Tag: 2016 democratic debate
Clinton And Sanders Battle In Debate Over Healthcare, Wall Street Ties

Clinton And Sanders Battle In Debate Over Healthcare, Wall Street Ties

By John Whitesides

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders battled over healthcare and Wall Street in a debate on Thursday, with Clinton accusing Sanders of misleading Americans on his healthcare plan and making promises “that cannot be kept.”

In a sixth presidential debate that featured several sharp exchanges but a more sedate tone than their last meeting, Clinton said Sanders’ proposal for a single-payer, Medicare-for-all healthcare plan would mean dismantling Obamacare and triggering another intense political struggle.

“Based on every analysis I can find by people who are sympathetic to the goal, the numbers don’t add up,” Clinton told Sanders. “That’s a promise that cannot be kept.”

Sanders said he would not dismantle the healthcare plan known as Obamacare and was simply moving to provide what most industrialized countries have – healthcare coverage for all.

“We’re not going to dismantle anything,” Sanders said. “In my view healthcare is a right of all people, not a privilege, and I will fight for that.”

Sanders repeated his accusation that Clinton is too beholden to the Wall Street interests she once represented as a U.S. senator from New York, noting her Super PAC received $15 million in donations from Wall Street.

“Let’s not insult the intelligence of the American people,” he said. “Why in God’s name does Wall Street make huge campaign contributions? I guess just for the fun of it, they want to throw money around.”

Clinton said the donations did not mean she was in Wall Street’s pocket, and noted that President Barack Obama had taken donations from Wall Street during his campaigns.

“When it mattered, he stood up and took on Wall Street,” she said.

The Judicial System and Race

With the presidential race moving into states with larger minority populations, both candidates decried the high incarceration rate of African-Americans and called for broad reforms of the criminal justice system. Sanders said black incarceration rates were “one of the great tragedies” in the United States.

“That is beyond unspeakable,” Sanders said of a disproportionately high black male prison population. He called for “fundamental police reform” that would “make it clear that any police officer who breaks the law will in fact be dealt with.”

Clinton criticized what she said was “systemic racism” in education, housing and employment. “When we talk about criminal justice reform … we also have to talk about jobs, education, housing and other ways of helping communities of color,” she said.

Clinton entered Thursday’s debate under acute pressure to calm a growing sense of nervousness among her supporters after a 22-point drubbing by Sanders on Tuesday in the New Hampshire primary election and a razor-thin win last week in the Iowa caucus. Both states have nearly all-white populations.

For his part, Sanders, an independent U.S. senator of Vermont who calls himself a democratic socialist, hoped to harness the momentum and enthusiasm he gained from the first two contests and prove he can be a viable contender to lead the Democratic Party to victory in the Nov. 8 presidential election.

“What our campaign is indicating is that the American people are tired of establishment politics,” Sanders said. “They want a political revolution.”

The race now moves to what should be more favorable ground for Clinton in Nevada and South Carolina, states with more black and Hispanic voters, who, polls show, have been more supportive of Clinton so far.

Clinton, a former secretary of state, on Thursday won a significant endorsement from the Congressional Black Caucus, while Sanders has launched his own effort to make inroads among African-American voters.

Sanders met with civil rights leader Al Sharpton the morning after his New Hampshire win, and has aired advertising and built up staff quickly in both Nevada and South Carolina. The debate on Thursday was the last one before those two contests.

After South Carolina on Feb. 27, the presidential race accelerates with 28 states voting in rapid succession in March, including 11 states on March 1 and big prizes such as Ohio, Florida and Illinois on March 15.

(Additional reporting by Amanda Becker, Alana Wise and Megan Cassella in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Photo: Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton arrive on stage ahead of the start of the PBS NewsHour Democratic presidential candidates debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, February 11, 2016. REUTERS/Darren Hauck

Democratic Debate Highlights Sharp Disagreement On Mideast

Democratic Debate Highlights Sharp Disagreement On Mideast

By Evan Halper and Michael A. Memoli, Tribune Washington Bureau (TNS)

MANCHESTER, N.H. — The Democratic presidential candidates strongly disagreed over the U.S. role in the Middle East as they debated in New Hampshire on Saturday, with Sen. Bernie Sanders urgently needing a big break to jump-start his campaign.

After extraordinary success early in his campaign, Sanders has not had many events move his way lately. The campaign’s greater focus on foreign affairs and terrorism has shifted the discussion away from his areas of strength, his growth in the polls has stalled and he is running out of time to gain ground on front-runner Hillary Clinton.

In recent weeks, Sanders has sometimes seemed frustrated with that focus on the Middle East and the fight against the Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. But early in the debate, he staked out that issue as a key distinction between himself and Clinton.

