An Annotated Breakdown of the 2020 Democratic Debates

This past Wednesday and Thursday, Democratic candidates squared off in the first round of debates for the presidential nomination.

I’ve spent the past few days going over each line from the debates in depth, and there are quite a few critical takeaways and nuggets of substance that you may have missed when you were watching the debates live. If you want to understand what really went down in the first debates, this is your guide.

Below, I will dissect some of the most important clips from each of the debates and break them down from a critical perspective.

Let’s begin with Elizabeth Warren’s opening response.

Elizabeth Warren: Economy

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE (host): You have many plans — free college, free child care, government health care…but this comes at a time when 71 percent of Americans say the economy is doing well, including 60 percent of Democrats. What do you say to those who worry this kind of significant change could be risky to the economy?

To most Americans, this is a bizarre question.

While GDP and stocks are up, average Americans aren’t reaping the benefits. Two-thirds of Americans can’t afford an emergency $500 expense, and tens of thousands of people die each year because they can’t afford healthcare.

The “71 percent” figure is likely a reference to macroeconomic trends like GDP and Dow Jones, not how average people are feeling about their economic situations.

WARREN: So I think of it this way — who is this economy really working for? It’s doing great for a thinner and thinner slice at the top.

It’s doing great for giant drug companies. It’s just not doing great for people who are trying to get a prescription filled.

This is a brilliant response from Warren. Her powerful tone, combined with her strong ability to pit those at the bottom against those at the top, successfully stoke populism. Warren may even do this more effectively than Bernie Sanders — in terms of messaging.

It’s doing great for people who want to invest in private prisons, just not for the African-Americans and Latinos whose families are torn apart, whose lives are destroyed, and whose communities are ruined.

Again, fantastic work. Here, Warren connects economic populism to racial justice — two worlds often thought (inaccurately) to be diametrically opposed. Empowering the poor — who are disproportionally Black, Latino, and Native American — with massive social programs is one of the best ways to uplift people of color.

When you’ve got a government, when you’ve got an economy that does great for those with money and isn’t doing great for everyone else, that is corruption, pure and simple. We need to call it out. We need to attack it head on.

This populist rhetoric is incredibly effective. Warren successfully harnesses the sentiment among many Americans that they are being screwed over by elites, big businesses, and political insiders.

I was initially concerned that Warren’s rhetoric would be too wonky and drawn-out to hit, but I was impressed with her ability to stay focused, on-target, and straightforward throughout this debate.

Amy Klobuchar: What’s Achievable

GUTHRIE: Senator Klobuchar, you’ve called programs like free college something you might do if you were, quote, “a magic genie.” To be blunt, are the government programs and benefits that some of your rivals are offering giving your voters, people, a false sense of what’s actually achievable?

Note the right-wing framing of this question. Instead of being adversarial and asking Klobuchar to justify supporting a college plan that doesn’t substantively address our student debt crisis, the question is a softball down the plate for moderates like Klobuchar.

Yet still, she immediately pivoted to her talking points.

KLOBUCHAR: Well, first, the economy. We know that not everyone is sharing in this prosperity. And Donald Trump just sits in the White House and gloats about what’s going on.

Klobuchar seemed bearish on using “we can’t afford that” arguments and preferred to launch direct attacks against Trump, something she did regularly throughout the debate. This indicates two things:

• Largely due to the effect of Bernie Sanders, candidates are trying to out-left each other rhetorically. Of course, this says nothing about whether they’d actually fight for these bold positions as president, or whether they’d run to the right against Trump in the general election.
• It appears Klobuchar is trying to center her whole campaign on her ability to beat Trump. Given her lack of interesting policy proposals, this is perhaps her best shot.

I do get concerned about paying for college for rich kids. I do.

Moderates are regularly arguing that universal programs like Medicare For All and free college aren’t really progressive because they give services to all people, including the rich. Pete Buttigieg also made this argument in the second debate to defend his opposition to free college.

The issue with Klobuchar’s argument is that targeted programs are easier to cut by conservative politicians, while universal programs that apply to everyone like Medicare and Social Security are overwhelmingly popular and historically resilient.

Klobuchar’s platform of expanding Pell Grants is nowhere near as impactful for the poor as a tuition-free college plan.

