Summary
The three Democratic candidates for president sat down for a “forum” on MSNBC on Friday in which each was quizzed separately by host Rachel Maddow.
Here’s what we learned about former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley:
- Maddow focused on the candidates’ policy views, ranging from criminal justice reform to gun control to economic injustice to foreign policy.
- There was no cross-talk between the candidates, who did not appear together until the end of the night, for a photo op.
- There was some substantive airing of policy positions past and present, however. Memorable moments included a Clinton answer about the Defense of Marriage Act, the Bill Clinton administration’s support for which she insisted was part of a strategy to forestall a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
- Sanders, the Vermont senator, defended his vote to allow guns to be carried on Amtrak trains, saying doing so was the same as carrying a gun in checked luggage on an airplane.
- Sanders hit out at Clinton a little bit, most sharply over the Keystone XL pipeline, an issue that was for him, he said, “a no-brainer” unlike “some unnamed candidates”.
- O’Malley had a series of applause lines, touting his record on same-sex marriage and gun control and saying of the Black Lives Matter anti-police-violence movement: “I think almost all of their agenda can get done.”
- Clinton was the only candidate to speak in intimate detail about the problem of excessive use of force by police on black victims and minorities, decrying the case of a student hauled from class by a security officer, and saying: “I still can’t get over Eric Garner.”
- Challenged to explain how he could represent African-American voters, Sanders said his fight for economic justice would help many voters. He called for a raising the minimum wage and the expansion of Medicare.
- Sanders attacked Clinton on campaign finance. “I don’t think it’s good enough to just talk the talk on campaign finance reform,” he said. “You’ve got to walk the walk.”
- The forum was lauded as a relatively substantive exploration of the candidates’ policy views, although, with few follow-up questions and no inter-candidate challenges, the night produced no notable moment in which any one candidate seemed under pressure to explain a policy view or vote.
- Clinton did get one question about “three paid speeches for Goldman Sachs alone in your first year out of office, for which you received $600,000”. She said she had told the Nasdaq stock exchange to shape up in 2007.
- Asked about her relatively hawkish foreign policy views – hawkish next to her two rivals, not compared to the Republican field – Clinton declined to say that she would be “more aggressive” on foreign policy than Obama.
Updated
Sanders has sat down with MSNBC host Chris Matthews.
A bunch of people are standing behind their outdoor set holding Bernie Sanders signs.
Sanders is railing against Republican-controlled legislatures passing voter ID laws and other laws that restrict ballot access.
“These cowardly Republican governors think the only way they can win elections is by denying people the right to vote,” Sanders says.
And that appears to be it for the candidates tonight. MSNBC has just begun re-airing the forum.
So if you missed it the first time, and have read the blog exhaustively but need more – tune in!
Updated
Even in this friendly and more open format, it still looks like everyone has the same weaknesses, notes Jeb Lund:
1. Bernie Sanders on guns and foreign policy.
2. Hillary Clinton on her hawkishness and financial backing.
3. Martin O’Malley on having no one he can run to the left of without turning into a Jacobin and no one he can run against without sounding like a monster or a creep and automatically abdicating the VP slot.
Snap reactions
Ugh, HRC has to stop rolling out the “I went to Wall St. in late 2007 and told them to cut it out.” That… didn’t work. #MSNBC2016
— Patrick Kane (@MrPatrickKane) November 7, 2015
That wasn't a bad format if what you want to do is learn about candidates. @msnbc
— gwen ifill (@gwenifill) November 7, 2015
Who wants THAT? https://t.co/bgbJb2CPT6
— Matt Bai (@mattbai) November 7, 2015
Agree with everyone: solid forum. Nice job by Maddow.
— Jonathan Bernstein (@jbview) November 7, 2015
4,200-year-old wooden model of actual Egyptian granary: https://t.co/VodIt1Oecf pic.twitter.com/vO9Matvxuo
— Binyamin Appelbaum (@BCAppelbaum) November 7, 2015
Whoops – apparently not everybody tuned in to tweet.
Updated
It’s over. The candidates DO take the stage together – for a photo op.
We had them all in the same room together on the same night for 90 minutes. Why not just stage a debate?
