The Guardian’s Washington Bureau Chief Dan Roberts gives his take on tonight’s heated debate:
And that concludes tonight’s liveblog – we’ll catch you tomorrow for cleanup, analysis, jokes, drinking games and more ways to keep this 12-year campaign entertaining for the next 277 days.
Until then ...
This debate was ostensibly about winning over the voters of New Hampshire – but in fact if felt a lot more like setting the terms of the debate for the rest of the primary season. To start with, candidates sparred over big self-defining issues, like who’s the real progressive (where Clinton gave not just a strong defense but a strong offense), and who’s the candidate of Wall Street (a topic on which Clinton had bungled an answer earlier this week when asked about her Goldman Sachs speaking fees).
Tonight’s was a more heated debate than we’ve seen, perhaps in part because the candidates lacked the buffer of a third candidate. But it was one that allowed them to dig deeper into issues like foreign policy, during which Sanders usually fails to present himself as a real, plausible alternative to Clinton.
Tonight he had somewhat more success on those questions, casting foreign policy as not about experience but judgement, and even managed to prove his sensitivities in other area where he’s been found lacking – the politics of race – in his response to a question about the government’s response to lead-poisoned water in Flint, Michigan.
Clinton went into New Hampshire casting herself as the clear underdog, but that wasn’t particularly evident on Thursday. Both candidates had good nights and the biggest applause of the evening was, tellingly, about how much better they both are than Republicans.
Recap: Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders trade jabs on Wall Street, Isis, "progressive"-ness
Both candidates kept their cool - for the most part - during the final Democratic presidential debate before the New Hampshire primaries, but the differences between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were thrown into stark contrast on a host of issues, ranging from Wall Street and Isis to their views on the nature of progressivism.
Here are some of the key highlights from tonight’s Democratic presidential debate:
- “I don’t want us to start over again - I think that would be a great mistake to once agains plunge our country into a contentious debate,” Clinton said, about replacing the Affordable Care Act with a single-payer health care system like she once advocated. “The numbers just don’t add up from what senator Sanders has been proposing - that’s why all of the independent experts, all of the editorial boards have concluded that it is just not achievable. A progressive is someone who makes progress - that’s what I intend to do.”
- “I am running for president as a Democrat, and if elected not only do I hope to bring forth a major change in national priorities, but may I be frank, I want to see major changes in the Democratic Party,” Sanders said, in response to questions about his loyalty to a party he only just joined. “I want a fifty-state strategy so the Democratic Party is not just the party of 25 states.”
- “I don’t think it was particularly progressive to vote against the Brady Bill five times,” Clinton said, responding to what she called Sanders’ inflation of his progressive bona fides. “I don’t think it was progressive to vote to protect gunmakers; I don’t think it was progressive to vote against Ted Kennedy’s immigration reform bill!”
- “Wall Street is perhaps the most powerful economic and political force in this country,” Sanders said, in a riff that settled into his most comfortable subject topic. “You have companies like Goldman Sachs who just recently paid a settlement fine with the federal government for $5b for defrauding investors. Goldman Sachs was one of those companies whose illegal activity helped destroy our economy and ruin the lives of millions of Americans. This is what a rigged economy and a corrupt campaign finance system system and a broken justice system do.”
- “Senator Sanders has said that he wants to run a positive campaign, and I’ve tried to keep my disagreements over issues,” Clinton said, after Sanders brought up her history of speaking before - and taking campaign donations from - large Wall Street firms and pharmaceutical companies. “But time and time again, by innuendo and by insinuation, there is this attack that he is putting forth, which really comes down to ‘anybody who ever took donations or speaking fees from any interest group has to be bought,’ and I just absolutely disagree with that, senator... If you’ve got something to say, say it directly. You will not find that I have ever changed a view or a vote because of any donation I have received. I have stood up and I have represented my constituents to the best of my abilities, and I’m very proud of that.”
Updated
Would you united the party by picking [insert opponent’s name] as your vice president?
“The first person I would call” would be Bernie Sanders, said Hillary Clinton.
“She’s a hundred times” more suited for the Oval Office than any one of the Republican candidates.
Sanders just ate Clinton’s lunch on a topic she should have owned: Flint, Michigan.
Clinton is poised to make a trip to Flint this Sunday – something that leaked just before the debate –and she was sure to include the detail about how she was invited by the mayor.
