of the wealthy to make this a fairer country and to make sure it's a country that puts working people first.

PROTESTOR: (OFF-MIKE)

BASH: Thank you, Mayor de Blasio. Senator Michael Bennet?

BENNET: Thank you. Last week, I saw one of those Trump signs that says, "America, love it or leave it." And it was on the outside of a church.

I love America. And I know we can make it better.

Before coming to the Senate I ran (inaudible) school district where most of the kids live in poverty. Those kids have exactly the same hopes that I had.

Their parents have exactly the same hopes for them that my parents had for me, and that Susan and I have for our three children. But for the last three years, we've been consumed by a president who frankly doesn't give a damn about your kids or mine.

Mr. President; kids belong in classrooms, not cages.

(APPLAUSE)

And they deserve something better than a bully in the White House. Let's end this three ringed circus in Washington and make -- and let's make this election about reclaiming our future for our kids and our democracy. Empty promises won't beat Donald Trump, I can.

BASH: Governor Jay Inslee.

INSLEE: Good evening. I'm Jay Inslee. I am running for president because the people in this room and the democrats watching tonight are the last best hope for humanity on this planet.

If -- if we make defeating the climate crisis the top priority of the United States, we will have a fighting chance to save ourselves and our children's future. It has to be our top priority. My plan is one of national mobilization, quickly bringing 100 percent clean energy to Americans, creating 8 million good union jobs.

This is a big, bold, ambitious plan for clean energy for a big bold ambitious nation. Middle ground approaches are not enough. We must confront the fossil fuel industry. I've been working on this for 25 years.

And now we know this, we are at tipping point and whether we shrink from this challenge or rise to it is the vital question of our time. We democrats believe we can still do big things in this nation. We can defeat the climate crisis. Let's get to work.

(APPLAUSE)

BASH: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. GILLIBRAND: My grandmother taught me that nothing's impossible. She

spent two generations organizing women in upstate New York. My mother taught me nothing's impossible. She was one of only three women in her law school class and worked with gay couples for basic rights.

If you want to get something done, just tell me it's impossible. As a freshman senator I was told you couldn't repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Even members of my own party told me it wasn't convenient. When are civil rights ever convenient?

We stood up to the Pentagon and we got it done. Not impossible. 10 years ago I was told you couldn't pass healthcare for our 9/11 first responders, those heroes who raced up the towers when others were coming down.

Even when Congress turned its back on them, we kept fighting. Just last week we made the 9/11 health bill permanent.

(APPLAUSE)

Beating Donald Trump definitely not impossible. We need a nominee who will take on the big fights and win. We need a nominee who doesn't know the meaning of impossible.

BASH: Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.

(APPLAUSE)

GABBARD: I love our country. It's why I enlisted after 9/11, why I've served as a soldier for over 16 years, deployed twice to the Middle East, and serve in Congress now for almost seven years.

I know what patriotism is and I've known many great patriots throughout my life. And let me tell you this, Donald Trump is not behaving like a patriot. As president I will bring this spirit of real patriotism to the White House, serving the interest of all Americans, not just the rich and powerful.

I'll fight for our rights and freedoms of all Americans, upholding these principles in our constitution upon which our country was founded, fighting for justice and equality for all. Fighting for every single American regardless of race or religion as we strive towards that more perfect union.

And as president I'll bring this unifying spirit of love for country and the soldier's values of service above self to the White House, truly leading a government of by and for the people.

BASH: Secretary Julian Castro.

CASTRO: Thank you, Dana, and good evening.

You know, just a few days ago we were reminded and inspired by our fellow Americans in Puerto that public service is not fundamentally about any of us; it's about you and your family. I want you to know that, if I'm elected president, that I will work

hard every single day so that you and your family can have good health care when you need it, so that your children and grandchildren can get a good education so that they can reach their dreams and that you can have good job opportunities, whether you live here in a big city like Detroit or in a small town in our country.

I know we have a wonderful, special nation but that too many people are struggling. And I know what that's like, too. You know, I grew up with a single mom in a poor neighborhood. But like many of you, I don't want to make America anything again. I don't want us to go backward. We're not going back to the past. We're not going back where we came from. We're going to move forward. We're going to make America better than it's ever been in the years to come. Let's do that together.

(APPLAUSE)

BASH: Andrew Yang?

YANG: If you've heard anything about me and my campaign, you've heard that someone is running for president who wants to give every American $1,000 a month. I know this may sound like a gimmick, but this is a deeply American idea, from Thomas Paine to Martin Luther King to today.

Let me tell you why we need to do it and how we pay for it. Why do we need to do it? We already automated away millions of manufacturing jobs, and chances are your job can be next. If you don't believe me, just ask an auto worker here in Detroit.

How do we pay for it? Raise your hand in the crowd if you've seen stores closing where you live. It is not just you. Amazon is closing 30 percent of America's stores and malls and paying zero in taxes while doing it. We need to do the opposite of much of what we're doing right now, and the opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math.

(APPLAUSE)

So let me share the math. A thousand dollars a month for every adult would be $461 million every month, right here in Detroit alone. The automation of our jobs is the central challenge facing us today. It is why Donald Trump is our president, and any politician not addressing it is failing the American people.

(APPLAUSE)

BASH: Senator Cory Booker?

BOOKER: Thank you, Dana.

Last week the president of the United States attacked an American city, calling it "a disgusting, rat-infested rodent mess."

(UNKNOWN): (inaudible) BOOKER: We need a nation that understands that this tired old language, the...

(UNKNOWN): (chanting) (ph)

LEMON: Stand by, Senator.

(UNKNOWN): (chanting) (ph)

BOOKER: I will stand by.

(UNKNOWN): (chanting) (ph)

LEMON: Please stand by.

(UNKNOWN): (chanting) (ph)

(APPLAUSE)

LEMON: Please, continue, Senator.

BOOKER: Thank you very much.

Donald Trump, from Charleston to Baltimore to even the border, is using the tired, old language of demagogues, of fear-mongers, of racists, to try to divide our country against itself. We know who Donald Trump is, but in this election, the question is who are we as a people?

We have serious problems in America. We have deep wounds and seriously deeply rooted challenges. We desperately need to heal as a nation and move forward. Because we know in this country that our fates are united, that we have a common destiny. The call of this election is the call to unite in common cause and common purpose. That's how we will beat Donald Trump. That's how I will beat Donald Trump. And as your president, that's how I will govern and move us forward together.

(APPLAUSE)

BASH: Senator Kamala Harris?

HARRIS: This is an inflection moment in the history of our country. I think we all know that. This is a moment in time that is requiring us each as individuals and collectively to look in a mirror and ask a question, that question being "Who are we?"

And I think most of us know that part of the answer to that question is we are better than this. So this then becomes a moment that we must fight for the best of who we are. And fight, of course, we will.

And this is not a new fight for us as Americans. We have always been prepared to fight for our ideals. We have always been a nation that fights for the best of who we are.

And I'll tell you, I come from fighters. My parents met when they were active in the civil rights movement. My sister, Maya, and I joke we grew up surrounded by a bunch of adults who spent full time marching and shouting about this thing called justice.

And I am prepared to march with you, to fight with you for the best of who we are and to successfully prosecute the case of four more years of Donald Trump, and against him.

(APPLAUSE)

BASH: Vice President Joe Biden.

BIDEN: Tonight, I think Democrats are expecting some engagement here. And I expect we'll get it.

I'm running for president to restore the soul of this country. You know, we have a president, as everybody has acknowledged here, every day is ripping at the social fabric of this country, but no one man has the capacity to rip that apart. It's too strong. We're too good.

Just look at this stage, made up of very diverse people from diverse backgrounds, went on to be mayors, senators, governors, congresswomen, members of the cabinet, and, yes, even a vice president.

Mr. President, this is America. And we are stronger and great because of this diversity, Mr. President, not in spite of it, Mr. President.

(APPLAUSE)

So, Mr. President, let's get something straight: We love it. We are not leaving it. We are here to stay. And we're certainly not going to leave it to you.

(APPLAUSE)

BASH: Thank you, Vice President Biden. I want to start the debate with one of the top priorities for Democratic voters, and that is health care.

Senator Harris, this week you released a new health care plan which would preserve private insurance and take 10 years to phase in. Vice President Biden's campaign calls your plan, quote, "a have-it-every- which-way approach" and says it's just part of a confusing pattern of equivocating about your health care stance. What do you say to that?

HARRIS: Well, they're probably confused because they've not read it. But the reality is that I have been spending time in this campaign listening to American families, listening to experts, listening to health care providers, and what I came away with is a very clear understanding that I needed to create a plan that was responsive to the needs of the American people, responsive to their needs understanding that insurance companies have been jacking up the prices for far too long, that American families have to be held down by deductibles and co-pays and premiums that can cause them bankruptcy.

I listened to the American families who said four years is just not enough to transition into this new plan, so I devised a plan where it's going to be 10 years of a transition.

I listened to American families who said I want an option that will be under your Medicare system that allows a private plan. So I designed a plan where, yes, responsive to the needs of American families, there will be a public plan, under my plan for Medicare, and a private plan, under my plan for Medicare.

Because the bottom line is this: We must agree that access to health care must be a right and not just a privilege of those who can afford it. And in America today, far too many people -- in fact, 30 million people -- are going without access to health care.

BASH: Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senator Harris. Vice President Biden, your response.

BIDEN: Well, my response is that the senator has had several plans so far. And any time someone tells you you're going to get something good in 10 years, you should wonder why it takes 10 years.

If you noticed, there is no talk about the fact that the plan in 10 years will cost $3 trillion. You will lose your employer-based insurance. And in fact, you know, this is the single most important issue facing the public. And to be very blunt and to be very straightforward, you can't beat President Trump with double-talk on this plan.

BASH: Your response, Senator Harris?

HARRIS: Absolutely. Unfortunately, Vice President Biden, you're just simply inaccurate in what you're describing. The reality is that our plan will bring health care to all Americans under a Medicare for All system.

Our plan will allow people to start signing up on the first day. Babies will be born into our plan, and right now, 4 million babies almost are born every day in America -- or every year in America. Under our plan, we will ensure that everyone has access to health care.

Your plan, by contrast, leaves out almost 10 million Americans. So I think that you should really think about what you're saying, but be reflective and understand that the people of America want access to health care and do not want cost to be their barrier to getting it.

BASH: Senator Harris, thank you. Vice President Biden, your response?

BIDEN: The plan, no matter how you cut it, costs $3 trillion when it is, in fact, employed, number one. Ten years from now, after two terms of the senator being president, after her time.

Secondly, it will require middle-class taxes to go up, not down. Thirdly, it will eliminate employer-based insurance. And fourthly, what happens in the meantime?

HARRIS: I'd like to respond. First of all, the cost of doing nothing is far too expensive. Second, we are now paying $3 trillion a year for health care in America. Over the next 10 years, it's probably going to be $6 trillion. We must act.

My plan is about immediately allowing people to sign up and get into coverage. Right now in America, we have seniors, who every day -- millions of seniors are going into the Medicare system and they are getting full coverage and the kind of coverage they need. All people should have access to health care. And costs should not be their barrier.

BASH: Thank you, Senator Harris.

Mayor de Blasio, let's bring you in here. What's your response?

DE BLASIO: Thank you. I don't know what the vice president and the senator are talking about. The folks I talk to about health insurance say that their health insurance isn't working for them.

There's tens of millions of Americans who don't even have health insurance, tens of millions more who have health insurance they can barely make work because of the co-pays, the deductibles, the premiums, the out-of-pocket expenses.

There's this mythology that somehow all of these folks are in love with their insurance in America. What I hear from union members and from hard-working, middle-class people is they wish they had better insurance and they're angry at private insurance companies that skim all the profits off the top and make it impossible for everyday people to get coverage like mental care...

BASH: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

DE BLASIO: ... dental care, the things that would be full coverage for all Americans.

BASH: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Vice President Biden, you just heard Mayor de Blasio. He said in the past that Democrats who wanted to keep the private insurance industry are defending a health care system that is not working. What's your response?

BIDEN: My response is, Obamacare is working. The way to build this and get to it immediately is to build on Obamacare. Go back and do -- take back all the things that Trump took away, provide a public option, meaning every single person in America would be able to buy into that option if they didn't like their employer plan, or if they're on Medicaid, they'd automatically be in the plan.

It would take place immediately. It would move quickly. And it would insure the vast, vast, vast majority of Americans.

In the meantime, what happens? Did anybody tell you how much their plans cost? My plan costs $750 billion. That's what it costs. Not $30 trillion. BASH: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Senator Gillibrand, you support

Medicare for All. How do you feel about Senator Harris continuing to call her health proposal Medicare for All, when it includes a far more significant role for private insurance than the bill you co-sponsored?

GILLIBRAND: I think for the viewers in the audience right now, they're at risk of losing the forest through the trees, because the truth is, health care in America should be a right.

When I was a young mother and had Theo as an infant, he had an allergic reaction to eggs and his whole body turned red and puffy. I had to rush him to the emergency room. My heart is palpitating because I'm worried that his throat will close. I am not worried about not having an insurance card or a credit card in my wallet. I know whatever they're going to prescribe, whether it's an EpiPen or an inhaler, I can afford it.

The truth about health care in America today is people can't afford it. They cannot afford -- and the insurance companies for these plans that rely on insurance companies, I'm sorry, they're for-profit companies. They have an obligation to their shareholders. They pay their CEO millions of dollars. They have to have quarterly profits.

They have fat in the system that's real and it should be going to health care. So let's not lose the forest for the trees.

And last, let's not forget what the Republicans are doing, because the truth is, the Republicans and Trump, their whole goal is to take away your health care.

BASH: Thank you.

GILLIBRAND: To make it harder for you to afford it, even if you have pre-existing conditions.

BASH: Thank you, Senator Gillibrand. Senator Harris, your response?

(APPLAUSE)

HARRIS: In response to Senator Biden about the Affordable Care Act, it is important that you understand that our Medicare for All plan has actually by the architect of the Obama Affordable Care Act been described as one of the most effective ways to bring health care to all. Kathleen Sebelius has endorsed our plan as being something that will get us to where we need to go.

In terms of the point that Senator Gillibrand is raising, I couldn't agree more. Senator Biden, your plan will keep and allow insurance companies to remain with status quo, doing business as usual, and that's going to be about jacking up co-pays, jacking up deductibles...

BASH: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: It will still be the situation that people going to an emergency room...

BASH: Thank you, Senator Harris. Vice President Biden, your response?

HARRIS: ... have to come out $5,000.

BIDEN: My plan makes a limit of co-pay to be $1,000, because we further support the -- the ability to buy into the Obamacare plan.

Secondly, the idea that this is somehow a bad idea, no one has to keep their private insurance, but they - if they like their insurance, they should be able to keep it. Nothing is demanded in my plan that there be private insurance.

It says, if the 160 million who have it say they like their employer insurance, they should have a right to have it. If they don't, they can buy into the Biden plan, which is Obamacare with -

BASH: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you. Senator Booker, let me bring you in here. You say you support Medicare for All. You also say you are not going to pull private health insurance from more than 150 million Americans in exchange for a government plan, but that's what Medicare for All would do.

So how do you square that?

BOOKER: Well, first of all, let me just say, that the person that's enjoying this debate most right now is Donald Trump, as we pit Democrats against each other, while he is working right now to take away Americans' healthcare. There is a court case working through the system that's going to gut the Affordable Care Act and actually gut protections on preexisting conditions.

And so, I was raised by two civil rights parents who told me, always keep your eyes on the prize. And that is that in the United States of America, every Democrat should stand with the belief that everyone should have access to healthcare, that it's a human right. And how we get there, it has to be to end this broken system, because we are on our way, just a handful of years of literally spending 20 percent of our economy, one out of every $5 spent on healthcare.

And we spend more than every other nation, on everything from MRIs to insulin drugs, multiple mores than other countries - multiple more than other countries. And so, do you want to know what I'm going to do? I'm going to work to get us to a point where Medicare for All - where everyone is covered.

But this pitting against progressives against moderates, saying one is unrealistic and the other doesn't care enough, that to me is dividing our party and demoralizing us in face of the real enemy here. And I'm -

BASH: Thank you, Senator.

(APPLAUSE)

BOOKER: - going to keep fighting for that.

BASH: Congressman Gabbard, what's your response? GABBARD: The reality is right now, we don't have a healthcare system. We have a sick care system, and there are far too many people in this country who are sick and unable to get the care that they need because they cannot afford it. So the core of this problem is the fact that big insurance companies and big pharmaceutical companies who've been profiting off the backs of sick people have had a seat at the table, writing this legislation.

Now, Kamala Harris just talked about Kathleen Sebelius who helped write her bill. This just pointed to the fatal flaw in her proposal. Sebelius works for Medicare Advantage, a private insurance company who will stand to profit under her plan. If we're seeking to really reform our healthcare system, we've got to shut out big insurance and big pharma out of the drafting process so they cannot continue to profit off the backs of the sick people in this country who are searching and in desperate need of care.

BASH: Senior Harris, your response?

(APPLAUSE)

HARRIS: Well, unfortunately, Representative Gabbard got it wrong. Kathleen Sebelius did not write my plan; she endorsed it as being one of the plans that is the best to get us to a place where everyone is going to have access to healthcare in America. And when we talk about this again, I'm going to back to Vice President Biden, because your plan does not cover everyone in America.

By your staffs and your own definition, 10 million people - as many as 10 million people will not have access to healthcare. And in 2019 in America, for a Democrat to be running for president with a plan that does not cover everyone, I think is without excuse. Our plan covers everyone -

BASH: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: - and gives people choice

BASH: Thank you, Senator. Vice President Biden, your response?

BIDEN: My plan does - will cover everyone, number one. Number two, the fact is that my plan also calls for controlling drug prices. The biopharma is now where things are going to go. It's no longer chemicals. It's about all these breakthroughs that we have, with the whole (ph) - excuse me, immune system.

And what we have to do now is we have to have a form that sits in HHS and says, as you develop a drug, you got to come to us and decide what you can sell it for. We will set the price. And secondly, it says that you cannot raise that price beyond the cost of inflation from this point on.

TAPPER: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. I want to bring in Senator Bennet. Last night, on this stage, one of your democratic rivals suggested that running on Medicare for All would get Donald Trump reelected. BENNET: I agree that it makes it much more likely. Unlike others on this stage, I've been crystal clear of where I've been for a decade, through two tough races in Colorado. I believe we should finish the job we started with the Affordable Care Act with a public option that gives everybody in this audience the chance to pick for their family, whether they want private insurance or public insurance.

It requires the drug companies to be negotiated with by Medicare and it provides competition. That is totally different from the plan that Senator Warren and Senator Sanders and Senator Harris have proposed, which would make illegal employer based health insurance in this country and massively raise taxes on the middle class to the tune of $30 trillion.

As Joe Biden said, we don't need to do that. It doesn't make sense for us to take away insurance from half the people in this room and -- and put huge taxes on almost everybody in this room when we pass a public option, trust the American people to make the right decision, and have universal healthcare in this country in two years, not 10 years.

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator. Secretary Castro, I want to bring you in ...

HARRIS: I -- I need to respond.

TAPPER: Your response. I'll come to you right after Secretary Castro. Secretary Castro.

CASTRO: Well, I know that this is something very personal for all Americans. You know I grew up with a grandmother that had diabetes and I watched as her condition got worse and worse. That whole time she had Medicare.

I want to strengthen Medicare for the people who are on it and then expand it to anybody who wants it. I also believe thought that if somebody has a private health insurance plan that is strong that they want to hold on to that they should be able to do that.

What I don't believe is that the profit motive of big pharma or big insurance companies should ever determine, in our great nation, whether somebody gets healthcare or not.

TAPPER: Thank you, Secretary Castro. Senator Harris, Senator Bennet had suggested that you support banning employer based health insurance. Is that true?

HARRIS: Well first of all, with all due respect to my friend, Michael Bennet, my plan does not offer anything that is illegal. What it does is it separates the employer from healthcare, meaning that where you work will not be a -- where -- the kind of healthcare you get will not be a function of where you work.

I have me met so many Americans who stick to a job that they do not like, where they are not prospering simply because they need the healthcare that that employer provides. It's time that we separate employers from the kind of healthcare people get and under my plan; we do that as it relates to the insurance and the pharmaceutical companies ....

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: Who will not be called in and who will not be taken to task by Senator Biden or Senator Bennet's plan ...

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: We will do that.

TAPPER: Senator Bennet, I want to bring you back.

BENNET: Senator Harris is my friend as well, but I have to say if we can't admit -- if we can't admit tonight what's in the plan, which is banning employer based insurance, we're not going to be able to admit that when Donald Trump is accusing democrats of doing that as well.

We need to be honest about what's in this plan. It bans employer based insurance and taxes the middle class to the tune of $30 trillion. Do you know how much that is? That is 70 percent of what the government will collect in taxes over the next 10 years.

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.

BENNET: We don't need to do that.

(CROSSTALK)

We can have a public option to have universal healthcare in this country.

TAPPER: I do want to bring in Senator Harris because he just suggested you were not being honest.

HARRIS: He -- we cannot keep with the republican talking points on this. You got to stop. The reality is that - what -- under my Medicare for All plan, yes, employers are not going to be able to dictate the kind of healthcare that their employees get. They will be able to make that decision.

Private insurance companies and private carriers, if they comply by our rules and play by our rules, will be able to offer those employees healthcare coverage under a private Medicare plan or they can have the option of a public Medicare plan. But it is misleading to suggest that employees want what their employer is offering only. They want choice and my plan gives that to them.

TAPPER: Thank. Thank you, Senator. Governor Inslee, I want to bring you in. You recently signed a public option into law, which allows Washington State residents to purchase a state backed plan if they want to.

But this may only save families in Washington State as little as 5 percent off premiums. Is 5 percent really the kind of relief that the American people need?

INSLEE: No, we need universal coverage. And I'm proud of our state that has done less squabbling and actually getting things done. And I am proud that we are the first state to offer a publically sanctioned offer of healthcare to our citizens.

I'm also proud that we didn't stop there. We're also the first state that has taken care of our elders, our seniors. We have a looming retirement wave coming up. I'm proud that our state -- our state has made them eligible to retire in dignity.

I'm also proud of this and I think we need to talk more about this as democrats, it is time to give people adequate mental healthcare in this country. And we are -- we are ...

(APPLAUSE)

We are having -- we've had some success in integrating mental health with physical health. There's no reason we should distinguish between your physiological and your mental health.

And the last thing we're doing, I think it's very instructive for the nation. We know we're being eaten alive by pharmaceutical costs.

We have had one of, if not the most innovative way to drive down pharmaceuticals for life-saving medications in the United States. That's a record of Washington state I'd like to take to Washington, D.C.

TAPPER: Thank you. Thank you, Governor Inslee.

Mr. Yang, I want to bring you in. You support a Medicare for All system. How do you respond to Governor Inslee?

YANG: Well, I just want to share a story. When I told my wife I was running for president, you know the first question she asked me? What are we going to do about our health care?

That's a true story, and it's not just us. Democrats are talking about health care in the wrong way. As someone who's run a business, I can tell you flat out our current health care system makes it harder to hire, it makes it harder to treat people well and give them benefits and treat them as full-time employees, it makes it harder to switch jobs, as Senator Harris just said, and it's certainly a lot harder to start a business.

If we say, look, we're going to get health care off the backs of businesses and families, then watch American entrepreneurship recover and bloom. That's the argument we should be making to the American people.

(APPLAUSE)

TAPPER: Thank you, Mr. Yang.

Mayor de Blasio? DE BLASIO: Yeah, I don't understand why Democrats on this stage are fearmongering about universal health care. It makes no sense. Ask the American people, they are sick of what the pharmaceutical companies are doing to them. Ask them what they feel about the health insurance companies. They feel it's holding back their families because they can't get the coverage they need. They get a lot of noes. They don't get a lot of help from health insurance companies.

Why are we not going to be the party that does something bold, that says we don't need to be dependent on private insurance? We can have a system that actually covers everyone. You know what? Donald Trump won this state of Michigan by saying he was going to disrupt the status quo. How about we be the party that's going to disrupt the status quo for working people?

TAPPER: Thank you. Mr. Mayor, just a 15-second point of clarification. Who are you talking about? Who's fearmongering?

DE BLASIO: Certainly, with all due respect to Senator Bennet, what he's saying is absolutely inaccurate about taxes. Americans right now are paying so much money for their health care, ask people about the reality of premiums, deductibles, co-pays, out-of-pocket expenses.

TAPPER: Thank you.

DE BLASIO: That's worse than any tax, and people are paying that right now.

TAPPER: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Senator Bennet?

BENNET: This -- this is -- this has nothing to do with Republican talking points or the pharmaceutical industry. This has to do with having faith in the American people that they can make the right decisions for their families and they can choose a public option.

Bernie Sanders, who said last night he wrote the damn bill, and he did, just like I wrote the damn public option bill, is the guy who says it will cost $32 trillion and that we're going to have to raise those taxes to pay for it. He says that. Republicans don't say it. Don't try to district from the truth.

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator Bennet.

BENNET: You can't hide from the truth.

TAPPER: I want to let Mayor de Blasio -- and then I'm going to come to you, Vice President Biden.

BENNET: We need to be for universal health care.

DE BLASIO: Senator, if we as Democrats say we're done with private insurance, has only hurt the American people in so many ways, we're going to give them something that works for their family's full coverage that they can depend on. If we say that, then there's an election. The American people get to decide.

The ultimate choice, Senator, is an election, and this should be the party that stands for universal health care and says we're not going to accept anything less. Right now, in America, so many people don't have the health care they need. That is a fact. Tens of millions of people, including middle class people.

TAPPER: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

DE BLASIO: Give them a chance to make that decision through an election.

