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Highlights From Tonight’s Democratic Debate 6 Takeaways From the December Democratic Debate
(about 2 hours later)
LOS ANGELES — If hour one of Thursday’s debate was a substantive if sedate affair, hour two had significant and even sizzling moments for Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Amy Klobuchar. Those three candidates are in a fierce battle in Iowa, where the leadoff presidential caucuses are just six-and-a-half weeks away. Here are six takeaways from the December debate:
Moderators: Judy Woodruff, Amna Nawaz, Yamiche Alcindor and Tim Alberta. Tensions between Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Warren, which have been brewing for six weeks, finally boiled over. And once a political squabble like this boils over, it is awfully hard to turn down the temperature.
Candidates: Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the billionaire Tom Steyer and the entrepreneur Andrew Yang. The two had a pair of fights, one on each of their turfs. Ms. Warren targeted his campaign fund-raising tactics — pivoting from a friendly question about whether women should have more influence in politics — and Mr. Buttigieg assailed her free public college plan.
Mr. Biden: Said all the candidates have big progressive plans, the question is “we can deliver” and who can help win Senate races in red states. “The mayor just recently had a fund-raiser that was held in a wine cave full of crystals and served $900 a bottle wine,” Ms. Warren said.
Mr. Sanders: Repeated his call for “real change,” inviting people to join “the political revolution” by contributing to his campaign. Mr. Buttigieg was ready. Ms. Warren, he said, is herself a millionaire, and one who transferred millions of dollars she had raised for her Senate account while holding the same closed-door, high-dollar fund-raisers she now disdains.
Ms. Warren: “This is a dark moment in America,” but promised new light. Hit Amazon for not paying taxes and pivots to core message of battling corruption and levying a wealth tax. “We can do it.” “This is the problem with issuing purity tests you cannot yourself pass,” Mr. Buttigieg said.
Mr. Buttigieg: Said the Democratic nominee must be inclusive, implicitly rejecting the Warren-Sanders theory of energizing liberals in a fight against the ultrawealthy. Ms. Warren retorted: “I do not sell access to my time.”
Ms. Klobuchar: Said the election was about “who can beat Donald Trump and how will she do it,” and called for a leader who “can bring people together.” “As of when, senator?” Mr. Buttigieg shot back.
Mr. Yang: “I know what you’re thinking America, how am I still on this stage with them” The later clash over free college was less heated and less personal, but both sides will view it as beneficial. For Ms. Warren, the fight helps her shore up her left flank and prevent liberal supporters from decamping to Senator Bernie Sanders. Mr. Buttigieg can use the argument to bolster his contention that a centrist argument is the way to win a general election.
Mr. Steyer: Said he’s running for president to “return power to the people.” Both of them see some benefit in drawing contrasts with the other, and in Iowa they are competing for a similar group of high-information, highly educated voters. As long as those dynamics remain in place, expect the Buttigieg-Warren fighting to continue apace.
The moderator’s question was quirky: Would you prefer to ask for forgiveness or give someone a gift? Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. may still be the Democratic leader in national polls, but you wouldn’t know it from Thursday’s debate. For the third consecutive face-off, he often faded into the background — and that could be a good thing for him.
The women onstage — Ms. Warren and Ms. Klobuchar — said they’d ask forgiveness for, essentially, working too hard and caring too much about the American people. Mr. Biden was the subject of remarkably few swipes, insinuations or even tough questions from the moderators. He ranked fifth in speaking time out of seven candidates — four to five minutes less than Mr. Sanders, Mr. Buttigieg, Ms. Warren and Ms. Klobuchar.
“I know that sometimes I get really worked up,” Ms. Warren said. “And sometimes I get a little hot. I don’t really mean to. What happens is when you do 100,000 selfies with people you hear enough stories about people who are really down to their last moments.” At one point, Mr. Biden literally took a step back from his microphone as rivals went back and forth, covering his face to suppress what appeared to be a laugh over an exchange he was not involved in.
Ms. Klobuchar was the only other one to seek forgiveness. It wasn’t until the final stretches when Mr. Sanders and Mr. Biden debated over foreign policy and health care but even then it was mostly civil. “Put your hand down for a second Bernie,” Mr. Biden instructed.
