The Daily - The Moderates Strike Back: The 4th Democratic Debate

Episode Date: October 16, 2019

Last night in Ohio, The New York Times co-hosted a presidential debate for the first time in more than a decade. Marc Lacey, The Times’s National editor, moderated the event with the CNN anchors Erin Burnett and Anderson Cooper.It was also the first debate since Democrats started an impeachment inquiry into President Trump and his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Candidates denounced the president, calling for his impeachment, without wading into the specifics of the investigation. Instead, moderates focused on winning over Biden voters by differentiating themselves from more progressive candidates. Guests: Alexander Burns, who covers national politics for The Times, and Maggie Haberman, who covers the White House. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background coverage: Senator Elizabeth Warren was the primary target of moderates’ attacks, illustrating her status as an emergent front-runner. Candidates avoided criticism of Joe Biden, wary of echoing President Trump’s attacks on his family.Here are six takeaways from the debate.

. Yeah, so we're now on the campus of Otterbein University and we're entering the Reich Center. It's an athletic facility that has been turned into a huge debate stage. So let's bring him up from Delaware, former Vice President Joe Biden, from Massachusetts, Senator Elizabeth Warren. So we're going to go into a rehearsal right now, a sort of mock debate the evening before the debate. So you have these podiums, 12 podiums, and right now there are Otterbein University students who are acting as the candidates. And I'm going to be sitting over

there at that desk. And there's someone who is sitting at my chair acting like me. So I'm going to go and replace that. Hey, how are you? How are you? Yeah, so these are theater students who are acting like the candidates. This is the CNN New York Times. Everybody, what's your name? I'm Anderson Drew from Harvard University. I'm a former CNN star. We're at the New York Times National I'm Michael Barbaro.

This is The Daily. Today. Last night in Ohio, for the first time in more than a decade, The New York Times co-hosted a presidential debate. So I've never done one of these debates before, but you two are pros. My colleague Mark Lacey, the national editor at the Times, moderated it with CNN's Anderson Cooper. I don't actually get nervous a lot about things because I'm sort of dead inside, but, and I'm a wasp, so I was learned to push all my emotions deep down inside,

but it's definitely a heightened state on that stage. And Aaron Burnett. Each person wants to break through, right? I mean, this is their moment. And for some people, they want to get on the next stage, right? So they have to break through. It was also the first debate since Democrats have started pursuing an impeachment inquiry into the president, one that centers around his efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating the leading Democratic candidate on stage last night, Joe Biden. It's Wednesday, October 16th.

But baby, don't get it twisted. Next year. Oh, Alex Burns. Hi. Alex Burns. Hello. Hello. Hey. Hi. Alex, can you hear me? Hello. Maggie. Michael. Good morning.

Right. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Good morning. So, believe it or not, with you being in Ohio, me in Washington, and this team of editors and producers in New York, this is not exactly a flawless technical operation at 1235 a.m. I have faith in your crack team. I have faith, too. It's really the technology I'm beginning to question. Okay, let's do this. Alex, if you were going to summarize tonight in a sentence, what would it be? I think this was the night where you really saw the moderate candidates on stage find their thirst for combat.

And I think, interestingly, you saw that displayed not by folks like Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar going after Joe Biden, the leading moderate candidate at this point in the race, but you saw it happen by them going after Elizabeth Warren to try to sort of prove their centrist credentials by challenging the left. Right, the frontrunner who's not actually quite the frontrunner. I checked the polls right before the debate, and by all accounts, statistically speaking, that is Joe Biden. In an average of national polls,

Joe Biden has a slight lead over Elizabeth Warren still in this race. But every other candidate in the race can read those trend lines just like we can. She is moving steadily up. He is moving steadily down. And the picture is even more pronounced in the early voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire. So if you are a Pete Buttigieg or an Amy Klobuchar and you have staked your candidacy on a breakthrough in the Midwest, it is a bigger issue for you to get past Joe Biden and present yourself as a clear, compelling alternative to Elizabeth Warren than it is to go at Joe Biden directly. OK, so let's talk about how that actually played out. This is the CNN New York Times Democratic presidential debate.