The topic of water poisoning in Flint, Michigan, should have been an easy pitch for Clinton to take but, while she made broad statements about how “this is an emergency”, she failed to talk about the problem in terms of race and socioeconomic status.
That, surprisingly, was an applause line that fell to Sanders. “One wonders if this was a white suburban community what kind of response there would have been.”
Flint is a poor community, that’s disproportionately African American, and the government inadequate response to a disaster affecting primarily lower class African Americans is a familiar problem in America (just think about Katrina).
But the fact that Clinton is going to Flint this weekend – when she might be otherwise be campaigning in New Hampshire, an extremely white state where she’s behind in the polls mere days before the primary – signals where her strengths and priorities are right now.
On the subject of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan - a topic of which Rachel Maddow has been a champion for months - the MSNBC host asked Hillary Clinton whether she would order federal intervention in the city.
“Absolutely, absolutely,” Clinton said. “This is an emergecny - every day that goes by that these people, particularly the children, are not tested” for lead poisoning, and each day without that intervention is “a day lost in a child’s life.”
“The idea that there has not been a dramatic response is beyond comprehension,” Sanders echoed, reminding the audience that he has advocated for the resignation of the governor of Michigan over his role in the crisis. “One wonders if this were a white suburban community what kind of response there would have been. Flint, Michigan, is a poor community, it is disproportionately African-American and minority, and what has happened there is absolutely unacceptable.”
The audience exploded into applause.
Updated
Bernie’s best moment – once again – was his mensch-like refusal to attack Clinton on the email saga. In fact, he stated publicly that he rejects repeated media requests to do just that. If consistency and principle are the hallmark of the Sanders campaign, the candidate just reinforced his signature characteristic.
The moderators tried to lure Clinton into a similar attack on Sanders, about the number of apparent ethical questions surrounding Sanders staffers. She politely declines the opportunity to jump in, before the debate breaks for yet another ad break.
After a debate in which both candidates have taken their gloves off, this was easily their most dignified moment.
Sanders doubled down on not giving a damn about Clinton’s damn emails, and he really stood by every last word. When a moderator quoted the senator back to himself as saying “You said you didn’t give a darn”, Sanders seemed poised to correct him when the moderator stopped him, saying “This is a family hour.”
There is still a question as to whether Clinton could be indicted for her email scandal, but Sanders vehemently rejected making it fodder for the campaign trail. “I am feeling exactly the way I felt at the first debate there’s a process underway I will not politicize it.”
The audience loved it almost as much as the first time he said it.
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Rachel Maddow asked Sanders if he isn’t just like Barry Goldwater and George McGovern as nominees: celebrated by party activists and utterly destroyed in a general election.
Sanders’ response was that the polls show him beating the GOP candidates. That is no different from Donald Trump’s stump speech: the polls apparently confirm the Donald’s strength in the GOP field too ... or at least they did before the Iowa caucus. Nobody really knows what the polls demonstrate any more.
Facing the same question about Sanders in a general election, Clinton expresses “the utmost respect” for Sanders and says she is “thrilled” by the numbers of young people he’s attracting to his campaign.
Something tells me that Clinton isn’t entirely thrilled by all those young voters going to Sanders’ side. It may also be true that in her private moments, Clinton doesn’t truly respect Sanders either.
On Sanders’ assertion that voter turn-out alone, based on excitement about his candidacy, can also turn the House and Senate Democrat, a few thoughts:
Unregistered voters, according to that Pew survey from 2006, are, it’s true, more likely to be young (40% of 18-29 year-olds aren’t registered) and Democratic-leaning (29% of self-described liberals aren’t registered to vote, along with 27% of self-identified independents).
And as for flipping the Senate, it’s seemingly possible, but it wouldn’t give Democrats a filibuster-proof majority. But the likelihood of flipping 30+ seats in the heavily Republican House with it’s heavily-gerrymandered districts is somewhere between “slim” and “none”.
Young voters turning out for a candidate might be able to work miracles at the top of the ticket, but no one-cycle, strictly-federal surge of liberal millennial voters can overcome the years and years of Republican control of state legislatures (and thus the redistricting process).
Hillary Clinton, asked if she’s confident that nothing will come of the security review of her use of private emails as secretary of state:
I am one-hundred percent confidence. This is a security review that was requested, it is being carried it, it will be resolved.”
