Each candidate had at least eight minutes of speaking time tonight — and every one had at least one standout one-liner, compelling argument or tense exchange.
Here’s a look at the candidate’s most dramatic, most humorous and most riveting moments.
Sen. Michael Bennet mentioned his mother, an immigrant who was separated from her parents during the Holocaust in Poland, and said she’s part of the reason immigration is an issue that’s important to him:
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand directly questioned former Vice President Joe Biden about an op-ed he wrote on about women working outside the home. She repeatedly asked him what he meant when he wrote that working women would “create the deterioration of family.” Even as Biden defended why he voted against a child care funding bill, she kept pressing him on the op-ed:
Julián Castro, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, criticized Biden’s position on border crossings after the former vice president said that illegally crossing the border should remain a crime. Castro responded:
Sen. Cory Booker got into a heated exchanged with Biden over criminal justice reform and criticized him with this line:
Sen. Kamala Harris spent her debate night aggressively attacking Biden. The very first question of the night became an opportunity for the two to debate on their dueling heath care plans. Later, she called out the former vice president out for changing his position on abortion funding.
Former Vice President Joe Biden spent the majority of the night defending himself against attacks from the other candidates. He got into it with Harris over his changing position on a measure that blocks federal funds from being used for most abortions. Biden also struggled to answer Democratic foes who criticized Obama-era deportations of undocumented immigrants. In a separate moment, protesters began chanting in the debate hall after Biden was asked about deportations under the Obama administration.
Businessman Andrew Yang offered this fiery comparison between himself and Trump in his opening remarks:
Later on, he defended immigrants, saying they’re “being scapegoated for issues they have nothing to do with in our economy.”
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the only war veteran on stage tonight, said most policymakers in Washington can’t fathom the cost of the war. Her political record has come under intense scrutiny over the past few years, but Gabbard’s criticism of the US foreign policy establishment is in line with most progressives’ — and she pulled no punches on stage tonight.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee challenged Biden on the urgency of climate change. He then a passionate defense for action on climate changing, saying:
Mayor Bill de Blasio came under fire tonight for not taking action against New York City police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, who choked Eric Garner to death. Protesters disrupted the debate demanding Pantaleo’s firing. Several candidates also called on the mayor to fire the officer.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said to former Vice President Joe Biden, “Your argument is not with me, it’s with science. And unfortunately your plan is just too late. The science tells us we have to get off coal in 10 years. Your plan does not do that. We have to have off of fossil fuels in 15.”
Fact First: Inslee is exaggerating the timeline.
The science that Inslee was referring to likely comes from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s report published in 2018. The report argued that the world needs to urgently cut emissions. It did not set a specific year as a deadline or say that we only have 10 years to fix our problems, there is no specific tipping point, though some politicians and media outlets have characterized it as such.
Instead, the report explains there needs to be a 45% cut in human-caused carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, as compared to 2010 levels. If it doesn’t the planet could warm by 1.5 degrees Celsius between 2030 and 2052. The international community considers 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming to be catastrophic.
These are all estimates based on the best science. Any level of warming is dangerous and risks increase as the temperature does. At the current rates, the world could easily go far beyond the 1.5 degree goal by 2052.
Former Vice President Joe Biden defended his criminal justice record by saying that he has tried since 2007 to “totally” eliminate the disparity in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine, which disproportionately affected African Americans.
Facts First: Biden is right that he introduced in 2007 a bill to treat crack and powder cocaine equally, but he did not mention he supported legislation 21 years earlier that created the disparity in the first place.
In 2007, Biden introduced a bill that would undo the 100-to-1 powder-to-crack ratio set into law by another bill he co-sponsored in 1986. That earlier bill established the same five-year mandatory minimum sentence for people convicted of distributing 500 grams of powder cocaine or five grams of crack.
Biden’s 2007 bill did not pass, but the Obama administration did sign into law in 2010 legislation to reduce the ratio to 18 to 1.
And in 2018, President Donald Trump signed the First Step Act, which makes the reform retroactive, helping those convicted of crack offenses before 2010.
Former Vice President Joe Biden ended his debate night inadvertently directing his supporters to a website that his campaign doesn’t own.
