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Democratic debate: Clinton and Sanders spar over $15 minimum wage – live
Democratic debate: Sanders and Clinton take the gloves off in Brooklyn – live
(35 minutes later)
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Guns.
Sanders yells something about what you “don’t do” and “what you do do” and it draws some titters in the hall.
Clinton is asked whether she blames Vermont for New York’s gun violence.
don't say "do do" Bernie
“Of course not,” Clinton says. “This is a serious difference between us,” she says.
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Sanders chuckles in anticipation.
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“This is not a laughing matter,” she says. And unloads on him. “I take it very seriously because I have spent too much time with families...
Mona Chalabi
“What we have here is a big difference,” Clinton says.
American attitudes to climate change contrast with global opinion, as polling data from Pew Research Center shows:
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% who say Earth warming due to human activity70 Latino56 Black44 Whitehttps://t.co/GcH5vPl6rE #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/8YOSGM8Yax
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Sanders is just hammering Clinton for asserting that she has always been for a $15/hr minimum wage. “I think secretary Clinton is confusing a lot of people,” he says.
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Now it’s on to guns.
Former Maryland governor and presidential candidate Martin O’Malley joins the call for Clinton to release her Goldman speech transcripts:
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Said this in 2012 about @MittRomney's tax returns, I'll say it today: @HillaryClinton should release the Wall Street transcripts #DemDebate
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Sanders: 'History outpaced Clinton' on fight for $15
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Clinton now on jobs. “I do have a very comprehensive plan.. I think it is important that we do more on manufacturing. ..” She says as secretary of state she increased exports.
“Here is a real difference,” Sanders says. He accuses Clinton of “incrementalism.” “Those little steps are not enough,” Sanders says. “Not right now, not on climate change.”
“You’ve got to go at this with a sense of how to accomplish the goals we are setting.”
He asks her whether she’s in favor of a tax on carbon.
They’ve relaxed in their attack postures, a bit. Although Sanders is pep-pep-peppy about making a point on the tail of Clinton’s latest.
Clinton takes a breath. “I have laid out a set of actions,” she says, and quickly ends up talking about the need for a new supreme court justice.
Another Q for Clinton: Why don’t you support a $15 minimum wage?
I don’t take a backseat to your legislation that you’ve introduced that you haven’t been able to get passed.
She says she’d sign a $15/hr law and she’s been supported by unions in the fight for $15.
She says her solution would get the country there faster “without tying us up into political knots.”
Sanders gets off a doozy: I bet a lot of people would be surprised to hear that Clinton supported $15! he says.
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Then they argue over one another.
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Blitzer with a classic: “If you’re both screaming at each other, the viewers won’t be able to hear either of you.”
Mona Chalabi
Secretary Clinton said let’s raise it to $12. There’s a difference. What’s happened is that history has outpaced secretary Clinton.
Speaking about “systemic racism” in the criminal justice system, Hillary Clinton has recognized the role that the 1994 crime bill might have played in worsening the issue, writes Mona Chalabi.
Big, big, applause for Sanders.
The bill she mentioned is part of her husband, President Bill Clinton’s, political legacy.
Clinton again asserts she supported the Fight for $15. She’s kind of booed. “IT happens to be true,” she says, rather pitifully.
We fact-checked its effects last week and concluded that the black incarceration rate had been steadily climbing since 1980, as successive presidents and Congresses passed laws related to the “war on drugs”. But there is no doubt that the 1994 crime bill made a bad situation, worse. Today, for every 100 black women who are not in jail, there are only 83 black men.
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Clinton says her support for fracking globally was a way to get away from coal and to get countries off a dependency on Russian gas. She defends it as a lesser of two evils.
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“I don’t think I’ve changed my view on what we need to do.” She says fracking represents a bridge fuel, natural gas, from coal to sustainable energy.
Sanders is asked a macroecon 101 question. How do you bring jobs back without raising prices?
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He’d raise the minimum wage, he’d say. Then he starts trashing trade agreements.
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Clinton: “Let’s talk about the global environmental crisis.” She refers to her work as secretary of state to bring China to the table on a greenhouse emissions deal. She praises the Paris deal on global emissions targets and then says she was disappointed Sanders attacked the deal.
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Sanders returns the attack, saying Clinton “worked hard to expand fracking around the world” as secretary of state.
Sanders is asked about the CEO of Verizon calling his views “contemptible” for his support of communications workers in their strike against the company.
Sanders says he has the guts to take on the fossil fuel industry. He implies Clinton does not.
“I would tell the gentleman... to start negotiating with the communication workers of America. And this is a perfect example.. of the kind of corporate greed that is destroying the middle class. This gentleman makes $18m. That’s his salary... he is not investing in the way he should.
She chuckles. “I”m a little bewildered at how to respond,” she says. She says the Obama administration moved forward on energy in the face of “implacable opposition” from Republicans.
Sanders is asked: could he promote American business, given his contempt for corporations?