A whole lot of no-fuss over the Des Moines Register editorial calling the Democratic caucus in Iowa a “debacle.” The candidates, when asked whether they supported an audit of the caucus process, gave a hearty dose of shrug:
“I agree witht the Des Moines Register, but let’s not blow this out of proportion,” Sanders said. “This is not a winner-take-all thing. You have 22 delegates, I have 20 delegates - we need 2,500 to win the nomination,” he said, to audience laughter. “This is not the biggest deal in the world.”
“Whatever they decide to do, that’s fine,” Clinton shrugged and smiled.
The national security portion of the debate couldn’t end soon enough for Bernie Sanders. NBC’s Chuck Todd pressed him to prioritize the threat posed by North Korea, Iran and Russia, citing a stack ranking by defense secretary Ash Carter.
But Sanders picked the wrong country as a top threat – North Korea, rather than Ash Carter’s pick of Russia. And his reasoning sounded simplistic: “I worry very much about an isolated paranoid country with nuclear weapons,” he says. “I worry very, very much about an isolated country. North Korea is a very, very isolated country.”
That was a lot of worry and not much detail on his foreign policy.
Well Chuck Todd finally brought up something the media has been trying to get a direct answer from Sanders on for months – why he doesn’t have more of a foreign policy – and Sanders’ answer, was essentially, that he did give that one speech at Georgetown that one time! A speech where he also talked a whole lot about Democratic socialism.
Recognizing that might not be enough to point to a little impromptu speech, he offered up more of what he always talks about when he talks about foreign policy: his decision not to invade Iraq. The important lesson from it, he said, is “the United States cannot do it alone. We cannot be the policeman of the world.”
That key doctrine, while extremely vague, did draw much applause from the audience; still, it’s nothing new.
The one thing that Sanders did say more clearly than ever was his answer to Clinton’s experience with regard to foreign policy: it’s not experience, it’s judgement.
And, while that’s not a foreign policy platform or anything remotely resembling it, it is a fair point.
Bernie Sanders has been pushing back against global-affairs experts backing Hillary Clinton who have been questioning his grasp of foreign policy for a while now:
#RealTalk:
Bernie Sanders' stance on North Korea is indistinguishable from Donald Trump's.
— Scott Bixby (@scottbix) February 5, 2016
Real-time Google Trends data are both pretty and informative:
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At almost the one hour mark, the debate shifted away from Sanders’ favorite subject – Wall Street – and onto his weakest topic: foreign policy. This is comfortable territory for Hillary Clinton, who can tiptoe through the minefield of the counter-Isis strategy.
But Sanders could not resist going back to his talking points. “Let me agree with much of what the secretary said,” he said, before raising his opposition to the war in Iraq.
This was a debating mistake for Sanders, even as he scored some political points. Because Sanders has used the line so often, Clinton was prepped with her own counter-attack: “If I can respectfully add, a vote in 2002 is not a plan to defeat Isis.”
There was little that was respectful about the line. Sanders’ eyes visibly bulged in their sockets.
That Clinton line was followed up by the moderators who pushed Sanders again on his policy. For perhaps the first time in the debate, Sanders stopped shouting and sounds subdued. He couldn’t get away from subject quickly enough.
Chuck Todd moved in for the kill by saying that nobody knows who his foreign policy advisers are and why he hasn’t spelled out a full foreign policy.
“That’s not quite accurate,” Sanders said as he explains he delivered at least half a speech about foreign policy. The other half was about democratic socialism, he said – a strange answer to a tough question asking about his foreign policy credentials.
Chuck Todd threw a little shade at Bernie Sanders on his dearth of foreign policy experience or interest, asking him to elaborate on his foreign policy doctrine beyond stating that “You’re gonna crush Isis.”
Sanders, after questioning the premise of the question, pointed out his opponent’s problematic history with the war in Iraq. “What is important is that we learn our lesson of the war in Iraq, and that lesson is intrinsic to my foreign policy if elected president,” Sanders said.
“The United States cannot do it alone; we cannot be the policemen of the world,” Sanders continued. “I would say that the key doctrine of the Sanders administration would be, well, we cannot continue to do it alone. We need to work in coalition.”
