What we covered here
- Five Democratic presidential candidates faced voters in New Hampshire tonight at back-to-back CNN town halls.
Ad Feedback
CNN hosts 5 Democratic town halls
48 Posts
Takeaways from tonight's back-to-back 2020 town halls
Five Democratic presidential hopefuls answered a host of questions at back-to-back town halls in Manchester, New Hampshire.
We’re wrapping up our live coverage, but you can scroll through the posts below to see how it unfolded or click on the links to read five takeaways from each of the candidates’ town halls:
Buttigieg declines to take the "bait" on Pence back-and-forth
Buttigieg on Monday declined to engage with a Trump administration official who accused him of pushing a “hate hoax” during his back-and-forth with Vice President Mike Pence.
The US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, on Monday accused Buttigieg of using the feud to further his presidential candidacy, saying it was “along the lines of Jussie Smollett.”
Faced with the words of Grenell, who is also gay, Buttigieg paused and parried.
Buttigieg and Pence have sparred in the press over the past couple weeks.
“If me being gay was a choice, it was a choice that was made far, far above my pay grade,” Buttigieg said at the LGBTQ Victory Fund National Champagne Brunch in Washington earlier this month. “And that’s the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand. That if you got a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me – your quarrel, sir, is with my creator.”
Pence, during his time as governor of Indiana, signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a controversial bill that effectively allowed businesses to discriminate against gay customers.
In a subsequent interview with CNN, Pence said, “I hope that Pete will offer more to the American people than attacks on my Christian faith or attacks on the President as he seeks the highest office in the land,” adding, “he’d do well to reflect on the importance of respecting the freedom of religion of every American.”
Buttigieg on tapes case: "I want to know what’s on the tapes like everybody else does"
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg explained why he demoted the city’s first African American police chief on Monday, telling an audience member at a CNN town hall that he wants to know what is on the tapes that eventually led to his demotion.
About those tapes: The comments focuses on a highly contested and litigated controversy on the contents of five tapes of recorded phone conversations inside the South Bend police department and allegations that the tapes contain racist comments made by a group of officers about former Police Chief Darryl Boykins, who is black. According to court documents, copies of the recordings were made at Boykins’ request. Few others have heard the recordings, but that might change as a state court is set to weigh in on whether the tapes can be made public.
Asked by a voter what is on the tapes, Buttigeig bluntly said he did not know.
Buttigieg said that reason he demoted the chief was he found Boykins “was the subject of a criminal investigation, not from him but the FBI, and it made it very hard to me to trust him as one of my own appointees.”
“It was frustrating and painful too, though,” Buttigieg said. “He was one of the first African-American chiefs and one of the reasons I asked him to serve in the first place was a great track record in community policing, which is a huge priority for us because we’re a racially diverse community.”
Buttigieg, then months into his first term as mayor in 2012, asked Boykins to resign over the tapes matter as authorities investigated allegations that Boykins threatened subordinates, both state and federal investigations ended without charges. After initially agreeing to step down, Boykins – who was the city’s first ever African American police chief – rescinded his resignation and vowed to fight it.
That fight – along with subsequent settlements and lawsuits to get the tapes released publicly – has dragged on for seven years.
Buttigieg: "God doesn't have a political party"
Asked how he planned to unite conservatives, moderates and liberal Christians, Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said, “God doesn’t have a political party.”
He went to say his faith is radically different from the current White House. Buttigieg said his faith counsels him to be humble and look after people who need defending.
Pete Buttigieg on Trump: "I think he’s made it pretty clear he deserves impeachment"
Pete Buttigieg said Monday that he believes President Donald Trump has made it “pretty clear he deserves impeachment,” but that he wants to leave it to the House and Senate to determine the next steps in that process.
The comments come after Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro backed starting impeachment proceedings last week and Sen. Kamala Harris announced on Monday that she, too, supports starting the impeachment process.
For months, Democrats have not made impeachment a premier issue in their pitch to voters. But the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report has upped the ante on the issue.
