we'll be on at least until 2:00 a.m. and talk about everything we're about to see on this stage behind me. the cnn democratic debate live from detroit starts right now. [ applause [ applause ] live from detroit, it the democratic presidential debate. >> the stage is set. the candidates are waiting in the wings. >> this audience is eager to hear what they have to say. >> right now, the road to the white house drives through detroit. the democrats are in michigan for a premiere two-night event. a defining moment that will determine who gets left behind, and who takes on president trump. >> this is our chance. >> there is no middle ground. >> don't let anybody tell you that freedom is a conservative value. it is an american value. >> tonight, a fight for the heart of the party, senator bernie sanders determined to

seize his second chance at the nomination. >> it is a question of getting our priorities right. >> going head-to-head with senator elizabeth warren, long-time friends fighting for the same cause and the same voters. >> we should dream big, fight hard, and win. >> the progressives at center stage defending their ideals against a crowd of more moderate challengers. mayor pete buttigieg and former texas congressman beto o'rourke look to translate fresh fame into national support. >> i'm running to serve you as the next president of the united states of america. >> four candidates will put their heartland values on display. minnesota senator amy klobuchar. >> let's get to work and win this election. >> former colorado governor john hickenlooper. >> i'm an optimist. >> ohio congressman tim ryan. >> it's time to unify this

country. >> and steve bullock in his first presidential debate. >> we're here to make sure that donald trump is a one-term president. >> it's a critical test for former congressman john delany. >> we can do it. >> and washington outside er marianne williamson. >> this time we will win with love. >> now the stage is set for the biggest presidential field in history to campaign for change in a state they want to take back from trump. >> there is no such thing as a permanently red state. >> this democracy must come together. we must repair it. >> there is nothing that will stop us. >> democracy is not for sale. ♪ ♪

[ applause ] good evening from the historic fox theater in downtown detroit, michigan. this is the cnn democratic presidential debate. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world watching us on cnn, cnn international, cnn in espanol and cnn.com and listening on cirrsi sirus xm and a special welcome to the u.s. military members, diplomatic and their family serves overseas and watching on the american services network. i'm jack tapper with cnn's chief political correspondent dana bash and don lemon, anchor of "cnn tonight". >> we're looking forward to moderating one of the largest gathering of presidential candidates in back to back

debates, 20 candidates were divided in two groups by random draw earlier this month. the second group of ten will appear on the stage at this time tomorrow night. the first ten will make their entrance right now. >> so, please welcome from vermont, senator bernie sanders. [ applause ] >> from massachusetts senator elizabeth warren. [ applause ] >> from south bend, indiana, mayor pete buttigieg. [ applause ] >> from texas, former

congressman beto o'rourke. >> from minnesota senator amy klobuchar. [ applause ] >> from colorado john hickenlooper. [ applause ] >> from ohio, congressman tim ryan. [ applause ] >> from maryland, former congressman john delany.

[ applause ] >> from texas marianne williamson. [ applause ] >> from montana governor steve bullock. [ applause ] >> ladies and gentlemen, the democratic candidates for president of the united states. [ applause ] >> now please rise for the presentation of colors from the james europe vfw post and district four honor guard and

please remain standing for our national anthem performed by detroit's own pastor marvin winens and the perfecting church choir. ♪ o say, can you see

by the dawn's early light ♪ ♪ what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? ♪ ♪ whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight ♪ ♪ o'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? ♪ ♪ and the rockets' red glare the bombs bursting in air ♪ ♪ gave proof through the night that our flag

was still there ♪ ♪ oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave ♪ ♪ o'er the land of the free ♪ ♪ and the home of the brave? ♪ [ applause ]

the stage is set. the debate will begin right after this short break. ♪

and here we have another burst pipe in denmark. if you look close... jamie, are there any interesting photos from your trip? ouch, okay. huh, boring, boring, you don't need to see that. oh, here we go. can you believe my client steig had never heard of a home and auto bundle or that renters could bundle? wait, you're a lawyer? only licensed in stockholm. what is happening? jamie: anyway, game show, kumite, cinderella story. you know karate? no, alan, i practice muay thai, completely different skillset.

so, every day, we put our latest technology and unrivaled network to work. the united states postal service makes more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country.

welcome back to the cnn democratic presidential debate. candidates we're about to begin opening statements but first the review of the ground rules your campaigns agreed to earlier this month to ensure a fair debate. as moderators, we'll attempt to guide the discussion. you'll each receive one minute to answer questions and three minutes for rebuttals and 15 seconds if a moderator asks for clarification. the timing lights will remind you of the limits. please respect that and refrain from interrupting your fellow candidates during their a lotted time. a candidate infringing on another candidate's time will have his or her time reduced. we also want to ask our audience inside the historic fox theater to remain silent when the candidates are actively debating. the candidates need to be able to hear the questions and hear one another. >> time now for opening statements. you'll each receive one minute. governor steve bullock, please begin. >> thanks, dana.

i come from a state where a lot of people voted for donald trump. let's not kid ourselves, he will be hard to beat, yet, watching that last debate folks seem more concerned about scoring points or out doing each other with wish list economics than making sure americans know we hear their voices and will help their lives. look, i'm a pro-choice, prounion, democrat that won three elections in a red state, not by compromising our values but by getting stuff done. that's how we win back the places we lost. showing up, listening, focussing on the challenges of everyday americans. that farmer getting hit right now by trump's trade wars, that teacher working a second job just to afford her insulin, they can't wait for a revolution. their problems are on the here and now. i'm a progressive emphasis on progress and i'm running for president to get stuff done for

all those americans washington has left behind. >> marianne williamson. >> thank you. in 1776 our founders brought forth on this planet an extraordinary new possibility. it was the idea that people no matter who they were would simply have the possibility of thriving. we have not ever totally actuallizy izized this ideal bu times we have done best, we tried. when forces opposed them, generations of americans have risen up and pushed back against those forces. we did that with abolition and women's suffering and civil rights, and now it is time for a generation of americans to rise up again for an amoral economic system has turned short term profits for huge multi national corporations into a false god. and this new false god takes precedence over the safety and the health and the well being of we the american people and the people of the world and the planet on which we live.

conventional politics will not solve this problem because conventional politics is part of the problem. we the american people must rise up and do what we do best and create a new possibility, say no to what we don't want and yes to what we know can be true. i'm marianne williamson and that's why i'm running for president. >> congressman john delaney. >> folks, we have a choice. we can go down the road that senator sanders and senator warren want to take us with bad policies like medicare for all, free everything, and impossible promises that will turn off independent voters and get trump reelected. that's what happened with the others or we can nominate someone with new ideas to create universal health care for every american with choice, someone who wants to unify our country and grow the economy and create jobs everywhere and then we win the white house. i'm the product of the american

dream. i believe in it. i'm the grandson of immigrants, the son of a construction worker. my wife april and i have four amazing daughters. i was the youngest ceo in the history of new york stock exchange, creates thousands of jobs and everything issed in congress. that's the type of background and my platform is about real solution, not impossible promises that can beat trump and govern. thank you. >> congressman tim ryan. >> america is great, but not everyone can access america's greatness. the systems that were built to lift us up are now suffocating the american people. the economic system that used to create 30, 40, $50 an hour jobs that you can have a good solid middle class living now force us to have two or three jobs just to get by. most families when they go to sit at the kitchen table to do their bills, they get a pit in the middle of their stomach.

we deserve better. and the political system is broken, too, because the entire conversation is about left or right, where are you at on the political system and i'm here to say this isn't about left or right. this is about new and better and it's not about reforming old systems. it's about building new systems and tonight, i will offer solutions that are bold, that are realistic, and that are a clean break from the past. >> governor john hickenloopehic >> last year democrats flipped 40 republican seats in the house and not one of those 40 democrats supported the policies of our front runners at center stage. now i share their progressive values around a little more pragmatic. i was out of work for four years and i learned the small business

lessons of how to provide service and team work and became a top mayor and as governor of colorado created the number one economy in the country. we also expanded health care reproductive rights. we attacked climate change head on. we beat the nra. we did not build massive government expansions. some will promise a will or plan for tonight but we focused on was making sure we got people together to get things done, to provide solutions to problems, to make sure that we work together and created jobs. that's how we're going to beat donald trump. that's how we're going to win michigan and the country. >> senator amy klobuchar. >> let's get real. tonight we debate but ultimately, we have to beat donald trump. my background, it's a little different than his. i stand before you today as a granddaughter of an iron miner, as a daughter of a union teacher and a newspaper man, as a first woman elected to the u.s. senate

from the state of minnesota and a candidate for president of the united states. that's because we come from a country of shared dreams, and i have had it with the racist attacks. i have had it with the president that says one thing on tv that has your back and then you get home and you see those charges for prescription drugs and cable and college. you're going to hear a lot of promises up here, but i'm going to tell you this, yes, i have bold ideas, but they are grounded in reality. and yes, i will make some simple promises. i can win this, i'm from the midwest and i've won every race every place every time and i will govern with integrity, the integrity worthy of the extraordinary people of this nation. >> congressman beto o'rourke. >> i'm running for president because i believe that america discovers it's greatness at its moments of greatest need. this moment will define us forever, and i believe that in

this test america will be redeemed. in the face of cruelty and fear from a lawless president, we will choose to be the nation that stands up for the human rights of everyone, for the rule of law for everyone and a democracy that serves everyone. whatever our differences, we know that before we are anything else, we are americans first, and we will ensure that each one of us is well enough and educated enough and paid enough to realize our full potential. we will meet these challenges here at home, and we will lead the world in those that we face abroad. successfully confronting endless war and climate change. at this moment of truth, let us pursue our national promise and make a more perfect union of everyone by everyone and for everyone. >> mayor pete buttigieg. >> i'm running for president because our country is running

out of time. it is even bigger than the emergency of the trump presidency. ask yourself how somebody like donald trump ever gets within cheating distance of the oval office in the first place. it doesn't happen unless america is already in a crisis, an economy not working for everyone, endless war, climate change, we have lived this in my industrial midwestern hometown, my generation has lived this as long as we have been alive, and it's only accelerated. science tells us we have 12 years before we reach the horizon of catastrophe when it comes to our climate. by 2030 the average house in this country will cost $500 million and the women's right to choose may not exist. we will not be able to meet this moment by recycling the same arguments, policies and politicians that have dominated washington for as long as i have been alive. we've got to summon the courage to walk away from the past and do something different.

this is our shot. that is why i'm running for president. >> senator elizabeth warren. >> donald trump disgraces the office of presidents every single day, and anyone on this stage tonight or tomorrow night would be a far better president. i promise no matter who our candidate is, i will work my heart out to beat donald trump and to elect a democratic congress. the problems didn't start with donald trump. donald trump is part of a corrupt, rigged system that has helped the wealthy and the well connected and kicked dirt in the faces of everyone else. we're not going to solve the urgent problems that we face with small ideas and spinelessness. we're going to solve them by being the democratic party of big structural change. we need to be the party that fights for our democracy and our

economy to work for everyone. now, i know what's broken in this country, i know how to fix it, and i will fight to make it happen. >> senator bernie sanders. >> tonight in america as we speak, 87 million americans are uninsured or under insured by the health care industry made $100 billion in profits last year. tonight, as we speak, right now, 500,000 americans are sleeping out on the street, and yet, companies like amazon that made billions in profits did not pay one nickel in federal income tax. tonight, half of the american people are living paycheck to paycheck, and yet, 49% of all new income goes to the top 1%. tonight the fossil fuel industry continues to receive hundreds of

billions of dollars in subsides and tax breaks while they destroy that planet. we have got to take on trump's racism, sexism and come together in an unprecedented grass roots movement that not only defeats trump but to transform our economy and our government. >> thank you senator sanders. let's start the debate with the number one issue for democratic voters, health care. senator sanders, let's start with you. you support medicare for all, which would eventually take private health insurance away from more than 150 million americans in exchange for government-sponsored health care for everyone. congressman delaney just referred to it as bad policy and previously he's called the idea political suicide that will just get president trump reelected. what do you say to congressman delaney? >> you're wrong. [ laughter ]