He likely wanted voters to text “Joe” to 30330, but the way Biden phrased his closing remarks made it sound like he was sending them to a website.
In the minutes after the debate, someone bought Joe30330.com.
At first, the website redirected to Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s campaign site. Moments later, it started going to joshforamerica.com. Josh claims to be “the first Gen Z’er to declare candidacy for this office.”
The donate page of Josh’s website now has this disclaimer:
See Biden’s call to action:
The second night of CNN’s 2020 Democratic debate just wrapped, and by the end of the night, former Vice President Joe Biden had the most speaking time, with 21 minutes and 1 second.
Sen. Kamala Harris spoke for 17 minutes and 43 seconds. Meanwhile, businessman Andrew Yang had the least amount of talking time, with 8 minutes and 38 seconds.
Here’s the full breakdown:
The 10 presidential candidates just wrapped up their debate appearances tonight with their closing remarks to Americans.
Here’s what they said:
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio: “If we’re going to beat Donald Trump, this has to be a party that stands for something. The party of labor unions. This has to be the party of universal health care. This has to be the party that’s not afraid to say out loud we’re going to tax the hell out of the wealthy. And when we do that, Donald Trump right on cue will call us socialists. Here’s what I’ll say to him: ‘Donald, you’re the real socialist.’”
Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet: “I think that we have an incredible opportunity in front of us. All of us. To come together just as our parents and grandparents did before them, and face challenges even harder than the ones we face. But the only way that we’re going to be able to do it is to put the divisive politics of Donald Trump behind us.”
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee: “We have one last chance. When you have one chance in life, you take it. Think about this. Literally the survival of humanity on this planet in civilization is in the hands of the next president. And we have to have a leader who will do what is necessary to save us. That includes making this the top priority of the next presidency.”
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand: “I’m running for president because I want to help people. And I actually have the experience and the ability to do that. I brought Congress together and actually made a difference in peoples lives.”
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: “The needs are great as your president I will put your interest above all else.”
Former Secretary Julián Castro: “I believe that we need leadership that understands that we need to move forward as one nation. With one destiny. And our destiny in the years to come is to be the smartest, the healthiest, the fairest and the most prosperous nation on Earth.”
Businessman Andrew Yang: “You know what the talking heads couldn’t stop talking about about after the last debate? It’s not the fact that I am somehow No. four on the stage in national polling. It was the fact that I wasn’t wearing a tie. Instead of automation in the future, including the fact we automated away 4 million manufacturing jobs. Hundreds of thousands right here in Michigan. We’re up here with makeup on our faces and our rehearsed attack lines. Playing roles in this reality TV show. It’s one reason why we elected a reality TV star as our president.”
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker: “We have a real crisis in our country, and the crisis is Donald Trump — but not only Donald Trump, I have a frustration that sometimes people are saying the only thing they want is to beat Donald Trump. Well, that is the floor and not the ceiling.”
California Sen. Kamala Harris: “What we need is someone who is going to be on that debate stage with Donald Trump and defeat him by being able to prosecute the case against four more years. And let me tell you we’ve got a long rap sheet.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden: Everybody knows who Donald Trump is. We have to let him know who we are. We choose science over fiction. We choose hope over fear. We choose unity over division. And we choose, we choose the idea that we can as Americans, when we act together, do anything.”
See Harris’ closing statement:
While defending his record as mayor of Newark, New Jersey, against attacks from former Vice President Joe Biden, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker claimed that the leader of New Jersey’s American Civil Liberties Union “has said that I embraced reforms not just in action but in deeds.”
Facts First: This is true, but lacks important context.
Booker was mayor of Newark from 2006 to 2013, and in his last year the head of ACLU-NJ did “commend” Booker and the city’s police director for issuing “one of the most comprehensive policies in the nation requiring the tracking and public reporting of the police department’s stop-and-frisk practices.”
But the reforms came, in part, following a 96-page complaint made by the ACLU against Newark’s police department in 2010. The complaint led to a three-year investigation from the Department of Justice into the department. The DOJ released a report in 2014 which found “reasonable cause to believe” police officers had stolen from civilians and – among other things – engaged in a “pattern of unconstitutional stops and arrests” that disproportionately affected black people.