TAPPER: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Vice President Biden, your response, sir?

BIDEN: This is not a Republican talking point. The Republicans are trying to kill Obamacare. Obamacare took care of 20 million people right off the bat, 100 million people with pre-existing conditions. And in fact, what we got is a public option that, in fact, would allow anybody to buy in.

No one has to keep their private insurance. They can buy into this plan. And they can buy into it with $1,000 deductible and never have to pay more than 8.5 percent of their income when they do it. And if they don't have any money, they'll get in free. So this idea is a bunch of malarkey, what we're talking about here.

(APPLAUSE)

The fact of the matter is -- the fact of the matter is that there will be a deductible. It will be a deductible on their paycheck. Bernie acknowledges it. Bernie acknowledges it. Thirty trillion dollars has to ultimately be paid. And I don't know what math you do in New York, I don't know what math you do in California, but I tell ya, that's a lot of money, and there will be a deductible. The deductible will be out of your paycheck, because that's what will be required.

TAPPER: Senator Harris, I want to bring you in here. Your response?

(APPLAUSE)

HARRIS: Yeah, let's talk about math. Let's talk about math. Let's talk about the fact that the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies last year alone profited $72 billion, and that is on the backs of American families.

And under your plan, status quo, you do nothing to hold the insurance companies to task for what they have been doing to American families. In America today, diabetes patients, one in four cannot afford their insulin. In America today...

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: ... for those people who have overdosed from an opioid, there is a syringe that costs $4,000 that will save their life. TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: It is immoral. It is untenable.

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: And it must change with Medicare for All.

TAPPER: Your time is up, Senator. Vice President Biden, your response?

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: Real quick. I have the only plan that limits the ability of insurance companies to charge unreasonable prices, flat out, number one.

Number two, we should put some of these insurance executives who totally oppose my plan in jail for of the $9 billion opioids they sell out there.

(APPLAUSE)

They are misrepresenting to the American people what needs to be done.

And, lastly, here's the deal. The deal is, let's figure out how this works. We immediately are able to cover everybody who wants to get off of their insurance plan they don't like, no matter what one it is, and buy into a Medicare option. And they can buy the gold plan, and they're not going to have to pay -- anyway...

LEMON: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you.

Let's move now to immigration, please. Secretary Castro, you think it should no longer be a crime to cross the U.S. border illegally. President Obama's homeland security secretary, Jeh Johnson, whom you served with, says that is a public declaration that the border is, quote, "effectively open to all." How is he wrong?

CASTRO: Thank you for that question. You know, if you elect me president, you're not electing me to follow. You're electing me to lead. And open borders is a right-wing talking point, and frankly I'm disappointed that some folks, including some folks on this stage, have taken the bait.

The only way that we're going to guarantee that we don't have family separations in this country again is to repeal Section 1325 of the Immigration Nationality Act. That is the law that this president, this administration is using to incarcerate migrant parents and then physically separate them from their children.

My immigration plan would also make sure that we put undocumented immigrants who haven't committed a serious crime on a pathway to citizenship, that we do a 21st century Marshall Plan with Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, so that we can get to the root of this challenge so people can find safety and opportunity at home instead of having to come to the United States. That's how we can be smarter, more effective, and more humane when it comes to immigration policy.

LEMON: Thank you, Secretary Castro.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Bennet, what's your response?

BENNET: I disagree that we should decriminalize our border. This is personal for me. My mom is an immigrant, and she was separated from her parents during the Holocaust in Poland.

And for those reasons, I was part of the Gang of Eight that wrote -- I wrote the immigration bill in 2013 with John McCain that passed the Senate with 68 votes, that gave a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people that are here, that would pass the most progressive DREAM Act that had ever been conceived, much less passed on the floor of the Senate, and had $46 billion of border security. Every single Democrat voted for that bill...

LEMON: Senator...

BENNET: ... and a lot of Republicans. That should be our position.

LEMON: Thank you. Thank you, Senator.

BENNET: That is our position as Democrats.

LEMON: Senator Harris, you have indicated that you don't think it should be a criminal offense punishable by jail to cross the U.S. border illegally. How do you respond to Senator Bennet?

HARRIS: Well, again, with all due respect, you know, I -- after the last debate, for example, I went to a place in Florida called Homestead, and there is a private detention facility being paid for by your taxpayer dollars, a private detention facility that currently houses 2,700 children.

And by the way, there were members of us -- Julian was there, members of Congress, they would not let us enter the place, members of the United States Congress. So I walked down the road, I climbed a ladder, and I looked over the fence. And I'm going to tell you what I saw. I saw children lined up single file based on gender being walked into barracks. The policies of this administration have been facilitated by laws on the books...

LEMON: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: ... that allow them to be incarcerated as though they've committed crimes.

LEMON: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: These children have not committed crimes...

LEMON: Thank you, Senator Harris.

HARRIS: ... and should be not treated like criminals.

(APPLAUSE)

LEMON: Senator Bennet, what's your response?

(APPLAUSE)

BENNET: I think this is one in the end that we agree with. There's not a single person on this stage if we were president would ever separate a child from their parents at the border. And that is what this...

(APPLAUSE)

That is what this administration has done in the American people's name. They have turned our border into a symbol of nativist hostility. The symbol of this country before Donald Trump was president was the Statue of Liberty. That should be the symbol of the United States of America, not Donald Trump's words.

LEMON: Thank you, Senator Bennet.

Senator Gillibrand, I want to bring you in. What's your response?

GILLIBRAND: So I think when you talk about whether this should be a crime, you have to remember who we're talking about. When I was at the Texas border, I visited with women who had fled violence. A woman from El Salvador owned a small business, gangs came to her and said if you don't give us all your money, we're going to kill your family. That's why she fled.

Another woman was raped. That's why she fled.

So this is who we're talking about -- and they're not criminals. So I believe that we should have a civil violation. No president before President Trump enforced the law in the way he has enforced it. Because he's using it as the crutch to lock up women and children, to separate mothers and babies, to put them behind bars.

So I don't think we should have a law on the books that can be so misused. It should be a civil violation and we should make sure that we treat people humanely.

LEMON: Thank you, Senator.

(APPLAUSE)

Vice President Biden, in the first two years of the Obama administration, nearly 800,000 immigrants were deported, far more than during President Trump's first two years. Would the higher deportation rates resume if you were president?

BIDEN: Absolutely not, number one. Number two, everything landed on the president's desk but locusts. I found that Julian -- excuse me -- the secretary, we sat together in many meetings. I never heard him talk about any of this when he was the secretary. (UNKNOWN): Three million (ph) (inaudible)

LEMON: Please be respectful. Please be respectful in the crowd.

(UNKNOWN): Three million (ph) (inaudible)

LEMON: Please continue, Mr. Vice President.

(UNKNOWN): Three million (ph) (inaudible)

BIDEN: The fact is -- the fact is...

(UNKNOWN): Three million (ph) (inaudible)

BIDEN: I don't know if you can hear. I can hear. But anyway...

LEMON: We can hear fine, Mr. Vice President.

BIDEN: OK.

(LAUGHTER)

LEMON: Please continue, if you will.

BIDEN: The fact is what the senator from New York talked about is seeking asylum. That woman, the women she spoke to are entitled to asylum. That is not crossing the border illegally. What we should do is flood the zone to make sure we have people to make those decisions quickly.

With regard to -- with regard to the secretary's point, I already proposed and passed...

(APPLAUSE)

... $750 million for Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, to be able to change the circumstance why people fled in the first place.

In addition to that, we're in a circumstance where if in fact you say you can just cross the border, what do you say to all those people around the world who in fact want the same thing to come to the United States and make their case, that they don't -- that they have to wait in line. The fact of the matter is, you should be able to -- if you cross the border illegally, you should be able to be sent back. It's a crime. It's a crime, and it's not one that in fact...

LEMON: Thank -- thank you, Mr. Vice President. Secretary Castro, please, your response?

(APPLAUSE)

CASTRO: Yeah, first of all, Mr. Vice President, it looks like one of us has learned the lessons of the past and one of us hasn't.

(APPLAUSE) Let me begin by telling you -- let me just start out by answering that question. My immigration plan would also fix the broken legal immigration system, because we do have a problem with that.

BIDEN: I agree.

CASTRO: Secondly, the only way that we're going to guarantee that these kinds of family separations don't happen in the future is that we need to repeal this law. There's still going to be consequences if somebody crosses the border. It's a civil action. Also, we have 654 miles of fencing. We have thousands of personnel at the border. We have planes; we have boats; we have helicopters; we have security cameras...

LEMON: Secretary Castro, thank you.

CASTRO: What we need are politicians that actually...

LEMON: Your time is up.

CASTRO: ... have some guts on this issue.

LEMON: Thank you, Secretary.

(APPLAUSE)

Mr. Vice President, please, your response?

BIDEN: I have guts enough to say his plan doesn't make sense. Here's the deal. The fact of the matter is that, in fact, when people cross the border illegally, it is illegal to do it unless they're seeking asylum. People should have to get in line. That's the problem. And the only reason this particular part of the law is being abused is because of Donald Trump. We should defeat Donald Trump and end this practice.

(APPLAUSE)

LEMON: Thank you. Congresswoman Gabbard, what's your response?

GABBARD: Our hearts break when we see those children at these detention facilities who've been separated from their parents, when we see human beings crowded into cages in abhorrent, inhumane conditions. This is about leadership and understanding that we can and should have both secure borders as well as humane immigration policies.

We will have to stop separating children from their parents, make it so that it's easier for people to seek asylum in this country, make sure that we are securing our borders and making it so that people are able to use our legal immigration system by reforming those laws.

LEMON: Mr. Yang, your response?

(APPLAUSE)

YANG: I'm the son of immigrants myself. My father immigrated here as a graduate student and generated over 65 U.S. patents for G.E. and IBM. I think that's a pretty good deal for the United States. That's the immigration story we need to be telling.

We can't always be focusing on some of the -- the -- the distressed stories. And if you go to a factory here in Michigan, you will not find wall-to-wall immigrants; you will find wall-to-wall robots and machines. Immigrants are being scapegoated for issues they have nothing to do with in our economy.

(APPLAUSE)

YANG: Immigrants are being scapegoated for issues they have nothing to do with in our economy.

(APPLAUSE)

LEMON: Thank you, Mr. Yang. Senator Booker you have a plan that would, quote, "virtually eliminate immigration detention." Does that mean that the roughly 55,000 migrants currently in detention would be released into the United States?

BOOKER: Well, first of all, I just want to say, again, tonight, we are playing into Republican hands who have a very different view, and they're trying to divide us against each other. I'm listening to the language of my colleagues. No, Mr. Vice President, we are not going to just let people cross the border. An unlawful crossing is an unlawful crossing, if you do it in the civil courts, or if you do in the criminal courts.

But the criminal courts is what is giving Donald Trump the ability to truly violate the human rights of people coming to our country, who no one surrenders their human rights. And so, doing it through the civil courts means that you won't need these awful detention facilities that I have been to; seeing children sleeping on pavement, people being put in cages, nursing mothers, small children.

This is not necessary. We have seen, using the civil system, piloted programs that have 100 percent compliance with the civil courts, where people are evaluated. If they have no justifiable reason to be here, they are returned. If they are, like the people I met in Juarez, who were survivors of sexual assault, who we wouldn't even let come and present for asylum. We are butchering our values -

LEMON: Senator -

BOOKER: - and making ourselves less safe.

LEMON: Senator Booker, thank you very much. Mr. Vice President, your response?

BIDEN: I agree with the Senator. The asylum process is a real process, and this president is ruining it. It has nothing to do with that section of law. That's what he's doing, number one. Number two, we should in fact - and we had proposed and we tried to get passed in our administration, I proposed, significantly increasing the number of legal immigrants who are able to come. This country can tolerate a heck of a lot more people. And the reason we're the country we are is we've been able to cherry pick from the best of every culture. Immigrants built this country. That's why we're so special. It took courage. It took resilience. It took absolutely confidence for them to come. And we should be encouraging these people.

LEMON: Thank you.

BIDEN: And by the way, anybody that crosses the stage with a - with a - with a PhD, you should get a green card for seven years. We should keep them here.

LEMON: Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. Governor Inslee, what's your response?

INSLEE: I think we're missing two central statements we need to make. Number one, we can no longer allow a white nationalist to be in the White House, number one.

(APPLAUSE)

And number two - number two, we have to make America what it's always been, a place of refuge. We got to boost the number of people we accept. I'm proud of being the first governor saying send us your Syrian refugees. I'm proud to have been the first governor to stand up against Donald Trump's Muslim ban. I'm proud to have sued him 21 times and beat him 21 times in a row. I'm ready for November 2020.

(APPLAUSE)

LEMON: Go ahead. Mayor de Blasio, please your response?

DE BLASIO: Two points. One, it's all kind of charade because there's 11 million people here, and everyone, in theory, has broken the law, but they're part of our communities now. They're part of our economy. They're our neighbors. Why are we even discussing on one level whether it's a civil penalty or a criminal penalty, when it's an American reality?

And what we need is comprehensive immigration, once and for all, to fix it. Second, Vice President Biden, I didn't hear your response when the issue came up of all those deportations. You were vice president of the United States. I didn't hear whether you tried to stop them or not, using your power, your influence in the White House. Do you think it was a good idea, or do you think it was something that needed to be stopped?

LEMON: Mr. Vice President -

BIDEN: The president came along, and he's the guy that came up with the idea the first time ever, dealing with the dreamers. He put that in the law. He had talked about a comprehensive plan which he put on the - laid before the Congress, saying that we should find a pathway to citizenship for people. He said we should up the number of people that we're able to bring in to this country. Lastly, he also pointed out that we should go to the source of the problem and fix it where people were leaving in the first place. So he did - to compare him to Donald Trump, I think is absolutely bizarre.

LEMON: Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. Congresswoman Gabbard, you are a co-sponsor of the College for All Act which would make public colleges and universities free for all Americans. One of the authors of that plan, Senator Sanders, believes college should be tuition-free for undocumented immigrants as well. Do you?

GABBARD: I don't. I think it's important for us to fix our legal immigration system and look at the millions of undocumented immigrants in this country who have been suffering as they've been living in the shadows.

And instead of putting a band-aid on this problem, fix our legal immigration system to provide them with that pathway to legal residency or citizenships, that they are no longer treated as second- class citizens in this country. We've got to look at the challenge that people all across the country are facing, under crushing student debt.

This is something that is impacting my generation in a huge way and I believe that it is our generation that has the bold, creative solutions to be able to solve it. This is about promise for our future and we've got to make those kinds of investments.

LEMON: Thank you, Congresswoman. Mayor de Blasio, what's your response?

DE BLASIO: Yes, I -- I agree with the congress member but I don't hear an answer from the vice president. I'm confused. I asked the vice president point blank, did he use his power to stop those deportations. He went right around the question.

Mr. Vice President, you want to be president of the United States, you need to be able to answer the tough questions. I guarantee you if you're debating Donald Trump he's not going to let you off the hook. So did you say those deportations were a good idea or did you go to the president and say this is a mistake, we shouldn't do it. Which one?

BIDEN: I was vice president. I am not the president. I keep my recommendation to him in private. Unlike you I can expect you would go ahead and say whatever was said privately with him. That is not what I do.

What I do say to you is he moved to fundamentally change the system. That's what he did. That's who did. But much more has to be done. Much more has to be done.

DE BLASIO: I still don't hear an answer.

LEMON: Senator Booker, please respond. BOOKER: Well, a couple of things. First of all, Mr. Vice President, you can't have it both ways. You invoke President Obama more than anybody in this campaign. You can't do it when it's convenient and then dodge it when it's not.

And the second thing that this really urkes (ph) me because I heard the vice president say that if you got a PhD., you can come right into this country. Well that's playing into what the republicans want, to pit some immigrants against other immigrants.

From are from shithole countries and some are from worthy countries. We need to reform this whole immigration system and begin to be the country that says everyone has worth and dignity and this should be a country that honors for everyone.

(APPLAUSE)

Don't let the republicans divide this party against itself.

LEMON: Senator, thank you. Mr. Vice President, your response.

BIDEN: The fact is that's what I said about this country. We are a country of immigrants. All of us. All of us. Some here came against their will; others came because they in fact thought they could fundamentally change their lives. And they did.

(Inaudible) that's what we're talking about. That's what made us great. And the fact of the matter is, I think the president of the United States, Barack Obama, went out of his way to try to change the system and he got pushed back significantly.

LEMON: Senator Gillibrand, what's your response?

GILLIBRAND: Again, President Trump, under his administration seven children died in his custody. In -- under his administration families have been torn apart. This party is talking about real ideas for the future. We're talking about what we will do to change America.

But we must not forget about our values. We used to believe in this country you should treat others the way you want to be treated. We used to believe in this country we should care about the least among us. Let's remind the American people who we are, why we are democrats, and why we're running for president.

LEMON: Senator Gillibrand, thank you very much. The debate will be right back right after this short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to the CNN Democratic presidential debate. We are live from Detroit.

I want to turn now to criminal justice. Mr. Vice President, Senator Booker called your new criminal justice reform plan, quote, "an inadequate solution to what is a raging crisis in our country," unquote. Why is Senator Booker wrong? BIDEN: Well, I don't -- I think he is wrong. I think we should work

together. He has a similar plan. I think that we should change the way we look at prisons.

Right now, we're in a situation where, when someone is convicted of a drug crime, they end up going to jail and to prison. They should be going to rehabilitation. They shouldn't be going to prison. When in prison, they should be learning to read and write and not just sit in there and learn how to be better criminals.

And when they get out of prison, they should be in a situation where they have access to everything they would have had before, including Pell grants for education, including making sure that they're able to have housing, public housing, including they have all the opportunities that were available to them because we want them to become better citizens.

That's the essence of what my plan, in detail, lays out. I'm happy to discuss it more in detail if the senator would want to. And so I -- you know, I look -- anyway, that's what I think my plan -- I know what my plan does, and I think it's not dissimilar to what the senator said we should be working together on getting things done.

TAPPER: Senator Booker, your response?

BOOKER: Well, my response is that this is a crisis in our country because we have treated issues of race and poverty, mental health and addiction with locking people up and not lifting them up.

And...

(APPLAUSE)

... Mr. Vice President has said that, since the 1970s, every major crime bill -- every crime bill, major and minor, has had his name on it. And, Sir, those are your words, not -- not mine. And this is one of those instances where the house was set on fire and you claimed responsibility for those laws. And you can't just now come out with a plan to put out that fire. We have got to have far more bold action on criminal justice reform, like having true...

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.

BOOKER: ... marijuana justice, which means that we legalize it on a federal level...

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator Booker.

BOOKER: ... and reinvest the profits in communities that have been...

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator Booker.

BOOKER: ... disproportionately targeted by marijuana enforcement.

TAPPER: Vice President Biden, I want to give you a chance to respond.

BIDEN: The fact is that the bills that the president -- that, excuse me, the future president here -- that...

(LAUGHTER)

... that the senator is talking about are bills that were passed years ago and they were passed overwhelming. Since 2007, I, for example, tried to get the crack-powder-cocaine totally -- disparity totally eliminated.

In 2007 you became mayor and you had a police department that was -- you went out and you hired Rudy Giuliani's guy; you -- and engaged in stop-and-frisk. You had 75 percent of those stops reviewed as illegal. You found yourself in a situation where three times as many African-American kids were caught in that chain and caught up. The Justice Department came after you for saying you were -- you were engaging in behavior that was inappropriate, and then in fact nothing happened, the entire time you were mayor.

TAPPER: Thank you. Senator Booker, you want to respond?

BOOKER: Well, first of all, I'm grateful that he endorsed my presidency already. But I'll tell you this, it's no secret that I inherited a criminal -- a police department with massive problems and decades-long challenges. But the head of the ACLU has already said -- the head of the New Jersey ACLU -- that I put forth national standard- setting accountability.

BIDEN: That's...

BOOKER: Mr. Vice President -- Mr. Vice President, I didn't interrupt you. Please show me that respect, sir.

BIDEN: I'm sorry (inaudible)

BOOKER: We have a system right now that's broken. And if you want to compare records -- and, frankly, I'm shocked that you do...

(LAUGHTER)

... I am happy to do that. Because all the problems that he is talking about, that he created, I actually led the bill that got passed into law that reverses the damage that your bills that you were, frankly -- to correct you, Mr. Vice President -- you were bragging, calling it the Biden crime bill, up until 2015.

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator. Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: Number one, the bill he talks about is a bill that in my -- our administration, we passed. We passed that bill that you added onto. That's the bill, in fact, you passed.

And the fact of the matter is, secondly, there was nothing done for the entire eight years he was mayor, there was nothing done to deal with the police department that was corrupt. Why did you announce on the first day a zero tolerance policy of stop and frisk and hire Rudy Giuliani's guy in 2007, when I was trying to get rid of the crack cocaine disparity? BOOKER: Mr. Vice President, there's a saying in my community, you're dipping into the Kool-Aid and you don't even know the flavor. You need to come to the city of Newark and see the reforms that we put in place. The New Jersey head of the ACLU has said that I embraced reforms not just in action, but in deeds.

Sir, you are trying to shift the view from what you created. There are people right now in prison for life for drug offenses because you stood up and used that "tough on crime" phony rhetoric that got a lot of people elected but destroyed communities like mine. This isn't about the past, sir. This is about the present right now. I believe in redemption.

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.

BOOKER: I'm happy you evolved.

TAPPER: I want to bring in Secretary...

BOOKER: But you've offered no redemption to the people in prison right now for life.

TAPPER: I want to bring in Secretary Castro. Your response, sir?

(APPLAUSE)

CASTRO: Yeah, I agree with Senator Booker -- I agree with Senator Booker that a lot of what Vice President helped author in '94 was a mistake. And he has flip-flopped on these things. And that's clear.

But let me say, when we talk about criminal justice reform, there are a lot of things that we can talk about -- sentencing reform, cash bail reform, investing in public defenders, diversion programs. I'm proud that I'm the only candidate that has put forward a police reform plan, because we have a police system that is broken and we need to fix it.

And whether it's the case of someone like Tamir Rice or Michael Brown or Eric Garner, where the Trump Justice Department just decided not to pursue challenges...

(APPLAUSE)

... we need to ensure we have a national use of force standard and that we end qualified immunity for police officers so that we can hold them accountable for using excessive force.

TAPPER: Thank you, Secretary Castro.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: I want to bring in -- I want to bring in Governor Inslee. Governor Inslee, your response?

INSLEE: Let me suggest that people come out to the state of Washington and see what criminal justice reform looks like, our effort to reduce racial disparity. I'm proud that I was the first governor to offer pardons to thousands

of people with drug crimes. Now we're vacating more, tens of thousands. We've eliminated the death penalty.

And importantly, we've done this: When people come out of the legal system and they've done their responsibility to the citizens, we need to make sure they can get a job. We have banned the box so that people can actually get a job when they come out.

(APPLAUSE)

And I've got to argue with my friend, Secretary Castro. We haven't just put forward a plan. We have adopted probably one of the best police accountability measures and trainer police officers and de- escalation techniques so we have less violence...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Secretary -- Secretary Castro, your response to Governor Inslee?

CASTRO: Well, that it's much more than that, because what we see -- and this was a good example, the other day, of the Department of Justice not going after Officer Pantaleo that -- Officer Pantaleo used a chokehold that was prohibited by NYPD. He did that for seven seconds. Eleven different times Eric Garner said that he couldn't breathe. He knew what he was doing, that he was killing Eric Garner, and yet he has not been brought to justice. That police officer should be off the street.

(APPLAUSE)

TAPPER: Mayor de Blasio? Mayor de Blasio, why is that police officer still on the force, the one who killed Eric Garner? Please respond.

DE BLASIO: Well, let me tell you. I know the Garner family. They've gone through extraordinary pain. They are waiting for justice and are going to get justice. There's finally going to be justice. I have confidence in that, in the next 30 days, in New York.

You know why? Because for the first time, we are not waiting on the federal Justice Department, which told the city of New York that we could not proceed because the Justice Department was pursuing their prosecution. And years went by, and a lot of the pain accrued.

And in the meantime, what I'm working on is making sure -- and I have for five years -- there will never be another tragedy, there will never be another Eric Garner, because we're changing fundamentally how we police.

TAPPER: Thank you, Mayor.

DE BLASIO: But there's one last point I have to say about the Justice Department. The vice president for two-and-a-half of those years, Mr. Vice President, tell us, what did you do to try and spur on the Justice Department to act in the Garner case? TAPPER: Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor de Blasio.

Vice President Biden, you can respond to that.

BIDEN: We did a lot. Number one, we made sure we reduced the federal prison population by 38,000 people, number one.

Number two, we, in fact, insisted that we change the rules that police engage in. They had to have -- we provided for body cameras. We made sure -- there were a lot of things that were changed in the process, but 38,000 people in the federal system were released under the system.

And so the fact is that there's a lot we've done. But here's the deal. The fact is that we're talking about things that occurred a long, long time ago. And now, all of a sudden, you know -- I find it fascinating. Everybody is talking about how terrible I am on these issues. Barack Obama knew exactly who I was. He had 10 lawyers do a background check on everything about me on civil rights and civil liberties, and he chose me, and he said it was the best decision he made. I'll take his judgment.

TAPPER: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

YANG: May I, please?

TAPPER: Mr. Yang, your response?

(APPLAUSE)

YANG: I speak for just about everyone watching when I say I would trust anyone on this stage much more than I would trust our current president on matters of criminal justice.

(APPLAUSE)

We cannot tear each other down. We have to focus on beating Donald Trump in 2020.