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Ohio governor John Kasich is a one-man watch party tonight:
.@HillaryClinton & @BernieSanders have big plans for your tax dollars, but their numbers don't add up. #Kasich4Us pic.twitter.com/exHNvXu1KG
— John Kasich (@JohnKasich) February 5, 2016
Love tax hikes? @BernieSanders does too: https://t.co/npMsIjIIq9. Meanwhile @JohnKasich is proposing major tax cuts: https://t.co/HrT3PoiKZ5
— John Kasich (@JohnKasich) February 5, 2016
It's amazing what partnering w/ the private sector instead of railing against it can accomplish. In OH: 400k jobs. pic.twitter.com/jbuFUih3BK
— John Kasich (@JohnKasich) February 5, 2016
This may be the debate of definitions. Or a defining debate. It depends on how dramatic you want to be.
After a lengthy opening discussion about who counts as a progressive, there was an extended discussion about who is the candidate of Wall Street. Clinton was pushed on the question about giving speeches to Wall Street, which elicited what amounts to an apology that quickly turns into spin.
“I may not have done the job I should of explaining my record,” says Clinton. “I did go on the speaking circuit.”
But before she mentioned Wall Street, Clinton checked off a list of far less sinister paying clients: heart doctors, and something called the American Camping Association. (Such a benign group it makes you wonder how Wall Street made it onto her speaking schedule.)
“I went to Wall Street before the crash,” Clinton explained, detaching herself completely from the specific people who paid some of her speaking fees. “I was the one saying you’re going to wreck the economy.” [Politifact rated that as true, and documented it.]
Clinton’s ultimate self-definition was based on the industry groups who are attacking her: from the drug industry in the 1990s to Karl Rove (who got multiple name checks) and Wall Street today.
Sanders’ self-definition was that he is the candidate of the $27 donation.
You can decide for yourself whose self-definition was more convincing.
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An important #FactCheck from the Guardian’s Dan Roberts:
Clinton says "hedge fund guys are trying so hard to stop me". Last week she went to Philadelphia fundraiser hosted by hedge fund managers.
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) February 5, 2016
Chuck Todd asks Hillary Clinton whether she is willing to release the full transcripts of every one of her paid speeches. Her response:
I will look into it - I don’t know the status but I will certainly look into it.”
Updated
I’d never thought I say this but ... I miss Martin O’Malley. It’s the first debate they’ve held since he announced he was dropping out and, so far, it’s been extraordinarily negative and focused on labels over substance. In particular, the talk has been dominated by the holier-than-thou debate about who’s really more progressive – and, by the way, what does that even mean?
Sanders has been trying to peg Clinton with the label moderate, and Clinton’s returned the fire calling Sanders “the self-proclaimed gatekeeper for progressivism.” She also accused him of “cherry-picking quotes” to smear her
Now absolutely everyone on stage is yelling – not just Sanders! – which I suppose is refreshing in a way. But my ears hurt.
Perhaps the loudest applause of the night so far - plus a few hoots - follow an epic monologue from Bernie Sanders about the financial-industrial complex and what he sees as its stranglehold on the federal government.
“Let me just say this - Wall Street is perhaps the most powerful economic and political force in this country,” Sanders said. “You have companies like Goldman Sachs who just recently paid a settlement fine with the federal government for $5b for defrauding investors. Goldman Sachs was one of those companies whose illegal activity helped destroy our economy and ruin the lives of millions of Americans. This is what a rigged economy and a corrupt campaign finance system system and a broken justice system do.”
That not a single Wall Street executive served a day in jail for the financial crisis is, in Sanders’ words, “what is what power is about, that is what corruption is about, and that is what has to change in the United States of America.”
Updated
Here’s the value of debate prep: Sanders delivered some well-worn lines attacking Wall Street and campaign contributions from the financial industry.
But Clinton landed this piece of opposition research: Sanders voted twice to deregulate derivatives, which had a far more direct impact on the financial collapse of 2008 than Glass-Steagall. Within seconds, Clinton’s press team had emailed the research to the press corps.
Strangely Sanders let the attack pass him by, and sadly the moderators jumped to a highly-paid commercial break – a wonderful demonstration of the democracy-corrupting effects of big corporation dollars.
The hope that they would return to this line of questioning after the ads was, unfortunately, dashed.
The debate opened with the fight that’s been bubbling the past few days over who in the race is the bigger progressive – or more precisely whether Hillary Clinton is actually progressive enough. And Clinton nailed her response.