Booker is leaving out this critical background in touting the praise from the ACLU.
Andrew Yang said: “If you go to a factory here in Michigan, you will not find wall-to-wall immigrants, you will find wall-to-wall robots and machines. Immigrants are being scapegoated for issues they have nothing to do with in our economy.”
Facts First: Yang is right that robots have displaced more workers than immigrants.
Many studies have shown that immigrants generally create more net jobs in the US, although there may be some displacement and wage stagnation in low-skilled industries where more immigrants compete directly with native-born Americans.
But all kinds of manufacturing industries in America, from steel to tractors, have incorporated technology that reduces the number of people needed to create a given amount of stuff. The automotive sector accounts for about half the US’ robot shipments, according to the Robotics Industry Association, though non-automotive industries have been catching up fast. And many economists, including those at Oxford Economics and McKinsey, project that automation will displace millions of jobs in manufacturing down the line.
However, manufacturing employment in Michigan has been steadily rising since the bottom of the Great Recession, and now stands at 635,000 jobs — 14% of total employment in the state. And according to the pro-immigration American Immigration Council, in 2015, 94,152 of those jobs were occupied by immigrants, a share that was higher than immigrants’ percentage of the overall population.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, the only war veteran on stage tonight, said most policymakers in Washington can’t fathom the cost of the war.
Her political record has come under intense scrutiny over the past few years, but Gabbard’s criticism of the US foreign policy establishment is in line with most progressives’ – and she pulled no punches on stage tonight.
Before she began, Gabbard who was deployed to Iraq in 2005, said her feelings on the issue are “difficult to convey in words.”
Ending the American conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, she added, should not be about the setting of “arbitrary deadline.” It’s a question, Gabbard said, “about leadership.”
“The leadership I will bring to do the right thing, to bring our troops home within the first year in office because they shouldn’t have been there this long,” she said.
Turning to Trump, Gabbard added: “We were all lied to (about Iraq). The problem is that this current president is continuing to betray us.”
Watch Gabbard speak on Afghanistan:
Former Vice President Joe Biden was forced to defend his changing position on a measure that blocks federal funds from being used for most abortions.
During a conversation about women’s rights, California Sen. Kamala Harris brought up Biden’s recent decision drop his support for the Hyde Amendment.
Biden defended his position, saying, “The fact is that senator knows that’s not my position.”
“Everybody on this stage has been in the Congress. And the Senate or the House has voted for the Hyde Amendment at some point. It’s in the past it was available because there was other access for those kinds of services, provided privately. Once I wrote the legislation making sure that every single woman would have the opportunity to have health care paid for by the federal government, everyone, that that could no longer stand,” he said.
“I support a woman’s right to choose. I support it as a constitutional right. I support it, and will continue to support it and move as president to see to that the Congress legislates that that is the law as well,” Biden added.
The former vice president said he changed his position on the measure “because there was not full federal funding for all reproductive services prior to this point.”
Watch the moment:
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand grilled Joe Biden on an op-ed that about women working outside of the home, which he wrote when he was a senator.
“I want to address Vice President Biden directly. When the Senate was debating middle class affordability for child care he wrote an op-ed. He voted against it,” she began. “He wrote an op-ed: He believed that women working outside the home would, quote, ‘create the deterioration of family.’ He also said that women who were working outside the home were quote, ‘avoiding responsibility.’”
She asked him what those quotes meant — and Biden explained why he voted against the bill.
“That was a long time ago,” he said. “It would have given people making today $100,000 a year tax break for child care. I didn’t want that. I wanted the child care to go to people making less than $100,000.”
Gillibrand was not satisfied.
“Mr. Vice President you didn’t answer my question,” she said. “What did you mean when you said when a woman works outside the home, it’s resulting in, quote, ‘the deterioration of family’?”
Biden said both his late and current wives worked outside the home, and he said that he wrote the Violence Against Women Act. He pointed out that he and Gillibrand have worked together on women’s issues.
