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| Democratic debate turns scrappy as Sanders wins Maine presidential caucuses — live | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| 2.40am GMT | |
| 02:40 | |
| Fracking. Do you support it? | |
| Clinton: “I don’t support it where any locality or any state is against it, number one. I don’t support it where release of methane or contamination of water is present … Unless we can require where anybody who fracks can tell us exactly what chemicals they use.” | |
| In short: “I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place.” | |
| Sandesr: “My answer is a lot shorter. No, I do not support fracking.” | |
| He adds that he’s glad somebody mentioned climate change, because it’s not being talked about enough. “If we don’t get our act together, the climate that we’re going to live our children may not be healthy or habitable.” | |
| Cooper points out that plenty of Democratic leaders say fracking can be safe. Sanders says they’re wrong. | |
| “I talk to scientists who tell me that fracking is doing terrible things to water across the country.” He says the US has to develop new energy sources and systems, “and we’ve got to do it yesterday.” | |
| Updated | |
| at 2.40am GMT | |
| 2.36am GMT | |
| 02:36 | |
| Don Lemon asks about infrastructure. Clinton says she likes it. | |
| “I want to start a national infrastructure bank,” Clinton says. “There’s no doubt, we have to do more on our bridges, our tunnels, our roads, our airports … We have pipelines that are leaking, that are dangerous. We have so much work to be done and I think we can put millions of people to work.” | |
| Lemon asks Sanders about whether his $1tn-plan is at all feasible – if Obama’s plan has failed to get going, how will yours? | |
| “I’ll tell you how we’re gonna pay for that. Profitable corporations are stashing their profits in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and other tax havens,” he says. “I will eliminate that outrageous loophole, and we will raise a trillion dollars. … A trillion dollars over five years creates 13 million good paying jobs.” | |
| Updated | |
| at 2.40am GMT | |
| 2.34am GMT | |
| 02:34 | |
| Sanders goes past Clinton, saying that when public schools work they work so well that higher education should be free too. | |
| I believe that every public college and university in this country should be tuition free, so that your child, regardless of the income of your family knows that if she studies hard, she is going to be able to go to college. | |
| He says he wants well-paid childcare workers, too (which was one of Barack Obama’s priorities that has fallen by the wayside in recent years). | |
| 2.32am GMT | |
| 02:32 | |
| Clinton takes the question, saying she would reinstate federal funding for repairing and modernizing public schools. | |
| I would use every legal means at my disposal to try to force the governor and the state to return the schools to the people of Detroit. To end the emergency management, which, if you look at the data, has made things worse! | |
| She then suggests “a kind of education Swat team” of teachers and administrators. “When Detroit gets back to schools they should have all the help they can get.” | |
| CNN: do you think unions protect bad teachers? | |
| Clinton says she’s proud to have been endorsed by two huge teachers unions. “We’ve had really candid conversations,” she says, about helping kids who have “more problems than just academic problems.” | |
| “A lot of people have been blaming and scapegoating teachers because they don’t want to put the money in the school system.” | |
| CNN: so… about the question? | |
| Clinton: “You know what I have told my friends at the top of both unions that we have to take a look at this, because it is one of the most common criticisms, and we need to eliminate that criticism. | |
| “Teachers do so much good, they are often working under the most difficult circumstances, so anything that could be changed, I want them to look at.” | |
| Updated | |
| at 2.41am GMT | |
| 2.29am GMT | |
| 02:29 | |
| Richard Wolffe | |
| There’s been a lot of discussion about the 1990s in this debate. Guardian US columnist Richard Wolffe wonders what else is going to come up on this trip down memory lane. | |
| First it was the reunion of the cast of Friends, then it was the Democratic debate. It’s safe to say the 1990s are well and truly back in fashion, at least judging from the amount of time spent assessing the relative merits of the 1990s economy, welfare reform, Nafta and the 1994 crime bill. | |
| All that’s left is a discussion about that other 90s political story about a White House intern. So far Bernie Sanders, who has been leading the re-examination of the 1990s, hasn’t gone there. | |
| 2.28am GMT | |
| 02:28 | |
| Sanders fields the question first:“A nation is judged not by how it treats the millionaires but by how it treats its most vulnerable, the children and the elderly, and we should be ashamed!” | |
| Kemp nods, “thank you.” | |