>> right now we have a dysfunctional health care system. 87 million uninsured or under insured, 500,000 americans every year going bankrupt because of medical bills. 30,000 people dying while the health care industry makes tens of billions of dollars in profit. five minutes away from here, john, is a country called canada. they guarantee health care to every man, woman and child as a human right. they spend half of what we spend and by the way, when you end up in a hospital in canada, you come out with no bill at all. health care is a human right, not a privilege. i believe that. i will fight for that. >> thank you, senator sanders. congressman delaney. >> i'm right about this. we can create a universal health care system to give everyone basic health care for free, and i have a proposal to do it, but we don't have to go around and

be the party of subtraction and telling half the country with private health insurance their health insurance is illegal. my dad the union electrician loved the health care he got. he would never want someone to take this away. half of medicare beneficiaries now have medicare advantage, which is private insurance or supplemental plans. it's bad policy to under fund the industry -- >> thank you congressman. >> senator sanders -- >> also mentioned -- >> we'll come to you in one second. let me go to senator sanders right now. senator sanders? >> the fact of the matter is, tens of millions of people lose their health insurance every single year when they change jobs or their employer changes that insurance. if you want stability in the health care system, if you want a system which givers you freedom of choice with regard to doctor or hospital, which is a system which will not bankrupt you, the answer is to get rid of the profits of the drug

companies and -- >> thank you, senator. >> now he's talking about a different issue. what i'm talking about is really simple. we should deal with the tragedy of uninsured and give everyone health care as a right but why do we have to take something away from people? >> no one is the party -- >> hold on -- >> they are running on telling half the country that your health insurance is illegal and says it right in the bill. >> all right. >> thank you. >> we don't have to do that. we can give everyone health care and allow people to have choice. that's the american way. >> senator warren? >> look, let's be clear about this. we are the democrats. we are not about trying to take away health care from anyone. that's what the republicans are trying to do. [ applause ] >> and we should stop using republican talking points in order to talk with each other about how to best provide that health care. now i want to have a chance to tell the story about my friend eddie. he is 35 years old. he has a wife rachel and a cute

little boy named carl. he also has als and it's killing him, and he has health insurance, good health insurance -- >> senator -- >> and it's not nearly enough. >> senator, i'm staying with you. i'm staying with you but you exceeded your time and so let me just stay with you on medicare for all. >> all right. >> at the last debate you said your quote, with bernie on medicare for all, now senator sanders has said that people in the middle class will pay more in taxes to help pay for medicare for although that will be offset by the elimination of insurance premiums and other costs. are you also quote with bernie on medicare for all when it comes to raising taxes on middle class americans to pay for it? >> so giant corporations and billionaires are going to pay more. middle class families are going to pay less out-of-pocket for their health care. i'd like to finish talking about eddie. the guy who has als, this isn't funny. this is somebody who has health insurance and dying.

every month he has about $9,000 in medical bills that his insurance company won't cover. his wife rachel is on the phone for hours and hours and hours begging the insurance company please cover what the doctors say he needs. he talks about what it's like to go online with thousands of other people to beg friends, family and strangers for money so he can cover his medical expenses. the basic profit model of an insurance company is taking as much money as you can in premiums and pay out as little as possible in health care coverage. that is not working for americans -- >> thank you. >> -- medicare for all will fix that and that's why i'll fight for it. >> in 15 extra seconds, would you raise taxes on the middle class to pay for medicare for all offset obviously by the elimination of insurance premiums, yes or no? >> costs will go up for billionaires and go up for

corporations, for middle class families, costs total costs will go down. >> governor bullock, i want to bring you in. you do not support medicare for all. how do you respond to senator warren? >> never forget when my 12-year-old son had a heart attack within 24 hours of his life. had to be lifeflighted to salt lake city but because we had good insurance, he's here with me tonight. at the end of the day i won't support any plan that rips away quality health care from individuals. this is an example of wish list economics. it used to be republicans that wanted to repeal and replace, now many democrats do, as well. we can get there with the public option, negotiating drug prices indeed -- >> thank you governor bullock. i want to bring in minor buttigieg. on the topic whether or not the middle class should pay for the elimination of insurance premiums, how do you respond, mayor? >> we don't have to stand up here speculating about whether

the public option will be better or medicare for all environment will be better than corporate options. we'll put it to the test. that's the concept for medicare for all that want the proposal that way if people like me are right, that the public alternative is going to be not only more comprehensive but more affordable than corporate options around there, we'll see americans walk away from the corporate options into that medicare option and it will become medicare for all -- >> 15 seconds on the clarification. you are willing to raise taxes on middle class americans in order to have universal coverage with the disappearance of insurance premiums, yes or no? >> i think you can buy into it. that's the idea of medicare for all that want to. look, this is a distinction without a difference whether you're paying the same amount of money in premiums or taxes. if you don't have health coverage, you're paying too much for care and if you do -- >> thank you. i want to bring in congressman o'rourke on the topic if the middle class should pay higher

taxes for the elimination of insurance premiums, what's your response? >> no, the middle class will not pay more in taxes to ensure that every american is guaranteed world class health care. i think we're being offered a false choice. some who want to improve the affordable care act at the margins, others who want a medicare for all program that will force people off of private insurance, i have a better path. medicare for america, everyone who is uninsured is enrolled in medicare tomorrow. those insufficiently insured are enrolled -- >> just a 15 seconds -- >> offering -- >> jake -- >> who is offering a false choice here. >> you have some. governor bullock said we will improve the affordable care act at the margins with a public option. you have others to my right talking about taking away people's choice for the private insurance they have or members of unions, i was listening -- >> thank you, congressman. governor bullock, you said

you're offering a false choice, sir. >> congressman, not at all. it took us decades in false starts to get the affordable care act. so let's actually build on it, a public option allowing anyone to buy in, you know, we pay more for prescription drugs than anyplace actually in the world. we have nothing to show for it. negotiate prescription drug prices. end surprise medical billing. that's the way to get there without disrupting the lives of 160 million people. >> estimate i've seen leaves millions of people uninsured and also means that people are not guaranteed the health care that they need as the example that senator warren showed us. our plan ensures that everyone is enrolled in medicare or can keep their employer sponsored insurance. when we listen to the american people and this is what they want us to do, they want everyone covered but want to be able --

>> thank you congressman. i want to bring in senator klobuchar. senator warren at the beginning of the night said that democrats cannot bring -- cannot win the white house with small ideas and spinelessness. she said politicians not supporting medicare for all simply lack the will to fight for it. you do not support medicare for all. is senator warren correct? do you not lack the will to tice f -- fight for it? >> that is false. in my first debate i was called a street fighter from the iron range. when she said it, i said thank you. this is what i think we need to get done. we need the public option. that's what barack obama wanted and it would bring health care costs down for everyone, and by the way, i just don't buy this. i've heard some of these candidates say that it's somehow not moral if you -- not moral to not have that public option. well, senator sanders was actually on a public option bill last year and that was bernie the medicaid public option bill

that senator shots introduced. clearly, this is the easiest way to move forward quickly and i want to get things done. people can't wait. i've got my friend nicole out there whose son was actually died trying to ration his insurance li insulin as a restaurant manager and he died -- >> thank you, senator. >> i'm going to go to senator sanders -- >> also medicare bill. let me clear up one thing. if people talk about having insurance, there are millions of people who have insurance that can't go to the doctor and where they come out of the hospital, they go bankrupt. all right? [ applause ] >> what i am talking about and others up here are talking about is no deductibles and no co-payments and jake, your question is a republican talking point. at the end of the day and by the way, and by the way, by the way,

the health care industry will be advertising tonight on this program -- >> thank you, senator. senator warren, it's your turn. >> please -- >> your time is up. >> they will be advertising tonight with that talking point. >> senator warren. >> we have to think of this in terms of big frame. what's the problem in washington? it works great for the wealthy. it works great for those who can hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers and it keeps working great for the insurance companies and the drug companies. what it's going to take is real courage to fight back against them. these insurance companies do not have a god given right to make $23 billion in profits and suck it out of our health care system. >> thank you, senator. >> they do not have a god given right -- >> page 8 of the bill it says -- >> i'll let congressman delaney -- >> if we could all stick to the rules of the time, it would be great. >> i'm the only one on the stage with experience in the health care business and with all due respect, i don't think my colleagues understand the

business. we have the public option -- >> it's not a business. >> the public option is great but doesn't go far enough. it doesn't go far enough. i'm proposing universal health care where everyone gets health care as a basic human right for free, but they have choices. my plan better care is fully paid for without raising middle class tax options -- >> thank you congressman. >> there is medicare for all -- >> i was interrupted. >> i want to bring in governor hickenlooper. i'd like to hear what you say about senator warren's suggestion those on stage not that favor for medicare for all lack the will to fight for it. >> obviously, i disagree with that as much as i respect the senators to the right. it comes down to the question of americans being used to be able to make choices, to have the right to make a decision and i think proposing a public option that allows some form of medicare, maybe a combination of medicare advantage and medicare but people choose it and if

enough people choose it, it expands, quality improves and costs come down. more people choose it eventually in 15 years you can get there but it would be an evolution, not a revolution. >> senator warren? >> jake? >> we have tried this experiment with the insurance companies and what they have done is sucked billions of dollars out of our health care system and they force people to have to fight to try to get the health care coverage that their doctors and nurses say they need. why does everyone, why does every doctor, why does every hospital have to fill out so many complicated forms? it because it gives insurance companies a chance to say no. and to push that cost back on the patient. >> thank you. i want to bring in marianne williamson. how do you respond to the criticism from senator warren that you're not willing to fight for medicare for all? >> i don't know if senator warren said that about me specifically. i admire what senator warren said and bernie said, but i have to say, i have -- i'm normally

way over there with bernie and elizabeth on this one. i hear the others, and i have some concern about that, as well. and i do have concern about what the republicans would say and that's not just a republican talking point. i do have concern that it will be difficult. i have concern that it will make it harder to win, and i have a concern that it will make it harder to govern because if that's our big fight -- >> thank you. >> republicans -- >> i want to bring in mayor buttigieg. >> it's time to stop worrying about what the republicans will say. if it's true we eloquent brambr left agenda, they will say we're crazy socialist. if we embrace a conservative agen agenda, they will see we're a bunch of crazy socialist. let's stand up for the right policy, go up there and defend it. that's a policy i'm putting forward not because it's the right triangulation but the right answer for people like my mother-in-law whose life was saved by the aca but far too vulnerable to the fact that the

insurance industry does not care about -- >> senator sander, your response? >> let's be clear what this debate is about. nobody can defend the dysfunctionty of the current system. what we are taking on is the fact that over the last 20 years the drug companies and insurance companies have spent $4.5 billion of your health insurance money by lobbying and campaigning contributions. that is why when i went to canada the other day, people paid one-tenth the price in canada for insulin -- >> thank you, senator. >> -- than they are paying in the united states. >> congressman, your response? >> here we are in detroit, home of the auto workers and have union friends here tonight. this plan being offered by senator warren and sanders will tell the union members that give away wages in order to get good health care that they will lose their health care because washington is going to come in and tell them they have a better

plan. this is the left and right thing. new and better is this. move the medicare down to 50. allow people to buy in. kaiser permanente said if those 60 million people do that, they will see a -- >> thank you congressman. >> -- they will see a 40% reduction in health care costs -- >> thank you congressman. senator, let's talk about that. if medicare for all was enacted, there are more than 6 00,000 union members here in michigan that would be forced to give up private health care plans. i understand it would provide universal coverage but can you guarantee those union members that the benefits under medicare for all will be as good as the benefits that their representatives, their union reps fought hard to negotiate? >> two things. they will be better because medicare for all is comprehensive and covers all health care needs for senior citizens it will finally include dental care, hearing aids and eyeglass eyeglasses. second of all -- >> you don't know that, bernie. >> we'll come to you bernie. >> i do, i wrote the damn bill.

[ applause ] >> second of all, many of our union brothers and sisters, nobody more prounion than me up here are now paying high deductibles and co-payments and when we do medicare for all, instead of having the company putting money into health care, they can get descent wage increases which they are not getting today. >> i want to bring in congressman ryan to respond? >> senator sanders does not know the union contracts in the united states. i'm trying to explain that these union members are loosing their jobs. their wages have been stagnant. the world is crumbling around them. the only thing they have is possibly really good health care, and the democratic message is going to be we're going to go in and the only thing you have left, we're going to take and do better. i do not think that's a recipe for success for us. it's bad policy and it's certainly bad politics. >> congressman delaney. >> the bill that senator sanders drafted by definition will lower quality in health care because

it says specifically that the rates will be the same as current medicare rates, and the data is clear, medicare does not cover the cost of health care. it covers 80% of the cost of health care in this country, and private insurance covers 120%. so if you start under paying all the health care providers, you're going to create a two tier market where wealthy people buy health care with cash and the people forced like my dad, the union electrician -- >> thank you, congressman. >> -- they will be forced -- >> i want to give senator sanders a chance to respond. >> under medicare for all, the hospitals will save substantial sums of money because they won't be spending a fortune doing billing and the other bureaucratic things they have to do today. >> i've done the math -- >> maybe you did that and made money off of health care but our job is to run a non-profit health care system. third of all, third of all, when we say $500 billion a year by ending all of the incredible

complexities that are driving -- >> thank you -- >> -- trying to deal the health insurance -- >> have a chance to respond. >> his math is wrong. that's all i'm saying. his math is wrong. it's been well documented if all the bills were paid at medicare rate, then many hospitals in this country would close. i've been going around rural america and ask rural hospital administrators one question, if all your bills were paid at the medicare rate last year, what would happen? they all look at me and say we would close. but the question is why do we have to be so extreme? why can't we just give everyone health care as a right, and allow them to have choices -- >> thank you congressman. so -- >> we're going to move on to the issue of immigration now. there is wide spread agreement on this stage on the need for immigration reform, a pathway to citizen ship for undocumented

immigrants including dreamers but there are some areas of disagreement. mayor buttigieg, you're in favor of getting rid of the law that makes it a crime to come across the u.s. border illegally. why won't that encourage more illegal immigration? >> when i am president, illegally crossing the border will still be illegal. we can argue over the finer points of which parts should be handled by civil law and criminal law but we have a crisis on our hands, not just a crisis of immigration but cruelty and incompetence that is creating a humanitarian disaster on our southern border. it is a stain on the quite of america. americans want comprehensive immigration reform. and frankly, we've been talking about the same frame work for my entire adult lifetime. making sure we have a pathway for citizenship and cleaning up lawful immigration. we know what to do. we know border security can be part of the package and we can be a nation of laws, the problem

is we haven't had the will to get it done in washington and now we have a president who could fix it in a month because there is that bipartisan agreement, but he needs it to be a crisis rather than an achievement. that will end on my watch. >> but just a point of clarification, you did raise your hand in the last debate. you do want to decriminalize crossing the border illegally. >> if fraud is involved, that's suitable for the criminal statute. if not, it should be handled under civil law. these show of hands is what is wrong -- >> we're not doing that here. congressman, thank you. congressman, o'rourke. you live near the u.s. mexico border in el paso and disagree with mayor buttigieg on decriminalizing the border crossings. please respond. >> i do because in my administration after we have waived citizen ship fees for green card holders, more than 9 million of our fellow americans, free dreamers who many fear of deportation and stop criminally prosecuting families and children for seeking asylum and

ref p refuge and for profit detention and so that no family has to make that 2,000 mile journey than i expect that people who come here follow our laws and we reserve the right to criminally prosecute them. >> thank you congressman. senator warren, you say the provision making illegal border crossings a crime is totally unnecessary. please respond. >> so the problem is that right now the criminalization statute is what gives donald trump the ability to take children away from their parents. it's what gives him the ability to lock up people at our borders. we need to continue to have border security and we can do that, but what we can't do is not live our values. i've been down to the border. i have seen the mothers. i have seen the cages of babies. we must be a country that every day lives our values, and that means --