Clinton, Sanders and O'Malley at the #DemDebate #DemForum pic.twitter.com/7uKU19qyTI
— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) November 7, 2015
OK now there’s a picture of the Clintons on their wedding day.
They are looking into each other’s eyes.
Maddow wonders whether she would tell that young woman she should be president before him.
“No, because that was absolutely not in her mind. I was practicing law ... chairing the board of the children’s defense fund ... I had a very full plate of things I loved to do,” Clinton says. “I did not every think seriously of running for office until 1999.”
Then she riffs on how they look.
“We look so young, and his hair is not white.”
Maddow: “You should go back to their haircuts.”
“I actually - and I know that women of a certain age will recognize this – that was a permanent.”
“Strange misnomer,” Maddow says.
“I have such straight hair - I knew we were going to end up talking about hair - I had such straight hair it took like three times.”
That’s it for Clinton.
Updated
Clinton defends explanation of defense of marriage act
Clinton is asked about the 1996 defense of marriage act her husband signed, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
She said they did that to block a constitutional amendment which would have been harder to overturn.
Except there’s no record that that was on the table in the public debate.
Clinton says that they were debating it privately.
The worry about a constitutional amendment was being discussed privately if not publicly? Maddow asks.
“Yes yes yes,” Clinton says.
Privately.
Updated
Clinton is asked about being a hawk. Would you be more aggressive than Obama on foreign policy.
No, Clinton says. These decisions are difficult. She would be careful. Applause. Next question.
Updated
Now Clinton gets the dumb trick fun questions.
Q: If you hd time to learn a new language, which?
A: Spanish, because we have a lot of Spanish speakers in this country.
Q: Introvert or extrovert?
A: “I am an extro-introvert. I love being with people and the excitement... but I also like time alone. I like to think and relax and sleep and stuff like that.”
Q: Name a current Republican presidential candidate who you would pick as vice president if you had to?
A: I’m going to say whoever I name will really get hurt in the Republican party, so I don’t know..
Q: You could use this tactically.
A: There are Republicans I could pick, just none of them.
Q: Right. But which?
A: I’m not going to pick one. I know people are going to say I dodged the question. The fact is I am dodging the question.
Q: I say hush puppy, do you think food, footwear or Fido?
A: I think the first two. Eating hush puppies in my Hush Puppies.
Updated
Clinton: 'I still can't get over Eric Garner'
Cinton is talking about gun violence in cities, and tells the story of a 9-year-old boy in Chicago “assassinated because of a gang-related feud.”
“This has to end. This is one of the reasons that I am so passionate about gun safety,” she says.
“People have to stop and think. I’m not saying it’s never required in law enforcement.”
Then she mentions two specific cases of victims of excessive use of force by police officers – the only candidate tonight to get specific on this issue.
“The Walter Scott shooting. Why? It makes no sense why that happened?” she says, of a shooting earlier this year by a police officer of an unarmed man in North Charleston, South Carolina.
“I still can’t get over that Eric Garner, in Staten Island in New York, he died from a chokehold. He was selling loose cigarettes. Was it illegal? Sure. Did he need to die?
“We all need to say wait a minute. Time out. Let’s all make this reasonable and peaceful.”
Jeb Lund adds on the death penalty issue:
She’s trying to straddle an untenable policy here, and it means that she starts with the relatively small number of federal death penalty cases, goes on to terror cases, to the rush to apply the death penalty in the states, to her supporting the death penalty in the cases of racially motivated crimes like the Charleston shooting. While Charleston is almost surely a form of racial and political terrorism, the fact is that ending on a really emotional crime like that, where people will see identity over policy, only muddies the issue and how the public will want it applied.
It’s sort of amazing to see how much further to the left 2016 Hillary is compared to 2008 Hillary, writes Jessica Valenti.
It’s so much fun to watch. That said, her death penalty states-rights answer leaves me cold - as did her response about police officers in classrooms. We don’t need better training, we need less policing in places where children are meant to learn.
Now Maddow tells Clinton the story you may have heard about a police officer forcibly and abusively removing a South Carolina student from a classroom for using her cell phone.