So all 12 candidates are on stage. The debate begins. Since the last debate, House Democrats have officially launched an impeachment inquiry against President Trump. The first question inevitably is about impeachment. This is the first debate since the impeachment inquiry began. But the question is, with the election only one year away, why shouldn't it be the voters who determine the president's fate? Because sometimes there are issues that are bigger than politics. And I think that's the case with this impeachment inquiry. And you had all 12 candidates in agreement. I think that the House will find him guilty of, worthy of impeachment. That they believe that Donald Trump should be impeached. They would have no choice,

no choice but to begin an impeachment proceeding, which gives them more power to seek more information. This is a big change from where things were within this Democratic field even a month ago. We have a constitutional duty to pursue this impeachment. And everybody was in unison. They didn't all necessarily agree that he should be removed from office, but they did agree that he should be impeached. Our framers imagined this moment, a moment where we would have a corrupt president.

Right. It seemed like every candidate used some version of the phrase Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in the history of the country. It was almost verbatim. This president is the most corrupt president in modern history. In my judgment, Trump is the most corrupt president in the country. And look, these candidates have generally tried to avoid having these debates be specifically just about Donald Trump. This was among the most Donald Trump-heavy first 10 minutes of a debate that I can recall. Not only did the Mueller report point out 10 different instances where the president

obstructed justice or tried to, and he made that call to President Zelensky of the Ukraine, but he is ongoingly, in an ongoing way, violating his oath of office and abusing his power. We have to impeach this president. But instead of using that moment as a way for any of them to sort of use a backdoor to criticize Joe Biden over the issue related to his son and the work his son had done in Ukraine while Biden was vice president, they all very pointedly clearly did not want to join President Trump's attacks on Joe Biden. None of them brought it up on their own as the debate went on. The rest of the night was really absent any issue related to Biden except for a question from the moderators.

Mr. Vice President, President Trump has falsely accused your son of doing something wrong while serving on a company board in Ukraine. If it's not OK for a president's family to be involved in foreign businesses, why was it OK for your son when you were vice president? Vice President Biden? Look, my son did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong. I carried out the policy of the United States government.

And everyone seemed quite ready to avoid it and just move on. Right. And I think that reflects a couple of things, right? Senator Sanders, your response. Let me make a point. The moderators sort of teed up Bernie Sanders if he wanted to go after Biden on the Hunter Ukraine issue. I hope that he is impeached. Ukraine issue. I hope that he is impeached. But I think what would be a disaster if the American people believe that all we were doing is taking on Trump. And we're forgetting that 87 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured. Bernie just totally did not take the bait and neither did anybody else. And part of that is, I think, a sense among other Democrats that going at the

Hunter issue, you really, really risk looking like you are taking Trump's side in a fight. And I think maybe as big or a bigger part of it is this calculation by a lot of the candidates on stage who want Joe Biden's supporters to move over to their camp, that the way to do that is not by attacking Joe Biden, and that you kind of got to trust that Biden is going to continue sinking in this race just by the force of gravity and his own limitations as a candidate and present yourself as a compelling alternative for people who are looking for a more moderate or a more conventional set of qualifications. And they do that by going after Elizabeth Warren. Senator Warren, to be clear, Senator Sanders acknowledges he's going to raise taxes on the middle class to pay for Medicare for all. You've endorsed his plan. Should you acknowledge it too?

Right. There's first an effort by our colleague, Mark Lacey, to twice pin her down on whether or not her Medicare for All plan would require a tax increase for middle class voters. She doesn't really answer the yes or no question. So the way I see this, it is about what kinds of costs middle class families are going to face. So let me be clear on this. Costs will go up for the wealthy. They will go up for big corporations and for middle class families. They will go up. For big corporations and for middle-class families, they will go down. I will not... Then Pete Buttigieg tries to get her to answer it and on and on.

And she's just kind of resolutely unwilling to say yes or no. And it's not even really sort of an ideological attack on her, right? You saw Pete Buttigieg pushing her just to sort of be straight on this question. Well, we heard it tonight. A yes or no question that didn't get a yes or no answer. Look, this is why people here in the Midwest are so frustrated with Washington in general and Capitol Hill in particular. Your signature, Senator, is to have a plan for everything, except this. No plan has been laid out.

You heard Klobuchar, who has been so careful so far in this race to be very collegial with her Senate colleagues. You heard her essentially describe Warren's plans as a pipe dream. The difference between a plan and a pipe dream is something that you can actually get done. And we can get this public option done and we can take on the pharmaceutical companies and bring down the prices. This is really harsh stuff, right? This is the kind of criticism that you have heard at other points in the race directed at Joe Biden. It's almost sort of a character attack

as much as anything else. She loves talking about the mechanics of policy and where revenue will come from and where it will go and how regulations work and how it will change the way companies are structured. And the fact that this is the one place where she won't say what we heard Bernie Sanders say. Under the Medicare for all bill that I wrote, premiums are gone.

