December 2019 Democratic debate

President Donald Trump, with his typical flair for saying things that aren’t true, has proclaimed we’re living through “the greatest economy in our nation’s history.”

It isn’t, but something can in fact be quite good even without being the best ever. The unemployment rate is 3.5 percent. The stock market is at an all-time high. The poverty rate is falling. Employers have started showing refreshing willingness to hire people with criminal records because there just aren’t that many conventionally qualified people left to hire.

A subtle shoutout former Vice President Joe Biden gave during Thursday’s Democratic debate to a child who stutters, like he has for much of his life, revealed one of his secret strengths — the ability to force people in the usually-shameless-orbit of President Donald Trump to apologize.

At the close of the debate, Joe Biden brought up a “call list” he and his wife Jill keep of “somewhere between 20 and 100 people” they regularly catch up with. He mentioned that one of the people on the list is a “little kid who says ‘I can’t talk, what do I do?’”

Almost every 2020 Democratic contender for president has put out a plan for how they will tackle climate change. Some of these plans are quite robust and thorough, dealing with how to transition the economy to cleaner energy, invest in new technologies, and help fossil fuel workers who might lose their jobs in the process.

But few have addressed one of the thorniest challenges of climate change: the fact that many Americans are being or will be forced out of their homes because of severe flooding, wildfires, or other events exacerbated by warming. It’s an expensive proposition to relocate them, and we don’t have a good track record of getting it right.

During Thursday’s Democratic debate, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders were confronted with statements recently made by former President Barack Obama about gender. And both of them missed a major opportunity.

At a recent event on leadership in Singapore, Obama made two points. He argued that women are “indisputably” better leaders than men and he said that individuals, “usually old men,” need to recognize when they should step aside to enable new ideas and leadership to flourish, BBC reports.

And then there were seven.

The December Democratic debate was the most exclusive affair to date, with former Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Sen. Kamala Harris out of the race and prior participants like Sen. Cory Booker, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, and former US housing secretary Julián Castro knocked out for failing to meet polling and/or donor thresholds. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang was the only person of color on stage, a situation that prompted understandable concern before the event, and he and fellow longshots Sen. Amy Klobuchar and billionaire Tom Steyer were joined by the race’s Big Four: former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Over the past year, I’ve heard from lots of Democrats who say they’re primarily interested in beating President Donald Trump. And if that sincerely is your interest, I hope you saw Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota on the debate stage Thursday night.

In earlier rounds, Klobuchar tended to get lost among the other middle-of-the-pack candidates. She doesn’t have a goofy outsider message like entrepreneur Andrew Yang or billionaire Tom Steyer or House Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. And she doesn’t have a particularly distinctive ideological take.

The biggest on-stage fight of Thursday’s Democratic debate, between Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg — indeed, one of the biggest fights we’ve seen come out of any of the debates — was about wine caves.

Or rather, it was a fight about high-dollar fundraisers, political access, and who gets to have it.

Pete Buttigieg vowed during Thursday night’s Democratic debate not only to financially compensate the almost 5,500 immigrant families who were separated under the Trump administration’s policies, but also to offer them a “fast track” to citizenship.

It’s a unique proposal in the Democratic field — one that immigrant advocates are currently fighting for in the courts and in Congress. The American Civil Liberties Union and others have filed lawsuits seeking financial damages against the US government on behalf of separated families.

The sixth Democratic presidential debate and the 2020 Miss America pageant fell on the same day this year. The two events couldn’t be more different — or could they?

If you’re not a regular pageant viewer, you’ve still probably seen the viral videos that pop up from time to time of a contestant’s cringe-worthy sound bite. Remember Miss South Carolina’s 2007 “uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as” flub? But then again, there are viral debate missteps, too: In 2011, Republican Rick Perry couldn’t remember one of the three government agencies he wanted to eliminate, shrugging it off, literally, with an “oops.”

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang got the question staring everybody in the face at Thursday’s Democratic debate: What message does it send to voters that you’re the only nonwhite candidate up on stage?

He answered by invoking economic inequality, explained the barriers it creates to political engagement, and, most impressively, ended with a plug for his signature policy proposal: a universal basic income.

The sixth Democratic debate — which will feature the smallest slate of candidates yet — is set to take place from 8 to 11 pm ET this Thursday, December 19, at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

The debate will be broadcast by PBS and co-hosted by Politico, both of which will livestream it here. The seven-candidate stage will be moderated by four journalists from the two publications: PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff, Amna Nawaz, and Yamiche Alcindor, and Politico’s Tim Alberta.

Journalists from PBS NewsHour and Politico will tag-team the moderation of the sixth Democratic debate in Los Angeles on Thursday. The debate, which features the smallest slate of candidates yet, will be shown on PBS as well as the PBS and Politico websites.

PBS will be represented by NewsHour anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff, NewsHour senior correspondent Amna Nawaz, and NewsHour White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor, while Politico will be represented by chief political correspondent Tim Alberta.

Seven candidates have qualified for the December Democratic debate, the sixth of the 2020 presidential contest, in which former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg remain the frontrunners.

Hosted by PBS NewsHour and Politico, the debate will take place at 8 pm ET on Thursday, December 19, at the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and will be aired on PBS. (It will also be streamed on PBS and Politico’s websites.) Whether the debate would happen was in doubt for several days after Democratic candidates vowed to drop out in solidarity with workers who had threatened to picket the event, amid a labor dispute with the university. That dispute has since reached a tentative resolution.

The Democratic debate on Thursday, December 19, appears to be on after a labor dispute at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where the event is set to be held, has landed on a tentative solution. Democratic candidates had threatened to skip the debate and refuse to cross a picket line at the venue.

Unite Here Local 11, a union representing about 150 cooks, dishwashers, and cashiers, said in a statement Tuesday morning that it secured a tentative contract agreement with on-campus food service provider Sodexo on Monday. According to Politico, the union said talks began in March but stalled in November. Unite Here credited Democratic National Committee and Chair Tom Perez for helping to broker the deal, which includes a 25 percent increase in compensation, a 50 percent drop in health care costs, and an increase in job security.

Nine Democratic presidential candidates sent a letter to the Democratic National Committee Saturday urging the party to ease the qualification requirements for upcoming debates, highlighting tensions within the party over the decline of candidates of color in a primary field once heralded for being the most diverse in US history.

To make the stage for the December debate — which most candidates have pledged to boycott over a labor dispute at the venue — the party required candidates to receive at least 4 percent in four DNC-approved polls, and have at least 200,000 individual campaign donors.

On Friday afternoon, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) declared that she was willing to boycott next week’s Democratic debate at Loyola Marymount University in California in solidarity with campus workers who are picketing for better pay and health care.

She immediately set off a domino effect that would eventually see every other Democratic presidential candidate who qualified for the debate make the same pledge.