Beto O’Rourke: Top Tax Rates

GUTHRIE: Some Democrats want a marginal individual tax rate of 70 percent on the very highest earners, those making more than $10 million a year. Would you support that? And if not, what would your top individual rate be?

To clarify, the proposed 70 percent tax rate is a marginal tax on every dollar earned above $10 million — not on the entire incomes of those making over $10 million.

O’ROURKE: This economy has got to work for everyone. And right now, we know that it isn’t. And it’s going to take all of us coming together to make sure that it does.

There are good pivots and bad pivots. This is a bad one — it fails to effectively answer the question before transitioning smoothly to pre-established talking points.

You may want to shield your eyes for what’s next.

Necesitamos incluir cada persona en el éxito de este economia. Pero si queremos hacer eso, necesitamos incluir cada persona en nuestro democracia. Cada votante necesitamos la representación, y cada voz necesitamos escuchar.

The fact that none of O’Rourke’s advisors foresaw how this would come off as pure, cringe-worthy pandering to Hispanic voters is remarkable.

Furthermore, what Beto is saying in this line — “We need to include every person in the success of this economy. But if we want to do that, we have to include every person in our democracy. Every vote needs representation and every voice needs to be heard” — doesn’t even come close to addressing marginal tax rates, and is almost a parody of politicians’ use of weasel words.

Pretending to be progressive and inclusive by speaking Spanish while dodging a question about an actual progressive policy that affects real people is not a good strategy.

What O’Rourke said later was just as interesting.

O’ROURKE: I would support a tax rate and a tax code that is fair to everyone.

GUTHRIE: Seventy percent?

O’ROURKE: Take that corporate tax rate up to 28 percent. You would generate the revenues you need to pay for the programs we’re talking about.

You may have missed this, but it’s noteworthy that O’Rourke chose 28 percent as his optimal corporate tax rate, as opposed to 35 percent, the top rate during the Obama Administration (before it was slashed to 21 percent by Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act).

For what it’s worth, 59 percent of all voters support a marginal tax of 70%.

Cory Booker: Breaking Up Big Companies

GUTHRIE: Senator Warren…put out a plan to break up tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google. You’ve said we should not, quote, “be running around pointing at companies and breaking them up without any kind of process.” Why do you disagree?

At a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Booker also dodged a question asking him to name specific companies.

BOOKER: I don’t think I disagree. I think we have a serious problem in our country with corporate consolidation…we see that because consumer prices are being raised by pharmaceutical companies that often have monopolistic holds on drugs.

This statement is highly ironic considering Booker voted against an amendment to import drugs from Canada, which would have broken up the monopoly of pharmaceutical companies he references.

GUTHRIE: But quickly, Senator Booker, you did say that you didn’t think it was right to name names, to name companies and single them out, as Senator Warren has. Briefly, why is that?

BOOKER: Well, again, I will single out companies like Halliburton or Amazon that pay nothing in taxes and our need to change that.

That was a remarkably quick about-face.

Tulsi Gabbard: Gender Pay Gap

LESTER HOLT (host): Your thoughts on equal pay?

GABBARD: First of all, let’s recognize the situation we’re in, that the American people deserve a president who will put your interests ahead of the rich and powerful. That’s not what we have right now.

I enlisted in the Army National Guard after the Al Qaida terror attacks on 9/11 so I could go after those who had attacked us on that day…And for too long, our leaders have failed us, taking us from one regime change war to the next, leading us into a new cold war and arms race.

This is a clinic in how not to pivot.

Gabbard could have easily said something along the lines of “women’s rights and equal pay have consistently taken a backseat to the interests of the rich and powerful — that’s why I want to take on special interests, including the military-industrial complex.” This would still allow her to get her central foreign policy message out and distinguish herself from other candidates while still answering the question.

Warren: Manufacturing Jobs

JOSE DIAZ-BALART (host): Senator Warren, are they coming back? Are these jobs coming back?

WARREN: So we’ve had an industrial policy in the United States for decades now, and it’s basically been let giant corporations do whatever they want to do…if they can save a nickel by moving a job to Mexico or to Asia or to Canada, they’re going to do it.

Again, this populist messaging is relatable, accurate, and effective.