That was “just appalling,” Clinton says. “Adults should be trained in using nonconfrontational, nonviolent measures.”
That gets applause.
Feels very forum-y right now. Not so debate-y.
Death penalty question. Would she lament a supreme court decision ending the death penalty?
No, she says. She says many states, particularly southern states, have moved too quickly to try death penalty cases. “I don’t think that you can make the case that all that needed to be done to protect against discrimination... has been done.”
Then she threads a needle, in a kind of Clinton way, if we can say that, explaining that when she spoke in favor of the death penalty, she was talking about federal not state cases. She names Timothy McVeigh, the Boston marathon bombers and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. Maddow helps her with another possibility, with local resonance: “The Charleston massacre”?
Yes that too, Clinton says.
Updated
Clinton. Comfortable? She has an easy rapport with Maddow. Is this as favorable an environment for her as the debate stage, where she’s protected by a lectern, and where her very practiced lines can seem more of a piece with the very produced tableau?
What do you think? Not so stiff here. She’s currently putting everyone to sleep with a disquisition on voter participation in the South.
A trickier question:
“You have received a lot of support ... from Wall Street. Three paid speeches for Goldman Sachs alone in your first year out of office, for which you received $600,000.” How do you answer Sanders, who suggests you’re maybe beholden to big finance or corporate interests?
“I represented New York. Upstate ... and New York City ... Anybody who thinks that they can influence what I will do doesn’t know me very well,” Clinton says. Applause.
Hillary Clinton: not for sale.
Then she repeats a story about “going to NASDAQ in 2007”. “I basically said, you’ve got to stop it,” she says, referring to runaway speculation.
Hillary Clinton: foresaw the market collapse.
Then she scores a point by slagging off Charles and David Koch, the libertarian mega-donors:
The Koch brothers are some of the biggest deck-stackers you can find... they’re protecting the fossil fuels industry. They’re protecting pumping carbon into the atmosphere.
She asks for votes to stop them.
Updated
Hillary Clinton at the #DemForum #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/2dp2IjTXV5
— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) November 7, 2015
A second easyish question for Clinton. It’s about the concerns of African-American voters and the legacy of Obama.
“I want to build on the progress that he’s made but I want to go further,” Clinton says. Obama faced recession; she now would have the freedom to take on progressive causes, is her argument.
For me, this is about do we have a new deal ... I want to be a president for the struggling, the striving and the successful, Rachel.
Updated
First question is really friendly. Why did you move to New York after the White House instead of returning to the south?
“I loved Arkansas,” Clinton says. Bill’s library is in Little Rock, she says. “In fact, as we speak he’s there right now.”
Clinton grew up in Chicago.
Now the Clinton sizzle reel. Ooh Nixon shot (she was a so-called Goldwater girl). Then suddenly Clinton’s inauguration. Clinton’s congressional testimony on health care. The second inauguration. The 2008 loss. Etc.
Here she is ...
Big applause for Hillary. Rock star welcome compared to the last two. Maybe it’s just that dratted echo. People are holding up their iPhones.
Updated
That’s it for Sanders.
What did you think? Who gets voted off the island so far?
“We need a political revolution,” Sanders says. Then he gets into a voter turnout argument.
“Rachel, let me be honest with you. And obviously this is self-serving. I believe that a Bernie Sanders nomination for president.. could excite young people,” he says.
We need to greatly expand voter turnout. I think our campaign has the excitement and energy to do that.”
Now Maddow shows Sanders a picture of his young self, working as an organizer at age 21.
“Who is that handsome young man up there?” says Sanders.
Then he explains, to a seemingly transfixed crowd, the scene. He says it was the mid-60s and “African-American students in the SNCC were getting their heads cracked open.”
“What that meeting was about, was saying to the University of Chicago, “Stop keeping your housing that you own segregated.”
Pretty decent activist bona fides.
Jeb Lund adds:
Bernie’s answer about what that young man in the picture was thinking and what he wished he could tell him didn’t answer the question, but his lack of answer was very smart. In explaining what that young man was thinking, Sanders basically just outlined his sit-ins in favor of integration at the University of Chicago and in Chicago schools. He never gave a second part of the answer, but you can bet he was hoping that Hillary Clinton’s African-American supporters only needed to hear the first.