>> thank you senator warren. just to clarify, would you decriminalize -- >> yes. >> illegal border crossings. >> the point is not about criminalization. that has given donald trump the tool to break families apart. >> thank you, senator. >> governor hickenlooper, your response. >> i agree that we need to secure borders. there is no question about that. the frustration with what's going on in washington is they are kicking the ball back and forth. secure the borders and make sure whatever law we have doesn't allow children to be snatched from parents and put in cages. how hard can that be? on two debate nights, we have 170 years of washington experience. somehow it seems like that should be fairly fixable. >> well, and one way to fix it is to decriminalize. that's the whole point. what we're looking for here is a way to take away the tool -- >> thank you senator warren. >> donald trump used to break up families. >> senator klobuchar, your response. >> i would say there is a will to change this in congress. what's missing is the right person in the white house.

i believe that immigrants don't diminish america, they are america and if you want to do something about border security, you first of all change the rules so then you pass the bill, and what the bill will do is it will greatly reduce the deficit and give us some money for border security and for border processing the cases and most of all, it will allow for a path to citizenship. because this is not just about the border. >> thank you. >> donald trump wants to use these people as political pawns. >> thank you senator klobuchar. >> when we have people all over our country who simply want to work and obey the law. >> senator sandsers you want to provide undocumented immigrants free health care and free college, why won't this drive even more people to come to the u.s. illegally. >> we'll have strong border protections but the main point i want to make is that what trump is doing through his racism and his xenophobia is demonizing a group of people.

and as president, i will end that demonization. if a mother and a child walk thousands of miles on a dangerous path in my view, they are not criminals. they are people fleeing violence, and i think the main thing that we have got to do, among many others, beto made this point, we've got to ask ourselves, why are people walking 2,000 miles to a strange country where they don't know the language. so what we will do, the first week we are in the white house, is bring the entire hemisphere together to talk about how we rebuild honduras, gat uatemala el salvador so people do not have to flee their own countries. >> about 2/3 of democratic voters and many rivals for the nomination support giving health insurance to undocumented immigrants. you haven't gone that far, why not? >> look, i think this is part of the discussion that shows how often these debates are detached from people's lives.

we got a hundred thousand people showing up at the border right now. if we decriminalize entry, if we give health care to everyone, we'll have multiples of that. don't take my word. that was president obama's homeland security secretary that said that. the biggest problem right now that we have with immigration, it's donald trump. he's using immigration to not only rip apart families but rip apart this country. we can actually get to the point where we have both safe borders, where we have a path to citizenship, where we have opportunities for dreamers, and you don't have to decriminalize everything. what you have to do is have a president in there with the judgment and the decency to treat someone that comes to the border like one of our own. >> i want to add on this. >> he said your plan is unrealistic, how do you respond? >> you know, i think that what

we have to do is we have to be an america that is clear about what we want to do with immagratio immigration. we need to expand legal immigration, we need to create a path for citizenship, not just for dreamers, but for grandmas, people who have been working here on the farms, students who have overstayed their visas, we need to fix the crisis at the border. and a big part of how we do that is we do not play into donald trump's hands. he wants to stir up the crisis at the border because that's his overall message. if there's anything wrong in your life, blame ben. >> thank you, governor bullock. >> but you are playing into donald trump's hands. the challenge isn't that it's a criminals of to cross the border. the challenge is that donald trump is president and using this to rip families apart. a sane immigration system needs a sane leader, and we can do that without decriminalizing, providing health care for everyone. and it's not me saying that. that's obama's homeland security

secretary that said you'll cause further problems at the border, not making it better. >> what you're saying is ignore the law. laws matter. and it matters if we say our law is that we will lock people up who come here seeking refuge, who come here seeking asylum. that is not a crime. and as americans, what we need to do is have a sane system that keeps us safe at the border but does not criminalize the activity of a mother fleeing here for safety. >> congressman ryan, are senator sanders proposals going to incentivize undocumented immigrants to come into the country illegally? >> yes, and right now if you want to come into the country, you should at least ring the doorbell. we have asylum law. i saw the kids up in grand rapids not far from here. it's shameful what is happening but donald trump is doing it, and even if you decriminalize, which we should not do, you

still have statutory authority, the president could still use his authority to separate families. so we've got to get rid of donald trump, but you don't decriminalize people just walking into the united states. if they're seeking asylum, of course we want to welcome them. we're a strong enough country to be able to welcome them, and as far as the health care goes, undocumented people can buy health care, too. i mean, everyone else in america is paying for their health care. i think -- i don't think it's a stretch for us to ask undocumented people in the country to also pay for health care. >> senator sanders, your response? >> two things, a sane immigration policy moves the comprehensive immigration reform, it moves to a humane border policy in which, by the way, we have enough administrative judges so that we don't have incredible backlogs that we have right now. but to answer your question, i happen to believe that when i talk about health care as a human right, that applies to all

people in this country and under a medicare for all single payer system, we could afford to do that. >> ms. williamson, your response. >> everything we are talking about is what's wrong with american politics and the democratic party needs to understand we talk not just about symptoms but also about causes. when we're talking about health care, we need to talk about more than just the health care plan. we need to realize we have a sickness care, rather than a health care system. we need to be the party talking about why so many of our chemical policies and our food policies and our agricultural policies and our environmental policies and even our economic policies are leading to people getting sick to begin with. >> thank you. >> that's what the democratic -- but i want to say more. >> thank you ms. william southern. >> come back to me this time. >> let's turn to the issue of gun violence. there were three large scale shootings in america, at a park in brooklyn, the streets of philadelphia, and one that left three dead and two injured at a food festival in gilroy,

california, mayor buttigieg, other than words of comfort, what are you going to do to stop this epidemic of gun violence. >> this epidemic of gun violence has hit my community too, far too many times. it's the worst part of being mayor, getting the phone call, consoling grieving parents and we have a mass shootings worth of killings every day in this country. what we're doing hasn't worked because we haven't had a system in washington capable of delivering what the american people have told us they want. 90% of republicans want universal background checks, not to mention the common sense solutions like red flag laws that disarm domestic abusers and flag mental health risks and an end to assault weapons, things like what i carried overseas in uniform that have no business in american neighborhood in peacetime, let alone anywhere near a psychologicschool. i was at an event a few days ago and a 13-year-old asked me what we were going to do about school safety, and then began shaking

and then began crying. we can talk about these policies but we already know the policies. the only thing i could think of looking into the eyes of this child is we're supposed to be dealing with this so you don't have to. high school is hard enough without having to worry about whether you're going to get shot and when 90% of americans want something to happen, and washington can't do it. >> thank you, mayor. >> we can't expect the same. >> governor hickenlooper your response. >> i disagree with his diagnosis of the problem. >> we'll come to you in a minute. governor hickenlooper, please respond. >> this is the fundamental nonsense of government. another place where despite our best efforts, we can't seem to make any progress. when i went to the movie theater in aurora in 2012 and saw that footage of what happened at that crime scene, i'll never forget it, and we decided, you know, that we were going to go out and take on the nra, and we pass as a purple state, we passed universal background checks. we limited magazine capacity. we did the basic work that for

whatever reason doesn't seem to be able to get done in washington. >> thank you, governor, senator klobuchar, please respond. >> this isn't just about a system or it's not just about words. this is about the nra. i sat across from the president of the united states after parkland because i have been a leader on these issues and have the will to close the boyfriend loophole, and i watched and wrote down when nine times he said he wanted universal background checks. the next day he goes and he meets with the nra and he folds. as your president, i will not fold. i will make sure that we get universal background checks passed. the assault weapon ban, that we do something about magazines, and that we understand when that little 6-year-old boy died, stephen romero, when his dad said he's only 6 years old. all i can say is he's only 6 years old. we have to remember that. >> this is the exact same

conversation we have been having when i was in high school. i was a junior when the columbine shooting happened. i am the first generation to see school shootings. we have produced the second generati generation. we dare not allow there to be a third. something is broken, if it is even possible for the same debate around the same solutions that we all know are the right thing to do. they won't prevent every incident. they won't save every life. we know what to do, and it has not happened. >> thank you, mayor. senator klobuchar, please respond. >> yes, what is broken is a political system that allows the nra and other large big money to come in and make things not happen when the majority of people are for it. the people are with us now. after parkland, those students just didn't march. they talked to their dads and their grandpas and the hunters in their family, and they said there must be a better way. and we elected people in the house of representatives and guess what it changed and they passed universal background checks and now that bill is sitting on mitch mcconnell's doorstep because of the money and the power of the nra. as president, i will take them

on. >> thank you, senator. >> this is not about systems and words. >> thank you, senator klobuchar. governor bullock, how can democrats trust you to be the leader on this fight for gun safety when you only change your position to call for an assault weapons ban last summer? >> i feel like 40% of american households, i'm a gun owner, i hunt, like far too many people in america, i have been personally impacted by gun violence. had an 11-year-old nephew, jeremy, shot and killed on a playground. we need to start looking at this as a public health issue, not a political issue. i agree with senator klobuchar. it is the nra. and it's not just gun violence, it's when we talk about climate, when we talk about prescription drug costs. washington, d.c. is captured by dark money, the koch brothers and others. that's been the fight of my career. kicking the koch brothers out of montana, taking the first case after citizens united up to the supreme court, making it so that

elections are about people. that's the way we're actually going to make a change on this is by changing that system, and most of the things that folks are talking about on the stage. we're not going to address until we kick dark money and the post citizens united corporate spending out of these elections. >> congressman o'rourke, your response. >> how else can we explain that we lose nearly 40,000 people in this country to gun violence, a number that no other country comes even close to, that we know what all the solutions are and yet nothing has changed. it is because in this country, none buys influence, access and increasingly outcomes. the centers for disease control prevented from actually studying the issue in the first place as president we will make sure that we ban political action committee contributions to any member of congress or any candidate for federal office. we will listen to people, not pacs, people, not corporations, people not special interests. >> congressman, thank you very much. >> senator sanders, you said

this in 2013, just months after the sandy hook massacre, and i quote here, if you pass the strongest gun control legislation tomorrow, i don't think it will have a profound effect on the tragedies we have seen. do you still agree with that statement today? >> i think we have got to do -- i think what i meant is what president obama said in that nobody up here is going to tell you that we have a magical solution to the crisis. now, i come from one of the most rural states in america. i have a d minus voting record from the nra and as president i suspect it will be an f record. what i believe we have got to do is have the guts to fuinally tae on the nra. you asked me about my record. back in 1988, coming from a state that had no gun control, i called for the ban of the sale and distribution of assault weapons. i lost that election. i will do everything i can not only to take on the nra, but to expand and create universal background checks, do away with the strong man provision, do

away with the gun show loophole, and do away with the loopholes that now exist for gun manufacturers who are selling large amounts of weapons into communities that are going to gangs. >> yeah. mayor buttigieg, your response. >> still, the conversation that we have been having for the last 20 years, of course we need to get money out of politics, but when i propose the actual structural democratic reforms that might make a difference, end the electoral college, amend the constitution if necessary to clear up citizens united, have d.c. actually be a state and depoliticize the supreme court with structural reform, people look at me funny, as if this country was incapable of structural reform. this is a country that once changed its constitution so you couldn't drink and changed it back because we changed our minds and you're tell me we can't reform our democracy in our time. we have to or we will be having the same argument 20 years from now. >> please respond, gentlemen. >> you can make changes, even in montana with a 2/3 republican

legislature, we passed a law that said if you're going to spend money in our elections, i don't care if you call yourselves americans for america, for america, you're going to have to disclose every one of those dollars in the last 90 days. running for reelection in 2016, even we stopped the koch brothers from spending it that time. if we can kick the koch brothers out of montana, we can do it in d.c., we can do it everywhere, and we are also taking additional steps that we take, and i passed an executive order, in a contract with the state. >> governor bullock, thank you very much. >> ms. williamson, how do you respond to the issue of gun safety. >> the issue of gun safety is the nra has us in a choke hold, the pharmaceutical companies, the health insurance companies, and so do the defense contractors and none of this will change until we either pass a constitutional amendment or pass legislation that establishes public funding for federal campaigns. but for politicians, including my fellow candidates who themselves have taken tens of thousands and in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars

from these same corporate donors to think that they now have the moral authority to say we're going to take them on, i don't think the democratic party should be surprised that so many americans believe yada, yada, it's time for us to start over with people who have not taken donations and can say with real moral authority, that is over, we are going to establish public funding for federal campaigns. that's what we need to stand up to. we need to have a constitutional amendment. we need to have legislation to do it, and until we do it, it's just the same old same old. >> thank you ms. williamson. the debate will be right back right after this short break. i had always heard stories about my great grandfather,

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extremes give trump four more years. are you saying that senator sanders is too extreme to beat president trump? >> i'm saying the policies of this notion that you're going to take private insurance away from 180 million americans who many of them don't want to give it. many of them do want to get rid of it, but some don't, many don't, the green new deal make sure that every american's guaranteed a government job if they want, that is a disaster. you might as well fedex the election to donald trump. i think we have to focus on where donald trump is failing. you know, the word of mouth practice, this is interesting, i thought it was doctors or lawyers, it's negligent and proper, illegal, professional activity for doctors, lawyers or public officials, google it. check it out. donald trump is malpractice personified. we've got to point that out. why is it soybean farmers in iowa need ten good years to get back to where they were two years ago. where are the small manufacturing jobs that are supposed to come back.

why are we lurching from one international crisis to another, all things he promised american voters, we have to focus on that and the economy and jobs and training so that we can promise a future for america that everybody wants to invest in. >> thank you, governor. senator sanders, you are a proud democratic socialist, how do you respond to governor hickenlooper. >> well, the truth is that every credible poll that i have seen has me beating donald trump, including the battleground states of michigan where i won the democratic primary, wisconsin, where i won the democratic primary, and pennsylvania. and the reason we are going to defeat trump and beat him badly is that he is a fraud and a phony, and we're going to expose him for what he is. the american people want to have a minimum wage which is a living wage, 15 bucks an hour. i've helped lead that effort. the american people want to pay reasonable prices for prescription drugs, not the highest prices in the world. >> thank you, senator.