He added: “I think there’s no more decisive way to do that, especially to get Republicans to abandon this deal with the devil, than to have just an absolute thumping at the ballot box.”
Buttigieg defends controversial 1,000 home policy, but says "no policy is perfect"
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg defended the plan he pushed as mayor to curb urban blight but acknowledged the “no policy is perfect.”
The policy – which hinged on expediting code enforcement in order to demolish 1,000 deteriorating houses in 1,000 days – has been criticized by some for adversely impacting communities of color in South Bend, particularly on the city’s west side.
Buttigieg said that he views the policy as a success, and noted that “the number one can complaint we heard, especially from minority and low income home owners in the neighborhood, was what took you so long?”
He added, however: “No policy is perfect and we learned things the hard way on this one.”
One of those lessons, he said, was that it was difficult for the government to determine which houses were owned by out of town home owners who had let their property deteriorate and which were owned by local residents who were working to fix up local homes.
Buttigieg said he, over time, his administration learned to be “more accommodating” with home owners.
Buttigieg says he wouldn't be running for president if hadn't come out
Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, described how his life would have been if he’d come out sooner.
Buttigieg, who served as a naval officer in Afghanistan, said he came out after he came back from his deployment.
That’s when he said he “started thinking about how you only get to live one life.”
Buttigieg on comparing Sanders and Trump: "I regard them as stupendously different in many respects"
Pete Buttigieg said during his CNN town hall Monday night that he views Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump as “stupendously different in many respects.”
The comment came after Buttigieg took heat from Sanders supporters for seemingly suggesting there were similarities between the two camps.
Buttigieg, speaking to an audience in New Hampshire this weekend, said that both Trump and Sanders supporters “want to vote to blow up the system,” a fact that could make the two different candidates appealing.
Buttigieg made a similar case on Monday:
Buttigieg said that Trump’s pledge to change the system was “bull.”
Rep. Ro Khanna slammed Buttigieg on Sunday for his comments about Sanders of the weekend.
“Come on @PeteButtigieg,” he wrote. “It is intellectually dishonest to compare Bernie to Trump. Bernie is for giving people healthcare, education, childcare, & more pay. He wants to blow up credentialed elitism — those who reject tuition free college for all.”
Buttigieg says incarcerated felons should not be allowed to vote
Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said he doesn’t think people who are incarcerated should be allowed to vote.
He went on to say losing the right to vote is part of the punishment when someone is convicted of a crime.
“You lose your freedom and I think during that freedom it does not make sense to have an exception for it the right to vote,” Buttigieg said.
Earlier tonight, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, speaking at his town hall, was asked if sex offenders, the Boston marathon bomber, terrorists and murderers should have the right to vote. He said he thinks everyone should have the right to vote.
“Yes, even for terrible people, because once you start chipping away and you say, ‘Well, that guy committed a terrible crime, not going to let him vote. Well, that person did that. Not going to let that person vote,’ you’re running down a slippery slope,” Sanders said.
Why Pete Buttigieg isn't ready to get on board with Elizabeth Warren's student debt relief plan
“I still want to do some math around it,” the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Buttigieg said he found the proposal “pretty appealing,” but suggested that any major movement on the issue should follow similarly large scale changes to how Americans are taxed.
As CNN’s MJ Lee and Katie Lobosco reported earlier today, Warren’s new plan would forgive $50,000 in student loans for Americans in households earning less than $100,000 a year.
According to analysis provided by her campaign, that would provide immediate relief to more than 95% of the 45 million Americans with student debt.
The Massachusetts Democrat and 2020 contender is also calling for a drastic increase in federal spending on higher education that would make tuition and fees free for all students at two- and four-year public colleges and expand grants for lower-income and minority students to cover costs like housing, food, books and child care.
The campaign estimates that the plan would cost $1.25 trillion over 10 years.
Here's what Buttigieg plans to do about immigration reform
Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, says he believes there should be a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
“The reality is we can’t have comprehensive immigration reform that works unless it addresses the status for those 11 some million undocumented immigrants. So what we need make sure there’s a pathway to citizenship for them, too,” he said.