“I really believe the president has done an incredible job against great odds, and deserves to be supported. It’s easy to diagnose the problem, it’s harder to do something,” she says.
Sanders denies “contempt”. There are great businesses, Sanders says. “Verizon isn’t one of them.”
That’s applauded.
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Clinton runs from question about speech transcripts
Lois Beckett
Clinton takes a question about speeches to Goldman Sachs. Why not just release those transcripts?
Is Hillary right that Sanders was “clearly helped by the NRA” in his election to Congress?
Clinton says there isn’t an issue. “I did stand up to the banks. I did make it clear that their behavior would not be excused.... if you’re going to look at the problems that actually caused the great recession, you’ve got to looks at the full picture.”
In a word, yes, writes Lois Beckett.
She is ignoring the question.
In 1990, when Sanders was first elected, the socialist was “he enemy of the NRA’s enemy,” as The Washington Post’s David A Fahrenthold put it.
But what about the transcripts? Dana Bash asks.
Compared to the Republican incumbent in the race, who had earned the NRA’s ire over his support for an assault weapon ban, “Bernie Sanders is a more honorable choice for Vermont sportsmen,” Wayne LaPierre wrote in a mailing to thousands of Vermont National Rifle Association members.
She’s cheered for pressing the question.
Read more about the NRA’s role in the 1990 election here.
Clinton: “There are certain expectations when you run for president. This is a new one... but I will tell you this, there is a longstanding expectation that everybody running release their tax returns.”
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She’s booed. She refuses to answer the question.
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Clinton: “Let’s set the same standard for everybody. When everybody does it, I will do it, thank you.”
They’re back!
Sanders pounces: “Secretary Clinton, you just heard her....
Next question is about energy and the environment. Sanders has said you are in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry.
“I am going to release all of the transcripts of speeches on Wall St I gave behind closed doors. Not for $200,000, not for $200, not for two cents. There were no speeches!”
Clinton says let’s talk about the extraordinary threats that climate change poses. “There has never been any doubt that when I was a senator... I tried to get rid of the subsidies for big oil. .. Everyone’s who looked at this independently has said that this is an incorrect, false charge.”
Big cheers.
Sanders: “It is one thing to talk about workers... but as I understand it, 43 lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry gave the maximum amount of money to secretary Clinton’s campaign.” He says they thought she was a good bet.
Sanders says he’ll release his tax returns too, that his wife Jane does the taxes and there’s not much there there.
He says climate change is “a global environmental crisis of unprecedented urgency.” He’s applauded. “We have an enemy out there,” he says.
Wolf Blitzer pushes him: What’s taking so long?
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Sanders says he’s been campaigning.
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Updated
Commercial break. How was that first hour or so? Pretty punchy after all. Clinton seemed to be landing the most punches early, jumping right into an attack on Sanders for, she said, failing to describe the mechanics of breaking up big banks in a Daily News interview this month. They had some snippy back-and-forth about a campaign trail argument over being qualified for office. But then Sanders hit Clinton hard for her paid speeches to big banks – and she stumbled on the question of whether she would release transcripts of those pieces. Then Sanders caught Clinton out on a limb when she claimed always to have been a stalwart proponent of a $15/hr minimum wage.
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Sanders is off to the races on criminal justice reform, drug sentencing.
Sanders mocks Clinton. “Senator Clinton called them out,” he says, rolling his eyes by waving his hands. “Oh my goodness. They must have been really crushed by this. And was that before or after you received huge sums of money by giving speaking engagements?”
The candidates are agreeing on the need for criminal justice reform.
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Clinton starts to speak and is immediately cheered.
Clinton: 'I want white people to recognize that there is systemic racism'
She smiles. “I love being in Brooklyn. This is great,” she says.
Follow up for Clinton: do you regret advocacy for crime bill?
Then she calls for penalizing bank executives, not just the institutions, affected by too big to fail.
“My husband has apologized,” Clinton says – and he’s the one who signed it. Then she issues a sort-of apology:
Sanders gets a tough question. What did Clinton do as a senator that showed banks had influence on her?
“I’m sorry for the consequences that were unintended and that it had a very unfortunate impact on people’s lives. .. I want to focus the attention of our country and to make the changes we need.
He says, sure, I can do that. The obvious response to the Great Recession would have been to pass laws breaking up the banks. Sanders introduced such legislation. And Clinton?
I want white people to recognize that there is systemic racism. It’s in employment, it’s in housing, but it’s in the criminal justice system also.
“Secretary Clinton was busy giving speeches to Goldman Sachs for $250,000 a speech,” Sanders says. That line is cheered.
Sanders is asked why he called out Clinton this week for once having described criminals targeted by the 1994 crime bill as “super-predator” criminals.
But Clinton’s reply is cheered much more loudly.
Because it was a racist term and everybody knew it was a racist term.
“He cannot come up with any example because there is no example.” “I stood up to the behavior of the banks when I was a senator,” she asserts.
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Mona Chalabi
Sanders is asked why he would ask banks to break themselves up – he described such a solution in the Daily News interview, saying he would not swing the axe but would take the banks’ advisement.