>> i have helped lead the effort for that as well. >> governor hickenlooper, i want to bring you back to respond. >> so again, i think if we're going to force americans to make these radical changes, they're not going to go along. throw your hands up, but you haven't -- >> i will. >> i can do it. >> you haven't implemented the plans. us governors and mayors are the ones, we have to pick up the pieces when suddenly the government is supposed to take other all of these responsibilities and there's no preparation, the details, you can't just spring a plan on the world and expect it to succeed. >> senator sanders? >> john, i was a mayor, and i helped transform my city. i have some practical experience. second of all, today is the anniversary of medicare. 54 years ago under ljohnson and the democratic congress, they started a program, 1 million elderly in it. please don't tell me that in a four-year period we cannot go from 65 down to 55 to 45 to 35. this is not radical.

this is what virtually every other country on earth does. >> thank you, senator. i want to bring in congressman ryan, you're from the state of ohio, a state that voted twice for obama and then went to president trump in 2016. please respond to senator sanders. >> i would just say hillary clinton was winning in the polls, too. to take a snapshot in the polls today and apply it 16 months from now, whenever it is, i don't think is accurate. now, in this discussion already tonight, we have talked about taking private health insurance away from union members and the industrial midwest, we have talked about decriminalizing the border, and we've talked about giving free health care to undocumented workers when so many americans are struggling to pay for their health care. i quite frankly don't think that that is an agenda that we can move forward on and win. we've got to talk about the working class issues, the people that take a shower after work who haven't had a raise in 30 years. >> thank you. >> if we focus on that we'll win the election. >> i want to bring in congressman o'rourke, your response. >> bernie was talking about battle ground states in which we

compete, there's a new battle ground state, texas and it has 38 electoral college votes and the way we put it in play is going to each one of those 254 counties, no matter how red or rural, we did not write you off, no matter how blue or urban, wer we did not take you for granted. we have the courage of our convictions talking about universal health care, immigration reform and confronting the challenge of climate before it is too late. we brought everyone in and thousand we have a chance to beat donald trump with texas. >> i want to bring in governor bullock, talking about whether democrats are moving too far to the left to win the white house. president trump won your home state of montana by 20 points, ho do you -- how do you respond, sir? >> the only one of the field of 37 who won a trump state, 25 to 30% of my voters voted for donald trump: i know that we do have to win back some of those places we lost, and get those trump voters back if we're ever going to win. this isn't just a choice between the left and the center. it's not a choice just between

some of these wish list economics or thinking that we have to sacrifice our values to actually win. what folks want is a fair shot. the way i won, the way we can win is actually focus on the economy and democracy, aren't working for most people. that's how i win. >> thank you, governor. >> that's how we can take back the office. >> senator warren, you make it a point to say you're a capitalist, is that your way of saying you're a safer choice than senator sanders. >> it's my way of talking about i know how to fight and i know how to win. i took on giant banks and i beat them. i took on wall street, and ceos, and their lobbyists and their lawyers and i beat them. i took on a popular republican incumbent senator, and i beat him. i remember when people said barack obama couldn't get elected. shoot, i remember when people said donald trump couldn't get elected. but here's where we are. i get it. there is a lot at stake, and

people are scared. but we can't choose a candidate we don't believe in just because we're too scared to do anything else. and we can't ask other people to vote for a candidate we don't believe in. democrats win when we figure out what is right and we get out there and fight for it. i am not afraid and for democrats to win, you can't be afraid either. >> congressman delaney, your response? >> so i think democrats win when we run on real solutions, not impossible promises. when we run on things that are workable, not fairy tale economics, look at the story of detroit, this amazing city that we're in. this city is turning around because the government and the private sector are working well together. that has to be our model going forward. we need to encourage collaboration between the government, the private sector and the nonprofit sector, and focus on those kitchen table, pocketbook issues that matter to

hard working americans, building infrastructure, creating jobs, improving their pay. >> thank you, con congressman. >> lowering drug produces, we can do it. >> i don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running to the president of the united states to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for. i don't get it. our biggest problem in washington is corruption. it is giant corporations that have taken our government and that are holding it by the throat, and we need to have the courage to fight back against that and until we're ready to do that, it's just more of the same. well, i'm ready to get in this fight. i'm ready to win this fight. >> thank you senator, congressman delaney. >> when we created social security, we didn't say pensions were illegal. right. we can have big ideas to transform the lives. i mean, i started two companies and took them public before i was 40. i'm as big of a dreamer and an entrepreneur as anyone, but i

also believe we need to have solutions that are workable. can you imagine if we tried to start social security now but said private pensions are illegal. that's the equivalent of what senator sanders and senator warren are proposing with health care. that's not a big idea. that's an idea that'sdeadon arrival. that will never happen so why don't we actually talk about things, big ideas that we can get done. >> thank you, congressman. >> the stakes are too high. >> senator warren. >> we'll come to you right after that. >> senator warren. >> he talks about solutions that are workable. we have tried the solution of medicare, medicaid, and private insurance. and what have the private insurance companies done, they have sucked billions of dollars out of our health care system. they have made everybody fill out does skpzens and dozens of why, not because they're trying to track your health care, they just want one more excuse to say no. insurance companies do not have a god given right to suck money

out of our health care system. >> thank you, senator. >> and 2020 is our chance to stop that. >> senator sanders? >> detroit was mentioned and i'm delighted that detroit is rebounding but let us understand detroit was nearly destroyed because of awful trade policy which allowed corporations to throw workers in this community out on the streets as they moved to low wage countries. to win this election and to defeat donald trump, which by the way, in my view is not going to be easy, we need to have a campaign of energy and excitement and of vision. we need to bring millions of young people into the political process in a way that we have never seen by among other things, making public colleges and universities tuition free and cancelling student debt. >> thank you, senator. thank you, senator. i want to bring in -- i want to bring in senator klobuchar at the beginning of the night, you said you're going to hear a lot of promises on the stage, and

previously you have said when asked about your primary opponents, quote, a lot of people are making promises and i'm not going to make promises just to get elected, who on this stage is making promises just to get elected. >> everyone wants to get elected but my point is this, i think when we have a guy in the white house who has now told over 10,000 lies that we better be very straightforward with the american people, and no, do i think that we are going to end up voting for a plan that kicks half of america off of their current insurance in four years, no, i don't think we're going to do that. i think there is a better way to get what we all want to see which is lower costs for health care. do i think that we're going to vote to give free college to the wealthiest kids, no, i don't think we're going to do that. so that's what i'm talking about. but what i don't like about this argument right now, what i don't like about it at all is we are more worried about winning an argument tan winning an election, and i think how we win an election is to bring everyone

with us and yes, i am one in a state every single time statewide, i have won those congressional districts that donald trump won by over 20 points. he just targeted minnesota last week, and i have done it by getting out there and talking to people, by knowing rural issues and farm issues. >> thank you, senator klobuchar. >> and bringing metro people with me in the state that has the highest voter turnout in the country. that's what we want. >> congressman o'rourke, please respond. >> i think a big part of leadership and showing our commitment to the american people is delivering on our commitments. as a member of congress, when i learned that the el paso va had the worst wait times for mental health care in the country, meaning that care delayed functionally became care denied and was related to the suicide epidemic. we made it our priority and we turned around the va in el paso, we took that lesson nationally, and worked with republican and democratic colleagues to expand medical care care to veterans and we got it signed into law by

the one person with whom i agree on almost nothing, donald trump to show that at the end of the day, we will put the american people first before party, before any other concern. >> thank you congressman o'rourke. we have been asking voters to weigh in on what they would most like to hear democrats debate, among the topics they told us they are most interested in, the climate crisis. congress nan delaney, i'll start with you, the green new deal is about as realistic as trump saying mexico is going to pay for the wall. scientists say we need to essentially eliminate fossil fuel pollution by 2050 to avoid the most catastrophic consequences, why isn't this sweeping plan to fight the climate crisis realistic. >> first of all, because it ties its progress to other things that are completely unrelated to climate like universal health care, guaranteed government jobs and universal basic income. my plan gets us to net zero by 2050 which we absolutely have to do for our kids and grand kids will get us there. i put a price on carbon, take

all the money, give it back to the american people in a dividend. that was introduced on a bipartisan basis. it's the only significant bipartisan climate bill in the congress. i'm going to increase the department of energy research budget by five fold because we fundamentally have to innovate our way out of the problem. i'm going to create a market for direct air capture, which are machines that actually take carbon out of the atmosphere, i don't think we'll get to net zero by 2050 unless we have those things. increase investment in renewables and create something called the climate core. that is a plan that's real i guess -- realistic, a bet on the economy, and creates incentives to get us to net zero by 2050 for our kids. >> senator warren, you're a cosponsor of the green new deal, your response. >> climate crisis is the existential crisis for our world, it puts every living thing on this planet at risk. i have a plan for a green

industrial policy that takes advantage of the fact that we do what we do best, and that is innovate and create. so i propose putting $2 trillion in so we do the research. we then say anyone in the world can use it so long as you build it right here in america. that will produce about 1.2 million manufacturing jobs right here in michigan, right here in ohio, right here in the industrial midwest. and the second thing we will do is we will then sell those products all around the world. right now for every $1 the united states spends trying to market around the world, china is spending a hundred dollars. >> thank you, senator warren. >> governor hickenlooper you take issue with the green new deal. please respond. >> i think the guarantee for a public job for everyone who wants one is a classic part of the problem. it's a distraction. i share the urgency of everyone up here. we have to recognize, i mean, everyone's got good ideas, what we do in this country is no

matter than just a best practice. right, it's what we do here is a best practice and a template but it's got to be done all over the world. we've got to be building bridges with people like china who were cheating on international agreements and stealing intellectual property. we need to work on that, but not with a tariff system. we need every country working together if we're going to really deal with climate change in a realistic way. >> senator warren, your response. >> look, i put a real policy on the table to create 1.2 million new jobs in green manufacturing. there's going to be a $23 trillion worldwide market for this. this could revitalize huge cities across this country, and no one wants to talk about it. what you want to do is find the republican talking point of a made up piece of some other part and say, oh, we don't really have to do anything. that's the problem we've got in washington right now. it continues to be a washington

that works great for oil companies, just not for people worried about climate change. >> thank you, senator warren, congressman ryan, we are here in michigan where there are about 180,000 workers in auto manufacturing, your state of ohio has around 96,000 workers in that industry. senator sanders is cosponsoring a bill tahat would eliminate ne gas powered car sales by 2040. given the number of auto manufacturing workers in your state, how concerned are you about senator sanders plan. >> if we get our act together we won't have to worry about. my plan is to create a chaef manufacturing officer so we can start manging things in the united states again that would pull the government, department of energy, department of transportation, work with the private sector, work with investors, emerging tech companies to dominate the electric vehicle market. china dominates it now, 50 to 60%. i want us to dominate the battery market, make those here in the united states and cut the workers in on the deal. the charging stations, solar panels, same thing, china dominates 60% of the solar panel

market. this person will work in the white house, report directly to me, and we're going to start making things again. but you cannot get there on climate unless we talk about agriculture. we need to convert our industrial agriculture system over to a sustainable and regenerative agriculture system that sequesters carbon into the soil. you can ask gabe brown and allen williams who make money off regenerative agriculture so we can move away from all the subsidies we are giving the farmers. they haven't made a profit in five years, and we can start getting good food into our schools and into our communities, that's going to drive health care down. that's another part of the health care conversation that we didn't even have. how do we start talking about health instead of disease care. >> thank you, senator sanders, y your response? >> i get a little bit tired of democrats afraid of big ideas. republicans are not afraid of