| Sanders then turns it into a tirade against Republicans, who says “we have got to change our national priorities: no more tax breaks for billionaires and corporations. We are going to invest in our children and have the best public school system in the world.” | |
| Cooper asks where exactly fixing Detroit schools ranks in Sanders’ priorities? | |
| “Everybody in this room should be embarrassed by this: we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any industrialized country – that is a disgrace!” | |
| He doesn’t really say where it ranks in his priorities. Taxes on the wealthiest will pay for it, he suggests. | |
| 2.26am GMT | |
| 02:26 | |
| Shoniqua Kemp, another Michigan local, asks Sanders about schools: “Our students can no longer suffer with a lack of [materials] or logistical issues … who’s going to step up?” | |
| “My daughter cannot wait eight more years for success to take place.” | |
| Updated | |
| at 2.27am GMT | |
| 2.24am GMT | |
| 02:24 | |
| Mid-debate, Sanders’ campaign has released a statement about his victory in Maine. | |
| “I thank the people of Maine for their strong support. With another double-digit victory, we have now won by wide margins in states from New England to the Rocky Mountains and from the Midwest to the Great Plains. | |
| “This weekend alone we won in Maine, Kansas and Nebraska. The pundits might not like it but the people are making history. We now have the momentum to go all the way to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.” | |
| 2.22am GMT | |
| 02:22 | |
| The dream of the 90s | |
| The 1990s come back. Clinton says that her husband’s policies helped lift record numbers of people out of poverty, and have helped millions. | |
| Sanders says he doesn’t disagree entirely, and that he supported many of then president Bill Clinton’s proposals. But he adds: “We deregulated Wall Street” and trade agreements like “Nafta had a horrendous impact”, which he argues had a disproportionate effect on African Americans. | |
| He says he voted against Wall Street deregulation, and those agreements. | |
| “So when we talk about the 90s, you’re right, a lot of good things happened, but a lot of bad things happened” he concludes. | |
| Updated | |
| at 2.42am GMT | |
| 2.20am GMT | |
| 02:20 | |
| Sanders says he wants to build “on the work that President Obama has done”: Justice Department investigations, ending the militarization of local police departments, making local police departments look like the communities they serve, drugs as a health issue rather than a criminal one. | |
| Finally, Clinton is asked about her use of the phrase “super predators” in the 1990s to describe drug dealers, which many people heard as racially charged. Clinton says it was “a poor choice of words” that “I would not use it again”. | |
| “I was speaking about drug cartels and criminal activity that was very concerning.” | |
| 2.19am GMT | |
| 02:19 | |
| Lemon asks the candidates what their “blind spots” are with respect to race. | |
| “I know I have never had the experience that so many people in American and this audience have had,” Clinton starts. | |
| She says she would “urge white people to think about what it is to have to talk with your kids, scared that your sons or daughters even could get in trouble for no reason … and end up in a jail in Texas. | |
| “And I have spent a lot of time with mothers of African American children, who have lost them. Trayvon Martin’s mother … It has been incredibly humbling, because I can’t pretend to have the experience that you have had and others have had. But I will do the best I possibly can to understand and empathize, but to tear down the institutional [barriers of racism].” | |
| Sanders tells two brief anecdotes in his answer. “One of my first years in Congress I went down to a meeting in downtown Washington DC,” he says. “I saw him out later on and he was sitting there waiting, and I said let’s go out and get a cab. And he said, no, I don’t get cabs in Washignton DC. He was humiliated by the fact that cab drivers would go past him in Washington DC. This man did not take a cab 20 years ago in Washignton DC.” | |
| Then he says that more recently, a “young lady comes up to me and she says you don’t understand what police do in certain black communities … You don’t understand the degree to which we are terrorized … I’m not just talking about the terrible shootings … I’m just talking about every day activities where police officers are bullying.” | |
| He says he agrees with Clinton: “When you’re white you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto. You don’t know what it’s like to be poor. You don’t know what it’s like to be hassled when you walk down the street or to be dragged out of a car.” | |
| Updated | |
| at 2.24am GMT | |
| 2.13am GMT | |
| 02:13 | |
| A black resident of Flint asks Sanders about the new civil rights movement, and in particular why older civil rights leaders have flocked to Clinton more so than the senator. | |