Buttigieg then outlined what he said would be in a comprehensive immigration plan, which includes:
- A pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in US.
- “A level of protection for dreamers.”
- “A set of reforms to clear up the bureaucracy and the back logs in the lawful immigration system …”
- “And reasonable measures on border security.”
Buttigieg continued: “It’s just that we don’t have the leadership in Washington to do it. And I’m afraid one of the reasons is we have got a White House that’s computed it’s better off politically that Americans continue to be divided around it for short-term political gain and that has got to end with a new president.”
Buttigieg explains the lack of a policy section on his website: "I’ve been pretty clear where I stand"
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg defended his campaign website not having a policy section, arguing that he believes policy is important, but Democrats need to do a better job of not drowning voters in “minutia.”
Buttigieg’s meteoric rise has found his campaign apparatus playing catch up, and one area where that is clear is policy rollout, especially when compared to candidates like Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
“I’ve been pretty clear where I stand on major issues,” Buttigieg said, nodding to the fact that he has talked at length about getting to Medicare for All and reforming democracy.
The mayor also said his campaign will roll out a tool “shortly that will make it possible to just enter a key word and see, visualize, pull all the video on what I’ve said about that particular issue.”
He added: “I expect it will be very easy to tell where I stand on every policy issues of our time. But I’m going to take time to lay that out, rather than competing strictly on the theoretical elements of the proposals themselves.”
Pressed by CNN’s Anderson Cooper on the fact that it’s hard to compare his policy proposals to others because of the lack of a policy page, Buttigieg said, “We’re in the second week of my campaign being official and we’ll continue building our website accordingly, too.”
Pete Buttigieg's town hall starts now. Here's what you need to know.
Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, officially launched his Democratic presidential race last week and was largely unknown over a month ago.
Buttigieg, who served as a naval officer in Afghanistan, would be the youngest and first married gay president if elected. He would also be the first candidate to go from the mayor’s office to the presidency.
He’s taking the stage now. Here’s what we know about him:
- Buttigieg oversees a city: He’s been mayor of South Bend since January 2012. In December, however, Buttigieg announced he would not seek a third term.
- He’s the fastest-rising Democratic candidate: A series of polls show Buttigieg’s popularity rising among voters, a far cry from when he was receiving less than 1% of support in some polls months ago.
- What he thinks about President Trump: He cast Trump as a backward-looking politician who has looked to use fear as a way to gain power.
- How to pronounce Buttigieg’s name: Buttigieg can be pronounced “boot-edge-edge,” “buddha-judge,” “boot-a-judge” or “boo-tuh-judge.” Buttigieg’s father, Joseph, emigrated to the United States from Malta. Buttigieg roughly translates to “lord of the poultry.”
- His 2020 platform: The mayor has called for sweeping Democratic reforms on voting and in the judicial system, called climate change “a life and death issue for our generation” and said he wants to make sure every American has access to Medicare.
You can watch Mayor Buttigieg’s town hall in the video player above.
In the Green Room with Pete Buttigieg
Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg just chatted with CNN and answered a few questions before tonight’s town hall.
We asked him six simple questions so voters can get to know him better.
Here’s what he said:
CNN: What’s one thing about you that surprises people?
Buttigieg: “I think people are pretty surprised that I like to speak to a big crowd because I’m pretty laid back and low key in person, but politics is about engaging different kinds of groups. I enjoy everything from the living room to the giant speech.”
CNN: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Buttigieg: “I think the best advice I have received has come from people who have encouraged me to just be true to what I care about most, and you need to pay attention to how you’re being shaped, even by the decisions that you make as you grow and go through different experiences.”
CNN: What’s your favorite movie and why?
Buttigieg: “I don’t have a single favorite movie. From a filmmaking perspective, I think it’s pretty hard to beat The Godfather and also Gangs of New York. I got a weakness from Sci-Fi, especially provocative Sci-Fi that makes you think. And I think Contact and more recently Arrival are two amazing movies that I could watch over and over again.”
CNN: What was the last book you read?