big ideas. they could give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to billionaires and profitable corporations, they can bail out the crooks on wall street so please don't tell me that we cannot take on the fossil fuel industry and nothing happens unless we do that. here is the bottom line. we got to ask ourselves a simple question, what do you do with an industry that knowingly poured billions of dollars in short-term profits is destroying this planet, i say that is criminal activity. that cannot be allowed to continue. >> thank you, senator sanders, congressman, you're allowed to respond. >> i didn't say we couldn't get there until 2040. you don't have to yell. all i'm saying is we have to invent our way out of this thing, and if we're waiting for 2040 for a ban to come in on gasoline vehicles, we're screwed. so we better get busy now and that's why i'm saying get a chief manufacturing officer, align the environmental

incentives with the financial incentives. and make sure that people can actually make money off of the new technologies that are moving forward and then here's what i'll do as president, cut the worker in on the deal. make sure these are union jobs and i will double union membership to make sure that these new jobs pay what the old fossil fuel jobs pay. >> senator sanders, your response. >> look, on this issue, my friends, there is no choice, we have got to be super aggressive if we love our children and if we want to leave them a planet that is healthy and is habitable. so i don't disagree with tim. what that means is we got to a, take on the fossil fuel industry, b, it means we have to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy and a hell of a lot of good union jobs if we do that. we've got to transform our

transportation. >> thank you, senator. >> system, and we have to lead the world that this is not just an american issue. >> governor bullock, your response? >> you know, all of us agree that we have to address climate change. no one on this stage is talking about, though, the republicans won't even acknowledge that climate change is real, dana, and that's because of the corrupt influence and money. that has been the fight of my career. and second of which is as we transition to this clean energy economy, you have to recognize there are folks that have spent their whole lives powering our country, and far too often democrats sound like they're part of the problem. we got to make sure to aid in those transitions as we get to a carbon neutral world which i think we can do by 2040. >> just to clarify, who is part of the problem? >> oh, no, i think democrats often when they're saying, oh, these fossil fuel industries, these workers, those coal mining workers, the world is changing,

we got to make it change, but i think democrats often sound like the people that as congressman ryan would say, shower at the end of the day, that they're part of the problem and far too many communities are being left behind as we make this transition. >> thank you. >> look, we're having this discussion and we can talk about competing plans. >> thank you, i want to give senator sanders a chance to respond. >> steve, ain't nobody in the congress who's more strongly pro worker than i am. so when i talk about taking on the fossil fuel industry, what i am also talking about is a just transition. we can create and what the green new deal is about, it's a bold new idea. we can create millions of good paying jobs. we can rebuild communities in rural america that have been devastated. so we are not anti-worker. we are going to provide, make sure that those workers have a transition, new jobs, health care, and education. >> governor bullock, your response. >> and look, bernie, i was a

union side labor lawyer, i fought day after day, and i know, but we set this up as a false choice far too often. are we going to actually address climate change, fire seasons are 80 days longer in the west now. or are we going to give people a better shot at a better life. you can do both. but let's actually have the scientists drive this. let's not just talk about plans that are written for press releases that will go nowhere else if we can't even get a republican to acknowledge that the climate is changing. >> congressman o'rourke. >> i listen to scientists on this, and they are very clear. we don't have more than ten years to get this right, and we won't meet that challenge with half steps or half measures or only half the country. we've got to bring everyone in. the people of detroit and those that i listened to in flint last week, they want the challenge. they want those jobs. they want to create the future for this country and the world. those community college students that i met in new mexico

understand that wind and solar jobs are the fastest growing jobs in the country and the farmers in iowa say pay me for the environmental services, the planting cover crops and keeping more land in conservation easements, that's how we meet the challenge. we do it with everyone in this country. we bring everyone into the solution. >> thank you, congressman. mayor buttigieg, your response. we have all put out highly similar visions on climate. it is all theoretical. we will deal with climate if and only if we win the presidency. if and only if we beat donald trump. nominate me, and you get to see the president of the united states stand next to an american war veteran and explain why he chose to pretend to be disabled when it was his chance to serve. nominate me and we will have a different conversation with american voters about why the president of the united states thinks you're a sucker when the problem in your life is your paycheck is not going up nearly as fast as the cost of housing or the cost of education or the cost of prescription drugs and

he has done nothing about it except tax cuts for the corporations. >> senator klobuchar, i want to ask you about something that cnn heard from a michigan democratic primary voter. we were reaching out and getting their questions. kimber from birmingham, michigan, has this question, what is your plan to address infrastructure, including the water issues so another flint, michigan, does not happen again. >> thank you, dana, and i was just in flint, and they are still drinking bottled water in that town, and that is outrageous, and my plan, and i am the first one that came out with an infrastructure plan and i did that because this is a bread and butter tississue for people that are caught in traffic jams. the governor ran on the slogan, fix the damn roads and it is an issue for union jobs. i think what we need to do is not have a president that's promised he was going to do that on election night if anyone remembers and he hasn't followed

through. he has done nothing. he blew up a meeting at the white house. i would put a trillion dollars into this, and i would pay for it by first of all, changing the capital gains rate, by doing something when it comes to that regressive tax bill that left everyone behind but made his mar-a-lago friends richer as he promised and i would take that pun and put it into rural broad band and green infrastructure so you won't have what you had in detroit, the jefferson chalmers neighborhood, the african-american neighborhood that was most hit when you had those recent rain storms and i truly believe that if we're going to move on infrastructure in climate change, you need a voice from the heartland. >> what's your response on the flint water kras krocrisis. >> my response is flint is the tip of the iceberg. i was in denmark, south carolina, where it is a lot of talk about it being the next flint. we have an administration that has gutted the clean water act. we have communities particularly communities of color and disadvantaged communities all

over this country who are suffering from environmental injustice. i assure you i lived in gross point, what happened in flint would not have happened in gross point, this is part of the dark underbelly of american society, the rainfall, the bigotry, and the entire conversation that we're having here tonight, if you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectiveized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then i'm afraid that the democrats are going to see some very dark days. we need to say it like it is, it's bigger than flint. it's all over this country. it's particularly people of color. it's particularly people who do not have the money to fight back, and if the democrats don't start saying it, why would those people feel they're there for us, and if those people don't feel it, they won't vote for us and donald trump will win. >> thank you very much ms. williamson. we want to turn to the issue of race in america. congressman o'rourke, president trump is pursuing a reelection strategy based in part on racial division, how do you convince primary voters that you would be

the best nominee to take on president trump and heal the racial divide in america? >> we'll call his racism out for what it is, and also talk about its consequences. it doesn't just offend our sensibilities to hear him say send her back about a member of congress because she's a woman of color, because she's a muslim american, doesn't just offend our sensibilities when he calls mexican immigrants, rapists or criminals and seeks to ban all muslims from the shores of a country that is comprised of people from the world over, from every tradition of faith. it is also changing this country, hate crimes are on the rise every single one of the last three years. on the day that he signed his executive order attempting to ban muslim travel, the mosque in victoria, texas, was burned to the ground. so we must not only stand up against donald trump and defeat him in this next election, but we must also ensure that we don't just tolerate or respect our differences but we embrace

them. that's what we have learned in el paso, texas, my hometown, one of the safest cities in the united states of america, not despite but because it's a city of immigrants and asylum seekers and refugees, we will show our diversity is our strength in my administration. >> congressman o'rourke, thank you very much governor hickenlooper, why are you the best to heal the racial divide in america. >> the core value behind this entire country's history is working towards a more perfect union, that all people are created equal, and we have fallen far away from that. i think the job is incumbent on any one of us to make the convincing case that we can deliver an urban agenda that represents progress in schools, you know, in colorado, when i was mayor, we got to universal pre-k for every kid in the urban city. we did major police reform, ten years before ferguson, why is it now that five years after ferguson, we don't have anything. how did we get affordable housing, we created a scholarship fund for every kid.

you have to deliver a vision like that for the whole country. >> thank you, governor. >> senator warren i'm coming to you now. the fbi director said the majority of domestic terrorism have been motivated by white supremacy, the alleged shooter in this week's attack in gilroy, california, referenced a white supremacist book on social media. how are going to combat the rise of white supremacy. >> call it out for what it is, dmes epidemic terrorism -- domestic terrorism. we live in a country where the president is advancing environmental racism, criminal justice racism, economic racism, health care racism, the way we do better is to fight back and show something better. i have a plan for example on education that says we have to build a better education system for all our kids but we've got to k a knowledge what's happened on race. so my plan has universal tuition

free college for all of our kids but also increases the p perks ll grant -- pell grants and -- it cancels student loan debt for 95% of the kids with student loan debt and helps close the black/white wealth gap in america. >> thank you, senator, very much. mayor buttigieg, you have been criticized for your handling of racial issues in your home city of south bend from diversity in the police force to housing policy. given your record, how can you convince african americans that you should be the democratic nominee? >> as an urban mayor serving a diverse community, the racial divide lives within me. i'm not saying that i became mayor and racism or crime or poverty ended on my watch. but in our city, we have come together repeatedly to tackle challenges like the fact that far too many people were not

getting the help they needed in their housing and so we directed it to a historically underinvested african-american neighborhood. right now in the wake of a police involved shooting, our community is moving from hurting to healing by making sure that the community can participate in things like revising the use of force policy, and making sure there are community voices on the board of safety that handles police matters. i proposed a douglass plan to tackle this nationally because mayors have hit the limits of what you can do unless there's national action. systemic racism has hit every part of american life from housing to health to home ownership. if you walk into an emergency room, your reports of pain will be taken less seriously. if you apply for a job and you are black, you are less likely to be called because of the name on the resume. i have proposed we do everything from investing in red line neighborhoods to build black wealth in home ownership to supporting entrepreneurship for black americans. >> thank you very much.

senator klobuchar, what do you say to those trump voters who prioritize the economy over the president's bigotry? >> well, first of all, there are people that voted for donald trump before that aren't racist, they wanted a better shake in the economy and so i would appeal to them. but i don't think anyone can justify what this president is doing. little kids literally woke up this weekend, turned on the tv and saw their president calling their city the town of baltimore nothing more than a home for rats. and i can tell you as your president, that will stop. the second thing i would say is that economic opportunity means economic opportunity for everyone in this country. i know that because i have lived it. and that means when we put out there better child care and better education and we pay teachers more, and we make sure there's a decent retirement system in place, yes, we help the african-american community and we must because they have been the ones that have been

most hurt by what we have seen in the last decades but we help everyone. so what i say to the people in my rural parts of my state, just like i say to them in the city and bring them together is that economic opportunity must be there for everyone. >> senator klobuchar, thank you very much. congressman o'rourke, please respond. >> i want to acknowledge something that we're all touching on which is the very foundation of this country, the wealth that we have built, the way we became the greatest country on the face of the planet was literally on the backs of those who were kidnapped and brought here by force. the legacy of slavery and segregation and jim crow and suppression is alive and well in every aspect of the economy and country. today as president i will sign into law a new voting rights act. i will focus on education, address health care disparities and also sign into lee sheila jackson lee's reparations bill so we can have the national conversation we waited too long in this country to have. >> thank you, congressman o'rourke, speaking of

reparations ms. williamson, many of your opponents support a commission for reparations for slavery. you are calling for $500 billion in financial assistance, what makes you qualified to determine how much is owed in raeparation. >> it's not $500 billion in financial assistance. it's $500 billion, 200 to $500 billion payment of a debt that is owed. that is what rap rations is. we need deep truth telling. i appreciate what congressman o'rourke has said. it is time for us to simply realize that this country will not real. all that a country is a collection of people. people heal when there's deep truth telling. we need to recognize when it comes to the economic gap between blacks and whites in america, it does come from a great injustice that has never been dealt with. that great injustice has had to do with the fact that there was 250 years of slavery followed by

another hundred yearsover domestic terrorism. what makes me qualified to say 200 to $500 billion, i'll tell wr you what makes you qualified, if you did the math of 40 acres and a mule, given there was 4 to 5 million slaves at the end of the civil war, and they were probably 40 acres and a mule for a family of four, if you did the math today it would be trillions of dollars, and anything less than a hundred billion dollars is an insult and 200 to 500 billion is politically feasible toads because so many americans realize there is an injustice that continues to form a toxicity underneath the surface, an emotional turbulence that only reparations will -- >> senator sanders, you don't think cash payments are the best way to address this issue but according to a new gallop poll, 73% of african-americans are in favor of cash payments to black americans who are descendants of slaves, how do you respond to

them? >> i respond by saying that i am supportive of jim clyburn's legislation which is called 102030, and what that understands is that as a result of slavery and segregation and institutional racism we see now in health care, in education, in financial services, we are going to have to focus big time on rebuilding distressed communities in america including african-american communities. in terms of education, i also have a plan. it's called the thurgood marshall plan, and it would focus on ending the growth of segregated schools in america. it would triple funding for title i schools. it would make sure that teachers in this country earned at least $60,000 a year. >> senator sanders, thank you very much. the debate continues right after this short break. every day, visionaries are creating the future. so, every day, we put our latest technology

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welcome back to the cnn democratic presidential debate. live from detroit. let's turn now to the economy. congressman ryan. president trump tariffs boosted the u.s. industry but hurt automanufactures like those in michigan. which could drif up the cost of car. as president would you continue the steel tariff? >> i think president trump was onto something when he talked about china. china has been abusing the

economic system for a long time. they steal intellectual property. they subsidize goods. they eroded the manufacturing. we transfer our wealth of middle class either up to the top 1% or to china for them to build the military. so i think we need some targeted response against china. you out compete them. that's why i put a chief manufacturing officer in place to make sure we rebuild the manufacturing base. we have to fill the factories that in detroit and yungs town that used to make cars and steel. fill them with worker making electric vehicles, batteries, charging stations and solar plans. china dominates 60% of the solar panel market. and the electric vehicle market. we'll make 10 million electric vehicle ins in the world. i want them made in the united states. >> congressman -- thank you.