“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,” she said. “Just waving to you, Joe. Saying hello,” Mr. Sanders replied.
All the men offered gifts, including Mr. Yang offering a copy of his book and Mr. Sanders, who noted he had written four books, offering the “gift” of “a nation based on love and compassion, not greed and hatred.” Mr. Biden got to talk about his record on foreign affairs. He pledged to bring combat troops back from Afghanistan. And he took swings at President Trump — his favorite target — whom he accused of “dumbing down the presidency beyond what I even thought he would do.” And he got off a one-liner about President Obama’s recent remarks about older men not stepping aside.
“I’m the only guy who hasn’t interrupted and I’m going to interrupt now,” Mr. Biden said, interrupting the usual Sanders riff on single-payer health care. Mr. Biden then cast doubt that a Medicare for all plan would be feasible.
“Sixteen percent of the American public is on Medicare now and everybody has a tax taken out of their paycheck now,” he said. “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. It’s going to increase personal taxes.”
Mr. Sanders agreed, sort of.
“That’s right, we are going to increase personal taxes,” he said. “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.”
Ms. Klobuchar, who is also opposed to Medicare for all, jumped in the discussion.
“Whoa guys, hey,” she said, trying to stop the fight. “I just don’t think anyone has a monopoly on bold ideas. I think you can be progressive and practical at the same time.”
Mr. Biden may still be the Democratic leader in the national polls, but you wouldn’t know it from tuning into the December debate. For the third consecutive face off, the putative front-runner often faded into the background of the debate — and that could be a good thing for him.
Mr. Biden was the subject of remarkably few swipes, insinuations or even tough questions from the moderators on Thursday.
For long stretches, he receded from the debate as Ms. Warren and Mr. Buttigieg clashed over how they were financing their campaigns, Ms. Klobuchar and Mr. Buttigieg clashed over experience and Mr. Yang offered his most forceful defense of his candidacy yet.
Mr. Biden got to talk about his record on foreign affairs. He pledged to bring combat troops back from Afghanistan. He took swings at President Trump — whom he accused of “dumbing down the presidency beyond what I even thought he would do.” And he got off a joke about President Barack Obama’s recent remarks about older men not stepping aside.
“I’m gonna guess he wasn’t talking about me,” Mr. Biden said.“I’m gonna guess he wasn’t talking about me,” Mr. Biden said.
Late in the debate, though, Mr. Biden did face some questions on Afghanistan. Any debate where a polling leader departs relatively unscathed is a good night. And for the third straight debate, Mr. Biden did just that.
“I’m the guy who from the beginning argued it was a big, big mistake to surge forces to Afghanistan. Period. We should not have done it. And I argued against it constantly,” he said. Little infuriates Ms. Klobuchar more than the suggestion — often made by her — that she is being ignored compared to her higher-polling rivals.
Mr. Sanders butted in, “In all due respect to my, to Joe, you’re also the guy who helped lead us into the disastrous war in Iraq.” So the Minnesota senator will be thrilled at the amount of attention and speaking time she received in the debate. Only Mr. Sanders got more time, despite Ms. Klobuchar’s standing at fifth or sixth place in many polls.
One of the moderators, Yamiche Alcindor of PBS, asked the candidates a question they often speak on before L.G.B.T. audiences but hadn’t been asked about yet during a presidential debate: What will they do to protect transgender Americans from violence and discrimination? And Ms. Klobuchar made the most of it, engaging in substantive discussions about political experience with Mr. Buttigieg and health care policy with Mr. Sanders. Unlike in past debates, she appeared confident and relaxed, delivering a new joke about how she stands the same height as James Madison (5 feet, 4 inches).
Mr. Sanders said he’s against all forms of discrimination. Now the task for Ms. Klobuchar is to turn her recent well-reviewed debate performances into increased support in Iowa, the state where she placed the fate of her campaign. On Friday she’ll begin a four-day, 27-county Iowa tour designed to build momentum to try to launch her into the campaign’s first tier.
“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,” he said. Mr. Sanders is a top candidate whom nobody wants to attack.
Ms. Warren, who has taken to reading the names of black trans women who have been killed at some campaign events, said she would continue the practice in the Rose Garden as president. While Ms. Warren, Ms. Klobuchar and even the billionaire Tom Steyer took unprovoked shots at Mr. Buttigieg, nobody went after the Vermont senator, whose standing in the race has only risen since his October heart attack.
