The Daily - The Latest: The Nevada Debate

Episode Date: February 20, 2020

Last night, the Democratic debate in Nevada revealed more open hostility and made more personal attacks than in any of the previous six debates in the race for the nomination. Today, we explore what these attacks reflect about the state of the Democratic race and the urgency that the candidates are feeling.“The Latest,” from the team behind “The Daily,” brings you the most important developments on today’s biggest news stories. You can find more information about it here.

There are still so many questions about what happened in Iowa. You can see that Pete Buttigieg is presently leading the state delegate count with 27 percent. Bernie Sanders with 25 percent. Candidates are already looking toward New Hampshire. Let me take this opportunity to thank the people of New Hampshire for a great victory tonight. Moderate candidates Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar trailed Sanders to round up. Breaking news from the Democratic presidential race, where a national poll out this morning shows the former New York mayor is now in second place with 19 percent support behind Bernie

Sanders. Michael Bloomberg, whose rise in the polls is fueled by more than 300 million dollars in ad spending. Mayor Bloomberg has not appeared on a single debate stage or a single ballot, but that will change tonight. It's Alex Burns in Las Vegas, where Wednesday night's Democratic debate was held ahead of the Nevada caucus this weekend. From NBC News, the Democratic presidential debate, live from Las Vegas, Nevada. This was a debate we were all really waiting for because it's the first time Mayor Bloomberg has appeared on the stage. And really, it's the first time he has engaged with other Democratic candidates at all since entering the race. Polls released over the last few days have shown Bloomberg overtaking Joe Biden nationally

as the moderate runner-up to Bernie Sanders, the frontrunner, thanks to hundreds of millions of dollars that Bloomberg has poured into advertising. But for most Americans, this was the first time that they have really been introduced to the man himself. So going in, we knew that all the other candidates were going to try to make that a rough introduction to scuff up the glossy image of himself that Bloomberg puts in TV ads. And right away they did. I think we need something different than Donald Trump. I don't think you look at Donald Trump and say we need someone richer in the White House. Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women, and of supporting racist policies like redlining and stop and

frisk. Stop and frisk. Stop and frisk, which went after African-American and Latino people in an outrageous way. Throwing close to 5 million young black men up against the wall. That is not a way you're going to grow voter turnout. They, of course, went after Stop and Frisk, his invasive policing policy as mayor of New York. Mayor Bloomberg, at the beginning of this debate, you took some incoming fire on this next topic. So let's get into it.

In 2015, this is how you described your policing policy as mayor. Quote, we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods. And you explain that as, quote, because that's where all the crime is. And early on, NBC moderator Lester Holt asked Bloomberg to address it. You went on to say, and the way you should get the guns out of the kids' hands is to throw them against the wall and frisk them. You've apologized for that policy, but what does that kind of language say about how you view people of color or people in minority neighborhoods? Well, if I go back and look at my time in office, the one thing that I'm really worried about, embarrassed about, was how it turned out with stop and frisk.

And we adopted a policy which had been in place, the policy that all big police departments use of stop and frisk. What happened, however, was it got out of control. From the beginning, he struggled with his responses. We have to keep the lid on crime, but we cannot go out and stop people indiscriminately. You know, this was the number one question that Bloomberg would have known was coming, more than any other policy issue. This is the one his campaign has worried about from the start of the race. But I've sat, I've apologized, I've asked for forgiveness.

Bloomberg is not a man known for his political agility or his comfort expressing contrition or for his thick skin. And it showed. If we took off everybody that was wrong off this panel, everybody that was wrong on criminal justice at some time in their careers, there'd be nobody else up here. And the attacks were just sort of unrelenting. Up until this point, Elizabeth Warren has mostly avoided direct confrontation in debates with other candidates. She has been calling herself the unity candidate, but she took a totally different approach, a far more aggressive approach, and Mike Bloomberg was her favorite target.

I'd like to talk about who we're running against. She landed some of the most stinging blows in the debate, drawing a connection between Bloomberg and public enemy number one for the Democrats. A billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians. And no, I'm not talking about Donald Trump. I'm talking about Mayor Bloomberg. Democrats are not... Perhaps the most contentious exchange of the night and the toughest one for Bloomberg was a lengthy back and forth between him and both Warren and Joe Biden

about a number of women who have signed nondisclosure agreements with Bloomberg and his company. He has gotten some number of women, dozens, who knows, to sign nondisclosure agreements, both for sexual harassment and for gender discrimination in the workplace. So, Mr. Mayor, are you willing to release all of those women from those non-disclosure agreements so we can hear their side of the story? We have a very few non-disclosure agreements. How many is that? Let me finish. How many is that? None of them accused me of doing anything other than maybe they didn't like the joke I told.

And let me just and let me put there's agreements between two parties that wanted to keep it quiet. And that's up to them. They signed those agreements and we'll live with it. Warren challenged him over and over to release those women from the NDAs and let them speak openly about their experiences. speak openly about their experiences. And when you say they signed them and they wanted them, if they wish now to speak out and tell their side of the story about what it is they allege, that's now OK with you? You're releasing them on television tonight? Senator? No.

Is that right? Bloomberg said he would not do it. Senator, the company and somebody else, in this case, a man or a woman, or could be more than that. They decided when they made an agreement that they wanted to keep it quiet for everybody's interest. They signed the agreements, and that's what we're going to live with. I'm sorry. No, the question is, are the women— But the latest is what these attacks reflect about the state of the Democratic race and the urgency that the candidates are feeling in this moment. Bernie Sanders' lead is looking increasingly strong heading into the Nevada caucuses. And as we've talked about many times, part of that has

to do with the fact that the more moderate candidates are dividing the votes amongst themselves, making it harder for any one of them to emerge as a clear alternative to Sanders. Now in comes Michael Bloomberg with all of his money and his power and name recognition. But so far, he has done more to slow down fellow moderates than to thwart Bernie Sanders. Senator, when you say that you disown these attacks and you didn't personally direct them, I believe you. But at a certain point, you've got to ask yourself, why did this pattern arise? Why is it especially the case among your supporters? I don't think it is especially the case, by the way.

That's just not true. Look, people know— And so that meant it wasn't just Bloomberg on the defensive. The other Democrats also had to take on Sanders himself. What a wonderful country we have. The best-known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with three houses. What'd I miss here? Well, you'll miss that I work in Washington, house one.

That's the first problem. Live in Burlington, house-to-house. And they had to take on each other. Are you trying to say that I'm dumb, or are you mocking me here, Pete? I'm saying that you shouldn't trivialize it. There was more open hostility, more personal bitterness in this two-hour debate than in perhaps all the other debates combined. And that's because the stakes for the candidates are higher now.

And for many of them, really for almost all of them, time may be close to running out. So that's the latest.