Clinton asked who is left that’s really a progressive according to Sanders’ definition – noting Obama’s taken money from Wall Street and Biden supported Keystone. And Sanders, when pressed by a moderator on whether Obama was really a progressive backed off, saying he’d done “a fantastic job.”
“Before it was called Obamacare it was called HillaryCare,” Clinton added.
The point this round went to Hillary.
Updated
Another fact-check: Super PACs are not run by or controlled by candidates (which, of all people, Senator Bernie Sanders should know).
Clinton’s candidate PAC is Hillary for America; the Super PACs supporting her campaign (a good breakdown of which can be found here, from the Sunlight Foundation) are generally the ones raking in the donations to which Sanders is referring. Super PACs are prohibited from coordinating with candidates on their expenditures, and they’re often not even required to disclose their donors.
So while it’s fair to say that Clinton-supporting Super PACs are raking in major donations from Wall Street, to say that Clinton herself is taking their donations because the Super PACs are isn’t entirely accurate. Clinton’s candidate PAC may well be as well, but when Sanders refers to the Super PAC donations, he’s referring to money that Clinton and her campaign can neither solicit nor control.
[Edited to add that the Washington Post has a great graphic breaking down financial industry donations to Clinton’s candidate PAC versus those to the supporting Super PACs.]
Updated
Hillary Clinton launches into Bernie Sanders over his comments on her speeches
Hillary Clinton has unleashed the hounds after months of veiled criticisms by opponent Bernie Sanders about her history of accepting campaign contributions from Wall Street firms and drug companies.
“People support me because they know me, they know my life’s work, they have worked with me, and many have also worked with Senator Sanders - and at the end of the day, they endorse me because they know I can get things done,” Clinton said, resisting Sanders’ “establishment” label.
“Being part of the establishment,” Sanders responded, “is in the last quarter having a super PAC that raised $15m from a whole lot of money from drug companies and other special interests.”
Clinton bristled. “It’s fair to really ask what’s behind that comment,” she said. “Senator Sanders has said that he wants to run a positive campaign, and I’ve tried to keep my disagreements over issues... but time and time again by innuendo and by insinuation, there is this attack that he is putting forth, which really comes down to ‘anybody who ever took donations or speaking fees from any interest group has to be bought,’ and I just absolutely disagree with that, senator.”
“If you’ve got something to say, say it directly,” she said. “You will not find that I have ever changed a view or a vote because of any donation I have received. I have stood up and I have represented my constitutents to the best of my abilities, and I’m very proud of that.”
Updated
Rachel Maddow grilled Bernie Sanders, who has been an independet who caucuses with the Democrats in Congress for a quarter century, about how he can be trusted to lead a party he barely belongs to: “How can you lead the Democratic Party nationally when you have not been a member of the Democratic Party until recently?”
“I am the longest-serving independent in the history of the United States Congress,” Sanders said, but has caucused with - and lead committees run by - Democrats for his entire tenure.
“I am running for president as a Democrat, and if elected not only do I hope to bring forth a major change in national priorities, but may I be frankly, I want to see major changes in the Democratic Party,” Sanders said. “I want a fifty-state strategy so the Democratic Party is not just the party of 25 states.”
Updated
A quick fact-check: Bernie Sanders declared that the reason that voter participation is so low in the United States is that people are disheartened by the system and don’t believe voting changes things.
In 2014, the Census Bureau asked why people didn’t vote and, in a survey released in 2015, the most common answer wasn’t antipathy towards the system: 28% of people said that they were too busy. Only 8% of people said that they disliked the issues and the candidates.
In 2006, the Pew Foundation dug into non-voters and intermittent voters as well and found that intermittent voters (so those who maybe are less likely to vote in midterms) declare themselves bored with politics and that they don’t know enough about candidates to cast their ballots. (And they’re less likely to have been contacted by candidates’ get-out-the-vote efforts.)
Non-voters – those who aren’t even registered – by comparison, are the ones who said that voting doesn’t make a difference.
The dynamic is reversed with Sanders on the defensive as frontrunner in New Hampshire and Clinton on the attack as underdog. Fascinating.
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) February 5, 2016
And we’re spinning.
Clinton’s team was first out of the gate to fire off an email to reporters. Subject line: “Bernie’s Unachievable Revolution”.
“Bernie Sanders’ “revolution” sounds great on paper, but progressives, experts, and editorial boards in New Hampshire and across the country agree: his plans simply don’t add up,” her campaign said.
