The Split
The Democratic candidates were quickly separated into two camps, with candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren under fire from counterparts who called the two out on “impossible” proposals such as Medicare For All and a Green New Deal, and “wish-list economics,” arguing that these policies could allow Republican candidate Donald Trump to label the entire Democratic party as extreme and use it to his advantage.
"You might as well FedEx the election to Donald Trump,” Hickenlooper said.
The two candidates fired back at their critics, accusing them of adopting the Republican agenda of criticizing progressive policies.
Medicare-For-All
Medicare For All, a plan long advocated by Sanders and now also backed by Warren, became a culprit of the first part of the debates. The debate moderator quoted former Representative John Delaney, who called the plan impossible, asking Sanders what he has to say to Delaney.
"You're wrong!" Sanders quipped, sparking laughter in the audience.
The two candidates explained that, according to the plan, US taxpayers might begin to pay more in taxes, but they will no longer have to pay private insurance premiums, and the bottom line would be therefore reduced.
"We're not trying to take healthcare away from anyone. That's what Republicans are trying to do,” Warren added.
As Sanders listed the benefits of the Medicare for All plan, candidate Ryan attempted to challenge Sanders’s knowledge of the plan.
“You don’t know that, Bernie,” Ryan said, to which Sanders quipped “I do know that! I wrote the damn bill!”
Border Crossing Decriminalization
Warren came under fire from fellow Democrats over her proposal to decriminalize illegal border crossings.
“You are playing into Donald Trump's hands," Bullock said. "A sane immigration system needs a sane leader. And we can do that without decriminalizing and providing healthcare for everyone."
O’Rourke claimed he would not decriminalize the crossings, adding that he “expects people who come here to follow our laws,” but pledged to reform immigration policy.
"The biggest problem we have right now, that we have with immigration, is Donald Trump. He's using immigration to not only rip apart families but rip apart this country," he said. "You don't have to decriminalize everything,” the governor added.
Warren, however, stood firm by her idea, while also pointing the finger at Trump.
"The problem is that right now, the decriminalization statute is what’s giving Donald Trump the opportunity to take [children] away from their parents,” she claimed. “It's what gives him the ability to lock up people at our borders. We need to continue to have border security, and we can do that. But what we can't do is not live our values".
Tariff Opposition
Tariffs and trade turned out to be an issue on which the Dems appeared more or less united, with many candidates condemning Trump’s handling of international trade and the latter’s strategy of trade wars in particular, calling for negotiations for better trade deals instead.
"There's not a single example in history where a trade war had a winner. Trade wars are for losers", Hickenlooper said. "Let's negotiate [a] better trade deal, but you are not going to win against China in a trade war when they've got 25 percent of our total debt."
Delaney claimed he was the only candidate who still supported the scrapped Obama-era Trans-Pacific Partneship (TPP) deal.
"Most of the people running for president want to build economic walls to free trade and beat up on President Obama. I'm the only one running that actually supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership", Delaney said.
While calling for negotiating trade deals, the candidates also blasted the deals negotiated under Trump.
"Look at the new NAFTA 2.0. What's the central future? [...] They've become a way for a giant multinationals to change the regulatory environments so they can suck more profits out for themselves and to leave the American people behind,” Warren said about Trump’s United States-Mexico-Canada-Agreement (USMCA).