So here’s what I propose for an industrial policy…There’s going to be a worldwide need for green technology…We need to go tenfold in our research and development on green energy going forward.

And then we need to say any corporation can come and use that research. They can make all kinds of products from it, but they have to be manufactured right here in the United States of America.

And then we have to double down and sell it around the world.

Here, Warren proposes a market-based, private sector solution focused on “research” and “corporations,” as opposed to advocating for the Green New Deal, which would focus on direct public sector investment into the green economy.

There are a few areas where Warren is markedly less progressive than figures like Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Warren voted for the National Defense Authorization Act of 2018, which expanded Trump’s military budget to over $700 billion — more than Trump asked for (Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, and six other senators didn’t). She also places defending the Affordable Care Act as her first healthcare priority and says she supports alternatives to Medicare For All like a Medicaid expansion (while Sanders and AOC are unwavering in their support for a Single Payer system).

Solutions to climate change may be another one of those distinguishing factors. Warren would have been more effective here if she advocated for directly hiring millions of blue collar workers to build renewable energy sources like solar panels and wind turbines.

Warren and John Delaney: Private Insurance

HOLT: Many people watching at home have health insurance coverage through their employer. Who here would abolish their private health insurance in favor of a government-run plan? Just a show of hands, start off with.

[Bill De Blasio and Warren raise their hands]

This wins the prize for the most misleading question of the debate.

Bernie Sanders’ Medicare For All plan — the furthest left draft on the table — does not call for banning private insurance. Instead, the government would cover most mandatory services, while private insurers would cover supplemental services like cosmetic surgery. Hospitals would still be privately run.

Inaccurately framing Medicare For All as “[abolishing] private health insurance” is immensely harmful to public opinion on the issue. Overall, 56 percent of Americans support of Medicare For All, but that drops to 37 percent when respondents are told that the plan would “eliminate private health insurance companies.”

WARREN: So, yes. I’m with Bernie on Medicare For All. And let me tell you why.

I spent a big chunk of my life studying why families go broke. And one of the number-one reasons is the cost of health care, medical bills. And that’s not just for people who don’t have insurance. It’s for people who have insurance.

This is a great response from Warren. As I mentioned above, her past healthcare comments have been wishy-washy, but here she’s clear and makes an essential point: the problem isn’t just that people don’t have healthcare access, but that their health insurance still leaves them with bankruptcy — and, in many cases, death.

Moments later, John Delaney said the following:

DELANEY: The Medicare For All bill requires payments to stay at current Medicare rates. So to some extent, we’re supporting a bill that will have every hospital closing.

It’s true that Medicare pays hospitals about 90 percent of what private insurers pay. But with Americans spending vastly more on healthcare than citizens of any other country, there’s ample room to cut costs and force hospitals to be more efficient.

Regardless, arguing that that Medicare For All “will have every hospital closing” is woefully inaccurate and should have been immediately corrected by the hosts.

Booker and Klobuchar: Iran Deal

HOLT: We’re going to talk about Iran right now, because we’re working against the clock. Tankers have been attacked. A U.S. drone has been shot down.

Note Holt’s framing here. When discussing specific examples of the U.S.’ conflict with Iran, he only references examples of Iranian aggression. Holt doesn’t mention how the Trump Administration has repeatedly increased sanctions on Iran, recently led a cyberattack against the country, and has killed dozens of innocent women and children in Yemen as part of its proxy war against Iranian influence.

This subtle framing paints Iran as the sole threat and the U.S. as its victim. This framing changes the debate from “how do we foster peace and humanitarianism with Iran?” to “how do we stop Iran?” — encouraging a response of regime change as opposed to non-interventionism.

Holt continues:

How do you dial it back? So, a show of hands: who as president would sign on to the 2015 nuclear deal as it was originally negotiated?

[everybody except Booker raises their hand]

BOOKER: May I address that? First and foremost, it was a mistake to pull out of that deal. And one of the reasons why we’re seeing this hostility now is because Donald Trump is marching us to a far more dangerous situation. Literally, he took us out of a deal that gave us transparency into their nuclear program and pushed back a nuclear breakout 10, 20 years.

This is correct. Iran’s recent decision to exceed the uranium limits outlined in the Iran Deal was a direct rebuke to Trump’s move to rip up the deal and inflict new sanctions on Iran.

I awaited eagerly for Booker to provide a substantive response for why he didn’t raise his hand.

We need to renegotiate and get back into a deal, but I’m not going to have a primary platform to say unilaterally I’m going to rejoin that deal. Because when I’m president of the United States, I’m going to do the best I can to secure this country and that region and make sure that if I have an opportunity to leverage a better deal, I’m going to do it.

And it never came.

The Iran Deal was a fantastic piece of diplomacy, and Booker offered no specific ways he’d change the deal. It was a mistake to not raise his hand, even if the intention was to stand out from the crowd.

Then, Klobuchar responded and brought Russia and China into the mix.

KLOBUCHAR: So what I would do is negotiate us back into that agreement, is stand with our allies, and not give unlimited leverage to China and Russia, which is what [Trump] has done.

Yes, Klobuchar just said that Trump, who has launched a whopping $250 billion in tariffs as part of his trade war against China, is giving “unlimited leverage to China.”

Even for Russia, Trump’s attempted coup in Russia-allied Venezuela, sale of defensive weapons to Ukraine, and deployment of NATO troops to the Russian border doesn’t align with the “unlimited leverage” narrative.

Gabbard and Tim Ryan: Afghanistan

RACHEL MADDOW (host): Today the Taliban claimed responsibility for killing two American service members in Afghanistan. Leaders as disparate as President Obama and President Trump have both said that they want to end U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, but it isn’t over for America. Why isn’t it over?…And how could you [end the war]?

RYAN: The lesson that I’ve learned over the years is that you have to stay engaged in these situations. Nobody likes it. It’s long. It’s tedious…We must have our State Department engaged. We must have our military engaged to the extent they need to be.

Here, Ryan is effectively arguing for the continuation of the war in Afghanistan. Note that he never mentions what the “endgame” would be in such a war — largely because there really isn’t one. Despite years of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, the Taliban are on the rise.

Long, tedious “engagement” didn’t work too well in Vietnam and Iraq either.

If we’re getting drones shot down for $130 million, because the president is distracted, that’s $130 million that we could be spending in places like Youngstown, Ohio, or Flint, Michigan.

To propose that drones are getting shot “because the president is distracted” is not only preposterous, but it’s actually the opposite of what’s true. The drone was shot down in Iran because Trump and his neoconservative administration was too focused — too intent on intervening in Iran — and flew the drone dangerously close to (or possibly inside) Iranian airspace.

GABBARD: Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable.

We have to bring our troops home from Afghanistan. We are in a place in Afghanistan where we have lost so many lives. We’ve spent so much money. Money that’s coming out of every one of our pockets, money that should be going into communities here at home, meeting the needs of the people here at home.

This is a fantastic response from Gabbard. There’s a partially-accurate consensus that average Americans don’t really care about foreign policy. The caveat is that Americans become notably anti-war when they’re reminded that defense spending inherently takes away spending from other areas, such as social programs.

Gabbard effectively harnesses that dynamic with this comment.

GABBARD: We cannot keep U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan thinking that we’re going to somehow squash this Taliban that’s been there.

RYAN: I didn’t say squash them. When we weren’t in there, they started flying planes into our buildings. So I’m just saying right now…we have an obligation.

GABBARD: The Taliban didn’t attack us on 9/11. Al Qaida did.

The Harris-Biden debacle (rightfully) got a lot of attention, but this is truly one of the best zingers of the debates.

While the first debate was well-organized and (surprisingly?) substantive, the second debate — despite having bigger names — was messy and at times highly detached from policy specifics.

Still, there were a variety of important points that deserve some added context.

Bernie Sanders: Funding Medicare For All

GUTHRIE: You have called for big new government benefits like universal healthcare and free college. In a recent interview you said you suspected that Americans would be ‘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: It is time for change, real change. And by that I mean that healthcare in my view is a human right and we have got to pass a Medicare For All single-payer system. Under that system, by the way, the vast majority of the people in this country will be paying significantly less for healthcare 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.

I’d give this answer a “C” grade for Sanders.

He does hit his populist central message — which is highly popular, according to issue-by-issue polling. But there’s an argument Bernie has to make here to be effective: taxes on the middle class will go up, but that will be significantly outweighed by the savings Americans will receive by not paying a dime for basic medical care.

How much would the average American (making $30,000 in income and spending $4,600 per year on healthcare) save overall under Bernie’s tax plan and Medicare For All package? Estimates vary, but it would be somewhere around $4,500 in savings per year.

This is because while income taxes may increase, private taxes — essential expenditures on healthcare to insurance companies — would be almost entirely eliminated.

If I were Sanders, I’d have said something along the lines of this: “under my plan, you’ll be able to visit your doctor without paying a dime, without worrying about going into medical debt, and without being forced to sacrifice the health of your family to save money on healthcare. Yes, your may see a moderate tax increase, but you won’t pay anything in premiums, deductibles, or co-pays. This would save you an average of $4,500 per year overall. That’s $4,500 more in your pocketbook you can spend on food, on housing, and on your children.”

This answer would turn a tough situation into a political win for Bernie.

Kamala Harris: Paying for Big Proposals

GUTHRIE: Senator Harris, there’s a lot of talk in this primary about new government benefits such as student loan cancellation, free college, healthcare and more. Do you think that Democrats have a responsibility to explain how they will pay for every proposal?

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, contributing at least $1 trillion to the debt of America, which middle-class families will pay for one way or another.

This is a great response. Although there may be reasons to doubt Harris’ progressive credentials, she is undeniably an incredibly skilled communicator, and here she shows a strong ability to make foundational progressive arguments.

Harris could have also mentioned the trillions of tax dollars given to the military to perpetuate offensive wars — although it would have been somewhat ironic, considering she voted alongside Warren to give Trump a $700 billion military budget in 2018.

Andrew Yang: Universal Basic Income

DIAZ-BALART: Mr. Yang, your signature policy is to give every adult in the United States $1,000 a month, no questions asked. I think that’s like $3.2 trillion a year. How would you do that?

YANG: 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’d save money on things like incarceration, homelessness services, [and] emergency room healthcare.

Yang’s messaging in this response is substantive, but he seems to assume that Americans have a decent understanding of what universal basic income is. Most don’t. Yang should have gone over the basics of his plan (which would give $1,000 a month to every American adult) at the start of his response.

Many on the left criticize how Yang would pay for his universal basic income plan: a value-added tax (a modified sales tax) and cutting welfare for recipients of the dividend.

I think these criticisms are legitimate — if Yang were to focus his taxes on income and capital gains instead of consumption, his plan would do less damage to low-income consumers.

Still, a lot of progressives argue that they wouldn’t support Yang’s plan at all due to the VAT and welfare cuts. This seems too far. If a family of four (with two parents, each receiving $1,000 a month) currently receives $500 in monthly TANF benefits, $400 in monthly SNAP benefits, and has to spend an additional $200 on products each month as a result of the VAT, they’d still come away with a net gain of $900 per month.

Although highly flawed, Yang’s plan is one of the most impactful proposals on the table to genuinely improve life for low-income Americans.

Pete Buttigieg: Medicare For All

HOLT: Who here would abolish their private health insurance in favor of a government run plan? [Sanders and Harris raise their hands]

Again, note the misleading framing.

BUTTIGIEG: 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.

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, and you make it available on the exchanges. People can buy in. And then if people like us are right, that will be not only a more inclusive plan, but a more efficient plan than any of the corporate answers out there.

This isn’t even close to accurately representing the healthcare debate.

What Buttigieg is describing — creating a government-run healthcare program that consumers can choose to buy into — is essentially a public option. Joe Biden later advocated for the same plan.

While a public option would allow the government plan to compete with private insurance plans — surely a positive step in the right direction — it is nowhere near being as “inclusive” or “efficient” as Medicare For All.

Under a public option, competition between public and private plans would reduce healthcare expenditures through market forces, perhaps to 90 to 95 percent of their original values. This is good, but we would still have millions of people dealing with medical debt and tens of thousands of Americans dying because they can’t afford healthcare. Medicare For All, on the other hand, would make most hospital visits free of charge.

The difference between the two plans is one of life and death — and it makes Medicare For All, not a public option, more “inclusive.”

Regarding which plan is more “efficient,” as I mentioned above, Medicare For All would force hospitals to cut costs to about 90 percent. Additionally — and most significantly — Medicare For All could save up to $600 billion per year (!!!) by reducing administrative costs. While Medicare only spends 1.4 percent of its revenue on administrative costs, private insurance companies spend approximately 15 percent of their revenue on overhead.

A public option would make progress on each of these issues, but it wouldn’t entail the systemic overhaul of Medicare For All that makes the plan so efficient.

Joe Biden: Deportations

DIAZ-BALART: The Obama-Biden administration deported more than three 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?

BIDEN: Depending if they committed a major crime, they should be deported.

This is a wild departure from the Obama-Biden Administration’s stance on this issue. According to a recent report, more than 60 percent of detainees in ICE jails have not been convicted of any crimes.

I doubt Biden is arguing that more than half of the deportations that occurred while he was vice president were illegitimate.

Biden continues:

And…President Obama I think did a heck of a job. To compare him to what this guy is doing is absolutely…close to immoral.

This doesn’t really add up. The year with the highest number of deportations of undocumented immigrants on record was not 2017 or 2018 — actually, it was 2012, a year Obama and Biden were manning the executive branch.

Albeit, the Obama Administration didn’t engage in family separation. Still, the Administration piloted a variety of cruel practices, including the Criminal Alien Removal Initiative, which deployed undercover ICE agents to ask citizens in public spaces — including parks and outside grocery stores — to provide their immigration status, then handcuffed them and detained them in vans.

We should be making sure we change the circumstance, as we did, why they would leave in the first place.

This is Biden’s third consecutive fallacious argument. Here’s why:

• Biden voted for NAFTA, which caused the Mexican government to scrap its subsidies for corn. This caused nearly two million Mexican farmers to leave the countryside due to the lower corn prices and economic struggles; many migrated to Mexican cities, and some crossed the border into the U.S.
• Biden helped write the controversial 1994 crime bill. The bill funded states to build more prisons and incentivized police officers to make more drug-related arrests, escalating the war on drugs. The war on drugs forced drug lords to operate on a black market, leading to an uptick in violent gangs across Latin America. These gangs have helped destabilize the region, contributing to the child migrant crisis we see today.
• The Obama-Biden administration aided a violent, right-wing coup in Honduras in 2009. This coup increased poverty and crime in the country, creating conditions that forced many families to migrate to America.

If the goal is to change the circumstances leading to illegal immigration, Biden has done a pretty poor job.

Harris and Biden: Busing

HARRIS: I’m going to now direct this to Vice President Biden…it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and careers on 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.

BIDEN: That’s a mischaracterization of my position across the board. I did not praise racists.

This piercing style of attack from Harris, shaped by her career as a prosecutor, is extremely effective. Here, she expertly combines political substance with a vivid personal story.

Biden’s poor response accentuated the impact. In the comments Harris referenced, Biden said he appreciated the “civility” of segregationist senator Herman Talmadge and respected how segregationist James Eastland “never called me boy — he always called me son.”

Arguing that these comments do not constitute “praise” is a difficult case for Biden to make.

HARRIS: But, Vice President Biden, do you agree today that you were wrong to oppose busing in America then?

BIDEN: I did not oppose busing in America. What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education.

This was predictably a highly mocked response, because busing ordered by the federal government to integrate schools is exactly what Harris was referencing.

Following the first round of debates, Harris surged from 8 percent to 17 percent in the polls, while Biden fell from 42 to 32. This exchange was the primary reason why.

Sanders: Diversity

CHUCK TODD (host): Democrats are very excited by the diversity of this field on this stage…Are you telling Democratic voters that diversity shouldn’t matter when they make this decision?

This is a pretty horrible question. Chuck Todd is essentially asking why Sanders — the second-highest polling Democrat who offers the furthest left political platform of any candidate — is running for president in the first place. It’s also never mentioned that Sanders would be the first Jewish president.

SANDERS: No, absolutely not. Unlike the Republican Party, we encourage diversity…But in addition to diversity in terms of having more women, more people from the LGBT community, we also have to…ask ourselves a simple question and that is, 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.

Although it’s a tricky question to answer, I think Bernie could have done a better job by replacing some of his “but’s” with some “and’s.”

Here, Bernie has a golden opportunity to explain the connection between economic justice and racial justice. He could have said something along the lines of “I want to improve opportunities for people of color so that people from every race and gender have an equal shot at becoming president. And to do that we need someone in office who will fight for people of color and working class Americans. And we’re going to do that by legalizing marijuana and making sure every American can afford healthcare.”

Again, Bernie’s economic platform is the most racially progressive in the field, as it does more than any other candidate to empower those who are economically marginalized. If Sanders were able to explain that more effectively to voters of color, he’d be able to build a larger coalition.

Biden: Climate Change

MADDOW: Are there significant ways you can cut carbon emissions if you have to do it with no support from Congress?

BIDEN: I would immediately insist that we build 500,000 recharging stations throughout the United States of America…so that we can go to a full electric vehicle future 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 an economy that can create millions of jobs.

Biden’s first point on constructing 500,000 recharging stations seems reasonable (although he offers no explanation of how he’d pay for it).

But although you may have missed it, his second point is comically flawed mathematically. Biden literally argued for an investment of a mere $400 million — which would amount to just 0.01 percent of our annual budget — to combat climate change, possibly the most daunting problem our world is facing.

For an issue that is set to create massive climate refugee crises, is leading to a sixth mass extinction, and is already costing more than $200 billion to the global economy each year, dedicating the budget of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides to solve the problem seems a bit inadequate.

Climate change requires a trillion-dollar plan, not a million-dolar or even billion-dollar one.

Michael Bennet: Reputation of the U.S.

HOLT: Many fear the current administration has inflicted irrevocable harm on our governing institutions and norms and, in the process, on our reputation abroad. The question is what do you see as important early steps in reversing the damage done?

BENNET: 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…and when you’ve got a situation where you have a president who says something happens 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.

The framing of Bennet’s response is historically backwards on multiple levels.

First, it’s not just Trump that’s causing people to doubt the U.S.’ claim that Iran initiated the tanker attack in the Strait of Hormuz. It’s decades of foreign policy history. In the 1960s, the U.S. fabricated an attack on a military destroyer in order to foment support for war in Vietnam. In 2002, the Bush Administration lied about Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction to push for war in Iraq. Incidents like these make Americans more cautious of the government’s narrative.

Second, Bennet identifies the cause for the erosion of trust in the U.S. as our lack of “leadership.” But when it comes to Iran, the problem stems from us having too much “leadership” (read: intervention). With John Bolton, Trump’s National Security Advisor, looking for any excuse to start war with Iran, government claims about Iranian attacks are reasonably taken with a grain of salt, as it’s understood that there’s a clear conflict of interest: that same government wants to intervene in Iran.

Arguing that people should have more faith in the pro-war governmental narrative is a right-wing argument — and blaming Trump for not being a “leader” as opposed to being too hawkish is a faulty line of attack.

Sanders: Closing Statement

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 will continue to have plans, we will continue to have talk, and the rich will get richer and everybody else will be struggling.

This is exactly what Bernie needs to do in order to win.

I’ve argued for months now that without populist statements like these, voters will gravitate towards candidates with an appealing character, or someone who they envision could return the U.S. to “normalcy” after the era of Trump.

Only by focusing the Democratic debate on policy substance can Sanders (and, to some extent, Warren), pierce through the “I’ll take any Democrat so long as they beat Trump” narrative and get voters to consider how the differences between moderate and progressive Democratic administrations can be just as important as the differences between a generic Democrat and Trump.

Using this populist rhetoric, Sanders captures the disdain many Americans feel towards Congress and insider politics and shows that 2020 shouldn’t just be about defeating Trump — it should be about creating a society that genuinely empowers the working and middle class.

In the end, I think Warren and Harris really excelled in the debates, while Joe Biden struggled — something that’s borne out in the post-debate polls. Sanders, Buttigieg, and Booker held their own but, in my opinion, did little to improve their standings.

Gabbard, Julian Castro, and Bill De Blasio, meanwhile, had strong performances, but it’s highly unlikely that this will transform into a nomination from the Democratic Party.

One fact remains: the race for the Democratic nomination is wide open, and many candidates — especially the “big five” of Harris, Warren, Biden, Buttigieg, and Sanders — have a legitimate shot at being selected to face off with Donald Trump.

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