Copayments are gone. Deductibles are gone. All out-of-pocket expenses are gone. But I do think it is appropriate to acknowledge that taxes will go up. I think it is appropriate to acknowledge that taxes will go up. They're going to go up. It would be a super sort of Warren-y answer, except she just doesn't want to give it. And why exactly won't she answer it, Maggie?

Well, she won't answer it because there's not a great answer to the question. Usually when there is not a great answer to the question, you'll see a politician do what she is doing, which is evade steadfastly. Senator Warren, will you acknowledge what the senator just said about taxes going up? So my view on this and what I have committed to is costs will go down for hardworking middle-class families. I will not embrace a plan like Medicare for all who can afford it. One thing, too, that I was struck by in Klobuchar's answer is she more than once said that essentially to Warren, your way of doing things is not the only way. And I want to win those states that we lost last time.

And I have bold ideas to get us there. And I think just because they're different than Elizabeth's doesn't mean they're bold. And does that reflect some kind of larger sentiment among these moderate candidates about Warren and about the way that she campaigns? I think it reflects a resentment among some of the more moderate candidates of the way Warren argues, sometimes explicitly, sometimes a little bit more subtly, that if you don't approach policy the same way she does, it's because you don't have political guts. You don't have grit. You're not willing to fight back. I put out nearly 50 plans on how we can fight back and how we can rebuild an America that works. And a part of that is we've got to stop.

Thank you, Senator. For somebody like Amy Klobuchar, she sees how you get stuff done in government differently. She doesn't think it makes her a coward. She thinks it sort of just reflects a different set of political values. So what's the next notable exchange? Thank you, Congressman.

Income inequality is growing in the United States at an alarming rate. You have this even messier multi-candidate pile on around Warren's proposal for a tax on huge private fortunes. Mr. Seyer, you are the lone billionaire on this stage. That it sort of begins with this exchange involving Bernie Sanders and Tom Steyer, the only billionaire on stage, where... What's your plan for closing the income gap? I think there's an attempt by the moderators

to try to draw out Steyer in a way that would stir some tension on stage. And he basically says, look... Senator Sanders is right. There have been 40 years where corporations have bought this government, and those 40 years have meant a 40-year attack on the rights of working people and specifically on organized labor. Wealth concentration is a problem. Then the spotlight moves back to some of those moderates we talked about before. This is time to realize that we're paying attention to the wrong things. We're paying attention to who sounded better on a debate stage.

Senator Klobuchar, will a wealth tax work? It could work. I am open to it. But I want to give a reality check here to Elizabeth, because no one on this stage wants to protect billionaires. Not even the billionaire wants to protect billionaires. You hear Amy Klobuchar not attacking the idea of a wealth tax. She says that she's open to the idea. But again, criticizing Warren for this sense that Warren thinks her ideas are the only good ideas.

Your idea is not the only idea. And when I look at this, I think about Donald Trump, the guy that after that tax bill passed, went to Mar-a-Lago, got together with his cronies and said, guess what? You guys all got a lot richer. Nobody is actually challenging the substance of her policy idea here. And in fact, you hear people across the ideological spectrum in the party either endorsing a wealth tax or at least indicating their openness to a wealth tax. I think it's part of the solution, but I think we need to be focused on lifting people up. And sometimes I think that Senator Warren is more focused on being punitive or pitting some part of the country against the other. So to me, this part is more of a primal scream of frustration

towards Elizabeth Warren than a really concerted policy challenge. And when you say primal scream of frustration, I'm guessing you don't just mean the fact that they think she talks about her ideas as if they are the best and the only good ideas, but perhaps because she's just doing really well. She is doing really well, right? That if you look back to where this race was when Beto O'Rourke got into it, right, back in the late winter, early spring, he was one of the leading candidates. Elizabeth Warren was at the back of the polls and struggling to sort of find two dimes

to rub together for her campaign, right? Now she is one of the biggest fundraisers in the field. He is at the back of the pack, struggling to survive. And you do see, you saw it earlier in the race with Joe Biden. You see it now with Elizabeth Warren. People who are pulling towards the back of the pack, trying to have some kind of impact in this race, go after the front runner. Thank you, Senator Booker. We've got to take a quick break. We've got to take a quick break right now. The CNN New York Times debate live from Otterbein University in Ohio. We'll be right back after this. We'll be right back. And welcome back to the CNN New York Times Democratic presidential debate live from Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio.