“I don’t know what’s happened except you’re now running for president,” Biden said to Gillibrand.
Here’s how Gillibrand responded:
“I never believed it” Biden said.
Watch this moment:
Tulsi Gabbard, who has opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, said she’d ensure that the US remains competitive against China by “pushing for fair trade.”
What you need to know about the deal: The Trans-Pacific Partnership, known as TPP, was negotiated under the Obama administration. It would have eliminated trade barriers between the United States and 11 other countries, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand, as well as some South American countries like Peru and Chile – with the goal of creating an alliance to counter Chinese economic influence.
Some Democrats, like Gabbard, are opposed: It drew criticism from some Democrats, including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who argued it was written behind closed doors with input from corporations and could end up forcing American workers to compete with low-wage labor around the world.
President Trump isn’t a fan either: He repeatedly said during his election campaign that it would send American jobs overseas and – as one of his first acts as President, he withdrew the United States from the agreement. The 11 other countries went ahead with the deal, now called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. It went into effect in January 2019.
Instead, Trump has decided to take on China alone. He’s imposed tariffs on more than $250 billion of Chinese goods while his administration negotiates with Beijing, attempting to reach a comprehensive trade agreement that would address what it says are unfair trade practices by the Chinese.
Former Vice President Joe Biden was the target of multiple attacks, from protesters and from others onstage, about the deportation record of President Barack Obama. Biden defended his former boss against New York Mayor Bill de Blasio by saying Obama “came up with the idea for the first time ever of dealing with the DREAMers. He put that into law.”
Fact’s First: That’s false. Obama didn’t put it into law – and that’s a hugely important point.
The “DREAMers” are undocumented immigrants who were brought into the United States as children and there has long been bipartisan support to give a pathway to legal status. The DREAM Act was a bill written by Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. It never became law despite multiple efforts – but the name stuck.
But there was not enough support to put it into law. And when a comprehensive immigration plan failed in congress, Obama instead used executive authority to give DREAMers temporary protection with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.
If they met certain requirements, signed up for the program and stayed out of trouble, he promised they could stay in the country. But it was a temporary fix and not ever put into law.
So when Donald Trump came into office, he moved to end DACA. Trump says he supports a legal status for DREAMers, but has said Congress must pass a law giving it to them. His effort to end the DACA program is currently stalled in the courts.
So no, Obama did not put anything for the DREAMers into law. And that’s part of the point of his record on immigration that frustrates immigration advocates.
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who is not a co-sponsor of the sweeping Green New Deal proposal, called the climate change debate “personal,” drawing on her experience growing up in Hawaii.
“First of all, this is personal. You can imagine I grew up in Hawaii, which is the most remote island chain in the world, so for us growing up there, protecting our environment was not a political issue, it’s a way of life,” she said. “It’s part of our culture. It’s part of who we are.”
She went on to plug her work on climate change in Congress:
Watch now:
While criticizing former Vice President Joe Biden’s health care plan, California Sen. Kamala Harris said, “Let’s talk about the fact that the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies last year alone profited $72 billion, and that is on the backs of American families.”
Facts First: Harris was in fact understating the profits of these industries. Ten of the largest US-based drug companies alone made $69 billion in profits last year. Health insurance companies made $23 billion.
The profits of the top US drug companies were as follows: Johnson & Johnson ($15.3 billion), Pfizer ($11.2 billion), Amgen ($8.4 billion), Merck ($6.2 billion), AbbVie ($5.7 billion), Gilead ($5.5 billion), Bristol-Myers Squibb ($5 billion), Biogen ($4.4 billion), Celgene ($4 billion), Eli Lilly ($3.2 billion).
Not all of these profits came from the companies’ operations in the United States.
A report from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners said the health insurance industry generated net earnings of $23.4 billion in 2018.
Asked if he would commit to ending the use of fossil fuels and fracking during his presidency, Joe Biden hesitated before saying he would “work it out” of the American economy.
“We would make sure it’s eliminated and no more subsidies for either one of those,” the former vice president said of coal. “Any fossil fuel.”
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who began his run as a one-issue candidate focused on climate change, challenged Biden, saying he didn’t seem to understand the urgency.