clarification, as president would you consider the steel tariffs, yes or no? >> i have to reevaluate. some are effective. he's bungled the whole thing. here's the problem with president trump. he has a tactical move what's the grand strategy for the united states. china has 100 year plan a 50 year plan a 20 year pran plan. we have live in a 24 hour news cycle. that spells disaster. >> congressman delaney your response. >> this is what i don't understand. president trump wants to build physical walls and beat up on immigrants. most of the folks running for president want to build economic walls to free trade. and bait up on president obama. i'm the only one running for president who supports the trans-pacific partnership. president obama was right about that. we should be getting back in

that. senator warren just issued a trade plan that would prevent the united states from trading with its allies. we can't go isolate ourselves from the world. we have to engage. >> thank you. senator warren, respond. >> for decades we have had a trade policy that has been written by giant multi-national corporations to help giant multi-national corporations. they have no loyalty to america. they have no patriotism. if they can save a nickel by moving a job to mexico, they'll do it in heartbeat. if they can continue a polluting plant by moving it to vietnam. they'll do it. i have put out a new comprehensive plan tho says we're not doing it that way. we'll negotiate the deals with unions at the table. with small businesses at the table. with small farmers at the table. with environmentalists at the table. with human rights activists. and then we'll use the fact that

everybody in the world wants to get to america's markets and sell -- >> congressman delaney. >> everyone wants to get to america's markets. so the question is. >> thank you. >> that was a trans-pacific partnership. president obama was right. he included standards. we would be an entirely different position with china if we entered the trans-pacific partnership. we can't isolate ourselves from the world. we can't isolate ourselves from asia. warn's plan basically we would not be able to trade with the united kingdom or the eu. it is so extreme it will isolate american economy from the world. >> senator? warren. >> sanders, please let her respond.

>> i'm sorry. >> the congressman is describing as extreme is having deals that are negotiated by american workers for american workers. american workers want those jobs. and we can build the trade deals that do it. people want access to our markets all around the world. the answer is let's make them raise their standards. make them pay workers more. let the workers unionize. raise their environmental standards. before they come to us and say they want to be able to sell their product. right now the whole game is working for the big multi-nationals. it's just not working for the people here in the united states. we can change that. >> congressman o'rourke. >> the question was about tariffs. they're a huge mistake. they constitute the largest tax increase onts american consumer hitting the middle class and the working poor especially hard. and farmers in iowa and across

the country are baring the brunt of the consequences. when have we ever gone to war including a trade war without allies and friends and partners as president we will hold china accountable and bring allies and friends like the european union to bare. and negotiate trade deals that favor farmers and american workers and protect human rights and the environment and labor. not just here in the united states. >> thank you so much. sanders please respond. >> okay. you look i believe at the only member of congress who not only voted against the disaster trade agreements with china. which cost over 4 million jobs. but also helped lead the effort against the agreements. elizabeth is right. if anybody here thinks that corporate america gives one damn about the average american worker, you're mistaken. if they can save five cents to

mexico or china or vietnam. that's what they'll do. as president this is what i'll do. the they line up at the federal trough. they want military contracts and all kinds of contracts. under my administration you ain't getting those contracts. if american workers are on the street. >> hickenlooper your response. >> i think congressman delaney has ha point here. there is a way of looking at trade that is therapeutic. the bottom line is you talk to an economist. there's not an a single example in history where trade war had a winner. trade wars are for losers. let's negotiate a better deal. you won't win against china in a trade war. when they have 25% of the total debt. and step back and look. here's trump gives a giant tax cut and at the same time we're paying in tariffs about 800 to $1,200 per household and give this tax cut to the rich.

essentially what's happening is now he's transferred that tax obligation onto the middle class. that's what's out ray jos. tariffs are not the solution. >> warren. >> anyone who thinks the trade deals are about tariffs doesn't understand what's going on. look at the nafta 2.0. what's the central feature? to help pharmaceutical companies get longer periods of exclusivity. to charge canadians, americans approximate mexicans more money and make more profit. that's what trade deals have become. they have become a way for giant multi-nationals to change the regulatory environment. so they can suck more profit out for themselves and to leave the american people behind. we have to have the courage to fight back against that. >> thank you. governor bullock your response. >> every time the trump tweets we lose hundreds of thousands of

dollars. if montana had the to eat all the wheat reproduce. they have to eat 40 loaves of bread a day. but the same token what we have is i agree with senator warren on this in part. corporations can move capitol easy. workers can't move it. going forward we need to make sure our trade deals actually are protecting thinking about the workers. they can't be the stepchild. but the tariffs the president is doing that's now how we get a fair deal for farmers or the manufacturers in detroit. >> thank you very much. standby please. mayor buttigieg. on thursday of this week a gm plant in michigan will stop production. the latest to cease operations in the midwest. as part of companies modernization plans which will result in 6,000 hourly workers losing jobs or being reassigned to other plants.

what is your plan for retraining workers whose jobs are at risk? >> this happened in my community. 20 years before i was born. when i was growing up we were picking up the pieces. empty factories and houses. poverty. i know what happens to a community when the closures take place. there will be more. it's why we need to put the interest of workers first. of course we need to do retraining. we're doing it now in south bend. this is so much bigger than a trade fight. this is about a moment when the economy is changing before our eyes. there are people in economy who go through more jobs in a week than my parents went through in the lifetime. it's where i proposed we allow gig workers to unionize. they gig is a job and a worker is a worker. >> thank you. >> we have to respond to the changes and in addition to confronting technician to supporting workers by double unionization as i propose. some is low tech too. like the minimum wage is too

low. so called conservative christian senators right now in the senate are blocking a bill to raise the minimum wage. when scripture says whoever oppresses the poor taunts their maker. >> thank you very much. >> congressman delaney. i'm coming to you now. estimated net worth is $65 million. that would make you subject to warrens proposed wealth tax on the richest in the united states. do you think her wealth tax is a fair way to fund child care and education? >> i think wealthy americans have to pay more. i grew up in a blue collar family. first in the family to go to college. a successful entrepreneur. created thousands of jobs. supported thousands of entrepreneurs around the country. and i have done well financially. i should pay more in tax. wealthy americans should pay more. we have to have a real solution. the real solution is to raise the capitol gains rate.

there's no reason why people who invest for a living should pay less than people who work for a living. that's ridiculous. it's the biggest loophole in the tax code. we act like wealthy individuals are endangered species. and if we raise the taxes they won't invest. that's crazy. that's how with get more revenue from wealthy individuals. we roll back the trump tax cuts to wealthy individuals. i think the wealth tax will be fought in court forever. it's arguably unconstitutional. and the countries that had it have abandoned it because it's impossible to implement. here again real solutions not impossible promises. >> thank you. >> raise the capitol gains tax. roll back on wealthy americans. >> senator warren, please respond. >> i proposed a wealth tax it's time to do that. it's time to tax the top one tenth of 1% of fortunes in the country. first $50 million you can keep free and clear.

but the 50 million and first dollar you have to pitch in two cents. two cents. what can america do with two cents? we can provide universal child care for every baby in the country. age zero to five. we can provide universal prek for every 3 year-old and 4 year-old. raise the wages of every child care worker in preschoolteacher in the country. we can provide universal tuition free college. we can expand pel. $50 billion into the black colleges and universities. and we can cancel student loan debt for 95% of the people who have it. and start to close the wealth gap in america. it tells you how badly broken this economy is. that two cents from the wealthiest would let us invest in the rest of america. >> this is not about whether wealthy americans should pay more. we're all in agreement on that.

it's a question of do you have a real solution to make it happen. we can raise the capitol gains rate to max the ordinary income. the last president to do that was reagan. we can do that in the first year. i have called for that to be done. it will double the earned income tax credit. i've called for the expansion of universal precan. i do it through an additional tax on high net work individuals. we don't need to come up with new taxes that are unconstitutional. will be fought in court for years. >> turn to the issue of student debt. mayor buttigieg you talk about how you and your husband are paying down six figures of student loan debt. under the propose to cancel all student loan debt yours would be wiped away. why wouldn't you support that sfwl that would be great for us and the next day there would be a student loan program and people would be taking out student loans why they weren't lucky enough in timing to get

theirs wiped away too. expand grants and compel states to pick up the burden. on the back end for those who do have a lot of debt we can make it more affordable and expand a public service loan forgive rns program. an excellent program almost impossible to actually get access to. right now. we can take the steps and have an approach that is actually fair. if we want to start wiping away student debt here's where i start. i would start with the for profit colleges that took advantage of people. especially veterans. my facebook add feed started filling with ads from the for profit colleges. under president obama they were held accountable for whether they deliver results. president trump under secretary of education. who is from this state. did away with the rules. there's no accountability. on my watch the colleges that turned the department of education into a predatory lender that is where we begin. when it came to getting rid of

the loans. >> thank you. senator sanders you want to forgive all student loan debt. >> i do. before i get into that, the major issue that we don't talk about in congress or the media. is the massive level of income and wealth inequality in america. you have three people more wealth than the bottom 90%. top 1% that owns more wealth than the bottom 90%. companies like amazon and billionaires out there do not pay one nickel in federal income tax. and we have 500,000 people sleeping on the street. what we need is a political revolution. that tells the billionaire ands corporate america they are americans. they'll participate in the society. they have got to start paying their fair share of taxes. period. >> thank you senator. williamson? you are proposing to make

college free for all qualified students. should the government pay for children from wealthier families to go to college? >> i think all domestic and international policy should be based on the idea that anything we do to help people thrive is a stimulation to our economy. that's how you stimulate the economy. so if a few people take advantage four or five people who were going to take the money they have in the bank, when you look at this $1.5 trillion college debt. swap it. we had a $2 trillion tax cut. 83 cents of every dollar goes to the richest among us that doesn't stimulate the economy. if we get rid of this college debt, think of all the young people who have the discretion nar spending and start business. the best they think you can do to stimulate the u.s. economy is get rid of the debt. this is not just about a plan to to do it. it's a philosophy of governing. i wonder why you're democrats.

you think there's something wrong about using the instruments of government to help people. that is what government should do. it should all policies should help people thrive. that is how we'll have peace and prosperity. >> congressman o'rourke. you don't support free four year college. >> two year. earn the associates degree. realize your full potential. debt free four year college. that's not just for tuition. that's room and book and board. the full cost of the being able to better yourself that you can better this country. and then for that schoolteacher who in many places like texas is working a second or third job. full forgiveness for the out standing student loan debt. forgiveness for the person willing to work at the va and serve service members. we elevate them as well and make it easier to join apprenticeship to learn a skill or trade you can command for the rest of your

life. >> thank you. klobuchar your response? >> i want to make is easier to go to college. focus on resources on the people that need it most. my problem with some of the plans is they literally would pay for wealthy kids and wall street kids to go to college. there's no difference. everyone is free. i don't think it makes sense. i'm concerned if we do things like that the debt we'll pass on to the next generation and the next. so what i would do about student loan debt is that i would allow people to refinance it at a better rate. and make sure that we improve those student loan repayment programs for our teachers. and expand them so that you over five, ten years can get it paid for if you go into occupations where dwoent have enough workers. we need to mesh what we were talking about with the economy with the education policy. >> thank you, senator. i want to turn to foreign policy. senator sanders, president trump argued the united states cannot

continue to be the quote policemen of the world. you said the exact same thing in 2016. if voters hear the same message from you and president trump on military intervention, how should they expect you will be different from him? >> trump is a pathological liar. i tell the truth. we have been in a afghanistan i think 18 years. in iraq 16 or 17 years. we have spent $5 trillion on the wall. on terror. and probably more terrorists out there now than before it began. we're going to spend the congress passed i will not vote for, a $715 billion military budget more than the ten next countries combined. what we need is a foreign policy that focuses on diplomacy and

ending conflicts by people sitting at a table. not killing each other. at president of the united states i will go to the united nations and not denigrate it. not attack it. but bring countries together in the middle east. and all over the world. the to come to terms with the differences and solve problems peacefully. the united states is cannot be the police of the world. >> governor hickenlooper, how do you respond to the vision for america's role in the world? >> we share the recognition of the incredible cost. people don't realize that half the soldiers that fought in iraq and afghanistan were national guard. i sent them off on their deployment. big noisy hangers. i also mourned with their families when they didn't come back. we are able now to i call it constant engagement. we should have an international diplomatic approach and stalk to everybody. if we're dealing with climate

change and cyber security and nuclear. tariff wars don't work. they're for losers. >> i want to turn to the subject of north korea. which hours ago launched two short range ballistic missiles for the second time in a week. congressman you said you would not meet with north korea dictator kim jong un. unless you were close to a deal. klobuchar says she would quote always be willing to meet with leaders to discuss policy. is that view wrong? >> yeah. i think so. i love her but she's wrong on this one. i don't think presidents of the united states meet with dictators. we saw what happened with president trump. he goes to the demilitarizes zone. a huge foe photo op. global creditability. and weeks later he's lobbing more missils.