I want to turn now to foreign policy. President Trump ordered— So as this debate went on, it felt like we saw the first substantive conversation on foreign policy that I can remember from these democratic debates. In part, I think, because of the urgency of the situation that's playing out in Syria. I wonder if it felt that way to both of you. It didn't feel that substantive to me, candidly. It felt urgent and it felt emotional. We saw the spectacle, the horrifying sight of a woman with the lifeless body of her child in her arms asking what the hell happened to American leadership. What I think was striking about it is that Joe Biden,

who was vice president, seemed to really struggle in his answer to this question about what he would do and what he felt was necessary. What I would do is I would be making it real clear to Assad that in fact, he's going to have a problem because Turkey is the real problem here. And I would be having a real lockdown conversation with Erdogan and letting him know

that he's going to pay a heavy price for what he has done. Now, pay that price. I think that Biden still sounded as if he wasn't quite sure what to do. And I really thought going into this debate that this was going to be an issue that Biden was going to score lots of points on because it's right in his wheelhouse. Right. It's one of the ways that Biden has tried to distinguish himself by pointing to his experience and his gravitas, especially around matters like foreign policy and military conflict. I think I may be, it doesn't make me any better or worse, but maybe the only person who spent extensive time alone with Putin, as well as with Erdogan. Right. You heard him make that argument quite explicitly, that he's the one person on stage

who needs no on-the-job training, that he has dealt with Putin, he has dealt with Erdogan directly. What he struggles with, as Maggie was saying, is communicating that in a way that conveys a sense of command and reassurance to the people who are watching the debate. I did think there were at least the germs of a bigger ideological argument about foreign policy. So look, I think that we ought to get out of the Middle East. I don't think we should have troops in the Middle East, but we have to do it the right way, the smart way. You did hear a pretty stark difference

between Biden on the one hand, who talked about keeping American troops in Syria in some fashion, and Elizabeth Warren saying quite directly that she wants to get rid of those troops, just not in the way Donald Trump has gone about doing it. We need to get out, but we need to do this through a negotiated solution. There is no military solution.

Mayor Buttigieg. And Alex, does that ideological breakdown when it comes to how the United States should use military forces, does that fall along familiar domestic debate, ideological fault lines, or is it different? It doesn't map precisely onto the same fault lines as domestic policy, economic policy, healthcare. But I do think that the more populist wing of the party represented by Warren and Sanders and a couple other people intermittently on stage is much more skeptical of the idea of the United States being involved in foreign wars, of having permanent troop presence

overseas. And it is something, Michael, as you obviously recall, that the president played to quite effectively in 2016 is this idea there may be a consensus in Washington for the United States to play this kind of role in foreign countries, but in the rest of America, there's a lot of exhaustion and a lot of skepticism. And that's part of what I think was so challenging for Biden in this moment, right? That just talking about restoring the bipartisan foreign policy consensus isn't necessarily super compelling to base primary voters, at least the ones who are voting on foreign policy. As some of you have indicated, the differences between all of you on this stage are tiny compared to the differences between you and President Trump. There are, however,

fundamental differences between many of you on this stage. Vice President Biden, just on either side of you, Senator Warren is calling for big structural change. Senator Sanders is calling for a political revolution. So toward the end of the debate, the moderators ask this question that sort of seems to be pointed directly at this central tension that's been playing out on stage. Will their visions attract the kind of voters that the Democrats need to beat Donald Trump? Well, I think their vision is attracting a lot of people. I wonder what you make of the answers to that question. Well, first, I think it's really striking that the question needed to be asked in this specific way in order to draw Biden into conflict with Warren and Sanders.

In past debates, he's been so eager to go after them on a whole range of policies. In this debate, there were big sections of the night where he seemed to really fade from the foreground of this thing. And the moderators really sort of summoned him to rise to this moment as a champion of the center in this race. I'm going to say something that is probably going to offend some people here, but I'm the only one on the stage who's gotten anything really big done. He does it by describing himself as the only person on the stage who's ever gotten big things done. He talks about the Violence Against Women Act. He talks about the Affordable Care Act. And he runs pretty quickly into quite a challenging confrontation with both Bernie Sanders and Warren. You know, following the financial crash of 2008, I had an idea for a consumer agency

that would keep giant banks from cheating people. What ended up happening was Warren starts talking about her accomplishments. She talks about what she did after the 2008 fiscal crisis. She talks about her time at the CFPB. She talks about what she wants to do. We want to get something done in America. We have to get out there and fight for the things that touch people's lives. I agree.