Updated
Jessica Valenti has some advice for Sanders.
I love watching Bernie, I really do. I’m glad he’s running. I am surprised, though, that his responses to Black Lives Matter questions aren’t more honed at this point. He’s had a lot of time now.
And he’s lost me on guns. He can’t walk his positions back effectively and the “mental health” fallback is lazy. And splitting hairs regarding guns and Amtrak looks ridiculous. Yes, people are sick and tired of all the gun deaths. So get on the right side of this already!
Question on voting rights. Sanders accuses Republicans of attempting to curtail them with photo ID laws and other restrictions.
Sanders on voting rights: "What Republicans are doing is so un-American, it is so outrageous..."
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) November 7, 2015
"People who suppress the vote are political cowards and are undermining democracy." #DemForum
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 7, 2015
Updated
Sanders: Clinton "has kind of misstated my views" on guns
Question from Facebook! Why did Sanders support the ability to carry guns on Amtrak? You can’t carry guns on an airplane.
“Actually, to the best of my memory, you can put unloaded guns” in stowage, Sanders says.
“This is not people carrying a gun on a train, you put it in baggage. You’ve got hunters traveling from Vermont to the Midwest.
“What I voted on for the trains is the same as exists in airplanes. It is the same thing,” he says.
I think Hillary Clinton has kind of misstated my views. As a nation we are going to have to stop shouting at each other.
Meaning, in part: “People who think they should have a missile launcher in their backyard as a constitutional right - may not have that!”
Laughter.
Updated
Jeb Lund chips in:
Maddow did a good job in asking Sanders questions that allowed him to articulate criticisms of Clinton outside the identitarian Twitter tantrum hallucination of “OMG HE’S ATTACKING OUR SLAY QUEEN.” When Sanders says it isn’t enough to talk the talk on campaign finance but that you also have to walk the walk, that’s not just self-praise but goes to the heart of the Clinton economic problem: basically, how likely is it that she will regulate the bankers and their spouses who appear on the first umpteen pages of her max-donation donors list and who can top up her Super Pac at will?
Question about guns, and Sanders’s votes in Congress against the Brady gun control bill. Sanders argues that on balance he was pro-gun control.
Let me tell you something. 1988 I ran in a three-way race. The gun people said ... don’t vote for Bernie Sanders. Because back in 1988 I said it is wrong in this country for people to buy assault weapons.
He says he’s voted for an instant background check and closing the gun show loophole.
I want to see a radical change in how we do mental health in this issue, because we’ve got thousands of people walking around that are suicidal and homicidal.
Updated
Now the dumb stunt questions!
Maddow warns Sanders. “How many pair of underwear do I have, is that it?” he quips. “Am I really Larry David?”
No. The questions are:
Q: Dream job if not politics?
A: President of CNN. And if I was president of CNN trust me, the way media deals with politics would radically change.
Q: What do you most miss that technology has made obsolete?
A: Books. Paper books. I miss the fact that when I’m in a car or at home, there are not all kinds of buzzes and noises going off that make me a nervous wreck. I miss peace and quiet!
Q: Do you curse?
A: Not on this show!
Q: What is the biggest public misconception about you?
A: People think I am grumpy. People think I am too serious. But I think what people don’t see is that I have seven beautiful grandchildren who are the joy of my life.
Updated
Sanders hits Clinton on campaign finance
Sanders is asked about his statement that he agrees with Clinton on “virtually nothing.”
“Well, virtually is the key word there,” he says.
“We have - you know, as you well know Rachel, media drives me nuts. We love you, but your’e the exception,” he says.
“I can’t walk down the hallway in the nation’s capitol without people begging me to beat up Hillary Clinton,” he says.
“I believe.. what we are trying to do is have a sensible debate.
“But having said that, I would not have run for president.. if I believed that establishment politics, and establishment economics can solve the very serious problems.”
He cites the “rigged economy” and “corrupt” campaign finance system.
“I have many disagreements with Hillary Clinton. And one of them is that I don’t think it’s good enough to just talk the talk on campaign finance reform. You’ve got to walk the walk.”