Clinton has been trying to undercut Sanders’s political revolution by telling his legion of rabid followers that the man won’t be able to follow through on what he’s promising.
She has recently tried out a new line that she seems quite pleased with. I think she’s said it about four times alreadytonight. “I’m a progressive who likes to get things done”.
Viva la revolución!
Asked about her history of less-than-progressive votes and stances on the Iraq war, the death penalty, the Trans Pacific Partnership and single-payer health care, Hillary Clinton declared that she is “a progressive who gets things done - and the root of that word is ‘progress.’ ”
Repeating a line from last night’s Democratic town hall forum, Clinton said that Sanders’ definition of a progressive is too limiting to include some of the Democratic Party’s biggest and most important figures. “Who’s left in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party? Under his definition, President Obama is not progressive because he took donations from Wall Street.”
Clinton then turned the tables on Sanders, declaring that his own progressive bona fides might be suspect. “I don’t think it was particularly progressive to vote against the Brady Bill five times; I don’t think it was progressive to vote to protect gunmakers; I don’t think it was progressive to vote against Ted Kennedy’s immigration reform bill!”
Sanders responded, focusing on Obama’s record as a progressive, which he hasn’t come down on concretely this campaign. “Do I think President Obama is a progressive?” Sanders asked rhetorically. “Yeah! I do!”
Updated
Within minutes, both candidates had dug into their trenches.
Clinton painted Sanders as a hopeless dreamer: “The numbers just don’t add up,” she says. “It’s just not achievable,” she adds. And, as if to crush a few thousand undergraduate dreams, there was this: “A progressive is someone who makes progress. That’s what I intend to do.”
Sanders argued that every other country has universal health care, free at the point of service. In Britain’s case, that was an achievement that has been unrepeatable in British politics for the last three decades or more.
During his opening statement, it was clear that Bernie Sanders had combed his hair. Perhaps the clearest sign that he is the frontrunner in New Hampshire.
It’s not clear what his lapel pin, is but it’s obviously not a flag pin, so he hasn’t yet reached the Obama phase of presumptive nominee.
In her opening remarks, Hillary Clinton saw Bernie’s bet on inequality and raised him on the issue of discrimination. That’s a candidate who is looking forward to South Carolina. Sorry, New Hampshire.
Then she landed a final comment – and first punch – against Bernie: “I am not making promises I cannot keep,” she says with a sweet smile.
The idea that I would dismantle health care in America while we wait to pass health care for all is just not accurate.”
Senator Bernie Sanders, responding to Hillary Clinton’s assertion that he wants to “start all over again” by tearing down the Affordable Care Act.
Updated
Hillary Clinton, when asked why she believes that Bernie Sanders’ signature policy priorities (single-payer health care, free public college) are not achievable, said that a progressive president should be able to build on prior successes, rather than tear them down.
“I don’t want us to start over again - I think that would be a great mistake to once agains plunge our country into a contentious debate,” Clinton said. “I want to build on the progress we’ve made.”
From expanding Medicare to free college tuition, Clinton said, “the numbers just don’t add up from what senator Sanders has been proposing - that’s why all of the independent experts, all of the editorial boards have concluded that it is just not achievable. A progressive is someone who makes progress - that’s what I intend to do.”
Updated
MSNBC has bragging rights to the first two-person Democratic debate. (And the absence of Martin O’Malley makes it two moderators versus two candidates – also a first.)
If only the GOP debates could feature as few people on stage.
The two candidates are already debating on social media:
RT if you're cheering on Hillary tonight. #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/VkOwanPMtx
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 5, 2016
Remember: this is our movement. Watch tonight's #DemDebate and #DebateWithBernie: https://t.co/2iQlh0lRQo
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 5, 2016
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Question format: After one-minute opening statements, candidates will be asked questions by Rachel Maddow, Chuck Todd, a representative from the New Hampshire Union Leader and, by proxy, from the audience of New Hampshire Democratic voters.
Updated
The final Democratic debate begins
Just 24 hours after Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton appeared on the same stage at a town hall forum in Derry, New Hampshire, the two candidates are back, this time at the University of New Hampshire.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has seized on findings that Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell were sent sensitive national security information to their personal email addresses as a shield against accusations of wrongdoing with similar circumstances during her time as secretary of state.