that doesn't make sense. we have to demilitarize the foreign policy. we have to make sure that we are engaging the countries all all the time. this is very difficult woshlg. i have been in congress 17 years. on defense appropriation committee on the armed services committee. this is long tedious work. much done outside of the eye of the tv camera. as president you have to monitor that and be disciplined every day. don't give a dictator a huge win. sit down and do your job. same with central america. he's cutting the state department budget. nicaragua and el salvador. where the migrants are coming from. fix the problem at the source and use dmoem si to do it. >> klobuchar your response. >> we agree. you have to leave open the possibility of meeting with anyone at any place. what i don't like is how this president is handling it. you have heard of the trueman doctrine.

the go it alone doctrine. he's taken us out of the agreements. and i don't agree with that. when he was just with vladimir putin when he was asked about invading our democracy. he made a joke. hundreds of thousands of americans have lost their lives on battlefield to protect our democracy and right to vote. four little girls in alabama lost their life in a church at height of the civil rights. i do believe you meet with people but better have an agenda and put our interests of our country first. not the russians. >> mayor buttigieg you served in afghanistan. two u.s. service members were killed yesterday. there tr 14,000 in afghanistan. you said one thing everybody can agree on is we're getting out of afghanistan. will you withdraw all u.s. service members by end of your first year in office? >> we will withdraw.

we have to. >> if the first year? >> yes. around the world we will do whatever it takes to keep america safe. i thought i was one of the last troops leaving afghanistan. when i thought i was turning out the lights years ago. every time i see news about somebody being killed in afghanistan i think about what it was like to hear an explosion and wonder whether it was somebody i knew or served with. friend or roommate. colleague. we're close to the day when we will wake up to the news of a casualty in afghanistan who was not born on 9/11. i was sent into the war by a congressional authorization as well as a president. we need to talk not only about the need for a president committed to ending endless war. the fact that congress has been asleep at the switch. and on my watch i will propose that any authorization for the use of military force have a three year sunset. and have to be renewed.

if men and women in the military have the dourge serve, members of congress have the courage to vote. >> congressman o'rourke. returning to the question. of whether you would withdraw all u.s. service members during your first year in office as president. how do you respond? >> i would in my first term in office. agree there is nothing about the war in its 18th year that will make it better. we have satisfied the reasons for our involvement in afghanistan. in the first place. it's time to bring the service members back home. from afghanistan. also from iraq and also from yemen and somalia and libya. and syria. there's no reason for us to be at war all over the world tonight as president i will end the wars and we will not start new wars. we'll not send more members over seas to sacrifice lives and take the lives of others in our name. we resolve the challenges

peacefully. >> governor hickenlooper you disagree. you're open to keeping some service members in afghanistan. >> humanitarian issue. with all due respect, you're looking at the condition of women if we completely pull the troops out, you'll see a humanitarian disaster that will startle and frighten every man, woman and child in the country. i don't think -- we have troops in over 400 different locations around the world. most are small and peace keeping. not creating a risk. we have to be in afghanistan. look at the progress that happened in the country. we'll turn our backs and walk away from people that risked their lives to build a different future? and that part of the world. >> senator warren you want to make it u.s. policy that the u.s. will never use a nuclear weapon unless another country uses one first. president obama reportedly considered that policy. but ultimately decided against it. why should the u.s. tie its own

hands with that policy? >> because it makes the world safer. the united states is not going to use nuclear weapons preemptively. we need to say so to the entire world. it reduces the likelihood someone miscalculates or misunderstands. our first responsibility is keep ourselves safe. and what's happening right now with donald trump is they keep expanding the different ways we have nuclear weapons. the different ways they can be used puts us all at risk. we talk about what's happening around the world. i have three older brothers who served in the military. i see they would do anything, our military is the best on earth. we shouldn't not be asking you are military to take on jobs that do not have a military solution. we need to use our diplomatic tools, economic tools and if

we'll send someone into war we better have plan how to get them out on the other end. >> governor bullock your response to the proposal to the u.s. never using a nuclear weapon first? >> i wouldn't want to take the off the table. measuring's strength we have to be about to say that. never i hope. certainly in my term or anyone else. would we really get close to pulling that trigger. but by the same token, america's strength and this president made america first america lone. our allies no longer trusts. adversaries are with us. going from the position of strength we should be negotiating down so there aren't nuclear weapons. drawing the lines in the sand i wouldn't do. >> senator warren your response. >> we don't expand trust around the world by saying, we might be the first one to use a nuclear weapon. that puts the entire world at risk.

and puts us at risk. right in the middle of this. at a time when donald trump is pulling out of the nuclear negotiations. expanding the opportunities for nuclear proliferation around the worltd. pulled us out of the deal in iran and iran is working on nuclear weapons. the world gets closer to nuclear warfare. we have to have an announced policy. that is one the entire world can live with. make that clear. we will respond if someone else does. but not first. >> respond. >> part i agree with. by the same token we need to get back to nuclear proliferation. when you have folks -- proliferation. reducing that. at the same time when you have korea. when you have others, i don't want to turn around and say detroit has to be gone before we would ever use that. with so many crazy folks are

getting closer to having a nuclear weapon. i don't want them to think i can strike this country and i and we as united states of america wouldn't do a thing. part of the strength really is the ability to deter. >> thank you. moving on. please, senator. moving on. as you notice to serve you have to be 35 years old. so mayor buttigieg, you just qualified. you're 37. the youngest in the field. standing next to you is the oelsd candidate. at age 77. should voters take into consideration age which choosing a presidential candidate? >> i don't care how old you are. i care about your vision. i think it matters we have a new generation of leaders stepping up around the world. leaders like the -- it's good the prime minister of new zealand has gotten attention.

she's masterful. she's younger than i would be. this is the trend america might be leading. instead of following. only if it's actually backed by the right vision. we can have great presidents at any age. what i will say with need the vision that will win. we cannot have a vision that amounts to back to normal. it's the only reason we got this president. that normal didn't work. we have to be ready to take on this president and by the way something that hasn't been talked about tonight. take on his enablers in congress. when david duke -- ran for congress, governor. the republican party 20 years ago ran away from him. today they are supporting naked racism in the white house. or silent about it. if you are watches at home and you are a republican member of congress. consider the fact that when the sunsets on your career, and they are writing your story, of all the good and bad things you did in your life. the thing you will be remembered for is whether in this moment

with this president you found the courage to stand up to him or continue to put party over country. >> thank you. senator sanders. as a senior statesman. please respond to buttigieg. >> pete is right. it's a question of vision. whether you are young or old or in between. my vision among other things says that if we're going to fight for health care, we don't take money from the drug companies or the insurance companies. and i have asked all of the candidates running to say they will not accept money from those entities who in my view are going to war against the american people. in terms of health care. that's a new vision. a new vision says that we must cancel completely student debt because the younger generation in this country today for the

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welcome back to the cnn democratic presidential debate. we have covered a lot of ground tonight. now it's time for closing statements. you each receive one minute. governor bullock we begin with you. >> i was raised in a single parent household. paycheck to paycheck. there was a governor house in town because i delivered newspapers to it. i made it about four blocks in life. worked my way through college and law school. i had a chance to actually go from delivering newspapers to the governors houses as a kid and raising three kids in it. we have to recognize for too many people in america that shot no longer exists. for far too many in the country it never has. i'm running for president to beat donald trump. win back the places we lost. and make sure that americans

know that where washington left them behind in the economy and political system i'll be there. this isn't a choice between ner and left. what we don't want and can't afford. folks want a different way, they want to believe the economy and democracy can work for us. that's why i'm running for president. >> thank you. >> our problem is not just that we need to defeat trump. we need a plan to solve institutionalized hatred and white nationalism. in order to do that we need more than ente lel chul argument. we need radical truth telling. not just to talk about health care but why we're so sick all the time. serious conversation about race and what's owed. symptoms and not cause.

the fact the united states is fak feising moral leadership. countries see us not only domestically and international with policies that support corporate over lords. national defense agenda is driven by short term profit for defense contractors than genuine peace building. there's corruption that is so deep, ladies and gentlemen. and until the democratic party is ready to speak to the deeper corruption knowing we ourselves sometimes because of corporate donation participated than i'm afraid those who vote for trump will continue to vote for trump. and those who don't like him will continue to stay home. i want to apolitics that goes much deeper and speaks to the heart. only way to fight -- you can't fight dog whistles. you have to over ride them. with new voices. voices of energy that only come from the fact that america has been willing to live up to our own mistakes.

atone for our mistakes. make amends. love each other. love o our democracy and future generations. something emotional and psychological that will not be emerging from anything on this stage. it will emerge from something i'm the one who is qualified to bring forth. >> congressman delaney? >> john kennedy said we should not seek the republican answer or the democratic answer. seek the right answer. he was right when he said it and right today as well. donald trump is the symptom of the disease. and the disease is divisiveness. i'm the only one on stage talking about cures that disease. which with big ideas like national service, focusing on actually solving problems. if we work together we can fix health care and build infrastructure. we can invest in not just technology but people and entrepreneurs.

whether they be in storm lake, iowa or detroit, michigan or baltimore. we can fight climate kming change and reimagine the education system. with real solutions, not impossible promises. isn't it time we had a president who was a leader in both the private sector and in government? to lead us into the future. i promise as president, i will restore vision, unity and leadership and decency to this country. and that's why i'm running for president. >> thank you. >> congressman ryan. >> so in a few minutes all of the pun dents will look and say who captured the left lane and center lane. who captured the moderate lane. i hope tonight it's some level i captured your imagination. your imagination about what this country could be like if we united, if we put together real

policy that weren't left or right. but new and better. that's how we win the future. it's new and better. a new and better economy, a new and better education system, a new and better health care system that focuses on prevention. education system that focuses on the trama of our kids. there's not going to be a savior. not going to be a super-star. that will fix all this. it's going to be you and me. it's going to be us. that's how we fix this country. you and i coming together to do big things. to imagine the new country that we want by coming together. not left or right. new and better. >> governor hickenlooper. >> thank you. what a night. i loved it. i'd like to ask every american to imagine that you are facing

life threatening surgery tomorrow. would you choose a doctor who had a track record of proven success who had done the work? or someone who just talked about it. that's the question we're facing in the primary. i have actually got a track record as small business owner, as a mayor and governor. we expanded health care in colorado. we thought climate change directly. we beat the nra. and for the last three years we have been the numb one economy in the country. we can wrap that out. i'm as progressive as anybody on this stage. but i'm also pragmatic. i have done the things that most the people are talking about. and i know i can get results. i can lead the people of this country towards a stronger, a healthier, and a more secure future. and defeat donald trump and return this country to its glory. thank you. >> senator klobuchar.

>> thank you detroit. to win we have to listen to people. and out there today is casey joe's mom a champion high school swimmer from a small stoun. she got sick and went to the emergency room and got hooked on opioid. the last thing she said to her mom was it's not my fault. she died. a lot of americans say the same thing every day. that is what i will stand up for. and what i will stand up against. are companies like the companies that kbot her hooked on the opioids and didn't tell the doctors or patients what was going to happen. with e need someone who has peeps back and can win. i have won in the red district ts. i win in the midwest. i can win in states like wisconsin, and michigan and iowa. i also will do my job without fear or favor. just like i did as a prosecutor and get through the gridlock like i have done as senator. and passed over 100 bills. i have been the lead democratic.

and last, i will govern will integrity. we have a president where people turn off the tv when they see him. not me. i will make you proud. as your president. >> congressman o'rourke. >> we are as divided in polarized as a country as we have ever been. and right now we have a president who uses fear to try to drive us further apart. to meet this challenge, we have to have hope in one another. and a faith in a future of the country that includes everyone. my whole life i have been including people in the success of the country. starting a small business with high value, high wage, high skilled jobs in the third poorest urban county in the america. serving on city counsel and holding meetings every week to remind myself who it is that i serve at the end of the day. and in congress being in the minority but working with democrats and republicans alike. to deliver for my citizens and the country. and then in texas, this last

year, traveling to every county not writing anybody off or taking anyone for granted. and winning more votes than any democrat had in the history of the state. winning independents for the first time in decades and nearly half a million republicans and those 38 electoral college votes in texas are now in play. i can win them. that's how we defeat trump in november of 2020 and bring the divided country together again in january of 2021. thank you. >> mayor buttigieg. >> good news and bad news. ill start with the bad. country is in trouble. gdp is going up and life expectancy is going down. think about what that means. it's only getting tougher. by 2030 we will have passed the point of no return on climate. 130 million more guns on the street. i'll be in my 40s. if you have kids, think about how old they will be. here's the good news.