Sanders does not have a super Pac, he points out. “We’re running a grassroots, anti-establishment campaign.”
Sanders takes a question about Isis. He says the war on Isis “is for the soul of Islam” and “Islamic countries’ have to “roll up their sleeves, get their troops on the ground and start taking on Isis in a way they have not done.”
He doesn’t mention which countries putting troops in which countries.
Maddow asks Sanders if he supports the deployment of 50 or so special operations troops to be stationed in northeastern Syria, announced by Obama last week.
“No,” he says. “I don’t want to see us get sucked into a quagmire of which there may be no end.”
Jeb Lund’s highlight so far:
Maddow: Have you overstated the impact of the Keystone Pipeline?
Sanders: No.
Maddow: But—
Sanders: Nyoooooooooooo ...
Sanders: Unlike 'some unnamed candidates,' Keystone for me was 'a no-brainer'
Sanders is asked about the president’s long course to his announcement today that the Keystone XL pipeline must not be built.
“Barack Obama is a good friend, I love him, but now and then we disagree,” Sanders says. He says the announcement came too slowly.
He says if “we are not extremely aggressive,” the planet “we are leaving the kids and grandkids may not be habitable.”
Then he takes his first dig at Clinton:
“Keystone, for me, as opposed to some unnamed candidates, was kind of a no-brainer!” he says. Applause.
Next Q for Sanders: how do you get US businesses to treat workers better?
Sanders: “We have to end our disastrous trade policies, and create jobs in South Carolina and Vermont, rather than just in China.”
Also: no more “yuge tax breaks” for corporations who park profits in the Cayman islands.
This is all going over very well with this crowd. Or maybe it’s just a few people applauding and the incredible echo is making it sound like big applause.
Sanders only has 8% support among black Democrats in South Carolina, Maddow says. Can you really represent these people?
Sanders: “I believe I can.” He says “there are very few members of Congress who have a better record on civil rights than Bernie Sanders has.”
“More importantly I have the economic and social justice message ... that will resonate with the economic community.” He talks about raising the minimum wage to $15 and “taking on the governor of South Carolina”, Nikki Haley, for her refusal to expand Medicare under the president’s healthcare law.
That’s the biggest applause line of the night so far. Local issue, big response.
Updated
Bernie Sanders at the #DemDebate #DemForum pic.twitter.com/NFGwLCN7to
— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) November 7, 2015
Cheers in the crowd for Bernie. “We want Bernie!” Maddow gently chastises the upstarts. They laugh. We’re all friends tonight.
Maddow begins by pointing out that Vermont is 95% white, and the South is not like that. Can he run here?
“The issues that impact the people the people of South Carolina is the same,” Sanders says. “That is that the middle class is disappearing... and almost all the new wealth being created is going to the top 1%. The people are saying enough is enough.”
Fellow columnist Jeb Lund adds:
I think that closing bit with O’Malley — tell us why we would vote for you — will get misread as Maddow trying to bury his campaign. In other hands, it might have been, but I think Maddow and other openly lefty members of the press generally like the guy and would prefer to keep him around. That came off sounding a lot harsher because O’Malley’s replies weren’t better. “I’m a lifelong Democrat” isn’t really a good reply for: “Why do you keep using this sly negative phrasing about Bernie Sanders’s campaign?” Dude, when you have only 3% in the polls, you should have a lot of other things to make up for it: like well-articulated positions.
OK Sanders is about to come on. We know because MSNBC is running his sizzle reel. No swimsuit shot this time. #skewed.
Ben Jacobs did some live-tweeting of the O’Malley appearance. Highlights:
Martin O'Malley is the first candidate to cite "the great American mystic Thomas Merton."
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) November 7, 2015
O'Malley says of Black Lives Matter "I think almost all of their agenda can get done."
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) November 7, 2015
With O'Malley's discussion of Black Lives Matter, I interviewed him about Baltimore for @GuardianUS in May https://t.co/au4xwzDr9I
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) November 7, 2015
Updated
Guardian columnist Jessica Valenti notes:
While I’m bummed to miss all the fanfare of GOP-style debate and even the back-and-forth of the last Dem debate, there’s something truly wonderful about watching Rachel Maddow do her thing. It’s slow going for sure, but Maddow knows how to draw out important, substantive answers from her interview subjects - and this forum is no different. (Though I must admit the kilt answer was my favorite - love seeing men have to answer silly fashion questions.)