| Sander gives a brief summary of his time protesting with the civil rights movement in the 1960s. “Most candidates don’t usually put this on their resume but a year later I was arrested by the Chicago police for trying to desegregate schools … In 1963 on a very important day for me I went to the March on Washington for jobs and freedom with Dr King.” | |
| He says he’s got the strongest plan to reform the criminal justice system. | |
| Clinton gets a version of the question too. She says she too heard Dr Martin Luther King Jr speak (she was 14), and then, in law school, she had a grant to work on civil rights issues. “First thing she did was to send me to North Carolina, to investigate [imprisonment]. Second thing she did was to send me to Alabama, to investigate segregated academies.” | |
| She says those experiences “lit a fire inside me to address systemic racism”. | |
| Updated | |
| at 2.24am GMT | |
| 2.06am GMT | 2.06am GMT |
| 02:06 | 02:06 |
| Don Lemon, a black CNN anchor, asks Clinton about criminal justice reform and the new generation of civil rights activists | Don Lemon, a black CNN anchor, asks Clinton about criminal justice reform and the new generation of civil rights activists |
| My husband said at the NAACP last summer that [the 1990s criminal justice bill] solved some problems but it created other problems, and I agree. And one of those other problems unfortunately was a move to expand the reasons why people would be incarcerated. | My husband said at the NAACP last summer that [the 1990s criminal justice bill] solved some problems but it created other problems, and I agree. And one of those other problems unfortunately was a move to expand the reasons why people would be incarcerated. |
| Lemon: “Why should black people trust you this time to get people right?” | Lemon: “Why should black people trust you this time to get people right?” |
| Clinton: “Well, Senator Sanders supported it as well, are you going to ask him the question?” | Clinton: “Well, Senator Sanders supported it as well, are you going to ask him the question?” |
| Clinton admits that some aspects of the bill were “a mistake”. She wants to “go after systemic racism that stalks the criminal justice system, ending private prisons, ending the incarceration of low-level offenders.” | Clinton admits that some aspects of the bill were “a mistake”. She wants to “go after systemic racism that stalks the criminal justice system, ending private prisons, ending the incarceration of low-level offenders.” |
| Sanders gets a version of the question: why did he support that bill? | Sanders gets a version of the question: why did he support that bill? |
| As we all know there are bills in Congress that have bad stuff. There are bills in Congress that have good stuff. Bad stuff and good stuff in the same bill. | As we all know there are bills in Congress that have bad stuff. There are bills in Congress that have good stuff. Bad stuff and good stuff in the same bill. |
| Sanders is arguing that he can compromise. | Sanders is arguing that he can compromise. |
| In that bill there have been some good provisions. I have been a fierce fighter of domestic violence,” he gives as an example. “It was in that bill. The ban on assault weapons, what I’ve fought for my whole life, it was in that bill … I tried to get the death penalty aspects in that bill out. Secretary Clinton and I disagree on that. I was then and I am now opposed to the death penalty.” | |
| The audience appreciates this line. | The audience appreciates this line. |
| Updated | |
| at 2.24am GMT | |
| 2.01am GMT | 2.01am GMT |
| 02:01 | 02:01 |
| He defends his record by saying that he voted for provisions in those bills that he thought were good, such as a ban on armor piercing bullets. “You’re looking at a guy who comes from a rural state with low gun control. I have a D-minus rating from the NRA.” He says he lost an election because he said he was for a ban on “military style” assault weapons. “People who should not have guns should not be able to buy guns in America.” | He defends his record by saying that he voted for provisions in those bills that he thought were good, such as a ban on armor piercing bullets. “You’re looking at a guy who comes from a rural state with low gun control. I have a D-minus rating from the NRA.” He says he lost an election because he said he was for a ban on “military style” assault weapons. “People who should not have guns should not be able to buy guns in America.” |
| On the immunity law, he says he does not agree that gun-makers should necessarily be held legally liable. “You hold people, in terms of this liability thing. Where you hold manufacturers liability is if they understand that they’re selling guns to an area that is getting into the hands of criminals.” | On the immunity law, he says he does not agree that gun-makers should necessarily be held legally liable. “You hold people, in terms of this liability thing. Where you hold manufacturers liability is if they understand that they’re selling guns to an area that is getting into the hands of criminals.” |