“Here is 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,” she said. Mr. Buttigieg went after Ms. Warren on free college tuition even though Mr. Sanders holds the same views. Ms. Klobuchar couched a disagreement with the Sanders single-payer health care proposal by saying that as president, she’d work to enact his legislation cracking down on the pharmaceutical companies. And Mr. Biden offered no real retort when Mr. Sanders brought up the former Delaware senator’s vote to authorize the Iraq war.
Mr. Buttigieg rose from an obscure small-town mayor to a serious presidential candidate last spring by getting attention for bold ideas like his call to expand the Supreme Court beyond the current nine justices. The only people onstage who challenged Mr. Sanders were the moderators, by pushing him on questions about race, transgender rights, whether a woman should be president and if his health care proposal is realistic. Each time Mr. Sanders pivoted back to signature issues, like pushing for a political revolution to support working-class Americans. But it didn’t always work: His initial attempt to pivot back to climate change, when asked about diversity in the Democratic field, was met with derision from some audience members.
Since he cemented himself as a first-tier candidate, Mr. Buttigieg stopped talking about changing the court, though he hasn’t backed away from the proposal. The entrepreneur Andrew Yang spoke nearly 10 minutes less than the top-speaker, Mr. Sanders, and once again spoke the least. But he delivered not only some of the evening’s most memorable lines (“I miss Kamala and I miss Cory, although I think Cory will be back”) but he regularly and deftly pivoted back to his core message of a $1,000 universal basic income.
“My household, my marriage exists by the grace of a single vote on that body,” Mr. Buttigieg said at the debate. “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.” “What we have to do is we have to stop being obsessed over impeachment, which unfortunately strikes many Americans like a ballgame where you know what the score is going to be,” he said in his first answer, “and start actually digging in and solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place.”
Another expected clash between Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Warren turned out as expected. After six debates, the ever-tieless Mr. Yang has clearly found his footing. He invoked his own family twice in resonant ways, saying he has relatives in Hong Kong where there has been mass protests and unrest, and that he has a child with special needs. “Special needs is the new normal in this country,” he said, adding, “We have to stop confusing economic value and human value.”
After Ms. Warren made her pitch for making tuition at public colleges and universities free, Mr. Buttigieg accused her of offering an unneeded benefit for the rich. He said his free tuition plan would exempt people in the top 10 percent of earners. Of course, it helped that no one onstage seemed to see any advantage in challenging him. Still, Mr. Yang’s plain-spoken answers — he directly said the government should pay to help Americans move out of places impacted by climate change — cut through on a stage filled with political hemming, hawing and hedging.
“I very much agree with Senator Warren on raising more tax revenue from millionaires and billionaires,” he said. “I just don’t agree on the part about spending it on millionaires and billionaires when it comes to their college tuition.” The moderator’s closing question was quirky: Would you prefer to ask for forgiveness or give someone a gift? Ms. Warren and Ms. Klobuchar — the only two women onstage — were the only ones to say they would ask for forgiveness. They said they would seek it for, essentially, working too hard and caring too much about the American people. The men chose gifts.
Ms. Warren replied that Mr. Buttigieg’s higher education plan is insufficient to provide free tuition to all who he says it would. “I know that sometimes I get really worked up,” Ms. Warren said. “And sometimes I get a little hot. I don’t really mean to. What happens is when you do 100,000 selfies with people you hear enough stories about people who are really down to their last moments.”
“Look,” she said, “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.” Or, as Ms. Klobuchar put it, “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.”
After months of implicit swipes off the stage, Ms. Klobuchar went directly at Mr. Buttigieg, and objected to his attacks on Washington experience. She ticked off achievements of others onstage in D.C. including Mr. Sanders and Mr. Biden. It was a striking moment that spoke to the different standards that many Americans apply to men and women who run for office, and to the ways that the women and men onstage chose to present themselves.
“So while you can dismiss committee hearings, I think this experience works,” she said, “And I have not denigrated your experience as a local official. I have been one. I think you should respect our experience.”
But Mr. Buttigieg pushed back.