I want to share a story that a prison guard, a corrections officer in New Hampshire said to me. He said, we should pay people to stay out of jail, because we spend so much when they're behind bars. Right now, we think we're saving money, we just end up spending the money in much more dark and punitive ways. We should put money directly into people's hands, certainly when they come out of prison, but before they go into prison.

TAPPER: Thank you, Mr. Yang.

(APPLAUSE)

I want to bring in Senator Gillibrand. You heard earlier Mayor de Blasio respond to Secretary Castro on the question of why the police officer who killed Eric Garner is still on the NYPD. Was that response adequate? Please respond.

GILLIBRAND: No. He should be fired. He should be fired now.

(APPLAUSE)

I sat -- I sat down with Eric Garner's mother. And I can tell you, when you've lost your son, when he begged for breath, when you know because you have a video, when you know he said "I can't breathe" so many times, over and over again, when you know he used an illegal chokehold, that person should be fired. And as -- if I was -- if I was the mayor, I would fire him.

But as president, I would make sure that we had a full investigation, that the report would be made public. And if I wasn't satisfied, we would have a consent decree.

TAPPER: I want to bring in Senator Harris now.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Harris, you have also been quite critical of Vice President Biden's policies on race, specifically on the issues of busing in the 1970s, having benefitted from busing when you were a young child. Vice President Biden says that your current position on busing, you're opposed to federally mandated busing, that that position is the same as his position. Is he right?

HARRIS: That is simply false. And let's be very clear about this. When Vice President Biden was in the United States Senate, working with segregationists to oppose busing, which was the vehicle by which we would integrate America's public schools, had I been in the United States Senate at that time, I would have been completely on the other side of the aisle.

And let's be clear about this. Had those segregationists their way, I would not be a member of the United States Senate, Cory Booker would not be a member of the United States Senate, and Barack Obama would not have been in the position to nominate him to the title he now holds.

(APPLAUSE)

And so, on that issue, we could not be more apart, which is that the vice president has still failed to acknowledge that it was wrong to take the position that he took at that time.

Now, I would like to also talk about this conversation about Eric Garner, because I, too, met with his mother. And one of the things that we've got to be clear about is that this president of the United States, Donald Trump, while he has been in office, has quietly been allowing the United States Department of Justice to shut down consent decrees, to stop pattern and practice investigations.

On that case, we also know that the...

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: ... Civil Rights Division -- this is important. The Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice said charges should have been filed, but this United States Department of Justice usurped -- and I believe it is because that president did not want those charges to go forward. And they overrode a decision by the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice.

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: Under my administration, the Civil Rights Division...

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: ... will rein and there will be independent investigations.

TAPPER: Vice President Biden, Vice President Biden, I want to give you a chance to respond to what Senator Harris just said.

BIDEN: When Senator Harris was attorney general for eight years in the state of California, there were two of the most segregated school districts in the country, in Los Angeles and in San Francisco.

And she did not -- I didn't see a single solitary time she brought a case against them to desegregate them. Secondly, she also was in a situation where she had a police department when she was there that in fact was abusing people's right.

And the fact was that she in fact was told by her own people that her own staff that she should do something about and disclose to defense attorney's like me that you in fact have been -- the police officer did something that did not give you information of what (inaudible) your -- your client. She didn't do that. She never did it. And so what happened.

Along came a federal judge and said enough, enough. And he freed 1,000 of these people. If you doubt me, google 1,000 prisoners freed, Kamala Harris.

TAPPER: Thank you, Vice President Biden. Senator Harris, your response.

HARRIS: That is -- is simply not true. And as attorney general of California where I ran the second largest Department of Justice in the United States, second only to the United States Department of Justice, I am proud of the work we did.

Work that has received national recognition for what has been the important work of reforming a criminal justice system and cleaning up the consequences of the bills that you passed when you were in the United States Senate for decades.

It was the work of creating the -- one of the first in the nation initiatives around reentering former offenders and getting them jobs and counseling.

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: I did the work as attorney general of putting body cameras on special agents in the state of California.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: I want to bring in Congresswoman ....

HARRIS: And I'm proud of that work.

TAPPER: I want to bring in Congresswoman Gabbard. Congresswoman Gabbard, you took issue with Senator Harris confronting Vice President Biden at the last debate. You called it a quote, false accusation that Joe Biden is a racist. What's your response?

GABBARD: I want to bring the conversation back to the broken criminal justice system that is disproportionately negatively impacting black and brown people all across this country today. Now Senator Harris says she's proud of her record as a prosecutor and that she'll be a prosecutor president.

But I'm deeply concerned about this record. There are too many examples to cite but she put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.

(APPLAUSE)

She blocked evidence -- she blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row until the courts forced her to do so. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California.

(APPLAUSE)

And she fought to keep ...

TAPPER: Thank you, Congresswoman.

GABBARD: Bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way.

TAPPER: Thank you, Congresswoman. Senator Harris, your response?

(APPLAUSE)

HARRIS: As the elected attorney general of California, I did the work of significantly reforming the criminal justice system of a state of 40 million people, which became a national model for the work that needs to be done.

And I am proud of that work. And I am proud of making a decision to not just give fancy speeches or be in a legislative body and give speeches on the floor, but actually doing the work of being in the position to use the power that I had to reform a system that is badly in need of reform.

That is why we created initiatives that were about reentering former offenders and getting them counseling. TAPPER: Thank you.

HARRIS: It is why (ph) and because I know that criminal justice system is so broken ...

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: That I am an advocate for what we need to do to not only decriminalize, but legalize marijuana in the United States.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator. Your time is up. I want to -- I want to bring Congresswoman Gabbard back in. Your response, please (ph).

GABBARD: The bottom line is, Senator Harris, when you were in a position to make a difference and an impact in these people's lives, you did not. And worse yet, in the case of those who were on death row, innocent people, you actually blocked evidence from being revealed that would have freed them until you were forced to do so.

(APPLAUSE)

There is no excuse for that and the people who suffered under your reign as prosecutor owe -- you owe them an apology.

TAPPER: Senator Harris?

(APPLAUSE)

HARRIS: My entire career I have been opposed -- personally opposed to the death penalty and that has never changed. And I dare anybody who is in a position to make that decision, to face the people I have faced to say I will not seek the death penalty. That is my background, that is my work.

I am proud of it. I think you can judge people by when they are under fire and it's not about some fancy opinion on a stage but when they're in the position to actually make a decision, what do they do.

When I was in the position of having to decide whether or not to seek a death penalty on cases I prosecuted, I made a very difficult decision that was not popular to not seek the death penalty. History shows that and I am proud of those decisions.

LEMON: Senator Harris, thank you very much. Senator Bennet, a question for you. Why are you the best candidate to heal the racial divide that exists in this country today, which has been stoked by the president's racist rhetoric?

BENNET: Yes. First of all, the president's racist rhetoric should be enough grounds for everybody in this country to vote him out of office.

That one thing alone should be enough.

(APPLAUSE)

Second, Don, I want to answer your question by tagging on the conversation we were just having. This is the fourth debate that we have had and the second time that we have been debating what people did 50 years ago with busing...

(APPLAUSE)

... when our schools are as segregated today as they were 50 years ago.

(APPLAUSE)

We need a conversation about what's happening now. And when there's a group of kids in this country that don't get preschool through no fault of their own and another group does, equal is not equal. And we've got a group of K-12 schools that are good because families can spend a million bucks, and you've got the Detroit public schools that are as segregated as they were. Equal is not equal.

(APPLAUSE)

And let me tell you something else, Don. I believe you can draw a straight line from slavery through Jim Crow through the banking and the redlining to the mass incarceration that we were talking about on this stage a few minutes ago. But you know what other line I can draw? Eighty-eight percent of the people in our prisons dropped out of high school. Let's fix our school system and maybe we can fix the prison pipeline that we have.

(APPLAUSE)

LEMON: Thank you, Senator Bennet.

(APPLAUSE)

Governor Inslee, what's your response?

(APPLAUSE)

Governor Inslee, please respond.

INSLEE: You know, I approach this question with humility because I have not experienced what many Americans have. I've never been a black teenager pulled over in a white neighborhood. I've never been a woman talked over in a meeting. I've never been an LGBTQ member subject to a slur. And so I have believed I have an added responsibility, a double responsibility, to deal with racial disparity. And we've talked on the way we do it, including ending -- ending the school to prison pipeline in my state.

But I want to say this. And this is a common error that every single senator on this stage, as much as I respect them all -- they all have an enormous error which is going to prevent our party from making any progressive progress in the United States, and it is this. We are all going to work like the dickens to get more Democrats elected to the Senate, right? We are going to do that.

(APPLAUSE)

And I hope we're going to succeed. But if we get a majority in the U.S. Senate, because of the position of these senators, not a damn thing is going to get done. And I'll tell you why. With all their good intentions -- and I know they're very sincere and passionate and I respect them enormously -- but because they embraced this antediluvinal (sic) super-majority thing called the filibuster, Mitch McConnell is going to run the U.S. Senate even if we take a majority.

LEMON: Thank you.

INSLEE: We've got to get rid of the filibuster so we can govern the United States.

LEMON: Mister...

(APPLAUSE)

LEMON: Mr. Yang, why are you the best candidate to heal the racial divide in America -- your response?

YANG: I spent seven years running a non-profit that helped create thousands of jobs, including hundreds right here in Detroit, as well as Baltimore, Cleveland, New Orleans. And I saw that the racial disparities are much, much worse than I had ever imagined.

They're even worse still. A study just came out that projected the average African-American median net worth will be zero by 2053. So you have to ask yourself, how is that possible? It's possible because we're in the midst of the greatest economic transformation in our history. Artificial intelligence is coming. It's going to displace hundreds of thousands of call center workers, truck drivers -- the most common job in 29 states, including this one.

And you know who suffers most in a natural disaster? It's people of color, people who have lower levels of capital and education and resources. So what are we going to do about it? We should just go back to the writings of Martin Luther King, who in 1967, his book "Chaos or Community", said "We need a guaranteed minimum income in the United States of America." That is the most effective way for us to address racial inequality in a genuine way and give every American a chance in the 21st Century economy.

(APPLAUSE)

LEMON: Mr. Yang, thank you very much.

Secretary Castro, after the president's racist tweets attacking Baltimore and Congressman Elijah Cummings, the mayor of Baltimore slammed the tweets and said to the president -- and I quote here -- "Help us. Send the resources that we need to rebuild America."

So what would you do for Baltimore and other cities that need help?

CASTRO: First of all, the president is a racist, and that was just one more example of it.

(APPLAUSE)

We know that, whether it's Baltimore or cities like Detroit, they have -- they're tremendously rich in history and culture and also in possibility. Here's what I would do if I'm president. Number one, I would invest in tremendous educational opportunity; invest in universal pre-K for three and four-year-olds; invest in improving K-12 education and also making higher education available to everyone through tuition-free public state universities, community colleges and job training and certification programs. I would follow-up on the work that I did at HUD. We passed the most sweeping rule to further desegregate our communities in the United States.

This Trump administration set that back. I would put that back in order. I would also invest in housing that is affordable, because folks know that the rent is going through the roof. And we need to make sure that you don't have to get out of West Baltimore, or Inner City Detroit, or the west side of San Antonio, or anywhere, if you want to reach your American dream. I want you to be able to accomplish it in your great neighborhood where you are.

LEMON: Thank you, Secretary Castro. Senator Gillibrand, what's your response?

GILLIBRAND: So I don't believe that it's the responsibility of Cory and Kamala to be the only voice that takes on these issues of institutional racism, systemic racism in our country. I think as a white woman of privilege, who is a U.S. senator, running for president of the United States, it is also my responsibility to lift up those voices that aren't being listened to.

And I can talk to those white women in the suburbs that voted for Trump and explain to them what white privilege actually is, that when their son is walking down a street with a bag of M&Ms in his pocket, wearing a hoodie, his whiteness is what protects him from not being shot.

(APPLAUSE)

When his - when her - when their child has a car that breaks down, and he knocks on someone's door for help, and the door opens, and the help is given, it's his whiteness that protects him from being shot. That is what white privilege in America is today. And so, my responsibility's to only lift up those stories, but explain to communities across America, like I did in Youngstown, Ohio, to a young mother, that this is all of our responsibilities, and that together we can make our community stronger.

BASH: Thank you, Senator Gillibrand.

(APPLAUSE)

Let's now turn to the issue of the climate crisis. The United Nations says the world needs to cut all carbon emissions by 2050 or risk facing disastrous consequences. Governor Inslee, many of your fellow democratic candidates say that climate change is the biggest existential threat facing the country. You, though, are calling it the number one priority in your campaign. What do you know that the others don't?

INSLEE: Well, I know the firsthand terrific impact of climate change on Americans across the country already. The family who I saw, with their aluminum home now, just a pile of molten aluminum, they lost everything in the paradise of fires; the non-profit in Davenport that was washed away in the floods. We have to act now.

Look, climate change is not a singular issue, it is all the issue that we Democrats care about. It is health. It is national security. It is our economy. And we know this; middle ground solutions, like the vice president has proposed, or sort of middling average-sized things, are not going to save us.

Too little, too late is too dangerous. And we have to have a bold plan, and mine has been called the "gold standard." Now, we also need to embed environmental justice. I was in zip code 48217 in the Detroit neighborhood the other day, right next to an oil refinery, where the kids have asthma and they have cancer clusters. And after talking to these folks, I believe this -

BASH: Thank you -

INSLEE: I believe this; it doesn't matter what your zip code is -

BASH: Thank you, Governor.

INSLEE: - it doesn't matter what your color is, you ought to have clear -

BASH: Thank you, Governor.

INSLEE: - air and clear water in America. That's what I believe.

BASH: Vice President Biden, I'd like to get you to respond.

(APPLAUSE)

Governor Inslee just said that your plan is middling.

BIDEN: There is no middle ground about my plan. The fact of the matter is I call for the immediate action to be taken. First of all, one of the things that - we're responsible for 15 percent of all the pollution in the country. He's right about how it affects people and it affects neighborhoods, particularly poor neighborhoods

But here's the deal; in area, there's also another piece. Eighty-five percent of it is something I helped negotiate; and that is the Paris Climate Accord. I would immediately rejoin that Paris Accord. I would make sure that we up the ante which it calls for. I would be able to bring those leaders together who I know I - I convene (ph) them in the White House, like we did in nuclear summit, and I would raise the standard.

BASH: Thank you, Mr. Vice President

BIDEN: I also invested $400 billion -

BASH: Thank you, sir.

BIDEN: - in research for new alternatives to deal with climate change.

BASH: Mr. Yang, your response?

BIDEN: And that's bigger than any other person.

YANG: The important number in Vice President Biden's remarks just now is that he United States was only 15 percent of global emissions. We like to act as if we're 100 percent, but the truth is even if we were to curb our emissions dramatically, the earth is still going to get warmer.

And we can see it around it us this summer. The last four years have been the four warmest years in recorded history. This is going to be a tough truth, but we are too late. We are 10 years too late. We need to do everything we can to start moving the climate in the right direction, but we also need to start moving our people to higher ground.

And the best way to do that is to put economic resources into your hands so you can protect yourself and your families.

INSLEE: I was challenged by the vice president.

BASH: Thank you, Senator.

INSLEE: May I be heard on this for a moment?

BASH: Go ahead, Governor.

INSLEE: Thank you very much. Look, we have -- these deadlines are set by science. Mr. Vice President, your argument is not with me, it's with science. And unfortunately, your plan is just too late. The science tells us we have to get off coal in 10 years. Your plan does not do that. We have to have off of fossil fuels in our electrical grid in 15. Your plan simply does not do that.

I've heard you say that we need a realistic plan. Here's what I believe...

BIDEN: No, I didn't say that.

INSLEE: Here's what I believe. I believe that survival is realistic, and that's the kind of plan we need. And that's the kind I have.

BIDEN: My plan calls for 500,000 charging stations around the country so by 2030 we're all electric vehicles. My plan calls for making sure that we have $400 billion invested in technologies to learn how to contain what we're doing, creating 10 million new jobs. We will double offshore wind. We will end any subsidies for coal or

any other fossil fuel. But we have to also engage the world while we're doing it. We have to walk and chew gum at the same time.

(APPLAUSE)

BASH: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Just to clarify, would there be any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking, in a Biden administration?

BIDEN: No, we would -- we would work it out. We would make sure it's eliminated and no more subsidies for either one of those, either -- any fossil fuel.

INSLEE: We can't...

BASH: Thank you, sir.

INSLEE: We cannot work it out. We cannot work this out. The time is up. Our house is on fire. We have to stop using coal in 10 years, and we need a president to do it or it won't get done. Get off coal. Save this country and the planet. That's what I'm for.

BASH: Senator Harris, your response?

HARRIS: I mean, I have to agree with Governor Inslee. And I'm going to just paraphrase one of your great sayings, Governor, which is we currently have a president in the White House who obviously does not understand the science. He's been pushing science fiction instead of science fact. The guy thinks that wind turbines cause cancer, but what in fact they cause is jobs.

And the reality is that I would take any Democrat on this stage over the current president of the United States, who is rolling it back to our collective peril. We must have and adopt a Green New Deal. On day one as president...

BASH: Thank you.

HARRIS: ... I would re-enter us in the Paris agreement.

BASH: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: And put in place so we would be carbon neutral by 2030.

BASH: Thank you, Senator. I want to talk about that with Senator Gillibrand. You're a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, which includes the guarantee of a job with medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security for everyone in America. Explain how that's realistic.

GILLIBRAND: So the first thing that I'm going to do when I'm president is I'm going to Clorox the Oval Office.

(APPLAUSE) The second thing I'm going to do is I will reengage on global climate change. And I will not only sign the Paris global climate accords, but I will lead a worldwide conversation about the urgency of this crisis.

The greatest threat to humanity is global climate change. I visited a family in Iowa who -- water spewed into her home, Fran Parr, it tossed her refrigerator upend, all the furniture was broken, all the dishes were broken, and mud was everywhere. That is the impact of severe weather right now on families' lives.

And so the truth is, we need a robust solution. When John F. Kennedy said I want to put a man on the moon in the next 10 years, not because it's easy, but because it's hard, he knew it was going to be a measure of our innovation, our success, our ability to galvanize worldwide competition.

He wanted to have a space race with Russia. Why not have a green energy race with China? Why not have clean air and clean water for all Americans?

(APPLAUSE)

Why not rebuild our infrastructure? Why not actually invest in the green jobs? That's what the Green New Deal is about.

BASH: Thank you.

GILLIBRAND: Not only will I pass it, but I will put a price on carbon to make market forces help us.

(APPLAUSE)

BASH: Thank you, Senator. Congresswoman Gabbard, you are not a cosponsor of the Green New Deal. Please respond.

GABBARD: Well, first of all, this is personal. If you can imagine, I grew up in Hawaii, which is the most remote island chain in the world. So for us growing up there, protecting our environment was not a political issue, it's a way of life. It's part of our culture. It's part of who we are.

This is why, as a member of Congress, long before there was ever a Green New Deal, I introduced the most ambitious climate change legislation ever in Congress called the Off Fossil Fuels Act. That actually laid out an actionable plan to take us from where we are today to transition off of fossil fuels and invest in green renewable energy, invest in workforce training, invest in the kinds of infrastructure that we need to deal with the problems and the challenges that climate is posing to us today.

BASH: Thank you, Congresswoman.

Senator Booker, what's your response? Is the job guarantee in the Green New Deal realistic? BOOKER: I just want to take, first of all, a step back and say that I

agree wholeheartedly with Governor Inslee. It's one of the reasons why Greenpeace ranks me and him at the top of this entire field of the candidates on climate.

INSLEE: Second, Cory. Second, but close. You're just close.

(LAUGHTER)

BOOKER: I'm -- hey, hey. I want to say very clearly -- thank you, man. Thank you. I'll try harder.

Look, the reason why is because, first of all, this problem didn't start yesterday. Science didn't become a reality yesterday. This has been going on for years. There was another president that would not join an international accord. Then it was the Kyoto accords. I was mayor then.

And I stood up in national leadership joining with other mayors to say climate change is not a separate issue. It must be the issue and the lens with which we view every issue. Nobody should get applause for rejoining the Paris climate accords. That is kindergarten. We have to go to far advances and make sure that everything from our trade deals, everything from the billions of dollars we spend to foreign aid, everything must be sublimated to the challenge and the crisis that is existential, which is dealing with the climate threat.

And, yes, the majority of this problem is outside the United States, but the only way we're going to deal with this is if the United States leads.

BASH: Thank you. Thank you, Senator.

(APPLAUSE)

Mayor de Blasio, your administration has come under fire after hundreds of children living in New York City public housing tested positive for elevated levels of lead. As you know, we're not far from Flint, Michigan, where residents are still dealing with the consequences of having lead in their drinking water.

(APPLAUSE)

How can you assure the people of Flint and across the nation that you are the right person to handle such a problem?

DE BLASIO: We have a huge problem, and it's decades old in New York. But here's what we've done about it. We've declared the eradication of all lead, literally ending the notion of lead poisoning once and all as the goal of our administration, and we're doing something about it.

Lead poisoning has gone down 90 percent since 2005, and we're going to literally bring it down to zero, because we're going to go into every place, buildings, schools, public housing, and take out that lead, remediate that lead once and for all, and that needs to be done all over this country.

Now, the federal government used to not take any responsibility for our public housing. For decades they've been disinvesting in the public housing that was supposed to be a federal responsibility. That's part of why we have this lead crisis to begin with.

But I'll tell you what you do when you're actually in charge of something. I'm in charge of the largest city in this nation. You do not accept the status quo. You fix it. And so we are going into every one of those apartments to make sure those children and those families are safe, and then we are going to eradicate that lead once and for all. And there should be a federal mandate to do the same for Flint, for Detroit, for every place in this country.

BASH: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

DE BLASIO: It can be done.

BASH: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Secretary Castro, why are you the right candidate to solve this problem? Please respond.

CASTRO: Well, because people don't have to wonder what I would do; I've actually done it. I was secretary of housing and urban development when Flint had its water crisis. I went to Flint. We did what we could to help folks get water filters.

And then we didn't stop there. We improved the standard of how we deal with elevated blood lead levels in children. A lot of Americans don't know that this is still a major problem out there. I was back in Flint about six weeks ago, and I released a plan to invest $50 billion so that we remove lead as a major public health threat. We need to do it. We can do it. And I will do it if I'm president.

TAPPER: Thank you, Secretary Castro.

(UNKNOWN): May I get in on this?

TAPPER: Donald Trump won independents here in Michigan by 16 percentage points, which was critical to Donald Trump winning the state's 16 electoral votes. Now there is a big debate within the Democratic Party here and around the country about the best way the Democrats can win back Michigan.

Vice President Biden, last night on this stage, Senator Elizabeth Warren said, quote, "We're not going to solve the urgent problems that we face with small ideas and spinelessness. We're going to solve them by being the Democratic Party of big, structural change."

What do you say to progressives who worry that your proposals are not ambitious enough to energize the progressive wing of your party, which you will need to beat Donald Trump?

BIDEN: Because we did it. I was asked to manage an $87 billion plan that would be spent in a total of 18 months that revived this state and many others, because -- and it kept us out of a depression, with 0.2% of waste or fraud.

Secondly, I was part of the organization -- and within our administration -- that pushed bailing General Motors out, saving tens of thousands of jobs here in this state.

(APPLAUSE)

Number three, number three, I also was asked, as the mayor of Detroit can tell you, by the president of the United States to help Detroit get out of bankruptcy and get back on its feet. I spent better part of two years out here working to make sure that it did exactly that.

We invested significantly in this city when transportation, only -- anyway, the point is we've made significant investment in this state. I expect in this city -- I suspect that's why the mayor endorsed me.

TAPPER: Thank you, Vice President Biden. Senator Gillibrand, what's your response?

GILLIBRAND: To the people of Michigan, I know exactly how I'd beat President Trump. I've already done it. I took a bus tour to talk about Trump's broken promises here in Michigan. He promised no bad trade deals.

Not only did he not have bad trade deals, he started a trade war with China and he just signed on to another bad trade agreement with NAFTA 2.0, give away to drug companies in Mexico.

I took the bus to Michigan, to Ohio, and to Pennsylvania telling people that he has broken his promises to them. I lifted up their voices, I listened to their concerns and I offered real solutions. And I've done this before. My first House district I ran in was a two to one republican district. I won it twice and I haven't lost an election since.

TAPPER: Thank you.

GILLIBRAND: And I haven't lost an election since. So I can bring people together in red, purple, and blue areas. But more than that, I can get things done.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator Gillibrand. Mr. Yang, in poll after poll democratic voters are saying that having a nominee who can beat President Trump is more important to them than having a nominee who agrees with them on major issues. And right now, according to polls, they say the candidate who has the best chance of doing that, of beating President Trump is Vice President Biden. Why are they wrong?

YANG: Well, I'm building a coalition of disaffected Trump voters, independents, libertarians, and conservatives, as well as democrats and progressives. I believe I'm the candidate best suited to beat Donald Trump and as for how to win in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania, the problem is that so many people feel like the economy has left them behind. What we have to do is we have to say look, there's record high GDP in

stock market prices, you know what else they're at record high is? Suicides, drug overdoses, depression, anxiety. It's gotten so bad that American life expectancy had declined for the last three years.

And I like to talk about my wife who is at home with our two boys right now, one of whom is autistic. What is her work count at in today's economy. Zero and we know that's the opposite of the truth. We know that her work is amongst the most challenging and vital.

The way we win this election as we redefine economic progress to include all the things that matter to the people in Michigan and all of us like our own heath, our well being, our mental health, our clean air and clean water, how are kids are doing.

If we change the measurements for the 21st century economy to revolve around our own well being then we will win this election.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Thank you, Mr. Yang. Congresswoman Gabbard, your response?