| “But if they’re selling a product into the hands of a person who is buying legally, you’re ending gun manufacturing in America.” | “But if they’re selling a product into the hands of a person who is buying legally, you’re ending gun manufacturing in America.” |
| Clinton says the NRA stopped a bigger push to make guns safer, eg by making fingerprint or DNA locks. The immunity law was a huge push by the gun lobby, she argues – suggesting that the NRA has played some senators for fools. | Clinton says the NRA stopped a bigger push to make guns safer, eg by making fingerprint or DNA locks. The immunity law was a huge push by the gun lobby, she argues – suggesting that the NRA has played some senators for fools. |
| “If somebody who is crazy or a criminal or a horrible person goes around shooting people, the manufacturer of that gun should be liable,” Sanders says is how he interprets the argument. “If that is the case, then essentially your position is there should not be any guns in America, period.” | “If somebody who is crazy or a criminal or a horrible person goes around shooting people, the manufacturer of that gun should be liable,” Sanders says is how he interprets the argument. “If that is the case, then essentially your position is there should not be any guns in America, period.” |
| Clinton: “That is what the NRA says my position is!” | Clinton: “That is what the NRA says my position is!” |
| Sanders: “Can I finish?” | Sanders: “Can I finish?” |
| Clinton turns back to the moderator and Sanders goes on: “You hold those people who used the guns accountable. You try to make guns as safe as possible, I would agree with that.” | Clinton turns back to the moderator and Sanders goes on: “You hold those people who used the guns accountable. You try to make guns as safe as possible, I would agree with that.” |
| Clinton passionately insists that families like those of Sandy Hook victims have a right to hold gun manufacturers responsible with their collective suit, and the audience applauds her emotional appeal. Cooper insists they move on. | Clinton passionately insists that families like those of Sandy Hook victims have a right to hold gun manufacturers responsible with their collective suit, and the audience applauds her emotional appeal. Cooper insists they move on. |
| 1.57am GMT | 1.57am GMT |
| 01:57 | 01:57 |
| Gun control and gun violence. The father of a shooting victim asks the candidates what it is that they would do. | Gun control and gun violence. The father of a shooting victim asks the candidates what it is that they would do. |
| “First of all I’m looking at your daughter and I’m very grateful she’s laughing and smiling and on the road to recovery,” Clinton begins. | “First of all I’m looking at your daughter and I’m very grateful she’s laughing and smiling and on the road to recovery,” Clinton begins. |
| “I think we have to try everything that works to limit the numbers of people and the kinds of people who are given access to firearms,” she goes on. “The Brady Bill has kept more than 2m purchases from going forward.” | “I think we have to try everything that works to limit the numbers of people and the kinds of people who are given access to firearms,” she goes on. “The Brady Bill has kept more than 2m purchases from going forward.” |
| But “not every killer will have the same profile. But the comprehensive background checks, closing the online loophole, closing the gunshow loophole, closing what’s called the Charleston loophole,” referring to the oversight by which a gunman acquired a gun last year before he killed nine people in Charleston, South Carolina. | But “not every killer will have the same profile. But the comprehensive background checks, closing the online loophole, closing the gunshow loophole, closing what’s called the Charleston loophole,” referring to the oversight by which a gunman acquired a gun last year before he killed nine people in Charleston, South Carolina. |
| “I also believe so strongly, that giving immunity to gun makers and sellers was a terrible mistake, because it removed any accountability from the gun-makers and the sellers.” | “I also believe so strongly, that giving immunity to gun makers and sellers was a terrible mistake, because it removed any accountability from the gun-makers and the sellers.” |
| These are all thinly disguised barbs at Sanders, who has voted against background checks and in favor of giving immunity. He has since reversed his positions. | These are all thinly disguised barbs at Sanders, who has voted against background checks and in favor of giving immunity. He has since reversed his positions. |
| “Let’s be honest, nobody as a magic solution to this problem,” Sanders says. “Any lunatic tomorrow” could commit a mass shooting. “This is a tough issue, but we have go to do everything we possibly can to minimize the possibilities of these mass killings.” | “Let’s be honest, nobody as a magic solution to this problem,” Sanders says. “Any lunatic tomorrow” could commit a mass shooting. “This is a tough issue, but we have go to do everything we possibly can to minimize the possibilities of these mass killings.” |
