On Tuesday, the Democrat Party’s candidates for president gathered in South Carolina for a debate ahead of the Palmetto State’s primary, where stakes are high as polls get tighter.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), was the main target, as he has been edging former Vice President Joe Biden’s narrow lead.
Right off the bat, billionaire and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg hit Sanders for Russia’s reported attempts at trying to help Sanders win. “Putin thinks Trump should be president of the United States and that’s why Russia is helping you get elected so you’ll lose to him,” Bloomberg said.
Sanders quipped back, “I’m not a good friend of President Xi of China… I think President Xi is an authoritarian leader, and let me tell me tell Mr. Putin, who tried to interfere in the 2016 election and tried to pit Americans against each other: Hey Mr. Putin, if I’m president, trust me, you won’t interfere with any more elections.”
Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg proclaimed, “I am not looking forward to a scenario where it comes down to Donald Trump with his nostalgia for the social order of the ‘50s and Bernie Sanders with a nostalgia for the revolution politics of the ‘60s… We’re not going to win these critical House and Senate races if people in those races have to explain why the nominee of the Democratic Party is telling people to look at the bright side of the Castro regime.”
Sanders responded by touting socialized medicine and saying the program is not “some kind of radical communist idea.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren once again went after Bloomberg for his nondisclosure agreements, while simultaneously claiming he said “kill it” to a pregnant worker. Bloomberg vehemently denied saying that to the pregnant worker, clapping back, “I never said those words and there would be no reason to do so, it’s ridiculous and an outrage.”
While touting his $100 million effort in the 2018 campaign to elect Democrats and help Nancy Pelosi retake the House majority, he made a slip of the tongue, saying “I bough…I got them,” referring to the newly-minted House members who have now begun to endorse him.
While speaking about Israel and asked if he would move the United States’ embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, Sen. Sanders said, “The answer is it’s something we would take into consideration,” appearing to placate his anti-Israel backers, including radical freshman Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Sanders also said, “…in Israel, through Bibi Netanyahu, you have a reactionary racist who is now running that country.” He rationalized his comment by saying, “you cannot ignore the suffering of the Palestinian people. We have got to have a policy that reaches out to the Palestinians and the Americans. That will come within the context of bringing nations together in the Mideast.”
The debate also included a gaffe from Joe Biden where he claimed 150 million people have been killed through gun violence since 2007, and the former Vice President saying he’d been “working like the devil” to win the black vote.
It was not a good night for the Democrats ahead of the South Carolina primary, as the constant interruptions and infighting will leave the party further fractured.