Buttigieg: “I just finished a book about John le Carré, a great spy novelist, but he also wrote a memoir called The Pigeon Tunnel about all the stories of things he’s experienced over the years. It’s really good reading and it’s always fun to read a little bit something different from my day-to-day political-related nourishment.”
CNN: What three issues do we have to deal with right now?
Buttigieg: “I think we have got to deal with the condition of our democracy — the way that we make decisions and the way that it gets warped by everything that has money in politics … the way things get drawn. Very, very concerned about climate and how that’s going to effect opportunities for my generation for as long as I live. And I think we’ve got to deal with unfairness and inequality in our economic system today.”
CNN: Name one thing that makes you different than all the other 2020 Democratic candidates.
Buttigieg: “Well I am definitely the only left-handed, Episcopalian, Maltese-American gay war veteran in the race, so I got that going for me.”
Kamala Harris is open to allowing currently incarcerated people to vote
Sen. Kamala Harris said that she is open to allowing currently incarcerated people to vote, giving a noncommittal answer to something Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said he supported during his CNN town hall earlier on Monday.
“People who are convicted, in prison, like the Boston marathon bomber, on death row, people who are convicted of sexual assault, they should be able to vote,” asked CNN’s Don Lemon.
Harris replied, “I think we should have that conversation.”
Harris’ answer was vague and left open the possibility that she could eventually not support the plan.
“I agree that the right to vote is one of the very important components of citizenship. And it is something that people should not be stripped of needlessly, which is why I have long been an advocate of making sure people formally incarcerated are not denied the right to vote,” Harris said. “In some states, they’re permanently deprived of the right to vote.”
Sanders said Monday that he thinks everyone should have the right to vote – even the Boston marathon bomber.
“This is a democracy and we have got to expand that democracy and I believe every single person does have the right to vote,” he said
Asked if sex offenders, the Boston marathon bomber, terrorists and murderers should have the right to vote, Sanders said, “Yes, even for terrible people, because once you start chipping away and you say, ‘Well, that guy committed a terrible crime, not going to let him vote. Well, that person did that. Not going to let that person vote,’ you’re running down a slippery slope.”
Harris touts her DA efforts to protect sex workers
Sen. Kamala Harris on Monday touted her efforts to protect sex workers during her time as the district attorney in San Francisco, specifically noting her calls to shut down a website used to advertise adult services.
Discussing Backpage, a since-shuttered site some sex workers defended as a means of keeping them off the streets, Harris insisted its closure – which she pushed for – protected minors from sex traffickers.
“As it relates to women who are being trafficked, I was one of the leaders in the country with many others in saying that Backpage needed to be put out of business because they were in the business of basically allowing the trafficking,” Harris said, “in particular of underage girls.”
Harris, who has said sex work should be decriminalized, focused her answer on the disparity in police and prosecutorial treatment of sex workers and those profiting off of and often abusing them.
“When I was district attorney of San Francisco, I instituted a number of policies that were focused on women and children and how they were treated, frankly, with bias in the criminal justice system,” Harris said, “where they were criminalized without really looking at the real offender and so often that case was the pimps and Johns, so women were arrested as being prostitutes.”
Harris: US "not prepared" for cyber war, which "will be a war without blood"
Sen. Kamala Harris said Monday that the United States is not prepared for cyber war, telling an audience in New Hampshire that she would make preparing for cyber war “one of my number one issues.”
Harris called cyber war a “new form of war” where the United States – particularly the United States’ infrastructure – is “vulnerable.”
“We have got to pay greater attention,” Harris said.
The prospect of cyber intrusions into 2020 campaigns is front of mind for many Democrats, given the way hacked material played a role in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss.
Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez wrote to the Republican National Committee on Monday, asking Republicans to refrain from engaging in the “weaponization of stolen private data in our electoral process.” Meanwhile, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and former HUD Secretary Julian Castro announced on Monday that their respective campaigns would not use hacked material during their 2020 runs.
Kamala Harris on Trump: "I believe Congress should take the steps towards impeachment"
Sen. Kamala Harris said Monday that she supports Congress moving toward impeachment, a step further than the California Democrat has gone in the past on whether President Donald Trump should be impeached.