“I worry,” he said that “Secretary Clinton is too much into regime change and a little bit too aggressive without knowing what the unintended consequences might be” of military action in the Mideast.

The U.S. should seek a coalition against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, that would include Russia, Sanders said. To keep the focus on that fight, the U.S. should set aside its insistence that Syrian President Bashar Assad leave power, he added.

“It is not Assad that is attacking the United States. It is ISIS,” he said. The U.S. “cannot be the policeman of the world.”

Clinton sharply disagreed.

“Assad has killed by last count about 250,000 Syrians,” she said, and the civil war caused by his government’s actions is “the reason we’re in the mess we’re in.”

“I wish it could be either-or,” she said. But the U.S. needs to work on both tracks — fighting Islamic State and opposing Assad — to be effective. The Sunni Arab fighters that the U.S. wants on its side all oppose Assad and want to remove him from power, she noted.

“If the United States does not lead, there is not another leader, there is a vacuum,” she said. She also suggested that Sanders’ approach would lead to greater involvement in Syria by Iran, Assad’s ally.

More involvement by Iran would be “like asking the arsonist to pour more gasoline on the fire,” she said.

The disagreement over the Mideast was one of sharpest disagreements on a night in which the candidates saved most of their harshest language for a Republican, Donald Trump.

Clinton said the New York billionaire was “becoming ISIS’ best recruiter” because of his proposal to ban most Muslims from entering the U.S. and other remarks that many Muslims see as aimed at them.

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley decried what he called the “fascist pleas of billionaires with big mouths.”

O’Malley, who has languished in the polls, was newly aggressive Saturday, going after both Clinton and Sanders on gun control.

He called Sanders to task for his previous support of gun legislation backed by the National Rifle Association that shielded gun makers from civil suits, and for his opposition to the Brady Bill and other gun control laws.

He also attacked Clinton for, as he put it, changing her view on gun laws with every election year.

“Look, what we need on this issue is not more polls. We need more principle,” he said.

“Whoa, whoa,” Sanders replied. “Let’s calm down a little bit, Martin.”

“Tell the truth,” Clinton said. “I applaud his record in Maryland. I just wish he wouldn’t misrepresent mine.”

Clinton also offered a backhanded compliment to Sanders on the gun issue, noting that he had shifted position and was now closer to her view.

“I’m glad to see this — Sen. Sanders has really moved in face of the facts about what we’re confronting in our country,” she said.

Earlier in the debate, Sanders was prodded to apologize for the latest unexpected development to complicate his campaign — a crisis that erupted Friday over snooping by Sanders’ since-fired digital director into confidential voter files that Clinton’s campaign had stored in a Democratic National Committee database. For a time, the party and the Sanders campaign appeared headed for a fight in court, until a truce was reached late Friday night.

Asked about the digital snooping, Sanders said, “I recognize it is a problem,” and admitted, “Our staff did the wrong thing.”

Although he also complained that Democratic Party officials had treated his campaign too roughly in response, Sanders offered an apology to Clinton and to his supporters.

Clinton, in response, repeated a gesture that Sanders had offered her at an earlier debate, when he said he was tired of hearing about the controversy over her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.

“We should move on, because I don’t think the American people are all that interested in this,” she said.

O’Malley, who has languished far back in the polls, also sought to seize on the issue to try to create an opening for himself, claiming that the daylong argument over the issue on Friday was an example of what’s wrong with American politics.

No place is more crucial for Sanders to achieve a breakthrough than in New Hampshire, an almost do-or-die contest for the senator who hails from neighboring Vermont.

Sanders holds a slight lead in New Hampshire, according to several polls, even as he has been losing ground in Iowa, which holds the first nominating contest. His campaign is working fiercely to hang on to its edge here, where early polls are notoriously volatile.

When Sanders launched his bid, voters were almost singularly focused on the economy. His unapologetic economic populism and crusading against Wall Street was welcomed as a refreshing defiance of the status quo by a Democratic base disappointed in how the middle class keeps losing ground, even under the Obama administration.

The Sanders pitch still resonates with the party’s liberal wing. But he’s been less successful at handling the issue that now dominates the race: national security. After the attacks in Paris and then San Bernardino, Clinton embraced the challenge with gusto, laying out detailed proposals in speeches before distinguished crowds of foreign policy thinkers where she already seemed to be playing the role of commander in chief.

Sanders lacked the foreign policy expertise to compete, countering Clinton with calls to encourage the Arab world to become more engaged in the fight against terrorism. The low point for Sanders came when a staffer advised reporters before one news conference that the senator would not take questions on Islamic State.

The Democratic debates are more like a PBS special. The New Hampshire event, just the third of the nominating season, was the second held on a Saturday night, when many would-be viewers have other things to do. The DNC sets the debate schedule, and Sanders’ backers allege that party officials deliberately timed the events so they would have minimum impact and not threaten the lead of the establishment candidate, Clinton.