it's not too late. we can tell our kids that before we ran out of time, just before we ran out of time, in 2020, we did what it took. to deliver a climate that we didn't have to wonder if it could support us. deliver a society where race has no bearing on your health or wealth or relationship with law enforcement. we did what it took to deliver an economy where a rising tide actually does lift all boats. we can do this. if and only if we're ready to walk away from what hasn't worked with bold action. and win. not only defeat this president. but defeat his congressional allies with the defeat so big it reunites the republican party with the conscious. as well as bringing democratics to office. join me and let's make it happen. >> senator warren. >> from the time i was 7 i had a dream. i wanted to be a public schoolteacher. but my dad ended up as janitor. by the time i graduated high

school my family didn't have the money to send me to college. my big chance was a commuter college that cost $50 a semester. this is about opportunity. every budget, every policy that we talk about. is about who's going to get opportunity. is it going to the billionaires or going to our kids? right now for decades we have had a government that's been on the side of the rich and the powerful. it has been on the side of the wealthy. and that means it hasn't been on the side of everyone else. not on the side of people living on the native american reservations. people living in inner cities, in small farms. and small communities across the country. how do we beat it? we beat it by beating the party of being structural change. give people a reason to show up and vote. and we beat it by building a

grass roots movement across the country. not showing up behind close td doors with millionaires. but actually building it person by person. across the country. with small dollar donations with volunteers. with people who show up and say i have a stake in this democracy. i will not only beat donald trump in 2020, i'll start to make real change come 2021. >> senator sanders. >> as somebody who grew up in family that lived in a rent controlled apartment in brooklyn, new york and lived paycheck to paycheck. i'm running for president not just to defeat the most dangerous president in the history of the country. a racist and a sexist. and a homo foeb. i'm running to transform this country. and to stand with the working class of america. which for the last 45 years has

been decimated. two days ago i had a remarkable experience which should tell you everything you need to know about what's going on in america. i took 15 people with diabetic from detroit a few miles into canada. and we bought insulin for one tenth the price being charged by the crooks who run the pharmaceutical industry in america today. but it's not just the price fixing and the corruption and the greed of the pharmaceutical industry. it's what's going on in the fossil fuel industry. in the wall street. it's what's going on with the prison industrial complex. we need a mass political movement. please go to bernie sanders.com. become a million volunteer. stand up and take on the greed and corruption of the ruling class of the country. let's create a government and an

economy that works for all of us. not just the 1%. >> candidates thank you so much. that completes tonight's debate. join us tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. for round two. ten more democratic candidates for president here in detroit. stay tuned for special coverage of debate with anderson cooper and chris cuomo. that begins now. there you have it. night one of the cnn democratic presidential debate here in detroit. we saw candidates clashing on stage. sometimes sharply on policy. without resorting to name calling at all. we saw sanders and warren answer tough questions. from their opponents and the panel on health care and how to pay for it. there's certainly a clear divide in the democratic party now. across a wide range of issues.

and that too played outd on stage. whether or not senator warren said, a moment ago, democrats want to be the party of the big structural change. it was a serious clash of ideas. certainly and philosophy and personality as well. if you came into this looking to learn what exactly democrats believe, what they think is good for the country. and what they think is the best way to beat trump, it was all there tonight on the stage. we'll focus on all of it in the hours ahead. chris cuomo and i will be talking to some of the candidates who you saw tonight. and of course be joined by the best political voices as well. cnn chief national correspondent john king with us. cnn senior political reporter. is with us as well. cnn senior political ax files host. david axelrod.

cnn political former clinton 2016 director to have communication out reach. also van jones. and two cnn political joining us right noi. former governors jennifer granholm of michigan and virginia. a lot to talk about. let's start with you. who stood out? >> what stood out i is is the most important. the generational fight in the democratic party is alive and well is feisty. it was not settled. >> it continues. >> it's going to continue i think deep into the primary season. the big challenge tonight is the big question after tonight and tomorrow night, who gets to continue the fight. and so warren and sanders stood their ground tonight. they were in the middle. challenged repeatedly. can you sell big ideas can the country afford this. will you hand trump reelection. they stood and fought back.

warren from the very beginning saying don't have small ideas and don't be spineless. a direct challenge to those challenging her and senator sanders. they didn't go at each other. they will have to some day. they hold too much space. that was delayed as they held their ground against the moderates. the big question is which of the moderates survive. that's not up to us. that's up to donors and voters who send money or raise them in the poll. because this in some ways -- i don't want to make it reality tv. is about survival. to make the next debate several don't meet the test. bullock a decent night. does had he rise up in the polls? >> also his first night. >> he tried to have an introduction. i'm from the trump state. i agree on principle and not in how you want to do it. the democratic voters will decide who gets to live to fight on. wow. this is a feisty policy based

ideology fight. it will go. >> certainly former representative delaney got a fair amount of attention. at a foil to warren and sanders. >> he did. that was one ocht best exchanges that warren had with delaney. when she was saying what's the presidency for? if it's about what you can't get done and all about what you're afraid of. she kept saying that the moderates were basically spouting gop talking points and why are they getting caught in that trap. it was interesting. you think about last time she wasn't really in the debate as much. she pushed her way through. >> chris has a guest. >> all right. great. senator klobuchar is here. from minnesota. you had what i would argue one of the best lines of the night. do you want to win the argument or the election? how do you think it played out on stage.

>> i think people need to think about that. we want to make a unified case. people have different ideas on policy. the key is we have to take this to donald trump. i tried to make the case over and over tonight and will continue to do that. people are watching right now that aren't democrat or independent. we need them to win the election. >> you talk about in a town hall and on the show. it was coming up a bit tonight. there's a juxtaposition. proposing inside that weren't fought on stage by aren't necessarily that popular in the rest of the country. how do you reconcile that with a win? >> it's a long way to go here. i'm looking forward to houston. i'm making that debate in the fall. we'll have a few less people and we can have a better discussion. because it is important people listen to the candidate. in the end we want to have a candidate not running for the

chair of the democratic national committee but president of the united states. we have to have a clear vision that brings people together in this country. because donald trump is dividing them every day. >> fair, unfair. in order to show the party you're able to talk on the president you have to take on the people that you consider friends. >> that's right. that's why i made the point about how we don't want to have free college for wealthy people. that is in the proposal from two of the colleagues up on the stage. who i consider friends. and also that on page 8 of the medicare for all bill it says we'll dismantle the people current insurance and they will no longer be able to get it. half of america. that doesn't mean i don't have a bold idea. to bring down the cost of health care with a public option. which is a non-profit option and take on the pharmaceutical companies. i have been doing it since i got to washington. >> do you think the democrats can win if the candidate says they will remove private insurance to replace it with something better? >> i think that would be a very

problemic situation. for us. when people start looking at what this means, they'll say wait a min, i want to have do no harm flt bring the cost down. half of america says i want to keep my insurance. i don't like the insurance company. but i don't know what so i think it's more important to do a public option, which is something senator sanders himself, which i pointed out, which no one seems to be talking about, was on the bill last year. even though his campaign manager tweeted out last week it's immoral to support a public option, he was actually on the bill last year for a medicaid public option with me. >> there already is an ad out for the senator sanders campaign that you can get a t-shirt or a dumper sticker that says, "i wrote the damn bill" because of one of his retorts tonight. your point is he's been on a lot of bills, they don't always say the same thing. >> i think you can lead someone that can lead the ticket that can win in those red areas, and that's not exactly his state. i have won in a state that donald trump has targeted in

every red congressional district. my point is you need someone that can win, but also someone that condition get things done. i don't think it's tenable to get that one done. >> jake asked you, you've said that people up on this stage are making promises just to get elected. he said, like who? >> yeah. >> you didn't go there. >> well, i did. i was mentioning the two of them because i mentioned their bills and i also wanted to make the case that when we have a president that's said over 10,000 lies, that you want to have a candidate leading the ticket that's going to be straight with people, look them in the eye, tell them the truth. >> senator klobuchar, thank you. congratulations on tonight. good luck going forward. >> appreciate it, chris. >> joining us is vermont senator bernie sanders. how did you feel it went out there? >> i thought it was great. i hope the american people had a chance to hear the serious discussion about serious issues and not candidates who were trying to destroy each other. >> it did seem like certainly both you and senator warren

received a fair amount of incoming from people on either side of you. and it is a very fundamental difference of provo within the democratic party. do you think you sold your case for what moderates say is taking private insurance away from people? >> well, first of all, i mean, that's a decision for the american people to make. but i think what the american people understand is we have a dysfunctional health care system now. the only major country not to guarantee health care to all people. 15 minutes away from here, you end up in the hospital with heart surgery and you come out of that hospital without a bill. you go to any doctor you want without taking out your wallet. in canada they end up spending half as much per capita for health care as we do. in this country 80 million people are uninsured or underinsured. 500,000 people go bankrupt every year for outrageous medical bills. but i got to day, good news, the health care industry made $100

billion in profit last year. to answer your question, look, nobody loves the health insurance company. what they love is their doctors. they love their nurses. they may well love the hospital experience they had. under medicare for all, everybody in this country, unlike the status quo, will be able to go to the doctor they want or the hospital they want. >> i want to play, if i can, one of the exchanges you had, get was about medicare from jake tapper. you started talking about it. congressman ryan responded. it's also probably one of the most memorable lines from the night. let's just play that. >> if medicare for all is enacted, there are more than 600,000 union members here in michigan who would be forced to give up their private health care plans. now i understand that it would provide universal coverage, but can you guarantee those union members that the benefits under medicare for all will be as good as the benefits that their representatives, their union reps, fought what right side to negotiate? two things. they will be better because

medicare for all is comprehensive, it covers health care need for senior citizens, it will finally include dental care, hearing aids, and eyeglass. >> you don't know that, bernie. >> second of all -- i do know, i wrote the damn bill. >> these union members are losing their jobs. their about the sames have been stagnant. the world is crumbling around them. the only thing they have is possibly really good health care. and the democratic message is going to be, we're going to go in and the only thing you have left, we're going to take and it we're going to do better. i do not think that's a recipe for success for us. it's bad policy. it's certainly bad politics. >> so what congressman ryan is saying is that there are union members in this state, 600,000, many of whom like the health insurance they have, and that it's not a winning message to say, we're going to take that away from you. >> i am perhaps the strongest pro-union member of the united states senate. i've been fighting for union workers my entire life. under medicare for all, workers

will have comprehensive health care for all of their health care needs without paying a nickel in deductibles, co-payments, or premiums. and in fact, what they can finally begin to do is sit down and negotiate contracts, union contracts, with the companies and not have to give up wage increases in order to protect the health care that they have. now they can start focusing on getting decent wage increases. this is absolutely a positive thing for the workers of america, and especially union workers. >> there was a piece by tom friedman and it echoes what many on the right of the democratic party argue, that essentially friedman was saying, look, do we really need a revolution? can't we just win against donald trump? when i say we, he meant the democratic party. >> i think that the way to win is not to do politics in the

bodi old status quo way. if we do not bring out millions of young people who have not voted in the past, if we do not increase the vote in the african-american community, the latino community, the white working class community, trump is going to win this election. the only way that i know how to beat trump is you run a campaign of excitement, energy, which speaks to the needs of working families. and what working families understand is they are getting ripped off and beaten up every day by corporate america where ceos are making 300 times more than the workers, where their jobs are being destroyed in america as companies move to china and mexico. the time is now to stand up with the working class of this country. when you do that, good policy becomes good politics. >> does it alienate -- i understand your call for revolution, your desire to bring in young voters, people who stood by the sidelines the last time, weren't motivated to come out. is there room, though, for and is it a mistake not to also reach out in some way to those who voted for trump and are on the fence? >> anderson, i think we can.

i think, look, i won michigan in the democratic primary. i won wisconsin by a pretty big vote. i think that the issues that i'm talking about, making sure that every american has health care as a human right, raising the minimum wage which i helped lead the fight on to at least 15 bucks an hour, passing legislation that makes it easier for workers to join unions, creating millions of good-paying jobs, rebuilding our infrastructure. that will resonate in trump land as well as all over this country. >> at some point, the pundits say and i'm sure you've heard this and probably disagree, but at some point you have to -- tonight you and senator warren were pretty much together. many of your ideas are very similar or at least in the same kind of lane. at some point what happens between the two of you? >> she runs her campaign and i run my campaign. that's what happens. elizabeth warren has been a friend of mine for 25 years. i respect her. she is an excellent senator. we worked together on many

issues. she's running a campaign, i'm running my campaign. all i can say is i'm extraordinarily proud. i think we have broken the world's record in now having 2 million individual contributions at this point in the campaign, averaging all of $19 apiece. >> wow. >> i don't think anybody has ever done that. i'm pretty proud of that. we have well over 1 million volunteers. we're going to win this primary, and we're going to beat trump, because we are going to put together an unprecedentedly strong grassroots movement and bring forth the fights that the american people want. >> senator sanders, i appreciate your time, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> david axelrod, you heard from senator sanders there. i'm wondering how you felt he and elizabeth warren did in this divide between the more moderate side and the more progressive wing. >> look, they were at the center of the stage for a reason. they've done very well in this campaign. i think they did very well in this debate expressing their

points of view. and i thought senator sanders was much more energetic than he was in the first debate. i think he knew he had to be, and he was. and i thought elizabeth warren was very, very strong as well. the question is really which direction the party should take? she made an interesting comment when she was -- in the middle of the debate, not just the one that you mentioned toward dlan that, that i don't know why you'd run for president just to tell people what we can't do. but she also said she spoke to the fear that democrats have about losing to donald trump. and she said, we can't nominate a candidate in who we don't believe because we're afraid. and she really in that sense confronted the nub of the issue. i think one of the problems that the moderates on that platform, and you saw it with amy klobuchar, had tonight, they were making essentially a political argument which was, we can't be for these things

because we would lose the election. that's not as appealing as the argument that these are things we believe in and we should fight for them. and i think moderates have to make a stronger argument for their points of view here, not just a political argument. >> well, the interesting thing about elizabeth warren was that she also made the electability argument. the rap against her, yeah she's a great debater, she's been a candidate of ideas, maybe they're too liberal for a lot of the country. what she had to do is tell people she's electable, and she did. she said, i'm a capitalist. i know how to fight. i know how to win. and she was saying, everybody, don't worry. >> me, i can take on donald trump. and i think bernie sanders did not do that as well as elizabeth warren did tonight. she knew that she had to confront that. delaney started the debate right out of the box by saying,