Harris’ comment comes amid a growing debate among Democrats over whether House should impeach the President in the wake of the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian intervention in the 2016 election and Trump’s efforts to obstruct the investigation.
Harris added: “I believe that we need to get rid of this President. That’s why I’m running to become president of the United States. That is part of the premise, obviously, of my plan.”
What the others say: For months, Democrats have not made impeachment a premier issue in their pitch to voters. But Mueller’s report has upped the ante, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro calling for impeachment proceedings to begin.
Warren first announced her support of impeachment proceedings last week. But she said during her hour-long CNN town hall on Monday that if anyone else did what Trump did, according to the Mueller report, “they would be arrested and put in jail.”
“He serves the whole thing up to the United States Congress and says in effect, if there’s going to be any accountability, that accountability has to come from the Congress,” Warren said of Mueller. “And the tool that we are given for that accountability is the impeachment process. This is not about politics; this is about principle.”
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar took a more wait-and-see approach to the issue, declining to go as far as Warren, Castro or Harris.
“Here is my concern: At the end of the day, what is most important to me is to see that Donald Trump is not re-elected President and I intend to do everything I can to make sure that that doesn’t happen,” Sanders said.
Klobuchar told the audience in New Hampshire that she doesn’t want to “predispose things.” The senator also pushed the decision on impeaching Trump to her colleagues in the House, noting that it is their decision.
“The impeachment proceedings are up to the House. They’re going to have to make that decision. I am in the senate,” Klobuchar said, adding that she “believe(s) very strongly that President Trump should be held accountable.”
Harris promises swift executive action if Congress doesn't pass gun control legislation
Sen. Kamala Harris pledged that, if elected President, she would take executive action enacting sweeping gun control measures if Congress fails to send comprehensive legislation to her desk in her first 100 days.
In a fact sheet outlining the proposals that the campaign plans to unveil publicly tomorrow, Harris says, “Enough. We’re not waiting any longer.”
The pledge by Harris to act unilaterally by executive action sharpens her repeated calls on the campaign trail, blasting Congress for failing to act on gun violence, especially mass shootings.
Kamala Harris is up now. Here's where she stands on key issues.
In announcing her run for president, California Sen. Kamala Harris said the time has come to fight against what she views as the injustices of the past two years of the Trump presidency.
The Democratic lawmaker has accused the President of stoking racist and xenophobic rhetoric, while aligning his administration with white supremacists at home, and cozying up to dictators abroad. Harris has argued that the middle class has been ignored.
Harris said she’s running for president to lift voices and “bring our voices together.”
As she takes the stage in New Hampshire, here’s where Harris stands on key issues:
- On gun control: She made impassioned calls for banning assault weapons and universal background checks.
- On Medicare for All: Harris is open to multiple paths to Medicare-for-all and also cosponsored Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ bill, which would phase out for-profit insurers.
- On possibility of reparations for the descendants of slaves: Harris told a radio station recently that he idea of reparations should be considered in the face of economic inequality.
- On an all-woman ticket: Harris has embraced the idea of choosing a female vice president to create an all-woman ticket in her quest for the White House.
You can watch her town hall live in the video player above.
Ad Feedback
Ad Feedback
GO DEEPER
-
Bernie Sanders still dominates 2020 fundraising
-
One picture that captures the organic excitement for Pete Buttigieg right now
-
Amy Klobuchar raises $5.2 million for White House bid, campaign says
-
Kamala Harris says she regrets ‘unintended consequences’ of 2011 California truancy law
-
Elizabeth Warren unveils a plan to tax big corporations
Ad Feedback
GO DEEPER
-
Bernie Sanders still dominates 2020 fundraising
-
One picture that captures the organic excitement for Pete Buttigieg right now
-
Amy Klobuchar raises $5.2 million for White House bid, campaign says
-
Kamala Harris says she regrets ‘unintended consequences’ of 2011 California truancy law
-
Elizabeth Warren unveils a plan to tax big corporations