Regardless, the debates have done little to change the contours of the race. Clinton was up by more than 20 points in national polling averages leading up to last month’s debate in Iowa. In the weeks following, she was still up by more than 20 points, as she is now.

©2015 Tribune Co. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: Democratic U.S. presidential candidates (L-R) U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former Governor Martin O’Malley discuss issues at the Democratic presidential candidates debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire December 19, 2015.  REUTERS/Brian Snyder

 

Clinton Vows No New Middle-Class Taxes If Elected President

Clinton Vows No New Middle-Class Taxes If Elected President

By John Whitesides and Luciana Lopez

MANCHESTER, N.H. (Reuters) – U.S. Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton vowed on Saturday not to raise taxes on middle-class Americans if elected next November in a populist push to position herself for a general election battle on pocket-book issues.

Clinton, at a debate with rivals Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, repeatedly zeroed in on Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, at one point accusing him of helping Islamic State militants recruit new members with his vow to ban Muslims from entering the United States.

The two-hour debate, moderated by ABC News, did not appear to change the trajectory of the 2016 Democratic race for the White House, with Clinton hanging on to a big lead in polls of Democratic voters and Vermont Senator Sanders and former Maryland Governor O’Malley still searching for breakthrough moments.

Clinton questioned the affordability of some of Sanders’ proposals such as creation of a single-payer healthcare system and tuition-free college, suggesting these plans would lead to higher taxes on working families.

She pledged not to raise taxes for middle-class families and said such a tax “should not be part of anybody’s plan right now.”

“I don’t think we should be imposing big new programs that are going to raise middle-class families’ taxes,” the former secretary of state said. “We’ve got to get back to where people can save money again, where they can invest in their families.”

Sanders, seeking to bite into Clinton’s big lead in polls of Democratic voters, criticized her for supporting the speedy departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has resisted all diplomatic efforts to leave power with a civil war raging in his country and swathes of territory controlled by Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

“Secretary Clinton is too much into regime change and a little bit too aggressive without knowing what the unintended consequences might be,” Sanders said. “Yes, we could get rid of Assad tomorrow, but that would create another political vacuum that would benefit ISIS.”

“Regime change is easy. Getting rid of dictators is easy. But before you do that, you’ve got to think about what happens the day after,” said Sanders, a democratic socialist.

Clinton rejected the criticism and pointed out that Sanders as a U.S. senator from Vermont had voted “for regime change with respect to Libya” in 2011.

And she disagreed with Sanders’ assertion that the U.S. military should prioritize the fight against Islamic State over working to get Assad to leave power, saying both should be done at the same time.

“We will not get the support on the ground in Syria to dislodge ISIS if the fighters there – who are not associated with ISIS, but whose principal goal is getting rid of Assad – don’t believe there is a political diplomatic channel that is ongoing. We now have that,” Clinton said.

“It’s very important we operate on both at the same time.”

‘FLIP-FLOPPING’

O’Malley accused his rivals of being too soft on gun control. He is far behind in the polls and needs to shake up a race increasingly tilting against him with six weeks to go until Iowa holds the first nominating contest on Feb. 1. He said Clinton and Sanders had adopted more aggressive positions on gun control in the wake of this year’s mass shootings.

O’Malley also said Islamic State militants have advised recruits that the best way to get a weapon in the United States is at a gun show where rules are more lenient on the purchase of a firearm. This is a result, he said, of “flip-flopping” by Sanders and Clinton.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Martin,” Sanders said.

“Let’s tell the truth, Martin,” Clinton chimed in.

Sanders said he had lost an election in Vermont for a gun-control stance and Clinton said she had backed gun-control measures.

The Democrats’ third debate was marked by controversy from the start over a recent data breach of Clinton’s campaign voter files by a Sanders staffer, who was subsequently fired.

Sanders apologized to Clinton for the breach.

“Yes, I apologize,” he said when asked about the controversy during the debate, but he renewed his criticism of the Democratic National Committee for freezing access to his own voter files until the issue was resolved late on Friday.

Clinton, whose campaign said Sanders made a number of breaches into Clinton computer files, accepted the apology and said it was time to move on.

“I very much appreciate that comment, Bernie,” she said. “Now that I think we’ve resolved your data, we’ve agreed on an independent inquiry, we should move on. I don’t think the American people are all that interested in this.”

(Additional reporting by Ginger Gibson and Megan Casella in Washington, Writing by John Whitesides and Steve Holland; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Paul Simao)

Democratic U.S. presidential candidates U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton share a laugh at the start of a commercial break during the Democratic presidential candidates debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire December 19, 2015. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

Clinton On The Defensive As Debate Turns To Terrorism

Clinton On The Defensive As Debate Turns To Terrorism

By Lesley Clark and David Lightman, McClatchy Washington Bureau (TNS)

DES MOINES, Iowa — Hillary Clinton talked tough and played defense Saturday at the second Democratic presidential debate, as rivals questioned her record and plans to fight the Islamic State.