It’s worth noting that gun violence deaths in New York are up 15% according to a report published last week by New York’s Division of Criminal Justice Services, writes Guardian US Data Editor Mona Chalabi.
Sanders says “I don’t need Dodd-Frank to tell me” the banks are too big to fail, because the banks are “based on fraudulent principles.” “We need to break them up.”
Last year alone, 127 people were killed in the state as a result of gun violence.
Sanders is pressed on how involved the banks would be in their demise.
Sanders has quoted his D- rating by the National Rifle Association (NRA) who rate politicians according to how sympathetic their voting record is on gun rights. Sanders is right – you can compare other candidates ratings here (Hillary Clinton has an even lower NRA rating: F).
“What the government should say... the banks themselves can figure out what they want to sell off. I don’t believe it’s appropriate for the department of treasury to make those decisions,” he says.
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Lois Beckett
Pretty hot debate so far. They aren’t playing particularly nice. More like playing to win.
Wolf Blitzer fact-checked Hillary’s claim that Vermont sent more guns per capita to New York than any other state, noting that, overall, only 1.2% of crime guns recovered in New York come from Vermont, writes the Guardian’s Lois Beckett.
Clinton is talking about a need to introduce stronger banking regulation because “we will not let Wall st wreck Main st again.”
“Are you seriously blaming Vermont and implicitly Senator Sanders for New York’s gun violence?” he asked.
She says she’ll move immediately to break up any financial institution that poses a threat.
“Of course not,” Senator Clinton said, touting her commitment reducing the 33,000 American gun deaths each year.
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“I have spent more time than I care to remember being with people who have lost their loved ones,” she said. Mothers of victims of gun violence and police shootings have appeared with Hillary at multiple campaign events.
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Clinton has a pretty solid reply to the attack on super Pacs: “This is an attack on President Obama,” who used them but then supported Dodd-Frank.
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“This is a phony attack that is designed to raise questions when there is no evidence or support to undergird” the insinuations, she says.
Clinton takes a question about the 1994 crime bill: net positive or a mistake?
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Clinton: It has some positive aspects. Violence against women act. And it also did some things to provide more opportunities. There are some positives.
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On the other side, there were some decisions... that now we must revisit. I think that sentences got much too long. “So we have a problem. And the very first speech I gave in this campaign” was about criminal justice reform.
Clinton says Sanders had called her unqualified. “I’ve been called a lot of things in my life. That was a first.”
Sanders voted for the crime bill, she says.
As for her judgment, she says, the people of New York elected her twice and president Obama picked her to be secretary of state.
Then Clinton hits Sanders pretty hard, bringing up his 1 April NY Daily News interview in which he said he wasn’t sure about the president’s authority to name banks as too big to fail. She refers to “The kinds of problems he had answering questions about his core issues.”
“Let’s talk about judgment,” Sanders hits back. He says the Iraq war was the worst foreign policy blunder in the recent history of the United States. He says her use of super Pacs showed bad judgment.
“In America we should be thinking big not small,” he says, and calls for universal health care.
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First Q is for Sanders. He’s challenged Clinton’s qualifications and credibility. Does she have judgment to be president?
Sanders: I’ve known her 25 years. That was a response to Clinton campaign attacks. That’s what Does secretary Clinton have the experience and intelligence to be a president? Of course she does. But I do question her judgment.”
He mentions her vote for Iraq and trade agreements. “And I question her judgment about running super Pacs collecting tens of millions from special interests.”
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Opening statements
Bernie Sanders: Thanks everyone. A year ago we were at 3%. Now a couple polls have us ahead. We won eight of the last nine contests (big cheers: a Sanders crowd?). We got 7m individual contributions averaging $27 apiece (the crowd chants along). We’re doing something very radical: we’re telling the American people the truth (more big cheers). Citizens United bad; campaign finance reform needed; rigged economy bad.
Lots of Sanders love in the hall.
Hillary Clinton: It’s great to be here (whoop-whoop cheers. Maybe the crowd is just hyper). I was honored to be a senator for eight years (yay!) and we faced challenges including 9/11. I was concerned about first responders. We helped Buffalo and Albany win jobs. We worked hard to “really keep New York values at the center of who we are.” “We will celebrity our diversity. We will work together.” Big, bold, progressive goals.
She’s full of energy tonight. New York just does it to a person. Everybody’s jazzzed.
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Wolf Blitzer of CNN is laying out ground rules. Errol Louis of NY1 and Dana Bash of CNN will help him ask questions.
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Here they are: the candidates take the stage. The crowd is excited. There’s going to be a national anthem. Here’s Morgan James from Broadway to sing it.
Got to meet and chat with @donnabrazile at @CNN headquarters here at the debate. The day keeps getting better! pic.twitter.com/AeRtMnANeF
How’s she doing? Here comes the high part. O’er the la-and of the fuh-ree-ee-ee! Crosshairs. She nailed it.