(APPLAUSE)

GABBARD: Donald Trump won this election because far too many people in this country felt like they'd been left behind by both political parties, by self serving politicians on both sides who are more interested in partisan politics than they are in actually fighting for the people.

I'm speaking the truth to people all across this country about the fact that people in Flint, Michigan are still being left behind, still being poisoned by the water in their system because every single month we are spending $4 billion on a continuing war in Afghanistan, $4 billion every single month rather than ending that war, bringing our troops home, and using those precious resources into serving the needs of the people here in this country. People, communities ...

TAPPER: Thank you, Congresswoman.

GABBARD: That's the kind of leadership that I'll bring.

TAPPER: Thank you, Congresswoman. Senator Booker, your response.

BOOKER: I -- I'm grateful -- I'm grateful. Jake look, this is one of those times where we're not staring at the truth and calling it out. And -- and this is a case for the Democratic Party, the truth will set us free.

We lost the state of Michigan because everybody from republicans to Russians were targeting the suppression of African American voters.

(APPLAUSE)

We need to say that. If the African American vote in this state had been like it was four years earlier, we would have won the state of Michigan. We need to have a campaign that is ready for what's coming. And all out of salt especially on the most valuable voter group in our -- in fact, the highest performing voter group in our coalition, which is black women.

(APPLAUSE)

And so I will be a person that tries to fight against voter suppression and to activate and engage the kind of voters and coalitions who are going to win states like Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

TAPPER: Thank you. Senator Harris?

HARRIS: First of all, Donald Trump came in making a whole lot of promises to working people that he did not keep. He said he was going to help farmers. He said he was going to help auto workers.

Farmers are now looking at bankruptcy, soy beans rotting in bills. Auto workers we expect perhaps hundreds of thousands will be out of jobs by the end of the year. Jerome Powell just dropped the interest rates and he admitted why.

Because of this so called trade policy that this president has that has been nothing more than the Trump trade tax that has resulted in American families spending as much as $1.4 billion more on everything from shampoo to washing machines. He betrayed the American people, he betrayed American families, and he will lose this election because folks are clear ...

TAPPER: Thank you.

HARRIS: -- that he has done nothing except try to beat people down instead of lift people up. And that's what we want in the next president of the United States.

TAPPER: Thank you, Senator Harris.

(APPLAUSE)

The debate is back, right after this short break.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

We're back with the CNN Democratic presidential debate. We want to turn now to the economy.

Secretary Castro, this is for you. Wage growth is up. Stocks are rising. Unemployment is near historic lows, including for Latinos and African-Americans. You have all outlined plans, but you in particular, that could end up raising taxes. How can you guarantee that won't hurt the economy?

CASTRO: Well, first of all, there are a lot of Americans right now that are hurting. Just go and ask the folks that just received notice that they're getting laid off by General Motors, or ask the many folks who are sleeping on the streets in big cities and small towns across the United States, or ask fast food workers that I joined a couple of weeks ago that are working for minimum wage and can't provide for their families or pay the rent.

So the idea that America is doing just fine is wrong. Not only that, this president always likes to take credit, like he did this. We have now had about 105 straight months of positive job growth, the longest streak in American history.

Over 80 months of that was due to President Barack Obama. Thank you, Barack Obama. Thank you, Barack Obama.

(APPLAUSE)

So, you know, I believe that we need to invest in what will ensure that Americans can prosper in the years to come, making sure they have the knowledge and skills to compete in the 21st century economy, ensuring that they can afford the rent where they live and that they have health care so that they don't have to worry about going homeless because they can't afford a medical procedure.

BASH: Thank you, Secretary Castro.

I want to turn now to a question about trade and for Congresswoman Gabbard. Many saw the Trans-Pacific Partnership issue as something that would be a critical tool to deal with the rise of China. You were against it. How would you ensure that the United States is able to remain competitive against China on the world stage?

GABBARD: By pushing for fair trade, not trade deals that give away the sovereignty of the American people and our country, that give away American jobs, and that threaten our environment. These are the three main issues with that massive trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

I think the central one was the fact that it gave away our sovereignty to a panel of international corporations whose rulings would supersede any domestic law that we would pass, either a federal law or a state or a local law. This is extremely dangerous and goes against the very values that we have as a country.

What to speak of the fact that it would have a negative impact on domestic jobs and that it lacked clear protections for our environment. These are the things that we have to keep at the forefront as we look to enact fair trade deals with other countries to make sure that we continue to be a thriving part of our global economy.

(APPLAUSE)

BASH: So to be clear, Congresswoman, would you keep President Trump's tariffs on China in place?

GABBARD: I would not, because the approach that President Trump has taken has been extremely volatile without any clear strategic plan, and it has a ravaging and devastating effect on our domestic manufacturers, on our farmers, who are already struggling and now failing to see the light of day because of the plan that Trump has taken.

BASH: Vice President Biden, would you rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which, of course, President Trump withdrew from? Please respond.

BIDEN: I'd renegotiate. We make up 25 percent of the world's economy. In order -- either China is going to write the rules of the road for the 21st century on trade or we are. We have to join with the 40 percent of the world that we had with us, and this time make sure that there's no one sitting at that table doing the deal unless environmentalists are there and labor is there.

And to make sure we equip our workers first to compete by investing in them now, in the things that make them more competitive. That's what we have to do. Otherwise, they are going to write the rules of the road. We must have the rest of the world join us to keep them in check from abusing.

BASH: Thank you. Thank you. Vice President Biden, just to be clear, would you or would you not rejoin the TPP, yes or no?

BIDEN: I would not rejoin the TPP as it was initially put forward. I would insist that we renegotiate pieces of that with the Pacific nations that we had in South America and North America, so that we could bring them together to hold China accountable for the rules of us setting the rules of the road as to how trade should be conducted. Otherwise, they're going to do exactly what they're doing, fill the vacuum and run the -- and run the table.

BASH: Thank you, sir. Mayor de Blasio, you also oppose the deal. Please respond.

DE BLASIO: Yeah, and I just want to ask this question of all the candidates, but particularly of Vice President Biden. President Trump is trying to sell NAFTA 2.0. He's got a new name for it. It's just as dangerous as the old NAFTA. It's going to take away American jobs like the old NAFTA, like it did to Michigan. And we cannot have Democrats be party to a new NAFTA.

So, Vice President, I believe you're the only person on the stage who voted for the original NAFTA. Are you ready to say here and now that you will oppose a new NAFTA and that what you will believe in, which is a lot of us hope for, is trade treaties that empower organized labor across the boundaries of the world and give working people power again, not just multinational corporations.

BASH: Mr. Vice President?

BIDEN: Yes.

BASH: Your response? Your response, sir?

(LAUGHTER) BIDEN: Yes.

BASH: That's it?

BIDEN: No, he said, would I insist that labor be engaged?

(APPLAUSE)

The answer is yes.

DE BLASIO: I consider that a victory.

BIDEN: Well, I love your affection for me. You spend a lot of time with me.

(APPLAUSE)

DE BLASIO: You know what? We believe in redemption, Joe. We believe in redemption in this party.

BIDEN: Well, I tell you what, I hope you're part of it.

BASH: OK, I'm going to ask a question of Senator Bennet now. Senator, CNN reached out to Michigan Democratic primary voters for their most pressing question. Farris from Flint, Michigan, has this question: "Here in Detroit, our economy has seen firsthand how technology and automation can displace workers and create uncertainty around human job security. How would you balance these disruptions created by technology with the beneficial impact of technology on our economy?

BENNET: Dana, this goes to the last question you asked, as well, which is, how are we going to remain competitive? It's not just about trade, which we were talking about earlier. It's about whether we're going to invest in this country anymore.

Since 2001, we have cut $5 trillion worth of taxes. Almost all of that has gone to the wealthiest people in America. We have made the income inequality worse, not better, through the policies of the federal government. We've spent $5.6 trillion in the Middle East. That's $12 trillion or $13 trillion that from the point of view of driving the economy in Michigan, or anywhere else in America, we might as well just have lit that money on fire. We've got to stop doing that.

And we need to invest in America again. For the money that we've spent that I just described, we could have fixed every road and bridge in this country. We could have fixed every airport that needs to be fixed. We could have fixed not just Flint, but every water system in this country.

BASH: Thank you.

BENNET: We could have made Social Security solvent for my children.

BASH: Thank you, Senator. BENNET: But we did none of it because of self-serving politicians in Washington, D.C., who voted for deals that were good for them but not for Michigan or the American people.

BASH: Senator Bennet, thank you very much. Your time is up, sir.

(APPLAUSE)

BENNET: Thank you.

BASH: Mr. Yang, Mr. Yang, women on average earn 80 cents, about 80 cents for every dollar earned by men. Senator Harris wants to fine companies that don't close their gender pay gaps. As an entrepreneur, do you think a stiff fine will change how companies pay their female employees?

YANG: I have seen firsthand the inequities in the business world where women are concerned, particularly in start-ups and entrepreneurship. We have to do more at every step. And if you're a woman entrepreneur, the obstacles start not just at home, but then when you seek a mentor or an investor, often they don't look like you and they might not think your idea is the right one.

In order to give women a leg up, what we have to do is we have to think about women in every situation, including the ones who are in exploitive and abusive jobs and relationships around the country. I'm talking about the waitress who's getting harassed by her boss at the diner who might have a business idea, but right now is stuck where she is.

What we have to do is we have to give women the economic freedom to be able to improve their own situations and start businesses, and the best way to do this is by putting a dividend of $1,000 a month into their hands.

(APPLAUSE)

It would be a game-changer for women around the country, because we know that women do more of the unrecognized and uncompensated work in our society. It will not change unless we change it. And I say that's just what we do.

(APPLAUSE)

BASH: Senator Harris, your response?

HARRIS: I think that's support of my proposal, which is this. Since 1963, when we passed the Equal Pay Act, we have been talking about the fact women are not paid equally for equal work. Fast forward to the year of our lord 2019, and women are paid 80 cents on the dollar, black women 61 cents, Native American woman 58 cents, Latinas 53 cents.

I'm done with the conversation. So, yes, I am proposing in order to deal with this, one, I'm going to require corporations to post on their website whether they are paying women equally for equal work. Two, they will be fined for every 1 percent differential between what they're paying men and women, they will be fined 1 percent of their previous year's profit. That will get everybody's attention.

BASH: Thank you, Senator.

HARRIS: Time for action.

BASH: Senator Gillibrand, what's your response? Will fining companies help solve the problem?

GILLIBRAND: I think we have to have a broader conversation about whether we value women and whether we want to make sure women have every opportunity in the workplace.

And I want to address Vice President Biden directly. When the Senate was debating middle-class affordability for childcare, he wrote an op- ed. He voted against it, the only vote, but what he wrote in an op-ed was that he believed that women working outside the home would, quote, "create the deterioration of family." He also said that women who were working outside the home were, quote, "avoiding responsibility."

And I just need to understand as a woman who's worked my entire career as the primary wage earner, as the primary caregiver, in fact, the second -- my second son, Henry, is here, and I had him when I was a member of Congress.

So under Vice President Biden's analysis, am I serving in Congress resulting in the deterioration of the family, because I had access to quality affordable day care? I just want to know what he meant when he said that.

BIDEN: That was a long time ago, and here's what it was about. It would have given people making today $100,000 a year a tax break for childcare. I did not want that. I wanted the childcare to go to people making less than $100,000. And that's what it was about.

As a single father who in fact raised three children for five years by myself, I have some idea what it cost.

I support making sure that every single solitary person needing childcare get an $8,000 tax credit now. That would put 700,000 women back to work, increase the GDP by almost 8/10 of 1 percent. It's the right thing to do if we can give tax breaks to corporations for these things, why can't we do it this way?

GILLIBRAND: But Mr. Vice President, you didn't answer my question. What did you mean when you said when a woman works outside the home it's resulting in quote, the deterioration of family ...

BIDEN: No, what I ...

GILLIBRAND: And that we are voiding -- these are quotes. It was the title of the op-ed and that just causes concern for me because we know America's women are working. 4 out of 10 moms have to work. They're the primary or sole wagers. They actually have to put food on the table. 8 out of 10 moms are working today. Most women have to work to

provide for their kids. Many women want to be working to provide for their communities and to help people.

BASH: Thank you, Senator. Let the vice president respond now, thank you.

GILLIBRAND: So either you don't believe it today or what did you mean when you said it then?

BIDEN: The very beginning my deceased wife worked when we had children. My present wife has worked all the way through raising our children. The fact of the matter is the situation is one that I don't know what's happened.

I wrote the Violence against Women Act. Lilly Ledbetter. I was deeply involved in making sure the equal pay amendments. I was deeply involved on all these things. I came up with the it's on us proposal to see to it that women were treated more decently on college campuses.

You came to Syracuse University with me and said it was wonderful. I'm passionate about the concern making sure women are treated equally. I don't know what's happened except that you're now running for president.

(APPLAUSE)

GILLIBRAND: So I understand -- Mr. Vice President -- Mr. Vice President, I respect you deeply. I respect you deeply but those words are very specific. You said women working outside the home would lead to the deterioration of family.

My grandmother worked outside the home. My -- my mother worked outside the home. And -- and ....

BASH: Thank you, Senator GILLIBRAND.

(CROSSTALK)

I want to bring Senator Harris into this conversation.

GILLIBRAND: Either he no longer believes it -- I mean I just think he needs to ...

BIDEN: I never believed it.

BASH: Thank you. Senator Harris, please respond.

HARRIS: Well, I just -- listen, I mean talk about now running for president, you change your position on the Hyde Amendment, Vice President, where you mad a decision for years to withhold resources to poor women to have access to reproductive healthcare and including women who were the victims of rape and incest.

Do you now say that you have evolved and you regret that? Because you have only, since you've been running for president this time, said that you had -- you in some way would take that back or you didn't agree with the decision that you made over many, many years.

And this directly impacted so many women in our country and I personally prosecuted rape cases and child molestation cases; and the experience that those women have, those children have and that they would then be denied the resources ...

BASH: Thank you, Senator. Let the Vice President ...

HARRIS: I think is -- is unacceptable.

BIDEN: The fact is that the senator knows that that's not position. Everybody on this stage has been in the Congress and the Senate or House has voted for the Hyde Amendment at some point.

The Hyde Amendment in the past was available because there was other access for those kinds of services provided privately. But once I wrote the legislation, making sure that every single woman would in fact be (ph) have an opportunity to have healthcare paid for by the federal government, everyone that -- that could no longer stand.

I support a woman's right to choose. I support it's a constitutional right. I've supported it and I will continue to support it and I will, in fact, move as president to see to it that the Congress legislates that that is the laws as well.

BASH: Thank you -- thank you, Mr. Vice President. Governor Inslee, your response.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: Well why did it take you so long to change your position in the Hyde Amendment. Why did it take so long until you were running for president to change your position on the Hyde?

BIDEN: Because there was not full federal funding for all reproductive services prior to this point.

BASH: OK. Thank you. Governor Inslee, your response?

INSLEE: I -- I would suggest we need to broaden our discussion. I would suggest we need to think about a bigger scandal in America, which is that in professions and careers where women have been more than the majority, they have been almost always under paid.

And that is why this year I'm proud to be the governor who won the largest pay increase for our educators in the United States. And I believe that that is long, long overdue. I think it is true for nursing staff as well. And I'm glad that we've now passed in measures. And I'm glad that we've increased our union membership 10 percent ...

TAPPER: Thank you, Governor.

INSLEE: So unions can stand up for women as well. (CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Thank you, Governor Inslee. I want to turn to foreign policy, if we can. Senator Booker, there are about 14,000 U.S. services members in Afghanistan right now. If elected, will they still be in Afghanistan by the end of your first year in office?

BOOKER: Well, first of all, I want to say very clearly that I will not do foreign policy by tweet as Donald Trump seems to do all the time. A guy that literally tweets out that we're pulling our troops out before his generals even know about it is creating a dangerous situation for our troops in places like Afghanistan.

And so I will bring our troops home and I will bring them home as quickly as possible, but I will not set during a campaign an artificial deadline. I will make sure we do it, we do it expeditiously, we do it safely, to not create a vacuum that's ultimately going to destabilize the Middle East and perhaps create the environment for terrorism and for extremism to threaten our nation.

TAPPER: Congresswoman Gabbard, you're the only veteran on this stage. Please respond.

GABBARD: This is real in a way that's very difficult to convey in words. I was deployed to Iraq in 2005 during the height of the war where I served in a field medical unit where every single day I saw the high cost of war. Just this past week, two more of our soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.

My cousin is deployed to Afghanistan right now. Nearly 300 of our Hawaii National Guard soldiers are deployed to Afghanistan, 14,000 servicemembers are deployed there. This is not about arbitrary deadlines. This is about leadership, the leadership I will bring to do the right thing to bring our troops home, within the first year in office, because they shouldn't have been there this long.

For too long, we've had leaders who have been arbitrating foreign policy from ivory towers in Washington without any idea about the cost and the consequence, the toll that it takes on our servicemembers, on their families. We have to do the right thing, end these wasteful regime change wars, and bring our troops home.

(APPLAUSE)

TAPPER: Thank you. Thank you, Congresswoman.

Mr. Yang, Iran has now breached the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal after President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal, and that puts Iran closer to building a nuclear weapon, the ability to do so, at the very least. You've said if Iran violates the agreement, the U.S. would need to respond, quote, "very strongly." So how would a President Yang respond right now?

YANG: I would move to de-escalate tensions in Iran, because they're responding to the fact that we pulled out of this agreement. And it wasn't just us and Iran. There were many other world powers that were part of that multinational agreement. We'd have to try and reenter that agreement, renegotiate the timelines, because the timelines now don't make as much sense.

But I've signed a pledge to end the forever wars. Right now, our strength abroad reflects our strength at home. What's happened, really? We've fallen apart at home, so we elected Donald Trump, and now we have this erratic and unpredictable relationship with even our longstanding partners and allies.

What we have to do is we have to start investing those resources to solve the problems right here at home. We've spent trillions of dollars and lost thousands of American lives in conflicts that have had unclear benefits. We've been in a constant state of war for 18 years. This is not what the American people want. I would bring the troops home, I would de-escalate tensions with Iran, and I would start investing our resources in our own communities.

(APPLAUSE)

TAPPER: Governor Inslee, your response?

INSLEE: Well, I think that these are matters of great and often difficult judgment. And there is no sort of primer for presidents to read. We have to determine whether a potential president has adequate judgment in these decisions.

I was only one of two members on this panel today who were called to make a judgment about the Iraq war. I was a relatively new member of Congress, and I made the right judgment, because it was obvious to me that George Bush was fanning the flames of war.

Now we face similar situations where we recognize we have a president who would be willing to beat the drums of war. We need a president who can stand up against the drums of war and make rational decisions. That was the right vote, and I believe it.

TAPPER: Thank you. Thank you, Governor. Vice President Biden, he was obviously suggesting that you made the wrong decision and had bad judgment when you voted to go to war in Iraq as a U.S. senator.

BIDEN: I did make a bad judgment, trusting the president saying he was only doing this to get inspectors in and get the U.N. to agree to put inspectors in. From the moment "shock and awe" started, from that moment, I was opposed to the effort, and I was outspoken as much as anyone at all in the Congress and the administration.

Secondly, I was asked by the president in the first meeting we had on Iraq, he turned and said, Joe, get our combat troops out, in front of the entire national security team. One of the proudest moment of my life was to stand there in Al-Faw Palace and tell everyone that we're coming -- all our combat troops are coming home.

TAPPER: Thank you.

BIDEN: I opposed the surge in Afghanistan, this long overdue -- we should have not, in fact, gone into Afghanistan the way... (CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. I want to bring in...

INSLEE: Mr. Vice President -- I'd like to comment.

TAPPER: I would like to bring in the person on the stage who served in Iraq, Governor -- I'm sorry, Congresswoman Gabbard. Your response to what Vice President Biden just said.

GABBARD: We were all lied to. This is the betrayal. This is the betrayal to the American people, to me, to my fellow servicemembers. We were all lied to, told that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, was working with Al Qaida, and that this posed a threat to the American people.

So I enlisted after 9/11 to protect our country, to go after those who attacked us on that fateful day, who took the lives of thousands of Americans.

The problem is that this current president is continuing to betray us. We were supposed to be going after Al Qaida. But over years now, not only have we not gone after Al Qaida, who is stronger today than they were in 9/11, our president is supporting Al Qaida.

LEMON: Thank you, Congresswoman.

DE BLASIO: We didn't talk about Iran.

LEMON: Let's talk about -- thank you, please.

DE BLASIO: We didn't talk about Iran.

LEMON: Please.

DE BLASIO: We're on the march to war in Iran right now, and we blew by it.

LEMON: Please, Mayor. The rules -- please follow the rules.

DE BLASIO: I respect the rules, but we have to stop this march to war in Iran.

LEMON: Mayor, thank you very much. We're going on...

DE BLASIO: And the Democratic Party has to stand up for it.

LEMON: ... and we're going to talk about another subject. Mayor, thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Let's talk about now the former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's appearance in front of Congress last week. When asked whether or not the president could be charged with a crime after leaving office, his answer was yes.

Senator Harris, you have criticized President Trump for interfering with the Justice Department, and just last month you said if you were elected president, your Justice Department would, quote, "have no choice and should go forward with obstruction of justice charges against former President Trump." Why is it OK for you to advocate for the Justice Department to prosecute somebody, but President Trump, not him?

HARRIS: Well, I would never direct the Department of Justice to do whatever it believes it should do. But, listen, look, we all watched his testimony. I've read the report. There are 10 clear incidents of obstruction of justice by this president, and he needs to be held accountable. I have seen people go to prison for far less.

(APPLAUSE)

And the reality of it is that we have a person in the White House right now who has been shielded by a memo in the United States Department of Justice that says a sitting president cannot be indicted. I believe the American people are right to say there should be consequence and accountability for everyone and no one is above the law, including the president of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

LEMON: Senator Booker, your response?

BOOKER: My response is exactly that. I've read the report. I've read the redacted versions of the report. We have something that is astonishing going on in the United States of the America. We have a president that is not acting like the leader of the free world. He's acting like an authoritarian against the actual Constitution that he swore an oath to uphold.

And so this is a difference with a lot of us on this debate stage. I believe that we in the United States Congress should start impeachment proceedings immediately. And I'll tell you this...

(APPLAUSE)

Debbie Stabenow now has joined my call for starting impeachment proceedings, because he is now stonewalling Congress, not allowing -- subjecting himself to the checks and balances. We swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. The politics of this be dammed. When we look back in history at what happened when a president of the United States started acting more like an authoritarian leader than the leader of the free world, the question is, is what will we have done? And I believe the Congress should do its job.

LEMON: Senator Booker, thank you very much. Secretary Castro, what's your response?

CASTRO: Well, I agree. I was the first of the candidates to call on Congress to begin impeachment proceedings. There are 10 different incidents that Robert Mueller has pointed out where this president either obstructed justice or attempted to obstruct justice. And I believe that they should go forward with impeachment proceedings. As to the question of what my Department of Justice would do, I agree

with those who say that a president should not direct an attorney general specifically to prosecute or not prosecute. However, I believe that the evidence is plain and clear and that if it gets that far, that you're likely to see a prosecution of Donald Trump.

LEMON: Thank you, Secretary.

Mayor de Blasio, I'm going to bring you in. What's your response?

DE BLASIO: I think it's obvious at this point in our history that the president has committed the crimes worthy of impeachment. But I want to caution my fellow Democrats. While we move in every way we can for impeachment, we have to remember at the same time the American people are out there looking for us to do something for them in their lives. And what they see when they turn on the TV or go online is just talk about impeachment.

We need more talk about working people and their lives. For example, are we really ready -- and I ask people on this stage this question -- are we ready to make sure that the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes? That's something every American wants to know about. That's something they want answers to right now.

So, yeah, move for impeachment, but don't forget to do the people's business and to stand up for working people, because that's how we're actually going to beat Donald Trump. The best impeachment is beating him in the election of 2020.

(APPLAUSE)

LEMON: Mayor, thank you very much.

Senator Bennet, how do you respond to this conversation?

BENNET: I think, look, as we go forward here, we need to recognize a very practical reality, which is that we are four months -- we've got the August recess. Then we are four months away from the Iowa Caucuses. And I just want to make sure whatever we do doesn't end up with an acquittal by Mitch McConnell in the Senate, which it surely would. And then President Trump would be running saying that he had been acquitted by the United States Congress.

I believe we have a moral obligation to beat Donald Trump.

(APPLAUSE)

He has to be a single-term president. And we can't do anything that plays into our -- his hands. We were talking earlier about -- about climate up here. It's so important. Donald Trump should be the last climate denier that's ever in the White House.

LEMON: Senator Bennet, thank you very much. Secretary Castro, please respond.

BENNET: But we need to be smart about how we're running or we're going to give him a second term. We can't do it.

LEMON: Secretary, please, your turn.

CASTRO: Well, let me first say that I really do believe that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. All of us have a vision for the future of the country that we're articulating to the American people. We're going to continue to do that. We have an election coming up.

At the same time, Senator, you know, I think that too many folks in the Senate and in the Congress have been spooked by 1998. I believe that the times are different. And in fact, I think that folks are making a mistake by not pursuing impeachment. The Mueller Report clearly details that he deserves it.

And what's going to happen in the fall of next year, of 2020, if they don't impeach him, is he's going to say, "You see? You see? The Democrats didn't go after me on impeachment, and you know why? Because I didn't do anything wrong."

(APPLAUSE)

These folks that always investigate me, they're always trying to go after me. When it came down to it, they didn't go after me there because I didn't do anything wrong."

Conversely, if Mitch McConnell is the one that lets him off the hook, we're going to be able to say...

LEMON: Secretary...

CASTRO: "Well, sure, they impeached him in the House, but his friend, Mitch McConnell, Moscow Mitch, let him off the hook."

(APPLAUSE)

LEMON: Senator Bennet, please respond.

(APPLAUSE)

BENNET: I -- I don't disagree with that. You just said it better than I did. We have to walk and chew gum at the same time. It is incredibly unusual for members of Congress to be able to do that. And I'm glad that Secretary Castro has the ambition...

CASTRO: Well, my brother can. He's here tonight.

BENNET: Ah, that's what I was going to say. It's your brother that's given you that good feeling about the Congress.

(LAUGHTER)

That's what we should do.

LEMON: Thank you, Senator. Thank you, gentlemen.

The debate continues, right after this. (APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Welcome back to the CNN Democratic presidential debate. It is time now for closing statements. You will each receive one minute. Mayor de Blasio, let's begin with you.

DE BLASIO: Thank you. For the last three years, we've watched Donald Trump pit working people against each other, black versus white, citizen versus immigrant. And why? So that the wealthy and the powerful he represents can hold the American dream hostage from everyone else.

We can't let them get away with it. If we're going to beat Donald Trump, this has to be a party that stands for something. This has to be the party of labor unions. This has to be the party of universal healthcare. This has to be the party that's not afraid to say out loud we're going to tax the hell out of the wealthy.

And when we do that, Donald Trump right on cue will call us socialists. Well, here's what I'll say to him. Donald, you're the real socialist. The problem is, it's socialism for the rich. We, here in this country, we don't have to take that anymore. We can fight back.

If you agree that we can stand up to Donald Trump and we can stand up to the wealthy, then go to taxthehell.com and join us, so we can build a country that puts working people first.

TAPPER: Senator Bennet?

BENNET: Thank you. Thank you very much.

What I want to say to all of you tonight is, we have been here before as a country. We have faced challenges that we've -- we actually even forget some of us tonight how hard the people fought, how hard they worked, how hard they organized, the votes they had to take, the people they had to get to the polls to make this country more democratic, more fair, and more free.

And now we have a person in the White House who has no appreciation of that history, who doesn't believe in the rule of law, who doesn't believe in the independence of the judiciary, who doesn't believe that climate change is real.

I think that we have an incredible opportunity in front of us, all of us, to come together just as our parents and grandparents did before them, and face challenges even harder than the ones that we face, but the only way we're going to be able to do it is to put the divisive politics of Donald Trump behind us and the divisive politics of the last 10 years behind us.

We need to come together united against a broken Washington, make Donald Trump a one-term president, and begin to govern this country again for our kids and our grandkids who cannot do it for themselves. We have to do it for them.

Please join me at michaelbennet.com. Thanks for being here tonight.

(APPLAUSE)

TAPPER: Governor Inslee?

INSLEE: For decades, we have kicked the can down the road on climate change. And now under Donald Trump, we face a looming catastrophe. But it is not too late. We have one last chance. And when you have one chance in life, you take it.

Think about this: Literally the survival of humanity on this planet and civilization as we know it is in the hands of the next president. And we have to have a leader who will do what is necessary to save us. And that includes making this the top priority of the next presidency.

And I alone on this panel am making a commitment that this will be the organizing principle of my administration not the first day, but every day. And if you share my view of the urgency of this matter, I hope you'll join me, because we are up against powerful special fossil fuel interests. And it is time to stand up on our legs and confront the fossil fuel special interests. Because that is our salvation, what it depends upon.

So I hope you will consider going to jayinslee.com and joining this effort. And I will close with this: I am confident and optimistic tonight, even in the face of this difficulty, because I know we can build a clean energy economy, I know we can save our children and our grandchildren. I know that we can defeat climate change and we will defeat Donald Trump.

This is our moral responsibility. And we will fulfill it. Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

TAPPER: Senator Gillibrand?

GILLIBRAND: Donald trump has really torn apart the moral fabric of this country, dividing us on every racial line, every religious line, every socioeconomic line he can find.

I'm running for president because I want to help people, and I actually have the experience and the ability to do that. I've brought Congress together and actually made a difference in people's lives.

I also know how to beat Donald Trump. He has broken his promises to the American people. I've taken this fight directly to his backyard in Michigan and Ohio and in Pennsylvania, and I'll go to all the places in this country. I will fight for your family. It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter where you live, it doesn't matter who you love. Because that's my responsibility.

And I've done this before. I started out in a 2-to-1 Republican district. I won it twice. I've never lost an election since. And I not only bring people together electorally, but also legislatively. I get things done.

So we need a president who's not afraid of the big challenges, of the big fights. There is no false choice. We don't need a liberal or progressive with big ideas or we don't need a moderate who can win back Trump-Obama voters. You need someone who can do both. And that's who I am.

Please go to kirstengillibrand.com so I can make the next debate stage.

(APPLAUSE)

TAPPER: Congresswoman Gabbard?

GABBARD: Thank you.

Now, Donald Trump and warmongering politicians in Washington have failed us. They continue to escalate tensions with other nuclear- armed countries like Russia and China and North Korea, starting a new Cold War, pushing us closer and closer to the brink of nuclear catastrophe.

Now, as we stand here tonight, there are thousands of nuclear missiles pointed at us. And if we were to get an attack right here tonight, we would have 30 minutes, 30 minutes before we were hit. And you would receive an alert like the one we received in Hawaii last year that would say, "Incoming missile. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill."

And you would see as we did, as my loved ones in Hawaii did, there is no shelter. This is the warmonger's hoax. There is no shelter. It's all a lie.

As president, I will end this insanity, because it doesn't have to be this way. I will end these wasteful regime change wars, work to end this new Cold War through the use of diplomacy to de-escalate these tensions and take the trillions of dollars that we've been wasting on these wars and on these weapons and redirect those resources into serving the needs of our people right here at home, things like health care for all, making sure everyone in this country has clean water to drink and clean air to breathe, investing in education, investing in our infrastructure.

The needs are great. As your president, I will put your interests above all else.

(APPLAUSE)

TAPPER: Secretary Castro?

CASTRO: Well, first of all, let me say thank you to you, Jake, Dana, and to Don, and to everybody here and to those watching.

You know, this election is all about what kind of nation we're going to become. You and I, we stand on the shoulders of folks who have made beds and made sacrifices, people that fought in wars and fought discrimination, folks that picked crops and stood in picket lines, and they helped build the wonderful nation that we live in today.

Donald Trump has not been bashful in his cruelty. And I'm not going to be bashful in my common sense and compassion. I believe that we need leadership that understands that we need to move forward as one nation, with one destiny.

Our destiny in the years to come is to be the smartest, the healthiest, the fairest and the most prosperous nation on Earth.

CASTRO: If you want to help me build that America for the future, I hope you'll go to juliancastro.com. And on January 20th, 2021, we'll say together, "Adios to Donald Trump."

(APPLAUSE)

TAPPER: Mr. Yang?

YANG: You know what the talking heads couldn't stop talking about after the last debate? It's not the fact that I'm somehow number four on the stage in national polling. It was the fact that I wasn't wearing a tie. Instead of talking about automation and our future, including the fact that we automated away 4 million manufacturing jobs, hundreds of thousands right here in Michigan, we're up here with makeup on our faces and our rehearsed attack lines, playing roles in this reality TV show.

It's one reason why we elected a reality TV star as our president.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

We need to be laser-focused on solving the real challenges of today, like the fact that the most common jobs in America may not exist in a decade, or that most Americans cannot pay their bills. My flagship proposal, the freedom dividend, would put $1,000 a month into the hands of every American adult. It would be a game-changer for millions of American families.

If you care more about your family and your kids than my neckwear, enter your zip code at yang2020.com and see what $1,000 a month would mean to your community. I have done the math. It's not left; it's not right. It's forward. And that is how we're going to beat Donald Trump in 2020.

(APPLAUSE)

TAPPER: Senator Booker?

BOOKER: Thank you. First, I just want to give a lot of thanks to the city of Detroit. They're hosting us today, and one of the reasons I respect this city is because it has the kind of defiant love that I find in many American cities, including the city of Newark. And Detroit is turning around and Newark is turning around because we let no one divide us, no one demean or degrade us or underestimate or worth. We pulled together and fought for common purpose and common cause.

That's the history of this city. My mom is sitting there who was born in the city of Detroit, born to a guy...

(APPLAUSE)

... that was a UAW worker, my grandfather, who pulled his family out of poverty in the Depression. My grandmother joined him. She was really entrepreneurial, opened a pool hall and a laundromat right here in this city.

That is the American dream. And so many of us have stories like that. But the dream of this country is under threat right now. While, my mom's generation, 80 -- 95% of baby boomers did better than their parents. It's now just a coin toss for millennials. We have a real crisis in our country, and the crisis is Donald Trump, but not only Donald Trump.

I have a frustration that sometimes people are saying the only thing they want is to beat Donald Trump. Well, that is the floor and not the ceiling. The way we beat Donald Trump is not just focusing on him. He wants to take all the oxygen out of the room. It's when we start focusing on each other and understanding that our common bonds and our common purpose to address our common pain is what has saved us before. It's what's going to save us now. That is the kind of leader that I am going to be as president of the United States, not just uniting the Democratic Party but making sure that we put more "indivisible" back into this one nation under God.

And if you believe like I do, please go to corybooker.com and join the mission.

(APPLAUSE)

TAPPER: Senator Harris?

HARRIS: So in my background as attorney general of California, I took on the big banks who preyed on the homeowners, many of whom lost their homes and will never be able to buy another. I've taken on the for- profit colleges who preyed on students, put them out of business. I've preyed on transnational criminal organizations that have preyed on women and children.

And I will tell you, we have a predator living in the White House.

(APPLAUSE)

And I'm going to tell you something. Donald Trump has predatory nature and predatory instincts. And the thing about predators is this. By their very nature, they prey on people they perceive to be weak. They prey on people they perceive to be vulnerable. They prey on people who are in need of help, often desperate for help. And predators are cowards.

What we need is someone who is going to be on that debate stage with Donald Trump and defeat him by being able to prosecute the case against four more years. And let me tell you, we've got a long rap sheet. We're looking at someone who passed a tax bill benefiting the top 1 percent and the biggest corporations in this country when he said he would help working families. We've got a person who has put babies in cages and separated children from their parents. We have someone who passed a so-called trade policy that was trade policy by tweet and has resulted in a tax on American families.

So we must defeat him and then, in turning the page, write the next chapter for our country. And that has to be written in a way that recognizes what wakes people up at 3:00 in the morning. And that is my agenda, the 3:00 a.m. agenda that is focused on giving folks the jobs they need, getting their children the education they need, making sure they have the health care they need and the future they deserve.

So please join me at kamalaharris.org. And I thank you for your time.

(APPLAUSE)

TAPPER: Vice President Biden?

BIDEN: Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you, Mr. Mayor, for Detroit hosting this.

Look, I've said it many times, and I think everyone agrees with this. We're in a battle for the soul of America. This is the most consequential election anyone of you, no matter how old or young you are, has ever, ever participated in. Four more years of Donald Trump will go down as an aberration -- hard to overcome the damage he's done, but we can overcome it. Eight more years of Donald Trump will change America in a fundamental way. The America we know will no longer exist.

Everybody knows who Donald Trump is. We have to let him know who we are. We choose science over fiction. We choose hope over fear. We choose unity over division. And we choose -- we choose the idea that we can as Americans, when we act together, do anything. This is the United States of America. When we've acted together, we have never, never, never been unable to overcome whatever the problem was.

If you agree with me, go to joe30330 and help me in this fight. Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

BASH: Candidates, thank you so much. We appreciate it. And stay with CNN for special coverage of tonight's debate. Anderson Cooper and Chris Cuomo are coming up. That begins right now.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

LESTER HOLT:

Good evening, I'm Lester Holt, and welcome to night two of the first Democratic debate in the 2020 race of president.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:

Good evening, I'm Savannah Guthrie. Last night we heard from ten candidates and now 10 more take the stage.
HOLT:

And again tonight, we'll be joined in the questioning by our colleagues, Jose Diaz-Balart, Chuck Todd, and Rachel Maddow.
GUTHRIE:

The candidates are in position, so let's get started.
(APPLAUSE)
ANNOUNCER:

Tonight, round two, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet. Former Vice President Joe Biden. South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. California Senator Kamala Harris. Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. California Congressman Eric Swalwell. Author Marianne Williamson. And former tech executive Andrew Yang.
From NBC News, "Decision 2020," the Democratic candidates debate, live from the Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center in Miami, Florida.
(APPLAUSE)
HOLT:

And good evening. Once again, welcome to the candidates and our spirited audience here tonight in the Arsht Center and across America tonight. We continue the spirited debate about the future of the country, how to tackle our most pressing problems, and getting to the heart of the biggest issues in this Democratic primary.
GUTHRIE:

Tonight, we're going to talk about health care, immigration. We're also going to dive into the economy, jobs, climate change, as well.
JOSE DIAZ-BALART:

As the quick rules of the road, before we begin -- and they may sound familiar -- 20 candidates qualified for this first debate. As we said, we heard from 10 last night, and we'll hear from 10 more tonight. The breakdown for each night was selected at random. The candidates will have 60 seconds to answer, 30 seconds for any follow-ups.
HOLT:

And because of the large field of candidates, not every person is going to be able to weigh in on every topic, but over the course of the next two hours, we will hear from everyone.
GUTHRIE:

And we love our audience, but we'd like to ask them to keep their reactions to a minimum. And we're not going to hold back making sure the candidates stick to time. So, with that business taken care of, let's get to it. And we're going to start today with Senator Sanders. Good evening to you.
You've called for big, new government benefits, like universal health care and free college. In a recent interview, you said you suspected that Americans would be, quote, "delighted" to pay more taxes for things like that. My question to you is, will taxes go up for the middle class in a Sanders administration? And if so, how do you sell that to voters?
SANDERS:

Well, you're quite right. We have a new vision for America. And at a time when we have three people in this country owning more wealth than the bottom half of America, while 500,000 people are sleeping out on the streets today, we think it is time for change, real change.
And by that, I mean that health care in my view is a human right. And we have got to pass a Medicare for all, single-payer system.
(APPLAUSE)
Under that system, by the way, vast majority of the people in this country will be paying significantly less for health care than they are right now.
I believe that education is the future for this country. And that is why I believe that we must make public colleges and universities tuition-free and eliminate student debt. And we do that by placing a tax on Wall Street.
(APPLAUSE)
Every proposal that I have brought forth is fully paid for.
GUTHRIE:

Senator Sanders, I'll give you 10 seconds just to ask the -- answer the very direct question. Will you raise taxes for the middle class in a Sanders administration?
SANDERS:

People who have health care under Medicare for all will have no premiums, no deductibles, no copayments, no out-of-pocket expenses. Yes, they will pay more in taxes, but less in health care for what they get.
(APPLAUSE)
GUTHRIE:

Thank you, Senator.
GUTHRIE:

Senator Bennet, we're going to get to everybody, I promise.
BENNET:

No, I'd like to say something.
GUTHRIE:

But let me just -- Senator Biden -- promise everybody's going to get in here, promise. Vice President Biden, Senator Sanders, as you know, has been calling for a revolution. Recently in remarks to a group of wealthy donors, as you were speaking about problem of income inequality in this country, you said we shouldn't, quote, "demonize the rich." You said, "Nobody has to be punished. No one's standard of living would change. Nothing would fundamentally change." What did you mean by that?
BIDEN:

What I meant by that is, look, Donald Trump thinks Wall Street built America.
Ordinary, middle-class Americans built America. My dad used to have an expression. He said, Joe, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It's about your dignity. It's about respect. It's being able to look your kid in the eye and say everything is going to be OK.
Too many people who are at the middle class and poor have had the bottom fall out under this proposal. What I'm saying is that we've got to be straight-forward. We have to make sure we understand that to return dignity to the middle class, they have to have insurance that is covered and they can afford it. They have to make sure that we have a situation where there's continuing education and they're able to pay for it. And they have to make sure that they're able to breathe air that is clean and they have water that they can drink.
Look, Donald Trump has put us in a horrible situation. We do have enormous income inequality. And the one thing I agree on is we can make massive cuts in the $1.6 trillion in tax loopholes out there, and I would be going about eliminating Donald Trump's tax cut for the wealthy.
GUTHRIE:

Vice President Biden, thank you. Senator Harris... (APPLAUSE) There's is a lot of talk in this primary about new government benefits, such as student loan cancellation, free college, health care, and more. Do you think that Democrats have a responsibility to explain how they will pay for every proposal they make along those lines?
HARRIS:

Well, let me tell you something. I hear that question, but where was that question when the Republicans and Donald Trump passed a tax bill that benefits the top 1 percent and the biggest corporations in this country? (APPLAUSE) Contributing at least $1 trillion to the debt of America, which middle-class families will pay for one way or another.
Working families need support and need to be lifted up. And frankly, this economy is not working for working people. For too long, the rules have been written in the favor of the people who have the most and not in favor of the people who work the most, which I why I am proposing that we change the tax code, so for every family that is making less than $100,000 a year, they will receive a tax credit that they can collect up to $500 a month, which will make all the difference between those families being able to get through the end of the month with dignity and with support or not.
And on day one, I will repeal that tax bill that benefits the top 1 percent and the biggest corporations of America.
(APPLAUSE)
GUTHRIE:

Senator Harris, thank you.
Governor Hickenlooper, let me get you in on this. You've warned that Democrats will lose in 2020 if they "embrace socialism," as you put it. You were booed at the California Democratic convention when you said that. Only one candidate on this stage, Senator Sanders, identifies himself as a democratic socialist. What are the policies or positions of your opponents that you think are veering towards "socialism"?
HICKENLOOPER:

Well, I think that the bottom line is, if we don't clearly define that we are not socialists, the Republicans are going to come at us every way they can and call us socialists.
And if you look at the Green New Deal, which I admire the sense of urgency and how important it is to do climate change -- I'm a scientist -- but we can't promise every American a government job. If we want to get universal health care coverage, I believe that health care is a right and not a privilege, but you can't expect to eliminate private insurance for 180 million people, many of whom don't want to give it up.
In Colorado, we brought businesses and nonprofits together, and we got near universal health care coverage. We were the first state in America to bring the environmental community and the oil and gas industry to address -- aggressively address methane emissions. And we were also the first place to expand reproductive rights on a scale basis, and we reduced teen pregnancy by 54 percent.
We've done the big progressive things that people said couldn't be done. I've done what pretty much everyone else up here is still talking about doing.
GUTHRIE:

Governor, thank you.
Senator Sanders, I'll give you a chance to... (APPLAUSE) ... to weigh in here. What is your response to those who say nominating a "socialist" would re-elect Donald Trump?
SANDERS:

Well, I think the responses that the polls -- last poll I saw had us 10 points ahead of Donald Trump because the American people understand that Trump is a phony, that Trump is a pathological liar and a racist, and that he lied to the American people during his campaign.
He said he was going to stand up for working families. Well, President Trump, you're not standing up for working families when you try to throw 32 million people off their health care that they have and that 83 percent of your tax benefits go to the top 1 percent. That's how we beat Trump: We expose him for the fraud that he is.
(APPLAUSE)
GUTHRIE:

Senator Gillibrand, 30 seconds.
GILLIBRAND:

I disagree with both their perspectives. The debate we're having in our party right now is confusing, because the truth is there's a big difference between capitalism on the one hand and greed on the other. And so all the things that we're trying to change is when companies care more about profits when they do about people.
So if you're talking about ending gun violence, it's the greed of the NRA and the gun manufacturers that make any progress impossible. It's the greed of the insurance companies and the drug companies, when we want to try to get health care as a right and not a privilege.
GUTHRIE:

Senator Gillibrand...
GILLIBRAND:

So there need not be disagreement in the party because, in truth, we want healthy capitalism.
GUTHRIE:

Senator, thank you.
GILLIBRAND:

We don't want corrupted capitalism.
GUTHRIE:

Thank you. I want to be fair to all the candidates. Thank you. (APPLAUSE) Senator Bennet, you have said, quote, "It's possible to write policy proposals that have no basis in reality. You might as well call them candy. Were you referring to any candidate or proposal in particular when you said that?
BENNET:

Was that directed to me?
GUTHRIE:

Yes, that was your quote.
BENNET:

That sounded like me. Thank you.
(LAUGHTER)
GUTHRIE:

It was you.
BENNET:

I appreciate it. Well, look, first of all, I agree completely with Bernie about what the fundamental challenge we're facing as a country is, 40 years of no economic growth for 90 percent of the American people; 160,000 families in the top .1 percent have the same wealth as the bottom 90 percent; and we've got the worst income inequality that we've had in 100 years.
Where I disagree is on his solution of Medicare for all. You know, I -- I have proposed getting to universal health care, which we need to do. It is a right. Health care is a right. We need to get to universal health care. I believe the way to do that is by finishing the work we started with Obamacare and creating a public option that every family and every person in America can make a choice for their family about whether they want a public option, which for them would be like having Medicare for all, or whether they want to keep their private insurance.
I believe we will get there much more quickly if we do that.
GUTHRIE:

But wait...
BENNET:

Bernie... (CROSSTALK) Bernie -- if I could just finish, Bernie mentioned that -- the taxes that we would have to pay. Because of those taxes, Vermont rejected Medicare for all.
GUTHRIE:

Senator...
SANDERS:

Hold on.
GILLIBRAND:

In Bernie's bill -- in Bernie's bill, I wrote...
GUTHRIE:

Senator, please, we are going to talk about health care at length, Senator, but for the moment, my colleague...
(UNKNOWN):

Thank you very much.
GUTHRIE:

... wants to continue the questions on the economy.
GILLIBRAND:

I wrote the part in Senator Sanders' bill -- I wrote the part in Senator Sanders' bill that is the transition, which merges what the two senators said.
(UNKNOWN):

Senator...
GILLIBRAND:

Because the truth is, if you have a buy-in, over a four or five-year period, you move us to single-payer more quickly.
DIAZ-BALART:

Senator, we will get to this.
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS:

I just...
DIAZ-BALART:

Before we do, I want to say hello and good evening, Buenas Noches, to Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
BUTTIGIEG:

Buenas Noches. Gracias (UNTRANSLATED) (ph).
DIAZ-BALART:

(UNTRANSLATED) (ph). Many of your colleagues on stage support free college. You do not. Why not?
BUTTIGIEG:

Sure. So college affordability is personal for us. Chasten and I have six-figure student debt. I believe in reducing student debt. It's logical to me that, if you can refinance your house, you ought to be able to refinance your student debt. I also believe in free college for low and middle-income students for whom cost could be a barrier.
(APPLAUSE)
I just don't believe it makes sense to ask working-class families to subsidize even the children of billionaires. I think the children of the wealthiest Americans can pay at least a little bit of tuition. And while I want tuition costs to go down, I don't think we can buy down every last penny for them.
Now, there's something else that doesn't get talked about in the college affordability debate. Yes, it needs to be more affordable in this country to go to college. It also needs to be more affordable in this country to not go to college. You should be able to live well, afford rent, be generous... (APPLAUSE) ... to your church and Little League, whether you went to college or not.
(APPLAUSE)
YANG:

Jose, I've got $100,000 in student loan debt myself.
DIAZ-BALART:

Let me get to you in...
SWALWELL:

You can't count on the people who have been in government for the last 30 years, who were around when this problem was created, to be the ones to solve it. It's going to be the next generation, the 40 million of us who can't start a family, can't take a good idea and start a business and can't buy our first home. This is the generation that's going to be able to solve student loan debt. This generation is ready to lead.
DIAZ-BALART:

Mr. Yang, your -- your signature policy is to give every adult in the United States $1,000 a month, no questions asked.
YANG:

That's right.
DIAZ-BALART:

I think that's like $3.2 trillion a year. How would do you that?
YANG:

I'm sorry?
DIAZ-BALART:

How would you do that.
YANG:

Oh, so it's difficult to do if you have companies like Amazon, trillion-dollar tech companies, paying literally zero in taxes while they're closing 30 percent of our stores. Now, we need to put the American people in position to benefit from all these innovations in other parts of the economy. And if we had a value-added tax at even half the European level, it would generate over $800 billion in new revenue, which combined with the money in our hands, it would be the trickle-up economy, from our people, families and communities up. We would spend the money and it would circulate through our regional economies and neighborhoods, creating millions of jobs, making our families stronger and healthier. We'd save money on things like incarceration, homelessness services, emergency room health care, and just the value gains from having a stronger, healthier, mentally healthier population would increase GDP by $700 billion.
This is the move that we have to make, particularly as technology is now automating away millions of American jobs, it's why Donald Trump is our president today that we automated away 4 million manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and we are about to do the same thing to millions of retail jobs, call center jobs, fast food jobs, truck-driving jobs and other jobs through the economy.
DIAZ-BALART:

So, Mr. Yang, if I get to understand a little bit better, Sir, you are saying $1,000 a month for everyone over 18, but a value-added tax so you can spend that $1,000 on value-added tax?
YANG:

Well, the value-added tax would end up -- you still would be increasing the buying power of the bottom 94 percent of Americans. You have to spend a lot of money for a mild value-added tax to eat up $12,000 a year per individual. So for the average family with two or three adults, it would be $24-36,000 a year.
DIAZ-BALART:

OK. Congressman Swalwell, I want to talk a little bit about what Mr. Yang is talking about, and you just actually mentioned, that many Americans are worried about things like self-driving cars, robots, drones, artificial intelligence will cost them their jobs. What would you do to help people get the skills they need to adapt to this new world?
SWALWELL:

We must always be a county where technology creates more jobs than it displaces. And I have seen the anxiety across America where the manufacturing floors go from 1,000 to 100 to one. So we have to modernize our schools, value the teachers who prepare our kids, wipe the student debt from any teacher that goes into a community that needs it, invest in America's communities especially where places where the best exports are people who move away to get skills. But, Jose, I was 6 years old when a presidential candidate came to the California Democratic Convention and said it's time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans. That candidate was then-Senator Joe Biden. Joe Biden was right when he said it was time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans 32 years ago. He is still right today.
(APPLAUSE)
If we are going to solve the issues of automation, pass the torch. If we are going to solve the issues of climate chaos, pass the torch. If we're going to solve the issue of student loan debt, pass the torch. If we're going to end gun violence for families who are fearful of sending their kids to school, pass the torch.
DIAZ-BALART:

Vice President, would you like to sing a torch song?
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN:

I would. I'm still holding on to that torch. I want to make it clear to you, look, the fact of the matter is what we have to do is make sure that everybody is prepared better to go on to educate -- for an education. The fact is that that's why I propose us focusing on schools that are in distress.
That's why I think we should triple the amount of money we spend for Title I schools. That's why I think we should have universal pre-K. That's why I think every single person who graduates from high school, 65 out of 100 now need something beyond high school and we should provide for them to be able to get that education.
That's why there should be free community college, cutting in half the cost of college. That's why we should be in a position where we do not have anyone have to pay back a student debt when they get out if they are making less than $25,000 a year. Their debt is frozen, no interest payment until they get beyond that.
We can't put people in a position where they aren't able to go on and move on. And so, folks, there is a lot we can do, but we have to make continuing education available for everyone so that everyone can compete in the 21st Century. We are not doing that now.
BUTTIGIEG:

As the youngest guy on the stage, I feel like I probably ought to contribute to the generational...
SANDERS:

As part of Joe's generation, let me respond.
GILLIBRAND:

Before we move on from education...
DIAZ-BALART:

Please, please. Senator Sanders. And then I'll let...
SANDERS:

It's not generational. The issue is, who has the guts to take on Wall Street, to take on the fossil fuel industry, to take on the big money interests who have unbelievable influence over the economic and political life of this country?
DIAZ-BALART:

Senator Harris -- Senator Harris, I'm so sorry. We will allow all of you to speak. Senator Harris.
DIAZ-BALART:

Senator Harris -- please, we will let you all speak. Senator Harris.
HARRIS:

Hey, guys, you know what? America does not want to witness a food fight, they want to know how we are going to put food on their table.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS:

So on that point, part of the issue that is at play in America today, and we have all been traveling around the country, I certainly have, I'm meeting people who are working two and three jobs. You know, this president walks around talking about and flouting his great economy, right, my great economy, my great economy.
You ask him, well, how are you measuring this greatness of this economy of yours? And he talks about the stock market. Well, that's fine if you own stocks. So many families in America do not. You ask him, how are you measuring the greatness of this economy of yours? And they point to the jobless numbers and the unemployment numbers.
Well, yeah, people in America are working. They're working two and three jobs.
So when we talk about jobs, let's be really clear. In our America, no one should have to work more than one job to have a roof over their head and food on the table.
(APPLAUSE)
DIAZ-BALART:

Thank you very much, Senator.
HOLT:

Yes, you have all -- you've all expressed an interest in talking about health care. So let's talk about health care.
(UNKNOWN):

I'd like to say something, if I might.
HOLT:

And this is going to be a show of hands question. We asked a question about health care last night that spurred a lot of discussion, as you know. We're going to do it again now. Many people watching at home have health insurance through their employer. Who here would abolish their private health insurance in favorite of a government-run plan?
All right. (APPLAUSE) Kristin Gillibrand, Senator Gillibrand?
GILLIBRAND:

Yeah, so now it's my turn.
BENNET:

Good.
GILLIBRAND:

So this is a very important issue. So the plan that Senator Sanders and I and others support, Medicare for all, is how you get to single payer. But it has a buy-in transition period, which is really important.
In 2005, when I ran for Congress in a 2-to-1 Republican district, I actually ran on Medicare for all, and I won that 2-to-1 Republican district twice. And the way I formulated it was simple. Anyone who doesn't have access to insurance they like, they could buy it at a percentage of income they could afford.
So that's what we put in to the transition period for our Medicare for all plan. I believe we need to get to universal health care as a right and not a privilege to single payer. The quickest way you get there is you create competition with the insurers. God bless the insurers, if they want to compete, they can certainly try, but they've never put people over their profits, and I doubt they ever will.
So what will happen is people will choose Medicare, you will transition, we will get to Medicare for all, and then your step to single-payer is so short, I would make it an earned benefit, just like Social Security, so that you buy in your whole life, it is always there for you, and it's permanent and it's universal.
HOLT:

Senator, your time is up. I want to put that same question to Mayor Buttigieg.
BUTTIGIEG:

Yeah, we've talked -- look, everybody who says Medicare for all, every person in politics who allows that phrase to escape their lips has a responsibility to explain how you're actually supposed to get from here to there.
(APPLAUSE)
Now, here's how I would do it. It's very similar. I would call it Medicare for all who want it. You take something like Medicare, a flavor of that, you make it available on the exchanges, people can buy in. And then if people like us are right, that that will be not only a more inclusive plan, but a more efficient plan than any of the corporate answers out there, then it will be a very natural glide path to the single-payer environment.
But let's remember, even in countries that have outright socialized medicine, like England, even there, there's still a private sector. That's fine. It's just that for our primary care, we can't be relying on the tender mercies of the corporate system.
This one is very personal for me. I started out this year dealing with the terminal illness of my father. I make decisions for a living, and nothing could have prepared me for the kind of decisions our family faced.
But the thing we had going for us was that we never had to make those decisions based on whether it was going to bankrupt our family, because of Medicare. And I want every family to have that same freedom to do what is medically right, not live in financial fear.
(APPLAUSE)
HOLT:

Your time is complete. Vice President Biden, I want to put the question to you. You were an architect -- one of the architects of Obamacare. So where do we go from here?
BIDEN:

Well, look, this is very personal to me. When my wife and daughter were killed in an automobile accident, my two boys were very, very badly injured. I couldn't imagine what it would be like if I'd not had adequate health care available to me.
And then, when my son came home from Iraq after a year, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and he was given months to live. I can't fathom what would have happened if, in fact, they said, by the way, the last six months of your life, you're on your own. We're cutting off. You've used up your time.
The fact of the matter is that the quickest, fastest way to do it is build on Obamacare, to build on what we did.
(APPLAUSE)
And, secondly -- secondly, to make sure that everyone does have an option. Everyone, whether they have private insurance or employer insurance and no insurance, they, in fact, can buy in, in the exchange to a Medicare-like plan. And the way to do that -- we can do it quickly.
Look, urgency matters. There's people right now facing what I faced, and what we faced, without any of the help I had. We must move now. I'm against any Democrat who opposes...
HOLT:

Vice president Biden...
BIDEN:

... and takes down Obamacare and any Republican who wants to get rid of Obamacare.
(APPLAUSE)
HOLT:

Let me turn to Senator Sanders. Senator Sanders, you have basically -- you basically want to scrap the private health insurance system as we know it and replace it with a government-run plan. None of the states that have tried something like that, California, Vermont, New York has struggled with it, have been successful. If politicians can't make it work in those states, how would you implement it on a national level? How does this work?
SANDERS:

Lester, I find it hard to believe that every other major country on Earth, including my neighbor 50 miles north of me, Canada, somehow has figured out a way to provide health care to every man, woman, and child, and in most cases, they're spending 50 percent per capita what we are spending.
(APPLAUSE)
Let's be clear. Let us be very clear. The function of health care today from the insurance and drug company perspective is not to provide quality care to all in a cost-effective way. The function of the health care system today is to make billions in profits for the insurance companies. And last year, if you can believe it, while we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs -- and I will lower prescription drugs prices in half in this country -- top 10 companies made $69 billion in profit. They will spend hundreds of millions of dollars lying to the American people, telling us why we cannot have a Medicare for all single-payer program.
HOLT:

Senator, Senator, I just have -- I just have to follow up there. How do you implement it on a national level?
SANDERS:

I'm sorry?
HOLT:

How do you implement it on a national level?
SANDERS:

OK.
HOLT:

Given the fact that it's not succeeded and other states have tried?
SANDERS:

I will tell you how we'll do it. We'll do it the way real change has always taken place, whether it was the labor movement, the civil rights movement, or the women's movement. We will have Medicare for all when tens of millions of people are prepared to stand up and tell the insurance companies and the drug companies that their day is gone, that health care is a human right, not something to make huge profits off of.
HOLT:

Thank you. All right, Ms. Williamson... (APPLAUSE) Ms. Williamson, this is a question for you.
HOLT:

Excuse me. Excuse me. I'm addressing the question to Ms. Williamson. We've been talking a lot about access to health insurance. But for many Americans, their most pressing concern is the high cost of health care. How would you lower the cost of prescription drugs?
WILLIAMSON:

Well, first of all, the government should never have made the deal with big pharma that they couldn't negotiate. That was just part of the regular corruption by which multinational corporations have their way with us.
You know, I want to say that while I agree with -- and I'm with Senator Bennet and others, but I agree with almost everything here -- I'll tell you one thing, it's really nice if we've got all these plans, but if you think we're going to beat Donald Trump by just having all these plans, you've got another thing coming, because he didn't win by saying he had a plan. He won by simply saying make America great again.
We've got to get deeper than just these superficial fixes, as important as they are. Even if we're just talking about the superficial fixes, ladies and gentlemen, we don't have a health care system in the United States. We have a sickness care system in the United States. We just wait until somebody gets sick, and then we talk about who's going pay for the treatment and how they're going to be treated.
(APPLAUSE)
What we need to talk about is why so many Americans have unnecessary chronic illnesses, so many more compared to other countries. And that gets back into not just the health -- the big pharma, not just health insurance companies, it has to do with chemical policies, it has to do with environmental policies...
HOLT:

All right, Ms. Williamson, your time is expired.
WILLIAMSON:

It has to do with food policies.
(APPLAUSE)
It has to do with drug policies. It has to do with environment policies.
HOLT:

Senator Bennet, a question for you. You want to keep the system that we have in place with Obamacare and build on it. You mentioned that a moment ago. Is that enough to get us to universal coverage?
BENNET:

I believe that will get us the quickest way there. And I thought the vice president was very moving about this and Mayor Pete, as well.
I had prostate cancer recently, as you may know, and it's why I was a little late getting in the race. The same week, my kid had her appendectomy. And I feel very strongly that families ought to be able to have this choice. I think that's what the American people want.
I believe it will get us there quickly. There are millions of people in America that do not have health insurance today because they can't. They're too wealthy. Wealthy? They make too much money to be on Medicaid. They can't afford health insurance. When Senator Sanders says that Canada is single payer, there are 35 million people in Canada. There are 330 million people in the United States, easily the number of people on a public option that -- it could easily be 35 million. And for them, it would be Medicare for all, as Mayor Buttigieg says. But for others that want to keep it, they should be able to keep it. And I think that will be the fastest way to get where we need to go.
BENNET:

Also, I will say -- Bernie is a very honest person. He has said over and over again, unlike others that have supported this legislation, over and over again, that this will ban, make illegal all insurance except cosmetic, except insurance for -- I guess that's for plastic surgery. Everything else is banned under the Medicare for all proposal...
HOLT:

Let's go a little longer, but...
HARRIS:

I'd like to add a point here.
HOLT:

But I want -- but obviously, Senator Sanders, you get a response.
HARRIS:

I'd like to add a point here.
HOLT:

Senator Sanders, just respond to that.
SANDERS:

Just very briefly, you know, Mike, Medicare is the most popular...
BENNET:

I agree.
SANDERS:

... health insurance program in the country. People don't like their private insurance companies. They like their doctors and hospitals. Under our plan people go to go to any doctor they want, any hospital they want. We will substantially lower the cost of health care in this country because we'll stop the greed of the insurance companies.
(CROSSTALK) HARRIS:

... on this issue we have to think about how this affects real people.
(CROSSTALK) HOLT:

Senator Harris.
HARRIS:

And the reality of how this affects real people is captured in a story that many of us heard and I will paraphrase. There is, any night in America, a parent who has seen that their child has a temperature that is out of control, calls 911, what should I do? And they say, take the child to the Emergency Room. And so they get in their car and they drive and they are sitting in the parking lot outside of the Emergency Room looking at those sliding glass doors while they have the hand on the forehead of their child, knowing that if they walk through those sliding glass doors, even though they have insurance, they will be out a 5,000 deductible, $5,000 deductible when they walk through those doors. That's what insurance companies are doing in America today.
(APPLAUSE) GUTHRIE:

We are going to continue this discussion. I wanted to...
(CROSSTALK) GUTHRIE:

Candidates, please. Candidates, please.
SWALWELL:

I'm one of those parents. I was just in the emergency room. And I'm telling you...
(UNKNOWN):

Congressman, thank you.
SWALWELL:

... we fight health insurance companies every single week.
(UNKNOWN):

Thank you.
SWALWELL:

We stand in line and pay expensive prescription drugs. We have to have a health care guarantee. If you are sick, you're seen. And in America, you never go broke because of it.
GUTHRIE:

OK. A lot of you have been talking tonight about these government health care plans that you have proposed in one form or another. This is a show of hands question, and hold them up for a moment so people can see. Raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants. (APPLAUSE) OK. Let me start with you, Mayor Buttigieg, why? Mayor Buttigieg, why?
BUTTIGIEG:

Because our country is healthier when everybody is healthier. And, remember, we are talking about something people are given a chance to buy into, in the same way that there are undocumented immigrants in my community who pay, they pay sales taxes, they pay property taxes, directly or indirectly. This is not about a handout. This is an insurance program. And we do ourselves no favors by having 11 million undocumented people in our country be unable to access health care. But, of course, the real problem is we shouldn't have 11 million undocumented people with no pathway to citizenship. It makes no sense. And the American people... (APPLAUSE) The American people agree on what to do. This is a crazy thing. If leadership consists of forming a consensus around a divisive issue, this White House has divided us around a consensus issue. The American people want a pathway to citizenship, they want protections for DREAMers. We need to clean up the lawful immigration system, like how my father immigrated to this country. And as part of a compromise, we can do whatever common-sense measures are needed at the border, but Washington can't deliver on something the American people want. What does that tell you about the system we are living in? It tells you it needs profound structural reform.
GUTHRIE:

Mayor, thank you. (APPLAUSE) Vice President Biden, I believe you said that your health care plan would not cover undocumented immigrants. Could you explain your position?
BIDEN:

I'm sorry, I beg your pardon?
GUTHRIE:

I believe at the show of hands you did not raise your hand. Did you raise your hand?
BIDEN:

No, I did.
GUTHRIE:

OK. Sorry, sorry. So you said that they would be covered under your plan, which is different than Obamacare.
BIDEN:

Yes. But here's the thing...
GUTHRIE:

Can you explain that change?
BIDEN:

Yes. You cannot let, as the mayor said, you cannot let people who are sick, no matter where they come from, no matter what their status, go uncovered. You can't do that. It's just going to be taken care of, period. You have to. It's the humane thing to do. But here's the deal, the deal is that he's right about three things. Number one, they in fact contribute to the well-being of the country but they also, for example, they've increased the lifespan of Social Security because they have a job, they're paying a Social Security tax. That's what they're doing. It has increased the lifespan. They would do the same thing in terms of reducing the overall cost of health care by them being able to be treated and not wait until they are in extremis. The other thing is, folks, look, we can deal with these insurance companies. We can deal with the insurance companies by, number one, putting insurance executives in jail for their misleading advertising, what they're doing on opioids, what they're doing paying doctors to prescribe. We could be doing this by making sure everyone who is on Medicare that the government should be able to negotiate the price for whatever the drug costs are. We can do this by making sure that we're in a position that we in fact allow people. Time's up?
HOLT:

Hold off a minute, we need to take a short break here. We have a lot more we need to talk to all of you about. So stick with us. We're just getting started. We'll be back with more from Miami right after this.
HOLT:

Welcome back from Miami.
(APPLAUSE)
Jose is going to lead off the questioning in this round.
DIAZ-BALART:

Thank you very much.
Senator Harris, last month more than 130,000 migrants were apprehended at the southern border. Many of them are being detained, including small children, in private detention centers in Florida and throughout our country. Most of the candidates on this stage say the conditions at these facilities are abhorrent.
On January 20th, 2021, if you are president, what specifically would you do with the thousands of people who try to reach the United States every day and want a better life through asylum?
HARRIS:

Immediately on January 20th of 2021, I will, first of all -- we cannot forget our DACA recipients, and so I'm going to start there. I will immediately, by executive action, reinstate DACA status and DACA protection to those young people.
(APPLAUSE)
I will further extend protection for deferral of deportation for their parents and for veterans, who we have so many who are undocumented and have served our country and fought for our democracy.
(APPLAUSE)
I will also immediately put in place a meaningful process for reviewing the cases for asylum. I will release children from cages. I will get rid... (APPLAUSE) ... of the private detention centers. (APPLAUSE) And I will ensure that this microphone that the president of the United States holds in her hand is used in a way... (APPLAUSE) ... that is about reflecting the values of our country and not about locking children up, separating them from their parents. And I have to just say that we have to think about this issue in terms of real people. A mother who pays a coyote to transport her child through their country of origin, through the entire country of Mexico, facing unknown peril, to come here -- why would that mother do that?
I will tell you. Because she has decided for that child to remain where they are is worse. But what does Donald Trump do? He says, "Go back to where you came from." That is not reflective of our America and our values, and it's got to end.
(APPLAUSE) DIAZ-BALART:

Governor Hickenlooper... (APPLAUSE) Governor Hickenlooper... (APPLAUSE) Governor Hickenlooper, day one, if you are... WILLIAMSON (?): Another thing, I...
DIAZ-BALART:

Day one, at the White House, how do you respond?
WILLIAMSON:

... deal with these -- with these children?
DIAZ-BALART:

I -- let me get to you in just a second.
WILLIAMSON:

I'm sorry.
DIAZ-BALART:

Governor, day one, thousands of men, women and children cross the border, asking for asylum, for a better life. What do you do? One -- day one, hour one?
HICKENLOOPER:

Well, certainly the images we have seen this week just compound the emotional impact that the world is judging us by. If you'd ever told me any time in my life that this country would sanction federal agents to take children from the arms of their parents, put them in cages, actually put them up for adoption -- in Colorado, we call that kidnapping -- I would have told you... (APPLAUSE) I would have told you it was unbelievable. And the first thing we have to do is recognize the humanitarian crisis on the border for what it is. We make sure that there are the sufficient facilities in place so that women and children are not separated from their families, that children are with their families.
We have to make sure that ICE is completely reformed and they begin looking at their job in a humanitarian way, where they're addressing the whole needs of the people that they are engaged with along the border, and we have to make sure ultimately that we provide not just shelter, but food, clothing, and access to medical care.
DIAZ-BALART:

Ms. Williamson?
WILLIAMSON:

Yes. What Donald Trump has done to these children -- and it's not just in Colorado -- Governor, you're right, it is kidnapping, and it's extremely important for us to realize that. If you forcibly take a child from their parents' arms, you are kidnapping them.
And if you take a lot of children and you put them in a detainment center, that's inflicting chronic trauma upon them. That's called child abuse. This is collective child abuse.
(APPLAUSE)
And when this is crime -- both of those things are a crime. And if your government does it, that doesn't make it less of a crime. These are state-sponsored crimes.
(APPLAUSE)
DIAZ-BALART:

Congressman...
WILLIAMSON:

And what President -- and what President Trump has done is not only attack these children, not only demonize these immigrants, he is attacking a basic principle of America's moral core. We open our hearts to the stranger.
This is extremely important. And it's also important for all of us. Remember, and I have great respect for everyone who is on this stage. But we're going to talk about what to do about health care? Well, where have you been, guys? Because it's not just a matter of a plan. And I haven't heard anybody on this stage who has talked about American foreign policy in Latin America and how we might have in the last few decades contributed to...
(APPLAUSE)
DIAZ-BALART:

Senator Gillibrand, what would you do as president, with a reality?
GILLIBRAND:

Well, one of the worst things about President Trump that he's done to this country is he's torn apart the moral fabric of who we are. When he started separating children at the border from their parents, the fact that seven children have died in his custody, the fact that dozens of children have been separated from their parents and they have no plan to reunite them. So I would do a few things. First, I would fight for comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship. Second, I would reform how we treat asylum-seekers at the border. I would have a community-based treatment center, where we're doing it within the communities, where asylum-seekers are given lawyers, where there's real immigration judges, not employees of the attorney general, but appointed for life, and have a community-based system. I would fund border security.
But the worst thing President Trump has done is he's diverted the funds away from cross-border terrorism, cross-border human trafficking, drug trafficking, and gun trafficking, and he's given that money to the for-profit prisons. I would not be spending money in for-profit prisons to lock up children and asylum-seekers.
(APPLAUSE)
DIAZ-BALART:

We had a very spirited debate on this stage last night on the topic of decriminalization of the border. If you'd be so kind, raise your hand if you think it should be a civil offense rather than a crime to cross the border without documentation? Can we keep the hands up so we could see them?
(APPLAUSE)
BUTTIGIEG:

Let's remember, that's not just a theoretical exercise. That criminalization, that is the basis for family separation. You do away with that, it's no longer possible. Of course it wouldn't be possible anyway in my presidency, because it is dead wrong.
We've got to talk about one other thing, because the Republican Party likes to cloak itself in the language of religion. Now, our party doesn't talk about that as much, largely for a very good reason, which was, we are committed to the separation of church and state and we stand for people of any religion and people of no religion. But we should call out hypocrisy when we see it. And for a party that associates itself with Christianity, to say that it is OK to suggest that God would smile on the division of families at the hands of federal agents, that God would condone putting children in cages has lost all claim to ever use religious language again.
DIAZ-BALART:

Vice President -- Mr. Vice President, I don't know if you raised your hand or were just asking to speak, but would you decriminalize crossing the border without documents?
BIDEN:

The first thing -- the first thing I would do is unite families. I'd surge immediately billions of dollars' worth of help to the region immediately.
Look, I talk about foreign policy. I'm the guy that got a bipartisan agreement at the very end of the campaign, at the very end of our term, to spend $740 million to deal with the problem, and that was to go to the root cause of why people are leaving in the first place. It was working.
We saw, as you know, a net decrease in the number of children who were coming. The crisis was abated. And along came this president, and he said -- he immediately discontinued that.
We all talk about these things. I did it. I did it.
(APPLAUSE)
Seven hundred and forty -- now look, second thing. Second thing we have to do. The law now requires the reuniting of those families. We would reunite those families, period. And if not, we'd put those children in a circumstance where they were safe until we could find their parents. And lastly, the idea that he's in court with his Justice Department saying children in cages do not need a bed, do not need a blanket, do not need a toothbrush, that is outrageous.
DIAZ-BALART:

Vice President -- Vice President...
BIDEN:

And we'll stop it.
DIAZ-BALART:

... the Obama-Biden administration was -- the Obama-Biden administration deported more than 3 million Americans. My question to you is, if an individual is living in the United States of America without documents, and that is his only offense, should that person be deported?
(UNKNOWN):

No.
BIDEN:

Depending if they committed a major crime, they should be deported. And the president was left in a -- President Obama I think did a heck of a job. To compare him to what this guy is doing is absolutely I find immoral.
(APPLAUSE)
But the fact is that, look, we should not be locking people up. We should be making sure we change the circumstance, as we did, why they would leave in the first place. And those who come seeking asylum, we should immediately have the capacity to absorb them, keep them safe until they can be heard.
DIAZ-BALART:

Fifteen seconds, if you could, if you wish to answer. Should someone who is here without documents, and that is his only offense, should that person be deported?
BIDEN:

That person should not be the focus of deportation. We should fundamentally change the way we deal with things.
(APPLAUSE)
DIAZ-BALART:

Senator...
(UNKNOWN):

I think it's important...
SANDERS:

I want to suggest that I agree with a lot of what Kamala just said. And that is, on day one, we take out our executive order pen and we rescind every damn thing on this issue that Trump has done.
(APPLAUSE)
Number two, number two, picking up on the point that Joe made, we've got to look at the root causes. And you have a situation where Honduras, among other things, is a failing state. Massive corruption. You've got gangs who are telling families that if a 10-year-old does not join that gang, that family is going to be killed.
What we have got to do on day one is invite the presidents and the leadership of Central America and Mexico together. This is a hemispheric problem that we have got to address.
(APPLAUSE)
DIAZ-BALART:

Thank you. Congressman Swalwell, what do you do?
SWALWELL:

Day one?
DIAZ-BALART:

No, if someone is here without documents, and that is their only offense, is that person to be deported?
SWALWELL:

No. That person can be a part of this great American experience.
(UNKNOWN):

Exactly.
SWALWELL:

That person can contribute. My congressional district is one of the most diverse in America, and we see the benefits when people contribute and they become a part of the community and they're not in the shadow economy. Day one for me, families are reunited. This president, though, for immigrants, there's nothing he will not do to separate a family, cage a child, or erase their existence by weaponizing the census. And there is nothing that we cannot do in the courts and that I will not do as president to reverse that and to make sure that families always belong together.
DIAZ-BALART:

Senator Harris?
HARRIS:

Well, thank you. I will say -- no, absolutely not, they should not be deported. And I actually -- this was one of the very few issues with which I disagreed with the administration, with whom I always had a great relationship and a great deal of respect.
But on the secure communities issue, I was attorney general of California. I led the second-largest Department of Justice in the United States, second only to the United States Department of Justice, in a state of 40 million people.
And on this issue, I disagreed with my president, because the policy was to allow deportation of people who by ICE's own definition were non-criminals. So as attorney general, and the chief law officer of the state of California, I issued a directive to the sheriffs of my state that they did not have to comply with detainers, and instead should make decisions based on the best interests of public safety of their community.
Because what I saw -- and I was tracking it every day -- I was tracking it and saw that parents, people who had not committed a crime, even by ICE's own definition, were being deported.
And -- but I have to add a point here. The problem with this kind of policy -- and I know it as a prosecutor. I want a rape victim to be able to run in the middle of -- to run in the middle of the street and wave down a police officer and report the crime against her. I want anybody who has been the victim of any real crime...
DIAZ-BALART:

Senator, Senator...
HARRIS:

... to be able to do that and not be afraid that if they do that, they will be deported, because the abuser will tell them it is they who is the criminal.
(APPLAUSE)
It is wrong. It is wrong.
HOLT:

We're going to turn -- we're going to turn to the issue of trade now, if we can. Last night, we asked the candidates on this stage to name the greatest geopolitical threat facing the U.S. Four of them mentioned China. U.S. businesses say China steals our intellectual property and party leaders on both sides accuse China of manipulating their currency to keep the cost of goods artificially low.
I want to ask this to Senator Bennet, to start off with. How would you stand up to China?
BENNET:

Well, I think that, first of all, the biggest -- the biggest threat to our national security right now is Russia, not China. And, second, on China, we've got -- because of what they've done with our election.
In China, I think the president has been right to push back on China, but has done it in completely the wrong way. We should mobilize the entire rest of the world, who all have a shared interest in pushing back on China's mercantilist trade policies, and I think we can do that.
I'd like to answer the other question before this, as well.
HOLT:

You have the time...
BENNET:

When I -- when I -- when I see these kids at the border, I see my mom, because I know she sees herself, because she was separated from her parents for years during the Holocaust in Poland. And for Donald Trump to be doing what he's doing to children and their families at the border -- I say this as somebody who wrote the immigration bill in 2013 that created a pathway to citizenship for 11 million people in this country -- that had the most progressive Dream Act that's ever been conceived, much less passed, and got 68 votes in the Senate -- that had $46 billion of border security in it that was sophisticated, 21st century border security, not a medieval wall...
HOLT:

Senator, your time is expired.
BENNET:

... and the president has turned the border of the United States into a symbol of nativist hostility...
HOLT:

Senator, thank you...
BENNET:

... that the whole world is looking at, when what we should be represented by is the Statue of Liberty, which has brought my parents to this country to begin with. We need to make a change.
(APPLAUSE)
HOLT:

Mr. Yang, let me bring you in on this, on the issue of China. You have expressed a lot of concerns about technology and taking jobs. Are you worried about China? And if so, how would you stand up against it?
YANG:

Well, I just want to agree that I think Russia is our greatest geopolitical threat, because they have been hacking our democracy successfully and they've been laughing their asses off about it for the last couple of years. So we should focus on that before we start worrying about other threats.
Now, China, they do pirate our intellectual property. It's a massive problem. But the tariffs and the trade war are just punishing businesses and producers and workers on both sides.
I met with a farmer in Iowa who said he spent six years building up a buying relationship in China that's now disappeared and gone forever. And the beneficiaries have not been American workers or people in China. It's been Southeast Asia and other producer that have then stepped into the void. So we need to crack down on Chinese malfeasance in the trade relationship, but the tariffs and the trade war are the wrong way to go.
HOLT:

All right, Mayor Buttigieg...
HOLT:

How would you -- how would you stand up against China?
BUTTIGIEG:

I mean, first of all, we've got to recognize that the China challenge really is a serious one. This is not something to dismiss or wave away. And if you look at what China is doing, they're using technology for the perfection of dictatorship.
But their fundamental economic model isn't going to change because of some tariffs. I live in the industrial Midwest. Folks who aren't in the shadow of a factory are somewhere near a soy field where I live. And manufacturers, and especially soy farmers, are hurting.
Tariffs are taxes. And Americans are going to pay on average $800 more a year because of these tariffs. Meanwhile, China is investing so that they could soon be able to run circles around us in artificial intelligence. And this president is fixated on the China relationship as if all that mattered was the export balance on dishwashers. We've got a much bigger issue on our hands.
But at a moment when their authoritarian model is being held up as an alternative to ours because ours looks so chaotic compared to theirs right now because of our internal divisions, the biggest thing we've got to do is invest in our own domestic competitiveness. If we disinvest...
HOLT:

All right, Mayor, thank you.
BUTTIGIEG:

... in our own infrastructure, education, we are never going to be able to compete. And if we really want to be an alternative, a democratic alternative, we actually have to demonstrate that we care about democratic values at home and around the world.
HOLT:

Thank you for your answer.
(APPLAUSE)
GUTHRIE:

We've got a good debate so far. We're going to take a quick break here, candidates. When we come back, the questioning continues with our colleagues. Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow will be here. Much more with our candidates straight ahead.
HOLT:

Welcome back to the Democratic Presidential Debate from the Arsht Center in Miami.
GUTHRIE:

As we continue the questioning, we want to bring in more members of our team.
DIAZ-BALART:

So let's turn it over to Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow.
(APPLAUSE)
TODD:

Well, Rachel, I had a dream that we have done this before.
MADDOW:

No.
TODD:

No.
MADDOW:

No.
TODD:

No. Didn't happen.
MADDOW:

This is definitely the first time.
TODD:

Definitely first time. Thank you, Lester, Savannah, and Jose. Let's quickly recap the rules one more time. Twenty candidates qualified for this first debate. We've heard from 10 of them from last night. We're hearing from 10 more tonight. The breakdown for each night was selected at random. The candidates will have 60 seconds to answer direct questions, 30 seconds for follow-ups, if necessary.
MADDOW:

Because of this large field of candidates, not every person will be able comment on everything, but the less audience reaction there is, the more time they will all get. (APPLAUSE) Over the course of the next hour we will hear from all of these candidates, but we are going to begin this hour with Mayor Buttigieg. In the last five years, civil rights activists in our country have led a national debate over race and the criminal justice system. Your community of South Bend, Indiana, has recently been in uproar over an officer-involved shooting. The police force in South Bend is now 6 percent black in a city that is 26 percent black. Why has that not improved over your two terms as mayor?
BUTTIGIEG:

Because I couldn't get it done. My community is in anguish right now because of an officer-involved shooting, a black man, Eric Logan, killed by a white officer. And I'm not allowed to take sides until the investigation comes back. The officer said he was attacked with a knife, but he didn't have his body camera on. It's a mess. And we're hurting.
And I could walk you through all of the things that we have done as a community, all of the steps that we took, from bias training to de-escalation, but it didn't save the life of Eric Logan. And when I look into his mother's eyes, I have to face the fact that nothing that I say will bring him back.
This is an issue that is facing our community and so many communities around the country. And until we move policing out from the shadow of systemic racism, whatever this particular incident teaches us, we will be left with the bigger problem of the fact that there is a wall of mistrust put up one racist act at a time, not just from what's happened in the past, but from what's happening around the country in the present. It threatens the well-being of every community.
And I am determined to bring about a day when a white person driving a vehicle and a black person driving a vehicle, when they see a police officer approaching, feels the exact same thing...
MADDOW:

Mr. Mayor...
BUTTIGIEG:

... a feeling not of fear but of safety. I am determined to bring that day about.
MADDOW:

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
HICKENLOOPER:

Mayor Buttigieg -- Mayor Buttigieg, if I could...
(APPLAUSE)
HICKENLOOPER:

... if I could have one question, just because I think...
MADDOW:

Governor, I'll give you 30 seconds.
HICKENLOOPER:

I think that the question they're asking in South Bend and I think across the country is why has it taken so long?
We had a shooting when I first became mayor, 10 years before Ferguson. And the community came together and we created an Office of the Independent Monitor, a Civilian Oversight Commission, and we diversified the police force in two years. We actually did de-escalation training.
I think the real question that America should be asking is why, five years after Ferguson, every city doesn't have this level of police accountability.
MADDOW:

Governor Hickenlooper, thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
BUTTIGIEG:

I've got to respond to that. Look, we have taken so many steps toward police accountability that, you know, the FOP just denounced me for too much accountability. We're obviously not there yet, and I accept responsibility for that because I'm in charge.
SWALWELL:

If the camera wasn't on and that was the policy, you should fire the chief.
BUTTIGIEG:

So under Indiana law, this will be investigated and there will be accountability for the officer involved.
SWALWELL:

But you're the mayor. You should fire the chief -- if that's the policy and someone died.
WILLIAMSON:

All of these issues are extremely important, but they are specifics; they are symptoms. And the underlying cause has to do with deep, deep, deep realms of racial injustice, both in our criminal justice system and in our economic system. And the Democratic Party should be on the side of reparations for slavery for this very reason. I do not believe... (APPLAUSE) I do not believe that the average American is a racist, but the average American is woefully undereducated about the history of race in the United States.
MADDOW:

Ms. Williamson, thank you very much...
TODD:

Vice President Biden -- I'm going to -- we're going to get to you...
HARRIS:

As the only black person on this stage, I would like to speak...
TODD:

I...
HARRIS:

... on the issue of race.
MADDOW:

Senator Harris...
HARRIS:

And so what I will say...
MADDOW:

If I could preface this, we will give you 30 seconds, because we're going to come back to you on this again in just a moment. But go for 30 seconds.
HARRIS:

OK. So on the issue of race, I couldn't agree more that this is an issue that is still not being talked about truthfully and honestly. I -- there is not a black man I know, be he a relative, a friend or a coworker, who has not been the subject of some form of profiling or discrimination.
Growing up, my sister and I had to deal with the neighbor who told us her parents couldn't play with us because she -- because we were black. And I will say also that -- that, in this campaign, we have also heard -- and I'm going to now direct this at Vice President Biden, I do not believe you are a racist, and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground.
But I also believe, and it's personal -- and I was actually very -- it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing.
And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day. And that little girl was me.
So I will tell you that, on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously. We have to act swiftly. As attorney general of California, I was very proud to put in place a requirement that all my special agents would wear body cameras and keep those cameras on.
(APPLAUSE)
MADDOW:

Senator Harris, thank you. Vice President Biden, you have been invoked. We're going to give you a chance to respond.
(APPLAUSE)
Vice President Biden?
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN:

It's a mischaracterization of my position across the board. I did not praise racists. That is not true, number one. Number two, if we want to have this campaign litigated on who supports civil rights and whether I did or not, I'm happy to do that.
I was a public defender. I didn't become a prosecutor. I came out and I left a good law firm to become a public defender, when, in fact -- when, in fact... (APPLAUSE) ... when, in fact, my city was in flames because of the assassination of Dr. King, number one.
Number two, as the U.S. -- excuse me, as the vice president of the United States, I worked with a man who, in fact, we worked very hard to see to it we dealt with these issues in a major, major way.
The fact is that, in terms of bussing, the bussing, I never -- you would have been able to go to school the same exact way because it was a local decision made by your city council. That's fine. That's one of the things I argued for, that we should not be -- we should be breaking down these lines.
But so the bottom line here is, look, everything I have done in my career, I ran because of civil rights, I continue to think we have to make fundamental changes in civil rights, and those civil rights, by the way, include not just only African-Americans, but the LGBT community.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS:

But, Vice President Biden, do you agree today -- do you agree today that you were wrong to oppose bussing in America then? Do you agree?
BIDEN:

I did not oppose bussing in America. What I opposed is bussing ordered by the Department of Education. That's what I opposed. I did not oppose...
HARRIS:

Well, there was a failure of states to integrate public schools in America. I was part of the second class to integrate Berkeley, California, public schools almost two decades after Brown v. Board of Education.
BIDEN:

Because your city council made that decision. It was a local decision.
HARRIS:

So that's where the federal government must step in.
BIDEN:

The federal government...
HARRIS:

That's why we have the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. (APPLAUSE) That's why we need to pass the Equality Act. That's why we need to pass the ERA, because there are moments in history where states fail to preserve the civil rights of all people.
BIDEN:

I've supported the ERA from the very beginning when I ran for...
TODD:

Vice President Biden, 30 seconds, because I want to bring other people into this.
BIDEN:

I supported the ERA from the very beginning. I'm the guy that extended the Voting Rights Act for 25 years. We got to the place where we got 98 out of 98 votes in the United States Senate doing it. I've also argued very strongly that we, in fact, deal with the notion of denying people access to the ballot box. I agree that everybody, once they, in fact -- anyway, my time is up. I'm sorry.
TODD:

Thank you, Vice President.
HARRIS:

All of these things have to do...
TODD:

Senator Sanders, Senator Sanders, I'm going to go to you on this. You said on the day you launched your campaign that voters should focus on what people stand for, not a candidate's race or age or sexual orientation.
Many Democrats are very excited by the diversity of this field on this stage and on last night's stage and the perspective that diversity brings to this contest and to these issues.
SANDERS:

Absolutely.
TODD:

Are you telling Democratic voters that diversity shouldn't matter when they make this decision?
SANDERS:

No, absolutely not. Unlike the Republican Party, we encourage diversity, we believe in diversity. That's what America is about.
But in addition to diversity, in terms of having more women, more people from the LGBT community, we also have to do something else. And that is, we have to ask ourselves a simple question, in that how come today the worker in the middle of our economy is making no more money than he or she made 45 years ago, and that in the last 30 years, the top 1 percent has seen a $21 trillion increase in their wealth?
We need a party that is diverse, but we need a party that has the guts to stand up to the powerful special interests who have so much power over the economic and political life of this country.
TODD:

Senator Gillibrand, I want to give you 30 seconds on this.
GILLIBRAND:

Well, first of all, where Bernie left off, we've heard a lot of good ideas on this stage tonight and a lot of plans, but the truth is, until you go to the root of the corruption, the money in politics, the fact that Washington is run by the special interests, you are never going to solve any of these problems.
I have the most comprehensive approach, that experts agree is the most transformative plan to actually take on political corruption, to get money out of politics through publicly funded elections, to have clean elections. If we do that and get money out of politics, we can guarantee health care as a right, not a privilege, we can deal with institutional racism, we can take on income inequality, and we can take on the corporate corruption that runs Washington.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN:

And the first constitutional amendment to do that was introduced by me when I was young senator.
TODD:

Thank you, Vice President. We want to shift topics here. Senator Bennet, the next question is for you.
On the issue of partisan gridlock, President Obama promised in 2012 that after his reelection, Republicans would want to work with Democrats, fever would break. That did not happen. Now Vice President Biden is saying the same thing, that if he is elected in 2020, both parties will want to work together.
Should voters believe that somehow if there is a Democratic president in 2021 that gridlock is going to magically disappear?
BENNET:

Gridlock will not magically disappear as long as Mitch McConnell is there, first.
(APPLAUSE)
Second, second, second, that's why it is so important for us to win not just the presidency, to have somebody that can run in all 50 states, but to win the Senate, as well. And that's why we have to propose policies that can be supported, like Medicare act, so that we can build a broad coalition of Americans to overcome broken Washington, D.C. I agree with what Senator Gillibrand was saying. I share a lot of her views. We need to end gerrymandering in Washington. We need to end political gerrymandering in Washington.
(APPLAUSE)
The court today said they couldn't do anything about it. We need to overturn Citizens United. The court was the one that gave us Citizens United. And the attack on voting rights in Shelby v. Holder is something we need to deal with.
All of those things has happened since Vice President Biden was in the Senate. And we face structural problems that we have to overcome with a broad coalition. It's the only way we can do it. We need to root out the corruption in Washington, expand people's right to get to the polls, and I think then we can succeed.
TODD:

Time's up. Vice President Biden, 30 seconds. What -- it does sound as if you haven't seen what's been happening in the United States Senate over the last 12 years. It didn't happen. Why?
BIDEN:

I have seen what happened. Just since we were vice president, we needed three votes to pass an $800 billion Recovery Act that kept us from going into depression. I got three votes changed.
We needed to be able to keep the government from shutting down and going bankrupt. I got Mitch McConnell to raise taxes $600 billion by raising the top rate. And as recently as after president got elected, I was able to put together a coalition of the Cures Act to have billions of dollars go into cancer research, bipartisan.
But sometimes you can't do that. Sometimes you just have to go out and beat them. I went into 20 states, over 60 candidates, and guess what? We beat them, and we won back the Senate.
TODD:

Thank you.
BENNET:

Chuck, the problem with what the vice president...
TODD:

Go ahead, 30 seconds.
(APPLAUSE)
BENNET:

The problem with what...
TODD:

Yeah, 30 seconds. Go ahead.
BENNET:

Sometimes you do have to beat them, but -- but the deal that he talked about with Mitch McConnell was a complete victory for the Tea Party. It extended the Bush tax cuts permanently. The Democratic Party had been running against that for 10 years.
We lost that economic argument, because that deal extended almost all those Bush tax cuts permanently and put in place the mindless cuts that we still are dealing with today that are called the sequester. That was a great deal for Mitch McConnell.
BIDEN:

Oh, come on.
BENNET:

It was a terrible deal for America.
TODD:

Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Senator Bennet.
GILLIBRAND:

And you heard...
TODD:

Go ahead, 30 seconds.
GILLIBRAND:

You heard from the Republicans that the reason why the Trump tax cut had to be passed is because they had to pay back their donors. You heard it. They actually said those words. So the corruption in Washington is real, and it is something that makes every one of the plans we've heard about over the last several months impossible.
And I have the most comprehensive approach to do it with clean elections, publicly funded elections, so we restore the power of our democracy into the hands of the voters, not into the Koch brothers.
We were talking about issues. Imagine -- we're in Florida -- imagine the Parkland kids having as much power in our democracy as the Koch brothers or the NRA.
TODD:

Thank you. Thank you, Senator Gillibrand.
GILLIBRAND:

Imagine their voices carrying farther and wider than anyone else because their voice is needed.
(APPLAUSE)
TODD:

Senator Gillibrand, I'm trying to get everybody in here.
GILLIBRAND:

And as president, it's the first thing I'm going to do...
TODD:

Thank you.
GILLIBRAND:

... because nothing else is possible, whether it's education or health care or ending institutional racism.
TODD:

Thank you very much.
MADDOW:

Senator Sanders, I'd like to put a different question to you. Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land since 1973. Now that there is a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, several Republican-controlled states have passed laws to severely restrict or even ban abortion. One of those laws could very well make it to the Supreme Court during your presidency, if you're elected president. What is your plan if Roe is struck down in the court while you're president?
SANDERS:

Well, my plan, as somebody who believes for a start that a woman's right to control her own body is a constitutional right, that government and politicians should not infringe on that right, we will do everything we can to defend Roe versus Wade. (APPLAUSE) Second of all, let me make a -- let me make a promise here. You ask about litmus tests. My litmus test is I will never appoint any, nominate any justice to the Supreme Court unless that justice is 100 percent clear he or she will defend Roe v. Wade. Third of all... (APPLAUSE) I do not believe in packing the court. We got a terrible 5-4 majority conservative court right now. But I do believe that constitutionally we have the power to rotate judges to other courts. And that brings in new blood into the Supreme Court and a majority, I hope, that will understand that a woman has the right to control her own body and the corporations cannot run the United States of America.
MADDOW:

Hold on, I'm going to give you 10 additional seconds because the question was...
SANDERS:

I'm sorry?
MADDOW:

... what if the court has already overturned Roe and Roe is gone? All of the things you've just described would be to try to preserve Roe. If Roe is gone, what could you do as president to preserve abortion rights?
SANDERS:

We will pass -- well, first of all, let me tell you this. It didn't come up here, but let's face this, Medicare for All guarantees every woman in this country the right to have an abortion if she wants it.
MADDOW:

Thank you, Senator.
GILLIBRAND:

And can I address this for a second? And I want to talk directly, directly to America's women and to the men who love them. Women's reproductive rights are under assault by President Trump and the Republican Party. Thirty states are trying to overturn Roe v. Wade right now. And it is mind-boggling to me that we are debating this on this stage in 2019 among Democrats whether women should have access to reproductive rights. I think we have to stop playing defense and start playing offense. But let me tell you one thing about politics, because it goes to the corruption and the deal-making. When the door is closed and negotiations are made, there are conversations about women's rights and compromises have been made on our backs. That's how we got to Hyde, that's how the Hyde Amendment was created, a compromise by leaders of both parties. Then we have the ACA. During the ACA negotiation, I had to fight like heck with other women to make sure that contraception wasn't sold down the river, or abortion services. And so what we need to know is imagine this one question. When we beat President Trump and Mitch McConnell walks into the Oval Office, God forbid, to do negotiations, who do you want when that door closes to be sitting behind that desk, to fight for women's rights? I have been the fiercest advocate for women's reproductive freedom for over a decade. And I promise you as president when that door closes, I will guarantee women's reproductive freedom no matter what.
MADDOW:

Senator, thank you.
TODD:

Thank you. (APPLAUSE) We are moving to climate. We are moving to climate, guys. Senator Harris, I'm addressing you first on this. You live in a state that has been hit by drought, wildfires, flooding. Climate change is a major concern for voters in your state, that's pretty obvious, obviously this state as well. Last night voters heard many of the candidates weigh in on their proposals. Explain specifically what yours is.
HARRIS:

Well, first of all, I don't even call it climate change. It's a climate crisis. It represents an existential threat to us as a species. And the fact that we have a president of the United States who has embraced science fiction over science fact will be to our collective peril. I visited, while the embers were smoldering, the wildfires in California. I spoke with firefighters who were in the midst of fighting a fire while their own homes were burning. And on this issue it is a critical issue that is about what we must do to confront what is immediate and before us right now. That is why I support a Green New Deal. It is why I believe on day one and as president will re-enter us in the Paris Agreement, because we have to take these issues seriously. And, frankly, we have a president of the United States, we talked about, you asked before what is the greatest national security threat to the United States? It's Donald Trump. (APPLAUSE) And I'm going to tell you why. And I'm going to tell you why. Because I agree, climate change represents an existential threat. He denies the science. You want to talk about North Korea, a real threat in terms of nuclear arsenal, but what does he do? He embraces Kim Jong-un, a dictator, for the sake of a photo op. Putin. You want to talk about Russia? He takes the word of the Russian president over the word of the American intelligence community when it comes to a threat to our democracy and our elections. These are the issues that are before us, Chuck.
TODD:

I hear you. Thank you, Senator Harris. (APPLAUSE) Mayor Buttigieg, in your climate plan, if you are elected president, in your first term, how is this going to help farmers impacted by climate change in the Midwest?
BUTTIGIEG:

Well, the reality is we need to begin adapting right away, but we also can't skip a beat on preventing climate change from getting even worse. It's why we need aggressive and ambitious measures. It's why we need to do a carbon tax and dividend. But I would propose we do it in a way that is rebated out to the American people in a progressive fashion so that most Americans are made more than whole.
This isn't theoretical for us in South Bend, either. Parts of California are on fire. Right here in Florida, they're talking about sea level rise. Well, in Indiana I had to activate the emergency operations center of our city twice in less than two years. The first time was a 1,000-year flood and the next time was a 500-year flood.
This is not just happening on the Arctic ice caps; this is happening in the middle of the country. And we've got to be dramatically more aggressive moving forward.
Now, here's what very few people talk about. First of all, rural America can be part of the solution instead of being told they're part of the problem. With the right kind of soil management and other kind of investments, rural America could be a huge part of how we get this done.
And secondly, we've got to look to the leadership of local communities, you know, those networks of mayors in cities from around the world...
TODD:

I'm trying to stick with the time as best we can.
BUTTIGIEG:

... not even waiting for our national governments to catch up. We should have a Pittsburgh summit where we bring them together, as well as rejoining the Paris...
TODD:

Thank you, Mayor Buttigieg.
MADDOW:

I want to bring Governor Hickenlooper into this for a moment. Governor, you have said that oil and gas companies should be a part of the solution on climate change. Lots of your colleagues on stage tonight have talked about moving away from fossil fuels entirely. Can oil and gas companies be real partners in this fight?
HICKENLOOPER:

Well, I share the sense of urgency. I'm -- I'm a scientist, so I -- I recognize that, within 10 or 12 years of actually, you know, suffering irreversible damage, but, you know, guaranteeing everybody a government job is not going to get us there. Socialism, in that sense, is not the solution. We have to look at what really will make a difference.
In Colorado, we're closing a couple of coal plants, replacing it with wind, solar and batteries and the monthly bills go down. We've gone on -- we're building a network for electric vehicles. We are working with the oil and gas industry and we've created the first methane regulations in the country.
Methane is 25 times worse than C02. And then we've got to get to that last part. I mean, the industrial -- heavy industry, we haven't seen the plans yet. If you look at the real problem, C02, the worst polluters in CO2 is China, is the United States, and then it's concrete and its exhalation. And beyond that, I think we've got to recognize that only by bringing people together, businesses, nonprofits -- and we can't demonize every business. We've got to bring them together to be part of this thing. Because ultimately, if we're not able to do that...
MADDOW:

Governor...
HICKENLOOPER:

... we will be doomed to failure. We have no way of doing this without bringing everyone together.
MADDOW:

Thank you. Vice President Biden... (APPLAUSE) ... on the issue of how you do this, Democrats are arguing robustly among themselves about what's the best way to tackle climate change. But if we're honest, many Republicans, including the president, are still not sure if they believe it is even a serious problem.
So are there significant ways you can cut carbon emissions if you have to do it with no support from Congress?
BIDEN:

The answer is yes. Number one, in our administration, we built the largest wind farm in the world, the largest solar energy facility in the world. We drove down the price, competitive price of both of those renewable energy -- renewable sources.
I would immediately insist that we in fact build 500,000 recharging stations throughout the United States of America, working with governors, mayors and others, so that we can go to a full electric vehicle future by the year 2020 -- by the year 2030.
I would make sure that we invested $400 million in new science and technology, to be the exporter not only of the green economy, but economy that can create millions of jobs. But I would immediately join the Paris Climate Accord. I would up the ante in that accord, which it calls for, because we make up 15 percent of the problem; 85 percent of the world makes up the rest. And so we have to have someone who knows how to corral the rest of the world, bring them together and get something done, like we did in our administration.
MADDOW:

Senator Sanders... (APPLAUSE) ... I want to give you 30 seconds to follow-up, but I'm going to hold to you 30.
SANDERS:

Look, the old ways are no longer relevant. The scientists tell us we have 12 years before there is irreparable damage to this planet. This is a global issue. What the president of the United States should do is not deny the reality of climate change but tell the rest of the world that, instead of spending a trillion and a half dollars on weapons of destruction, let us get together for the common enemy, and that is to transform the world's energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. The future of the planet rests on us doing that.
MADDOW:

Thank you, Senator.
(APPLAUSE)
TODD:

Before we go -- hang on...
(APPLAUSE)
MADDOW:

Before we leave this topic...
SWALWELL:

Here's the solution. Pass the torch. Pass the torch to the generation that's going to feel the effects of climate change.
SANDERS:

No, take on the fossil fuels, and that's the solution.
MADDOW:

Before we leave this topic, here's something you all want to weigh in on.
GILLIBRAND:

... to the Republican Party.
TODD:

Just -- just...
MADDOW:

Hold one moment.
TODD:

Just trust us on this. We're going to...
WILLIAMSON:

The fact that somebody has a younger body doesn't mean you don't have old ideas. John Kennedy -- John Kennedy... did not say -- John Kennedy did not say -- I have a plan to get a man to the moon and so we're going to do it and I think we can all work and maybe we can get a man on the moon. John Kennedy said, by the end of this decade, we are going to put a man on the moon.
Because John Kennedy was back in the day when politics included the people and included imagination and included great dreams and included great plans.
MADDOW:

Ms. Williamson...
TODD:

Thank you, Ms. Williamson.
WILLIAMSON:

And I have had a career not making the political plans, but I have had a career harnessing the inspiration and the motivation and the excitement of people, masses of people.
TODD:

Thank you, Ms. Williamson.
WILLIAMSON:

When we know that when we say...
TODD:

Thank you.
WILLIAMSON:

... we are going to turn from a dirty economy to a clean economy, we're going to have a Green New Deal, we're going to create millions of jobs, we're going to do this within the next 12 years, because I'm not interested in just winning the next election. We are interested in our grandchildren.
TODD:

Thank you, Ms. Williamson.
WILLIAMSON:

Then it will happen.
TODD:

All right. We got to sneak in a break in a minute, but before we go, I'm going to go down the line here and I'm asking you please for one or two words only. All right, please.
MADDOW:

Really.
TODD:

President Obama in his first year wanted to address both health care and climate. And he could only get one signature issue accomplished; it was, obviously, health care. He didn't get to do climate change. You may only get one shot, and your first issue that you're going to push, you get one shot that it may be the only thing you get passed, what is that first issue for your presidency.
Eric Swalwell, you're first.
SWALWELL:

For Parkland, for Orlando, for every community affected by gun violence, ending gun violence.
(APPLAUSE)
TODD:

Senator Bennet?
BENNET:

Climate change and the lack of economic mobility Bernie talks about.
TODD:

Senator Gillibrand?
GILLIBRAND:

Passing a family bill of rights that includes a national paid leave plan, universal pre-K, affordable daycare, and making sure that women and families can thrive in the workplace no matter who they are.
HARRIS:

Oh, I like that.
TODD:

That was pretty good. Senator Harris?
HARRIS:

... so, passing a middle-class and working families tax cut...
TODD:

That's one.
HARRIS:

... DACA, guns, and...
TODD:

I've given you credit for the first thing you said, the tax cuts.
TODD:

Senator Sanders, first thing?
SANDERS:

Chuck, the premise that there's only one or two issues out there...
TODD:

I'm not saying there isn't one or two.
SANDERS:

This country faces enormous crises.
TODD:

Senator Sanders...
SANDERS:

We need a political revolution. People have got to stand up and take on the special interests. We can transform this country.
TODD:

Vice President Biden, your first issue, Mr. Vice President?
BIDEN:

I think you're so underestimating what Barack Obama did. He's the first man to bring together the entire world, 196 nations, to commit to deal with climate change, immediately.
(APPLAUSE)
So I don't buy that. But the first thing I would do is make sure that we defeat Donald Trump, period.
(APPLAUSE)
TODD:

OK, Mayor Buttigieg, your first priority, your first issue as president that you are going to block and tackle.
BUTTIGIEG:

We've got to fix our democracy before it's too late. Get that right, climate, immigration, taxes, and every other issue gets better.
TODD:

Mr. Yang?
YANG:

I would pass a $1,000 freedom dividend for every American adult starting at age 18, which would speed us up on climate change, because if you get the boot off of people's throats, they'll focus on climate change much more clearly.
TODD:

OK. Governor Hickenlooper?
HICKENLOOPER:

I would do a collaborative approach to climate change and I would pronounce it well before the election to make sure we don't reelect the worst president in American history.
TODD:

And Ms. Williamson, the last word.
WILLIAMSON:

My first call is to the prime minister of New Zealand, who said that her goal is to make New Zealand the place where it's the best place in the world for a child to grow up, and I would tell her, girlfriend, you are so wrong, because the United States of America is going to be the best place in the world for a child to grow up.
TODD:

Thank you.
WILLIAMSON:

We are going to have...
TODD:

You guys were close with the short -- at least it was shorter responses.
MADDOW:

No, they weren't. Not at all.
TODD:

All right. C-minus.
MADDOW:

We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with these candidates right after this.
MADDOW:

Welcome back to the Democratic candidates' debate in Miami. We're going to continue the questioning now with Lester in the audience. We are? We are -- a second are going to have a question from Lester in the audience. But that was just a fake-out.
(LAUGHTER) TODD:

Let's go to -- we're going to go to the issue of guns. And...
MADDOW:

Congressman Swalwell, among this field of candidates, you have a unique position on gun reform. You're proposing that the government should buy back every assault weapon in America and it should be mandatory. How do you envision that working, especially in states where gun rights are a strong flash point?
SWALWELL:

Keep your pistols, keep your rifles, keep your shotguns, but we can take the most dangerous weapons from the most dangerous people. We have the NRA on the ropes, because of the moms, because of the Brady Group, because of Giffords, because of March for our Lives.
(APPLAUSE)
But I'm the only candidate on this stage calling for a ban and buyback of every single assault weapon in America. I have seen the plans of the other candidates here. They would all leave 15 million assault weapons in our communities. They wouldn't do a single thing to save a single life in Parkland.
I will approach this issue as a prosecutor. I'll approach it as the only person on this stage who has voted and passed background checks. But also as a parent, of a generation who sends our children to school where we look at what they're wearing so we can remember it in case we have to identify them later. A generation who has seen thousands of black children killed in our streets. And a generation who goes to the theater and we actually look where the fire exits are. We don't have to live this way. We must must be a country who loves our children more than we love our guns.
(APPLAUSE)
MADDOW:

Senator Sanders, a Vermont newspaper recently released portions of an interview you gave in 2013 in which you said: "My own view on guns is, everything being equal, states should make those decisions."
SANDERS:

No.
MADDOW:

Has your thinking changed since then? Do you now think there is a federal role to play?
SANDERS:

No, that's a mischaracterization of my thinking.
MADDOW:

It's a quote of you.
SANDERS:

Look, we have a gun...
(LAUGHTER)
SANDERS:

We have a gun crisis right now, 40,000 people a year are getting killed. In 1988, Rachel, when it wasn't popular, I ran on a platform of banning assault weapons and in fact lost that race for Congress. I have a D-minus voting record from the NRA. And I believe that what we need is comprehensive gun legislation that, among other things, provides universal background, we end the gun show loophole, we end the strawman provision, and I believed in 1988 and I believe today.
SANDERS:

Assault weapons are weapons from the military and that they should not be on the streets of America.
SWALWELL:

Your plan leaves them on the streets. You leave 15 million on the streets.
SANDERS:

We ban the sale -- we ban the sale and distribution...
SWALWELL:

Will you buy them back?
SANDERS:

... and that's what I've believed for many years.
SWALWELL:

Will you buy them back?
SANDERS:

If people want to buy -- if the government wants to do that and people want to bring them back, yes.
SWALWELL:

You are going to be the government, will you buy them back?
SANDERS:

Yes.
MADDOW:

Senator Harris, we're going to give you 30 seconds.
HARRIS:

Thank you. I think your idea is a great one, Congressman Swalwell. And I'll say that there are a lot of great ideas. The problem is Congress has not had the courage to act which is why when elected president of the United States, I will give the United States Congress 100 days to pull their act together, bring all these good ideas together, and put a bill on my desk for signature. And if they do not, I will take executive action and I will put in place... (APPLAUSE) ... the most comprehensive background check policy we've had. I will require the ATF to take the licenses of gun dealers who violate the law. And I will ban by executive order the importation of assault weapons. Because I'm going to tell you, as a prosecutor, I have seen more autopsy photographs than I care to tell you. I have hugged more mothers who are the mothers of homicide victims. And I have attended more police officer funerals. It is enough. It is enough. There have been plenty of good ideas from members of the United States Congress. There has been no action. As president, I will take action.
(APPLAUSE)
MADDOW:

Mayor Buttigieg, I want to bring you in on this, Sir. A lot of discussions about assault rifles that are often shorthanded as military-style weapons. You are the only person on this stage tonight with military experience as a veteran of the Afghanistan War. (APPLAUSE) Will military families -- does that inform your thinking on this view? Do you believe that military families or America's veterans will at large have a different take on this than the other Americans who we have been talking about and who Congressman Swalwell is appealing to with his buyback program?
BUTTIGIEG:

Yes, of course, because we trained on some of these kinds of weapons. Look, every part of my life experience informs this, being the mayor of a city where the worst part of the job is dealing with violence. We lose as many as were lost at Parkland every two or three years in my city alone. And this is tearing communities apart. If more guns made us safer, we would be the safest country on earth. It doesn't work that way. (APPLAUSE) And common-sense measures like universal background checks can't seem to get delivered by Washington, even when most Republicans, let alone most Americans, agree it's the right thing to do. And as somebody who trained on weapons of war, I can tell you that there are weapons that have absolutely no place in American cities or neighborhoods in peacetime, ever.
(APPLAUSE)
MADDOW:

Vice President Biden, 30 seconds.
BIDEN:

A real 30 seconds?
MADDOW:

A real 30 seconds.
BIDEN:

OK. I'm the only person that has beaten the NRA nationally. I'm the guy that got the Brady Bill passed, the background checks, number one. (APPLAUSE) Number two, we increased that background check when -- during the Obama-Biden administration. I'm also the only guy that got assault weapons banned, banned, and the number of clips in a gun banned. And so, folks, look, and I would buy back those weapons. We already started talking about that. We tried to get it done. I think it can be done. And it should be demanded that we do it. And that's a good expenditure of money. And, lastly, we should have smart guns. No gun should be able to be sold unless your biometric measure could pull that trigger. It's within our right to do that. We can do that. Our enemy is the gun manufacturers, not the NRA, the gun manufacturers.
MADDOW:

Mr. Vice President...
SWALWELL:

But the NRA is taking orders from the gun manufacturers, that's the problem.
TODD:

All right. Lester Holt has our next question. Lester, take it away.
HOLT:

All right, Chuck. This is a question from our viewers. We put some -- the suggestions that -- asked maybe they could share some. Here's one that came from Kathleen (ph) from Canby, Oregon, who writes many fear the current administration has inflicted irrevocable harm on our governing institutions and norms and the process on our reputation abroad. The question is, what do you see as important early steps in reversing the damage done? And we'll put this one to Senator Bennet.
BENNET:

Thank you very much. What an excellent question. First of all, we have to restore our democracy at home. The rest of the world is looking for us for leadership. We have a president who doesn't believe in the rule of law, he doesn't believe in freedom of the press, he doesn't believe in an independent judiciary. He believes in the corruption that he's brought to Washington, D.C. And that is what we have to change, and that's why everybody is up here tonight, and I appreciate the fact that they're up here for that reason.
Second, we've got to -- we've got to restore the relationships that he's destroyed with our allies, not just in Europe. He flew to the G20 last night and attacked Japan, Germany, and a third ally of ours without saying anything about North Korea or Russia.
And when you've got a situation where you have a president who says something happened in the Straits of Hormuz and the whole world doesn't know whether to believe it or not, that is a huge problem when it comes to the national security of the United States of America. And we need to change that.
(APPLAUSE)
TODD:

This is a perfect time -- thank you, Senator. This is a perfect time for me to do another one of these down the line. And this is what this question is, which is, you're going to have to -- you're likely going to have to reset a relationship between America and another country or entity if you become president because of some -- perhaps because of some relationship that you just mentioned about President Trump. What is the first relationship you would like to reset as president? I'm going to go down the line, and I'll start with Ms. Williamson.
WILLIAMSON:

Well, one of my first phone calls would be to call the European leaders and say we're back...
TODD:

Thank you.
WILLIAMSON:

... because I totally understand how important it is that the United States be part of the Western alliance.
TODD:

OK, I want -- I'm trying to get one or two words here. I hear you. Governor Hickenlooper?
HICKENLOOPER:

You know, I talk about constant engagement. And I think the first person -- the first country I would go to...
TODD:

Yeah.
HICKENLOOPER:

... and I understand they've been cheating and stealing and (inaudible) would be China...
TODD:

OK.
HICKENLOOPER:

... because if we're going to do -- deal with public health pandemics, if we're doing to deal with...
TODD:

Thank you.
HICKENLOOPER:

... all the challenges of the globe, we've got to have relationships with everyone.
TODD:

Mr. Yang, we're trying to squeeze in a couple more things before we go to another break. Mr. Yang?
YANG:

China. We need cooperate with them on climate change, AI, and other issues, North Korea.
TODD:

Thanks for the quickness. Mayor Buttigieg?
BUTTIGIEG:

We have no idea which of our most important allies he will have pissed off worse between now and then. What we know is that our relationship with the entire world needs to change.
(APPLAUSE)
And it starts by modelling American values at home.
TODD:

OK. Mr. Vice President, I'm trying to be quick.
BIDEN:

We know NATO will fall apart if he is elected four more years. It's the single most consequential alliance in the history of the United States.
TODD:

OK. Senator Sanders?
SANDERS:

It's not one country. I think it is rebuilding trust in the United Nations and understand that we can solve...
TODD:

OK, got it.
SANDERS:

... conflicts without war, but with diplomacy.
TODD:

Senator Harris?
HARRIS:

All the members of the NATO alliance.
TODD:

Senator Gillibrand?
GILLIBRAND:

President Trump is hell-bent on starting a war with Iran. My first act...
TODD:

Right.
GILLIBRAND:

... will be to engage Iran to stabilize the Middle East and make sure we do not start an unwanted, never-ending war.
TODD:

Thank you. Senator Bennet, quickly.
BENNET:

Our European allies and every Latin American country that's willing to have a conversation about how to deal with the refugee crisis.
TODD:

OK. And Congressman Swalwell?
SWALWELL:

My first act in foreign policy, we're breaking up with Russia and making up with NATO.
MADDOW:

Thank you all. Thank you all. We have one...
BENNET:

That's a good plan.
MADDOW:

... last question for Vice President Biden tonight. You made your decades of experience in foreign policy a pillar of your campaign, but when the time came to say yes or no on one of the most consequential foreign policy decisions of the last century, you voted for the Iraq war. You have since said you regret that vote. But why should voters trust your judgment when it comes to making a decision about taking the country to war the next time?
BIDEN:

Because once we -- once Bush abused that power, what happened was, we got elected after that. I made sure -- the president turned to me and said, Joe, get our combat troops out of Iraq. I was responsible for getting 150,000 combat troops out of Iraq, and my son was one of them.
I also think we should not have combat troops in Afghanistan. It's long overdue. It should end.
(APPLAUSE)
And, thirdly, I believe that you're not going to find anybody who has pulled together more of our alliances to deal with what is the real stateless threat out there. We cannot go it alone in terms of dealing with terrorism.
So I would eliminate the act that allowed us to go into war, and not -- the AUMF, and make sure that it could only be used for what its intent was, and that is to go after terrorists, but never do it alone. That's why we have to repair our alliances. We put together 65 countries to make sure we dealt with ISIS in Iraq and other places. That's what I would do. That's what I have done. And I know how to do it.
MADDOW:

Senator Sanders, 30 seconds.
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS:

One of the differences -- one of the differences that Joe and I have in our record is Joe voted for that war, I helped lead the opposition to that war, which was a total disaster.
(APPLAUSE) Second of all, I helped lead the effort for the first time to utilize the War Powers Act to get the United States out of the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, which is the most horrific humanitarian disaster on Earth. (APPLAUSE) And thirdly, let me be very clear. I will do everything I can to prevent a war with Iran, which would be far worse than disastrous war with Iraq.
(APPLAUSE)
MADDOW:

Senator Sanders, thank you.
TODD:

All right, guys.
BIDEN:

... American people.
TODD:

We got -- good news is, you get more time to talk, but I have to sneak in one more break.
MADDOW:

We'll be right back.
TODD:

We'll be right back with more debate.
HOLT:

We are back from Miami. Now, each candidate will have a final chance to make their case to the voters, 45 seconds each. We begin with Congressman Swalwell.
SWALWELL:

We can't be a forward-looking party if we look to the past for our leadership. I'm a congressman, but also 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.
I went to Congress at 31, and I found a Washington that doesn't work for people like you and me. It's made of the rich and the disconnected. I was the first in my family to go to college and have student loan debt.
And so I have led the effort to elect the next generation of members of Congress, and we have a moment to seize. This is a can-do generation. This is the generation that will end climate chaos. This is the generation that will solve student loan debt. And this is the generation that will say enough is enough and end gun violence. This generation demands bold solutions. That's why I'm running for president.
HOLT:

Congressman, thank you.
GUTHRIE:

Ms. Williamson, 45 seconds for your closing.
WILLIAMSON:

I'm sorry we haven't talked more tonight about how we're going to beat Donald Trump. I have an idea about Donald Trump. Donald Trump is not going to be beaten just by insider politics talk. He's not going to be beaten just somebody who has plans.
He's going to be beaten by somebody who has an idea what this man has done. This man has reached into the psyche of the American people and he has harnessed fear for political purposes. So, Mr. President, if you're listening, I want you to hear me, please. You have harnessed fear for political purposes and only love can cast that out.
So I, sir, I have a feeling you know what you're doing. I'm going to harness love for political purposes. I will meet you on that field. And, sir, love will win.
GUTHRIE:

Ms. Williamson, thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
DIAZ-BALART:

Senator Bennet?
BENNET:

Thank you. Thank you. My mom and her parents came to the United States to rebuild their shattered lives, in the only country that they could. Three hundred years before that, my parents' family came searching religious freedom here.
The ability for one generation to do better than the next is now severely at risk in the United States, especially among children living in poverty like the ones I used to work for in the Denver public schools. That's why I'm running for president.
I've had two tough races in Colorado, but by bringing people together, not by making empty promises. And I believe we need to build a broad coalition of Americans to beat Donald Trump, end the corruption in Washington, and build a new era of American democracy and American opportunity.
This is going to be hard to do, but it's what our parents would have expected, it's what our kids deserve. I hope you join me in this effort. Thank you.
MADDOW:

Senator.
DIAZ-BALART:

Thank you.
TODD:

Governor Hickenlooper?
HICKENLOOPER:

I'm a small-business owner who brought that same scrappy spirit to big Colorado, one of the most progressive states in America. We expanded reproductive health to reduce teenage abortion by 64 percent. We were the first state to legalize marijuana, and we transformed our justice system in the process.
We passed universal background checks in a purple state. We got to near universal health care coverage. We attacked climate change with the toughest methane regulations in the country. And for the last three years, we've been the number-one economy in America.
You don't need big government to do big things. I know that because I'm the one person up here who's actually done the big progressive things everyone else is talking about. If we turn towards socialism, we run the risk of helping to re-elect the worst president in American history.
TODD:

Thank you, Governor.
(APPLAUSE)
MADDOW:

Senator Gillibrand, you have the floor for 45 seconds.
GILLIBRAND:

Women in America -- women in America are on fire. We've marched, we've organized, we've run for office, and we've won. But our rights are under attack like never before by President Trump and the Republicans who want to repeal Roe v. Wade, which is why I went to the front lines in Georgia to fight for them.
As president, I will take on the fights that no one else will. I stood up to the Pentagon and repealed "don't ask/don't tell." I've stood up to the banks and voted against the bailout twice. I've stood up to Trump more than any other senator in the U.S. Senate. And I have the most comprehensive approach for getting money out of politics with publicly funded elections to deal with political corruption.
Now is not the time to play it safe. Now is not the time to be afraid of firsts. We need a president who will take on the big challenges, even if she stands alone. Join me in fighting for this.
MADDOW:

Senator Gillibrand, thank you.
HOLT:

Mr. Yang, you have 45 seconds for your closing.
(APPLAUSE)
YANG:

First, I want to thank everyone who put me on this stage tonight. I am proof that our democracy still works.
Democrats and Americans around the country have one question for their nominee, and that is, who can beat Donald Trump in 2020? That is the right question. And the right candidate to beat Donald Trump will be solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected, and we'll have a vision of a trickle-up economy that is already drawing thousands of disaffected Trump voters, conservatives, independents, and libertarians, as well as Democrats and progressives. I am that candidate. I can build a much broader coalition to beat Donald Trump. It is not left; it is not right. It is forward. And that is where I'll take the country in 2020.
HOLT:

Mr. Yang, thank you.
GUTHRIE:

Senator Harris, Senator Harris, the floor is yours.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS:

Thank you. Well, I just want to leave you with a couple of things. One, we need a nominee who has the ability to prosecute the case against four more years of Donald Trump, and I will do that.
Second, this election is about you. This is about your hopes and your dreams and your fears and what wakes you up at 3 o'clock in the morning. And that's why I have what I call a 3 a.m. agenda that is about everything from what we need to do to deliver health care to how you will be able to pay the bills by the end of the month.
And when I think about what our country needs, I promise you, I will be a president who leads with a sense of dignity, with honesty, speaking the truth, and giving the American family all that they need to get through the end of the month in a way that allows them to prosper. So I hope to earn your support, and please join us at kamalaharris.org.
GUTHRIE:

Senator, thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
DIAZ-BALART:

Mayor Buttigieg, 45 seconds.
BUTTIGIEG:

Nothing about politics is theoretical for me. I've had the experience of writing a letter to my family, putting it in an envelope marked "just in case," and leaving it where they would know where to find it in case I didn't come back from Afghanistan. I've experienced being in a marriage that exists by the grace of a single vote on the U.S. Supreme Court. And I have the experience of guiding a community where the per capita income was below $20,000 when I took office into a brighter future. I'm running because the decisions we make in the next three or four years are going to decide how the next 30 or 40 go. And when I get to the current age of the current president in the year 2055, I want to be able to look back on these years and say my generation delivered climate solutions, racial equality, and an end to endless war. Help me deliver that new generation to Washington before it's too late.
(APPLAUSE)
TODD:

Thank you. Senator Sanders, 45 seconds, the floor is yours.
SANDERS:

I suspect people all over the country who are watching this debate are saying, these are good people, they have great ideas. But how come nothing really changes? How come for the last 45 years wages have been stagnant for the middle class? How come we have the highest rate of childhood poverty? How come 45 million people still have student debt? How come three people own more wealth than the bottom half of America? And here is the answer, nothing will change unless we have the guts to take on Wall Street, the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the military-industrial complex, and the fossil fuel industry. If we don't have the guts to take them on, we'll continue to have plans, we'll continue to have talk, and the rich will get richer, and everybody else will be struggling.
(APPLAUSE)
TODD:

Thank you, Senator.
MADDOW:

And lastly, we'll hear from Vice President Biden. Sir, you have 45 seconds.
BIDEN:

Thank you very much. I'm ready to lead this country because I think it's important we restore the soul of this nation. This president has ripped it out. It's the only president in our history who has equated racists and white supremacists with ordinary and decent people. He's the only president who has, in fact, engaged and embraced dictators and thumbed their nose at our allies. I'm, secondly, running for president because I think we have to restore the backbone of America, the poor and hardworking middle class people. You can't do that without replacing them with the dignity they once had. Last thing, we've got to unite the United States of America, as much as anybody says we can't. If we do, there's not a single thing the American people can't do. This is the United States of America. We can do anything if we're together, together. So God bless you all and may God protect our troops.
(APPLAUSE)
MADDOW:

Vice President Biden, thank you.
GUTHRIE:

We want to thank our candidates. We've had two nights of spirited debate on a range of issues. Twenty candidates in all. We want to thank all of the candidates, last night and tonight.
TODD:

Seriously, it takes guts to run and stick your neck out like this. To you guys and to the 10 last night, thanks for having the guts to do it.
MADDOW:

I would also like to thank the audience for completely ignoring our suggestion not to react. You made it a lot more fun.
(LAUGHTER) (APPLAUSE)
DIAZ-BALART:

Also thanks to the Democratic National Committee, and the Florida Democratic Party.
HOLT:

And, of course, thank you to everyone at the Adrienne Arsht Center for hosting us here, and our terrific audience, as Chuck mentioned.
MADDOW:

Terrific.
HOLT:

For Savannah, Jose, Chuck, and Rachel, I'm Lester Holt. Good night, everyone, from Miami.
(APPLAUSE)