A day after a terrorist attack in Paris, terrorism and foreign policy took center stage in the two-hour debate with questions from the moderator and criticisms from rivals often focusing on her record as secretary of state during President Barack Obama’s first four years in office.

Main Takeaway

Clinton remains the Democrats’ clear front-runner, but the debate illustrated how she will have to answer for administration policy on terrorism and foreign policy. Clinton last month broke with the White House, urging a no-fly zone in Syria and doing more to help rebels there. But she can’t shed her ties to the administration, and Republicans are hitting her hard on her role.

The debate also showed how Clinton retains considerable advantages. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, can’t match her foreign policy experience or command of world politics. Perhaps most important, neither is drawing sharp distinctions with her on anti-terrorist policies.

Highlights:

Response to Paris

The three opened with a moment of silence for the victims in Paris, then talked about their approach to the Islamic State terror group.

“It cannot be contained. It must be defeated,” Clinton said, a slight jab at Obama who said just before the Paris attacks that ISIS had been contained.

“But it cannot be an American fight,”she added. “This cannot be an American fight, although American leadership is essential.”

Her two rivals were more assertive about U.S. leadership.

“I would disagree with Secretary Clinton,” said O’Malley. “This actually is America’s fight. It cannot solely be America’s fight. … America is best when we are actually standing up to evil in this world.

“Together, leading the world, this country will rid our planet of … ISIS,” said Sanders.

Who is the enemy?

Republicans complain that Democrats won’t use the words Muslim or Islam in describing terrorists.

Saturday, the Democratic candidates appeared to rally to the term Jihadi or Jihadist, which derive from the word for a holy war by Muslims.

Clinton Saturday referred to a “radical jihadist ideology.”

“I don’t think we’re at war with Islam,” she added. “I don’t think we’re at war with all Muslims.”

O’Malley used the term “radical jihadis,” but also warned against labeling terrorists with the broad term of Muslim, saying that would unfairly brand the majority of American Muslims who are needed to help fight back violent extremism.

Said Sanders: “I don’t think the term is what’s important.”

Syrian refugees

O’Malley proposed allowing 65,000 Syrian refugees into the country, more than the 10,000 proposed by Obama, though he said they need “proper screening.”

Clinton also argued for a higher number, adding “I said we should go to 65, but only if we have as careful a screening and vetting process as we can imagine.”

Top quotes

Hillary Clinton: “I don’t think we’re at war with Islam, I don’t think we’re at war with all Muslims.”

Bernie Sanders: “I’m not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower,” referring to the 91 percent top income tax rate in the 1950s.

Martin O’Malley: “You will never heard this from that immigrant-bashing carnival barker Donald Trump”

Report card

Clinton

Clinton had to defend her years as secretary of State. Moderator John Dickerson asked if the Obama administration underestimated the Islamic State threat. Clinton didn’t answer at first, then tried to tie the current crisis to President George W. Bush’s decision to end American involvement in Iraq. Each time she was challenged, Clinton would launch into detailed histories of the region’s turmoil and American involvement. Backers will praise her command of detail; opponents will contend she’s avoiding responsibility for being part of a team that didn’t take the Islamic threat seriously enough.

Sanders

He got off to a rocky start. He only briefly touched on the Paris terrorist attacks in his opening remarks before turning to his standard speech assailing income inequality and the corrosive nature of money in politics. Viewers then watched as Clinton and O’Malley devoted their entire opening statement to the attacks. Viewers may also have been puzzled when Sanders said that climate change is the country’s greatest threat and a contributor to the spread of terrorism. He also failed to gain traction out of his criticism that Clinton had voted for the Iraq War that he opposed.

O’Malley

O’Malley, who has languished in single digits in the polls, performed ably, holding his own with the former secretary of State and U.S. senator on foreign and domestic policy, including health care and taxes. How would he pay for his policies? He explained. Can a former governor lead the U.S. in a time of global terror? Yes, he said. But he needed a breakthrough performance to attract new attention and enthusiasm to his campaign and his performance fell short.

The Count

Wall Street. The term came up often, as Sanders and O’Malley challenged Clinton over her ties to the financial industry. Clinton had a different take on those ties, recalling how, as a U.S. senator from New York, she fought to help rebuild a part of the city devastated by terrorist attacks.

(c)2015 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Nov 14, 2015; Des Moines, IA, USA; Bernie Sanders (left) greets Hillary Clinton after the Democratic presidential debate at Drake University. Mandatory Credit: Rodney White/The Des Moines Register via USA TODAY Sports