And O’Malley is loving it. He looks like the cat who ate the canary - this is clearly the ideal format for him to show off his strengths.
So what did you make of O’Malley?
O’Malley’s done. Before he left stage Maddow projected a picture of him as a 22-year-old working on Gary Hart’s campaign. He says that at the time he was thinking that politics is a noble calling.
Maddow presses O’Malley on Sanders. O’Malley has said Sanders’ campaign is about debating the merits of socialism. Does he stand by the criticism?
“I think that when President Obama was running for reelection, I was supporting him” while Sanders was trying to primary the president, O’Malley says.
Then he has a zesty reply that is clearly rehearsed but is so well placed that it lands as spontaneous:
I’m a Democrat, I’m a lifelong Democrat. I’m not a former independent... I believe in the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I believe in the party of John F Kennedy.
Next Q for O’Malley: Your numbers are terrible, with around 2% in national polls. So, what about that?
O’Malley says he came from behind in Maryland, he is the only one in the race with 15 years of executive experience, and he can achieve progressive goals such as same-sex marriage and gun control legislation, viz.: Maryland.
O’Malley calls for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay. “It’s not good for our troops ... for us to maintain internment camps,” he says.
He blames Congress, saying they’re obstructing the well-meaning president.
Now a question from Facebook. More fun.
“With war in the Middle East ramping up ... ” should there be a draft? And should there be a war tax?
O’Malley says no to a draft, but yes to a war tax.
He says the “burden of these last 15 years of conflict” has been “on the backs of such a small number of our people”.
Then he makes a strong statement about George W Bush’s “blundering” in Iraq. “And he didn’t even have the nerve to ask us to pay for it!”
Applause.
“The reason we have a debt is because Bush led us into war, and didn’t even ask us to pay for it.”
Applause. He’s pretty good, as a seated politician.
Updated
Now there’s a stunt! Maddow has cards. She makes O’Malley pick one. On the card are questions, which she asks. Fun!
This is definitely a violation of the Republicans’ debate conditions.
Q: “If you had to catch you own food to survive, would you hunt or fish?”
A: Fish.
Q: Pick one: High-speed rail coast to coast or manned mission to Mars?
A: I reject the premise of the question – let’s do both.
Q: Were you ever a smoker in your life?
A: No.
Q: What is the most impractical item of clothing that you own.
A: “A kilt, and it was given to me.”
Fun!
Updated
O’Malley says “all of us have a responsibility to be on a search for policies that actually work,” in calling for criminal justice reform.
Applause line too.
O’Malley gets his first applause line of any gusto so far:
“I think it’s appalling, this move to for-profit prisons in this country. I think it’s immoral. I think it’s wrong,” he says.
He builds on it with a line from his stump speech:
Contrary to Donald Trump’s assertion, the endearing symbol of this country is not the barbed-wired fence, it’s the Statue of Liberty.
Updated
Maddow challenges O’Malley on having lost Maryland, as he left office, to Republicans. O’Malley was followed as governor by Republican Larry Hogan.
He says the general assembly remains in Democratic control and that he left behind a progressive legacy including in growth of employment among African-Americans.
Did O’Malley just blush a bit? He makes a slip of the tongue anyway:
“I’m the only candidate in this Rachel – in this race, Rachel, to put out a plan” for a clean energy economy by 2050, he says.
Maddow is asking about how to transition from coal and fracking to clean energy without disrupting the well-being of blue-collar voters.
O’Malley says the economy is doing better but there is “structural unemployment” in cities which are also, coincidentally, he says, primary zones for a potential energy revolution in the form of “retrofitting” and green building.
That seems like a long-term fix.
O’Malley says: “We’ve made a big mistake as a party when we talk about climate change.”
Because we’re the party that actually believes in science, we rush to connect the dots, but it makes a straight line to hell.
He means that the messaging on climate is too negative.
The line about “actually” believing in science wins some chortles from the crowd.