Clinton’s campaign claimed vindication in the long-running emails sagaon Thursday when it emerged that two Republican secretaries of state had also received information later deemed classified on personal accounts.
The state department watchdog found that both Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, America’s top diplomats under president George W. Bush, were sent sensitive national security information to nongovernment email addresses.
A spokesman for Clinton was quick to seize on the findings, arguing that they demonstrate “just how routine it is for government bureaucrats to go overboard” in keeping information secret from the public. Senior Democrat Harry Reid called it “a watershed moment”.
The findings come after nearly a year of controversy over Clinton’s decision to set up an unsecured private email server for her work as secretary of state. Thousands of the emails have been made public but it emerged last week that 22 have since been classified “top secret”. The Democratic presidential candidate has described it as a mistake but denied any wrongdoing.
Only minutes before the final Democratic debate ahead of the New Hampshire primaries is set to begin, we guarantee that this is going to make an impact tonight.
Once-and-future first daughter Chelsea Clinton made a certain former secretary of state grab her pearls when she accidentally referred to Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as “President Sanders” while speaking with supporters of her mother’s candidacy in Minnesota.
Speaking at a Clinton campaign event in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, Clinton accidentally gave the Vermont senator a promotion before correcting herself.
“I hope not ‘President’ Sanders!’ ” Clinton said quickly.
Ohio governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich is touting the endorsement of “retired Naval Intelligence Officer and Emmy-award winning TV personality Montel Williams.”
The text of Montel Williams’ endorsement:
Now more than ever, Americans need a leader with the vision and experience to unite the country and lead with a steady hand. In a sea of negativity and bluster, John Kasich is a much-needed dose of sanity. There’s simply no other GOP candidate in the race with the wide appeal to bring people together.
As a veteran, it’s clear to me that he is the most well-suited candidate to serve as Commander-in-Chief.”
Kasich is thrilled enough about the endorsement to send an email blast to his supporters. “People know Montel Williams as a gifted entertainer, but not as many know that he spent several decades serving his country in the armed forces, or that he is a tireless advocate for veterans and people with debilitating illness,” Kasich said in the release. “We may not agree on every issue, but we share a common vision for a stronger, more unified America. I am truly grateful for his support.”
The first presidential debate spin room I've been in with an open fire. Cosy. pic.twitter.com/lb2SWFDGXu
— Dan Roberts (@RobertsDan) February 5, 2016
As the two remaining candidates for the Democratic nomination prepare to take the stage, it’s worth taking stock of where they’re at in the polls. This is particularly interesting given that the latest polls were conducted after Hillary Clinton’s narrow victory in Iowa. Or at least it’s interesting in theory, in reality, the polling average of the two leading candidates has barely budged since January 17.
Going into this debate, Clinton has the support of around 52% of Democrats while Sanders is commanding around 36% of the vote. Things however look very different in New Hampshire where the first primary of 2016 is due to take place next Monday. In fact the numbers are almost perfectly reversed. An average of all polls puts Sanders in first place with the support of 56% of Democrats while Hillary commands 38%. But debates can affect these numbers so pollsters will be keen to compare voting intention before and after effect of what’s said tonight.
It feels like we just did this yesterday, doesn’t it?
24 hours after Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton appeared on the same stage at a town hall forum in Derry, New Hampshire - although not at the same time - the two remaining Democratic presidential candidates are back on the air. This time, it’s for a one-on-one debate that wasn’t even supposed to happen.
After MSNBC announced tonight’s debate in conjunction with the New Hampshire Union Leader last week, it wasn’t clear that the Democratic National Committee would even allow the candidates to participate - much less whether either of the campaigns would agree to the event on such short notice.
Now that the debate has been sanctioned and the candidates have agreed to its terms, a little who-what-when-where for those just catching up:
- Where? The debate will take place at the University of New Hampshire, a frequent site of campaign events this cycle, in Durham, New Hampshire.
- When? The debate begins at 9pm EST on Thursday evening and is expected to run about two hours.
- Who? Aside from the candidates - so long, Martin O’Malley - the debate will be moderated by MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and Chuck Todd, with a little help from the Union Leader, New Hampshire’s newspaper of record.
- How? To watch? The debate will air on MSNBC and is streamable on NBCNews.com and MSNBC.com.
Just catching up? Here’s a blow-by-blow of what happened in the 2016 campaign earlier today:
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