| 1.52am GMT | 1.52am GMT |
| 01:52 | 01:52 |
| Elizabeth Wurtzel | Elizabeth Wurtzel |
| The subject of Hillary Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches have come up again. Elizabeth Wurtzel thinks its time for her to release them. | The subject of Hillary Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speeches have come up again. Elizabeth Wurtzel thinks its time for her to release them. |
| Hillary Clinton should release the text of her Goldman Sachs speech. It is also absurd to say that money does not buy influence. Of course it does. | Hillary Clinton should release the text of her Goldman Sachs speech. It is also absurd to say that money does not buy influence. Of course it does. |
| If it did not, there would be no Super Pacs. In fact, Barack Obama has not been hard on people in finance, no doubt because these are his people. So Hillary Clinton’s claim that Wall Street money did not affect Obama is ridiculous. | If it did not, there would be no Super Pacs. In fact, Barack Obama has not been hard on people in finance, no doubt because these are his people. So Hillary Clinton’s claim that Wall Street money did not affect Obama is ridiculous. |
| Our entire system is corrupted by it. That is perhaps Sanders’s only point, but it’s good. | Our entire system is corrupted by it. That is perhaps Sanders’s only point, but it’s good. |
| 1.45am GMT | 1.45am GMT |
| 01:45 | 01:45 |
| He flips the “even-the-playing-field-abroad” argument and says that if Clinton wants to compare the US and other countries, most of the western world has universal healthcare. It’s the “one thing we should emulate”, he says. | He flips the “even-the-playing-field-abroad” argument and says that if Clinton wants to compare the US and other countries, most of the western world has universal healthcare. It’s the “one thing we should emulate”, he says. |
| Clinton says sure, we’re getting there thanks to Barack Obama. | Clinton says sure, we’re getting there thanks to Barack Obama. |
| “We have 90% coverage, we are lacking 10%. We’re going to stay on that path and we will get to universal coverage.” | “We have 90% coverage, we are lacking 10%. We’re going to stay on that path and we will get to universal coverage.” |
| Updated | Updated |
| at 1.50am GMT | at 1.50am GMT |
| 1.43am GMT | 1.43am GMT |
| 01:43 | 01:43 |
| Candidates clash on 'corporate welfare' bank | Candidates clash on 'corporate welfare' bank |
| Cooper points out that Sanders’s opposition to the bank puts him on the same side as Republican ultra-conservative Ted Cruz. | Cooper points out that Sanders’s opposition to the bank puts him on the same side as Republican ultra-conservative Ted Cruz. |
| “I don’t want to break the bad news,” Sanders says. “Democrats are not always right. Democrats have often supported corporate welfare. Democrats have often supported disastrous trade agreements. And on this issue I do not agree with corporate welfare.” | “I don’t want to break the bad news,” Sanders says. “Democrats are not always right. Democrats have often supported corporate welfare. Democrats have often supported disastrous trade agreements. And on this issue I do not agree with corporate welfare.” |
| He cites his work in Congress to make sure “20%” of the funds went to actual small businesses. | He cites his work in Congress to make sure “20%” of the funds went to actual small businesses. |
| Clinton says that you can see the results of the Import-Export bank, and says 240 companies in Michigan have been helped by it, for instance. “If we’re going to compete and win in the global economy, we can’t let every other country support their country and we take a hands-off approach.” | Clinton says that you can see the results of the Import-Export bank, and says 240 companies in Michigan have been helped by it, for instance. “If we’re going to compete and win in the global economy, we can’t let every other country support their country and we take a hands-off approach.” |
| Cooper fact-checks: Sanders is right, most of the money goes to Boeing and Caterpillar. “Do they really need this money?” | Cooper fact-checks: Sanders is right, most of the money goes to Boeing and Caterpillar. “Do they really need this money?” |
| Clinton says yes, those huge corporations do. She says compared to Airbus, Boeing needs the assistance. It’s all about playing the field with international corporations, Clinton says, making sure that American companies can compete abroad. | Clinton says yes, those huge corporations do. She says compared to Airbus, Boeing needs the assistance. It’s all about playing the field with international corporations, Clinton says, making sure that American companies can compete abroad. |
| “Isn’t it tragic,” Sanders waxes sarcastic, “oh absolutely, they need a handout from the American middle class.” | “Isn’t it tragic,” Sanders waxes sarcastic, “oh absolutely, they need a handout from the American middle class.” |
| Updated | Updated |
| at 1.49am GMT | at 1.49am GMT |