Updated
First Q for O’Malley: South Carolina hasn’t voted for a Democrat for president since Jimmy Carter. What are Dems doing wrong?
O’Malley kind of ignores the question and reels off some policy priorities.
“I believe that the source of our country’s strength, Rachel, is actually an economy that recognizes that we’re all in this together.”
There is a wild echo in the room. It adds to the sense of Maddow and O’Malley being alone up there. They are knee-to-knee on two chairs, with the crowd in the background on all sides. It sounds like a forum in a barn. A concrete barn.
Martin O'Malley at the #DemForum #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/TSioBWXDrt
— Paul Owen (@PaulTOwen) November 7, 2015
O’Malley is first. Here comes O’Malley. First there’s a commercial about O’Malley. An O’Malley sizzle reel. Well there he is swimming. Rolling up his sleeves. Signing a bill. Thumbsing up.
And now he is onstage. Nice warm welcome from the crowd.
Maddow is asking the crowd to make noise – but not too much. But she doesn’t deliver the usual diktats about no coughing or clapping or cheering in the hall. MSNBC is looking for some ratings energy here, people.
The forum should be starting soon. We can now reveal, as MSNBC has, that the order of the interviewees shall be:
1) Martin O’Malley
2) Bernie Sanders
3) Hillary Clinton
Stay tuned. It’s almost 8p ET. It appears you will be able to watch live online HERE, on the MSNBC site.
The West Point scholarship that Ben Carson was offered but did not receive is creating waves on the Internet.
"I don't remember this level of scrutiny," Ben Carson says of Obama, who published his own birth certificate to prove his citizenship
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) November 7, 2015
“I do not remember this level of scrutiny for one Pres Barack Obama” @RealBenCarson on what he calls a witch hunt https://t.co/nt5qsx66gV
— OutFrontCNN (@OutFrontCNN) November 7, 2015
And here’s a vote of support, of sorts, from friendly conservative Jonah Goldberg, who remembers a big whopper from the 2008 campaign peddled by a certain Democrat who’s prominent in the news this year:
If only Ben Carson had gone to West Point. He might have saved Hillary from that sniper fire in Bosnia.
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) November 6, 2015
Hillary Clinton unveiled new details of her long-awaited criminal justice reform agenda on Friday, offering the most robust explanation yet of how she would fulfill her campaign promise as president to end the “era of mass incarceration” and rebuild trust between police and communities.
According to the government’s bureau of justice statistics, in the age range with the highest imprisonment rates for males (ages 25 to 39), “black males were imprisoned at rates at least 2.5 times greater than Hispanic males and 6 times greater than white males.” Those stats could carry extra urgency in South Carolina, where more than half of Democratic primary voters are African-American.
The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino and Oliver Laughland report:
The announcement includes proposals to reduce prison time for nonviolent offenses and reform the mandatory minimum sentencing laws. She also called for expanding the federal government’s ability to investigate potential civil rights violation by law enforcement agencies.
Read the full piece here.
Carson addresses press: 'I never said that I received a full scholarship'
Breaking news: Dr Ben Carson, the Republican frontrunner in some polling averages, is addressing the media in a live news conference.
It’s a rare appearance by Carson – or any candidate – with the candidate taking question after question from an eager media gaggle.
The top question is whether Carson was really offered a full scholarship to West Point military academy, as he has claimed in his memoir Gifted Hands and elsewhere.
Earlier today his campaign said he had never applied to West Point. But this evening he says that he was nonetheless offered a full ride, apparently informally, based on his excellence as an officer in the reserve officer training corps (ROTC) as a high school student in Detroit.
You can read our news coverage of the controversy here.
Carson is confrontational in the news conference appearance. He says the media is creating confusion where there is none. He says “I never said that I received a full scholarship to West Point.”
In his book Gifted Hands, Carson wrote, “Later I was offered a full scholarship to West Point.”
Ben Carson said on Charlie Rose last month: "I was offered a full scholarship to West Point."
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) November 7, 2015
Carson accused the media of lacking integrity and bending his words.
Tonight he says:
It was an offer to me ... I interpreted it as an offer ... I don’t remember the names of the people, it’s almost 50 years ago. I bet you don’t remember the names of all the people you talked to 50 years ago. They told me it was available to me because of my accomplishments.