Inslee, who has released a comprehensive plan backed by leading climate activists, told Biden that his “argument isn’t with me, it’s with science” and claimed the former vice president’s plan took a “middle ground” approach.
Biden denied it, then talked about his plan to rejoin the Paris climate pact and push for the alliance to adapt more aggressive goals.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand made a similar promise, but with some extra mustard.
“The first thing that I’m going to do when I’m president is I’m going to Clorox the Oval Office,” she said. “The second thing I’m going to do is I will reengage on global climate change and I will not only sign the Paris Global Climate Accords, but I will lead a worldwide conversation about the urgency of this crisis.”
“The greatest threat to humanity,” Gillibrand said, “is global climate change.”
Still, such promises were criticized.
“Nobody should get applause for rejoining the Paris climate accord,” Sen. Cory Booker said. “That is kindergarten.”
Businessman Andrew Yang offered an even more dire portrait of what’s to come – without or without immediate, urgent action.
“We are too late. We are ten years too late,” Yang said. The entire world needs to take action to reverse the damage, he added, but “we also need to start moving people to higher ground.”
Watch the moment:
It’s 10 p.m. ET and the debate is nearing its end.
After talking for two hours, it looks like former Vice President Joe Biden has had the most to say. He lead the way with 15:38 minutes, followed by California Sen. Kamala Harris with 13.25 minutes.
Here’s where things stand:
Several candidates criticized the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the border, citing a long-standing US law that can result in such action.
Facts First: This is true – and the law has been a flashpoint in the immigration debate.
Last year, the Trump administration implemented its controversial “zero tolerance” policy, using a section of US law to criminally prosecute all adults who illegally crossed the southern border. The policy led to the separation of thousands of families, given that children can’t be held in federal jail with adults. The policy—and the section of the code at the center of it—have become a flashpoint in the immigration debate.
Democratic candidates remain divided over the law, referred to as Section 1325, with some wanting to instead make crossing the border illegally a civil offense, instead of a criminal offense.
Former HUD Secretary Julian Castro shot the issue into the national dialogue at the last round of debates and hammered in on his position Wednesday night.
“The only way that we’re going to guarantee that we don’t have family separations in this country again is to repeal section 1325 of the immigration nationality act,” Castro said Wednesday. “That is the law that this President, this administration is using to incarcerate migrant parents and then physically separate them from their children.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden added: “The fact of the matter is, when people cross the border illegally, it is illegal to do it unless they’re seeking asylum. People should have to get in line. That’s the problem. And the only reason this particular part of the law is being abused is because of Donald Trump. We should defeat Donald Trump and end this practice.”
In explaining the urgency of the climate crisis, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said one of the first things she’d do as president would be to sign the Paris climate accord.
What’s in the deal? The Paris climate accord is a 2015 agreement among more than 200 nations to combat climate change.
Participants committed to keep global warming well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and, if possible, below 1.5 degrees.
The US signed — then withdrew — from it: The United States ratified the agreement, but President Donald Trump announced in June 2017 that the US would withdraw from it — although it cannot formally leave until November 2020.
Each country is responsible for developing their own plans for achieving those goals.
The Obama administration pledged to slash carbon emissions by 26%-28% below 2005 levels by 2025. But Trump harshly criticized the agreement and pledged to withdraw from the Paris climate accord in 2017. He has also rolled back some of the Obama administration’s federal rules changes curbing emissions.
Read more about Trump’s climate claims here.
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said, as a white woman of privilege, she thinks she can lift voices that aren’t being heard and explain white privilege to women in the suburbs.
She went on to describe this scenario:
“That when their son is walking down the street with a bag of M&Ms in his pocket wearing a hoodie, his whiteness protects him from not being shot. When his – when her – when their child has a car that breaks down and he knocks on someone’s door for help and the door opens and the help is given, it’s his whiteness that protects him from being shot. That’s what white privilege in America is today. And so my responsibility is to not only lift up those stories but explain to communities across America, like I did in Youngstown, Ohio, to a young mother, that this is all of our responsibilities. And together we can make our community stronger.”
Watch the moment:
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