But you had Biden try to come back at Warren as she's talking about what she did. He says, I got you votes. I got votes for that bill. I convinced people to vote for it. So let's get those things straight, too. She sort of lets him finish, and there's a pause, and you can see her almost drawing breath. I am deeply grateful to President Obama, who fought so hard to make sure that agency was passed into law. And I am...

It's a real dagger because it's a reminder that so much of what Joe Biden has done in this race has been talking about Obama's record. Biden doesn't handle that well. Understand. You did a hell of a job in your job. Thank you. But understand this. Gets unhappy about it and pushes back that, you know, you did well in the role that you were in, meaning at the CFPB.

And there was just silence in the role that you were in, meaning at the CFPB. And there was just silence in the debate hall when he did it. It underscored what I think has been a theme for Biden in this race and certainly throughout the night when he was present on stage, which is it had this aura of, don't you understand that this is my turn? This is what I'm due. And it reminded me so much of what we would see with Hillary Clinton in 2016. There was really no need, if you look at the record that he is standing on, for him to then try to sort of take a piece of her signature achievement, the creation of this new regulatory agency. And I think it was a reflection of her sort of lack of interest in escalating a fight with him, her sort of view that it didn't make sense for her to sort of get into an extended fight with Joe Biden, that she didn't come back at him harder on that front.

It was a real role reversal from what we've seen in the race previously, where Joe Biden sort of goes from being the hunted to being the hunter as he sort of loses some traction at the top of this race. And so the question is, who is best prepared? We all have good ideas. The question is, who's going to be able to get it done? How can you get it done? And I'm not suggesting they can't, but I'm suggesting that that's what we should look at. And part of that requires you not being vague.

Tell people what it's going to cost, how you're going to do it, and why you're going to do it. That's the way to get it done. Presidents are supposed to be able to persuade. Just to clarify. Alex, given the sensitive moment that Joe Biden is in right now with the president's attacks on him and his son, is there an argument to be made that the best thing that could happen to Biden during this debate was kind of exactly what did happen, that he got to kind of hide away a little bit while all the moderates went after somebody else, Elizabeth Warren? I think you

can make the case that the best case scenario for Biden at this point is to sort of protect the base that he has right now, hold steady, and trust the rest of the field to stay fractured. And if that's the best case for him, then maybe that's what he did tonight. I think it's a really, really risky strategy because it counts on everybody else being ineffective at appealing to the voters who are currently supporting you. So I think you could look at this as a low-risk debate for Biden where he probably didn't do damage to himself actively. I think you could also see it as a real missed opportunity for a guy who does have unmatched foreign policy credentials on that stage, who has been victimized by the president in a way that has launched impeachment proceedings against President Trump and who didn't sort of wrap all that together and create a bigger moment for his campaign. I totally agree. Maggie, Alex, thank you.

Good night slash good morning. We'll talk soon. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Michael. We'll be right back. Tuesday, George Kent, a senior State Department advisor on Ukraine, went up to Capitol Hill to testify in the impeachment proceedings. In Kent's testimony, he says that the White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, told him not to worry about Ukraine policy. Obviously, a little weird for a State Department official who specializes in Ukraine policy. Obviously, a little weird for a State Department official who specializes in Ukraine policy. The message being like, we've got Ukraine over here at the White House. You at the State

Department, that's not your issue anymore. Yet another odd way that the administration was handling its policy towards Ukraine. In the middle of this testimony, Giuliani himself puts out a letter that says that he is not going to comply with a subpoena from the House. The impeachment investigators want to talk to him. Giuliani says, nope, not coming. This is a sham and he's not going to participate. What else? If your last name wasn't Biden, do you think you would have been asked to be on the board of Burisma? I don't know.

I don't know. Probably not. I don't think that there's a lot of things that would have happened in my life that if my last name wasn't Biden. The other thing you need to know is that Joe Biden's son, Hunter, gave an interview with ABC News this morning in which he took on the attacks that Trump has leveled at him about Ukraine. And Giuliani. Correct. And Giuliani. And he basically said, was it the best thing that I said on the board of this energy company in Ukraine? Probably not.

not. But he says that these allegations that Giuliani and Trump have thrown at him and thrown at his father about how his dad intervened to help the energy company, it's all nonsense. There's nothing to it. You know what? I'm a human. And you know what? Did I make a mistake? Well, maybe in the grand scheme of things, yeah. But did I make a mistake based upon some unethical lapse? Absolutely not. That's it for The Daily. From the Washington Bureau of the Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow. Thanks, Mike. Cheers.

All right. See you guys. See ya.