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While we wait for the Democrats... who wants to know what Donald Trump’s up to?
?
Hosting Saturday Night Live tomorrow, that’s what. Should be fun!
Getting ready for @nbcsnl commercial. pic.twitter.com/asHECYFBRv
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2015
Here’s another look for Trump, fresh from the desk of NYC-based artist Hope Gangloff:
And while we’re at it, a selection of Sanders art:
@BernieSanders I made a pop art piece for you titled "Feel The Bern" #FeelTheBern pic.twitter.com/VTpThizoNS
— Μeg ♚ (@Megs_lots_o_luv) November 6, 2015
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Ben Jacobs is reporting from the First In The South forum in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
“Reporters are allowed to go anywhere they would like tonight ... except, of course, for Byrnes Auditorium, the venue where the forum is held,” he writes:
Instead, reporters are in a gymnasium watching MSNBC on a big screen television as they sit along long rows of folding tables. The press does have access to the spin room, which will be the building’s lobby, where surrogates from all three campaigns will talk about how great the candidate is.
So no interactions, apparently, between the candidates – and no press in the room as it happens. Grumble grumble.
Ben notes that Byrnes auditorium is named for James F Byrnes, the segregationist conservative Democrat who might have been Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s vice president – but for his opposition to racial integration.
Updated
It appears that Hillary Clinton is going to see if she can run up the score a bit in South Carolina this weekend. She’s scheduled to appear at a town hall event at Claflin University hosted by the South Carolina democratic black caucus and moderated by Roland Martin, whom you may recognize from CNN, now at TV One.
No word on whether Sanders and O’Malley were invited.
The trailer makes it look exciting!
.@HillaryClinton to participate in Town Hall moderated by @RolandSMartin. Submit your questions using #NewsOneNow https://t.co/Yh0SdXSY8d
— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) November 6, 2015
In the last Democratic debate, Sanders said states should make their own marijuana laws. He’s grown more vocal on the issue since, working it into his stump speech.
And he’s getting some attention:
Awesome https://t.co/eqTs8ubl8n
— Tilo Jung (@TiloJung) November 6, 2015
Rand Paul crashed the Democratic party earlier this evening, speaking at Winthrop University ahead of the Democratic forum. The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs, who is reporting from the scene on the proceedings tonight, took in Paul’s speech earlier:
Big round of applause in SC for Rand saying "we don't need a Department of Education in Washington"
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) November 6, 2015
Ben tweets:
Rand Paul takes a veiled shot at Lindsey Graham on end the fed and raising the debt ceiling
Rand Paul’s first questioner in South Carolina: “At the last convention, they stole the nomination from your father”
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Hello! And welcome to our live coverage of the first Democratic presidential candidates’ forum of 2016.
What in the heck, you might ask, is a candidates’ forum? Well, it’s like a debate, except the candidates won’t speak to one another and may not, it seems, even appear onstage at the same time.
But doesn’t that, you might ask, fall rather short of the descriptor “forum”, which implies in the ancient Roman sense some kind of intercourse among the citizenry?
With that attitude, you may be at risk of not enjoying yourself, which is not a risk that this blog will abide. Call tonight’s event what you will. The fact is we’re about to hear three people who want to be president answer questions about where they want the country to go and how they would get us there.
Tonight is not about “gotcha” questions or applause-seeking one-liners. It’s about policy, it’s about democracy, and it’s about whether Bernie Sanders can break 15% in South Carolina.
Tonight’s event has been organized by the South Carolina Democratic party and will be broadcast on MSNBC. Asking the questions will be Rachel Maddow, the cable host.
On stage at Winthrop University in Rock Hill will be:
- Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton
- Vermont senator Bernie Sanders
- And former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley
Gone from the race since the last debate are former senator Jim Webb and governor Lincoln Chafee. They will be missed ...
Winthrop University? Is that the same place that just released a poll showing Clinton 51 points ahead of Sanders in South Carolina’s Democratic primary? Unfortunately for Sanders – yes, that’s the one.
Which is a good time to direct you to a selection from our pre-forum coverage:
