The economy. Health care. Tax cuts. Border security. Climate crisis. Guns. These and many other major topics were discussed—and in some cases, furiously argued—on the first night of the Democratic debate Wednesday, June 26. The event in Miami, the first of the 2020 election season, included ten of the 24 who have announced their candidacy in an increasingly crowded field.
The first ones up were Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts; Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey; former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke; Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York City; Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington; Julian Castro, President Barack Obama‘s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; former Maryland Rep. John Delaney; Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii; and Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio.
The candidates were given 60 seconds to answer each question, with additional time allotted if moderators Lester Holt, Rachel Maddow, Savannah Guthrie, Jose Diaz-Balart, or Chuck Todd had followups.
Just 35 minutes into the scheduled two-hour debate, President Donald Trump already had a verdict. “BORING!” he tweeted. And after a technical snafu an hour in, he had an opinion about that too. “.@NBCNews and @MSNBC should be ashamed of themselves for having such a horrible technical breakdown in the middle of the debate,” he declared. “Truly unprofessional and only worthy of a FAKE NEWS Organization, which they are!”
We figured he wouldn’t be impressed by the event or the candidates, but who do you think pulled ahead of the pack?
The second night of the debates on Thursday, June 27, will see Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Kirsten Gillibrand, Andrew Yang, Michael Bennet, John Hickenlooper, Eric Swalwell, and Marianne Williamson taking on tough questions. Candidates Seth Moulton, Steve Bullock, Mike Gravel, and Wayne Messam did not qualify for the first round of debates.
Night two of the Democratic debate airs on NBC at 9 p.m. ET.