“You actually did denigrate my experience, senator but it was before the break and I was going to let it go because we got bigger fish to fry here,” he said.
She jumped in. “I don’t think we have bigger fish to fry than picking a president,” she said.
They were just getting started.
He cited his military experience, which she commended before adding, “This is about choosing a president.”
She also sparred over his electoral record in South Bend. But Mr. Buttigieg was quick with a retort.
“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,” he said.
Ms. Klobuchar noted he had actually lost when he ran statewide in Indiana.
“By 20 points,” she said.
Mr. Steyer has largely been reduced to wallpaper in the Democratic debates, with candidates ignoring his attempts to draw them into conflict when he’s accused them of not caring enough about climate change.
That’s left the billionaire businessman without any signature moments. He may have scored one on his own Thursday, with his response to what to do about immigration.
“I think it’s important to note that this president is not against immigration,” Mr. Steyer said. “He’s against immigration by nonwhite people.”
He continued: “He’s been vilifying nonwhite 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.”
Mr. Buttigieg said that the families of those who were separated at the border by the Trump administration from their children deserve both financial compensation and the opportunity to move to the front of the line to come here legally in the future.
“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,” he said.
As he often does, Mr. Buttigieg brought his frame of reference back to South Bend.
“It comes from the fact that I’m the mayor of a city where neighbors that were left for dying are coming back largely due to the contributions mainly of Latino immigrants,” he said. “I have seen neighbors shut down, families huddling in church, panicking because of a rumor of an ICE raid.”
The Warren-Buttigieg fight that has been brewing since Thanksgiving finally burst out into the open, and on Ms. Warren’s terrain.
First she suggested, without naming anyone, that candidates who raise $5,000 at a time can’t be responsive to the needs of working people. Mr. Buttigieg took the bait.
“I can’t help but feel that might have been directed at me.” He was right. He reminded the audience that he is the only candidate onstage who is not himself a millionaire.
Ms. Warren shot back: “I do not sell access to my time, I don’t spend time with millionaires and billionaires. I don’t meet behind closed doors.”
Ms. Warren then took a more direct shot at Mr. Buttigieg’s fund-raising practices.
“The mayor just recently had a fund-raiser that was held in a wine cave full of crystals and served $900 a bottle wine,” she said. “He had promised that every fund-raiser he did would be open door and this one would be closed door.”
Mr. Buttigieg then said he was the only person onstage who was not a millionaire or a billionaire, directing his comment at Ms. Warren’s million-dollar net worth.
“This is the problem with issuing purity tests you cannot yourself pass,” he said.
“I do not sell access to my time,” Ms. Warren answered.
“As of when, senator?” Mr. Buttigieg tried to push in.
When his full turn came, Mr. Buttigieg pointed to Ms. Warren’s transfer of $10 million from her Senate account, which she raised while doing large fund-raisers.
“Your presidential campaign right now as we speak is funded in part from money you transferred,” he said.
“Did it corrupt you senator? Of course not,” he said, repeating his concern with “purity tests.”
News flash: Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden are old.
So Mr. Alberta asked them if they are too old to be president?
Mr. Sanders went first. He tried steering the question back to his broader push to redistribute political and economic power from the rich to the poor.
“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 millionaires buying elections and politicians,” Mr. Sanders said.
“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.”
Mr. Alberta’s question was based on a recent quote from President Barack Obama that there would be a “significant improvement on just about everything” if there were more women in charge and that “usually old men” don’t get out of the way. Mr. Alberta said that he imagined the former president did not clear that line with the Biden campaign.
“I’m gonna guess he wasn’t talking about me either,” Mr. Biden smiled.
Ms. Warren was asked about her age and the fact that she would be the oldest president ever inaugurated.
“I’d also be the youngest woman ever inaugurated,” she quipped.
The Democrats broadly agreed on the need for a renewed assertion of America internationally, in particular in its relationship with China, but disagreed little on specifics as they touted the importance of free speech.
“The reality is there are a lot more to the relationship with China than who is selling more dishwashers,” Mr. Buttigieg said. “Yes, we need a much stronger trade policy. Also, we have to acknowledge what’s going on over there. The use of technology or the perfection of dictatorship, that will require a stronger than ever response from the U.S. in defense of democracy.”
Mr. Yang noted that he has family in Hong Kong and worried about the use of artificial intelligence to identify protesters there.
“This is the rivalry we have to win,” Mr. Yang said.
Mr. Biden lamented “a million Uighurs, Muslims” who “are in concentration camps.” He spoke of the need to rebuild alliances in he region. “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,” Mr. Biden said.
Some Democrats worried tonight’s debate would bring the smallest viewing audience yet, coming on the Thursday before much of the country leaves for Christmas vacations.
The first segments didn’t have the sort of exciting give-and-take that keep people tuned in. Moderators focused questions on impeachment, climate change and the Trump economy — issues on which the Democratic presidential candidates largely agree.
Mr. Steyer sought to draw Mr. Buttigieg into a back-and-forth on the environment, and Mr. Buttigieg didn’t acknowledge the attack. And Mr. Buttigieg offered a gentle attack on Ms. Warren’s wealth tax, calling it “extreme” and suggesting it would damage the economy.
For the first full hour of the debate, there were no questions about health care, the issue on which the candidates have the starkest differences and one which Democratic voters say is the most important as they consider their vote in the primary.
Barack Obama ran for president in 2008 on a promise of closing the U.S. military detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He won, and 12 years later the camp remains open.
Ms. Warren said she’d close it.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s time to close this detention facility. It not only costs us money it is an international embarrassment.”
Then Mr. Biden, who served as Mr. Obama’s vice president, was asked why the Obama administration failed to close the Guantánamo Bay compound. He claimed both that the Obama White House closed the facility and that Congress kept it open.
“We did close Guantánamo Bay,” he said. “But you have to have congressional authority to do it, they kept it open.”
Mr. Biden railed against the detention facility. “It is an advertisement for creating terror,” he said.
The moderators did not ask Mr. Biden to explain how Guantánamo could be open and closed at the same time.
Mr. Sanders called for America to adopt a foreign policy posture that is both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian.
“Israel has the right not only to exist to but exist in peace and security,” Mr. Sanders said. As the crowd began to applaud, he hastened to add, “But, but — but what U.S. foreign policy must be about is not just being pro-Israel. We must be pro-Palestinian as well.”
Mr. Sanders went on to accuse Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of being a “racist.”
“We must understand that right now in Israel we have leadership who has been indicted for bribery, who, in my view, is a racist. What we need 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,” he said.
The question to Mr. Yang: “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?”
Mr. Yang replied:
“It’s both an honor and disappointment to be the lone candidate of color on the stage tonight. I miss Kamala, I miss Cory, although I think Cory will be back. 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 are a black woman — is 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? You know what you need to donate to political campaigns? Disposable income. The way 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.”
One of the moderators, Tim Alberta, asked a climate change question that hasn’t been asked much on this campaign: Would you support federal funding to relocate communities threatened by rising sea levels and flooding rivers?
Ms. Klobuchar said not quite, though she allowed that some people would have to be moved.
“I very much hope we will not have to relocate entire cities, but we will probably have to relocate some individual residents,” she said.
Mr. Steyer did not answer directly but promised he would declare a climate emergency on his first day in the White House. “Unequivocally this is my number one priority,” he said.
Mr. Steyer then took a shot at Mr. Buttigieg, saying the South Bend mayor hasn’t put sufficient emphasis on climate change in his platform — the first criticism of Mr. Buttigieg from any candidate in tonight’s debate.
“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 the greatest opportunity to rebuild and reinvent America,” he said.
Mr. Buttigieg did not strike back at Mr. Steyer, instead lumping all of the career politicians onstage together in saying they have done nothing to address climate change.
“I’ve seen politicians in Washington say the right thing on climate change as long as I’ve been alive,” he said.
Mr. Biden was asked if he was willing to risk moving some jobs from the natural gas and oil industries to address climate change.
“The answer is yes,” he said, “The answer is yes, because the opportunity, the opportunity for those workers to transition to high paying jobs, as Tom said, is real.”
Mr. Sanders disagreed with how the question was framed.
“The issue now is whether we save the planet for our children and our grandchildren,” he said. “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,” Mr. Sanders said.
Ms. Warren agreed is saying “climate change threatens every single thing on this planet.”
Ms. Warren got the question Wall Street has been whispering about since her wealth tax got popular among Democratic voters — that soaking the rich with more taxes will “stifle growth and investment.”
“Oh, they’re just wrong,” Ms. Warren said.
The rich, she said, won’t miss two cents per dollar on fortunes more than $50 million.
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Buttigieg used Ms. Warren’s answer as an opening to paint her as too extreme to win a general election, reiterating a theme he has been pushing as he’s contrasted himself with Ms. Warren in recent months.
“We’re being offered a false choice,” he said. “You either have to go all the way to the extreme or its business as usual. We can also be smart about the promises we are making, make sure that it’s promises we can keep without the kind of taxation that economists say will hurt the economy.”
Mr. Biden was asked how he would appeal to voters who believe the economy is doing well under President Trump, but he was the first of several Democrats who disagreed with the premise that the economy is, in fact, doing well.
“The middle class is getting killed, the middle class is getting crushed,” Mr. Biden said.
Mr. Buttigieg agreed but also pivoted to talking about poverty.
“This economy is not working for most of us, for the middle class, and I know you’re ever supposed to say ‘middle class’ and not ‘poor’ in politics, but we have to talk about poverty in this country,” he said. “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.”
Ms. Warren agreed: “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.”
So did Mr. Sanders: “Today in America, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth.”
But none of the Democrats spoke about how they would appeal to voters who do feel the economy is doing well — until Mr. Steyer, who said he could best prosecute the economic case against Mr. Trump as a job creator himself.
“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,” Mr. Steyer said.
The first rift of the debate came on trade policy, with Mr. Sanders saying he is opposed to the North American trade deal agreed to by the White House and Democratic House leadership, while Ms. Klobuchar said she plans to support it.
“What we need is a trade policy that stands up for workers, stands up for farmers,” Mr. Sanders said. “By the way, the word ‘Climate change,’ to the best of my knowledge, is not discussed in this new NAFTA agreement at all.”
Ms. Klobuchar followed up by gently disagreeing with Mr. Sanders. She couched herself as in league with Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a longtime free trade skeptic, who backs the agreement.
“I’ll go with my friend Sherrod Brown and he is voting for this and I am too,” Ms. Klobuchar said. “We’ve got better labor standards, better environmental standards, and a better deal when it comes to the pharmaceutical provision.”
“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,” the Minnesota senator added.
The topic of the first question to the candidates — less than 24 hours after the impeachment of President Trump — was no surprise: impeachment. The candidates were asked why more Americans were not in favor and what they would do to change that.
Mr. Biden spoke first, calling it a “constitutional necessity” and saying the fact that Mr. Trump touted that only half of Americans supported impeachment was “dumbing down the presidency beyond what I even thought he would do.”
Mr. Sanders spoke next, saying some of the same lines as at past debates, including that Mr. Trump is a “pathological liar” and accusing him of “dishonoring” the office.
Ms. Warren also called it a “constitutional moment” and quickly pivoted to her core message of corruption. “We have to prosecute the case against him and that means we need a candidate for president who can draw the sharpest distinction,” she said, echoing a frequent line from a former candidate, Senator Kamala Harris, about prosecuting a case against Mr. Trump.
Ms. Klobuchar drew parallels to Watergate and President Richard Nixon, and called for Mr. Trump’s aides to testify: “If President Trump thinks he should not be impeached he should not be scared to put forward his own witnesses.”
Mr. Buttigieg said Mr. Trump left the House “with no choice.” Mr. Steyer noted that he had started the “Need to Impeach” movement two years ago, saying his petition “dragged Washington” toward impeachment. “The court that counts here is the court of public opinion,” he said.
Mr. Yang spoke last. He said that Americans were getting their news from different sources, and that radically different media diets were a cause for different views of impeachment. But he urged his party to move on past the topic, saying forcefully it was time to “stop being obsessed over impeachment.”
The seven Democratic candidates are busily writing notes at their podiums while minimally engaging with each other. Mr. Biden, the leading candidate in many polls, is smack center stage for the first time, thanks to the odd number of debaters tonight. He is flanked by Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders; Mr. Buttigieg is next to Ms. Warren, which could lead to some interesting moments since they have tangled the most in recent weeks.