The Democratic debate aired on January 17, 2016, live on NBC and pitted Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O’Malley against one another. Clinton the moderate, who is more hawkish on defense and foreign policy while attempting to show loyalty to President Barack Obama, while still showing that she can be her own person. “We do [want to] limit a lot of the unnecessary costs we still have in the system. That’s what I’m planning to do”.
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“With all due respect, to start over again with a whole new debate is something that would set us back”, Clinton said. “Sanders’ Medicare-for-all plan would save $6 trillion over the next 10 years compared to the current system, according to a detailed analysis by Gerald Friedman, an economist at University of MA at Amherst who is a leading expert on health care costs”.
“We’re at least having a vigorous debate about reining in Wall Street”, she said.
“The first difference is I don’t take money from big banks, I don’t get personal speaking fees from Goldman Sachs”, he said.
Clinton attacked Sanders for his views on gun control in earlier debates; after it was revealed that he had voted for a bill exonerating owners of gun shops for selling firearms to customers that went on to commit violent acts.
“I’m not going to tear it up, I helped write it”, Sanders said.
This overstates Sanders’ role in the process, making him sound like more of an insider than he actually was.
The AP has reported that together the Clintons made more than $50 million from giving speeches since 2000; from 2007 to 2014, the couple claimed $139 million in income. “We have an economy that’s rigged”, Sanders said as he drew a sharp contrast with Clinton. Vox Editor-in-Chief Ezra Klein called Sanders’ plan “vague and unrealistic” and pointed out that increasing taxes on the rich to the scale that the senator is proposing could have real economic drawbacks.
Sanders’s facial expression as Clinton criticized him caused a splash on social media, inspiring videos and gifs that circulated widely. In 2005 Sanders voted for legislation that gave gun manufacturers legal immunity.
“Today the inevitable candidate doesn’t look quite so inevitable as she did 8 ½ months ago”, Sanders said during a town hall meeting on a frigid morning in Fort Dodge.
Sanders pushed back at every turn.
Sanders cited the goading he is always facing to attack Clinton for the previous comments, something he said he tries to now avoid. His former colleague, he said in a statement released by Clinton’s campaign, is the best person to carry on the Obama administration’s legacy. By the next time they meet, actual votes will have been cast and the race, for both the Dems and the now Donald Trump dominated GOP, could be taking on a whole new hue.
In 2015, accused shooter Dylann Roof was able to buy a gun after the waiting period had lapsed – the result of a clerical error when the Federal Bureau of Investigation sought records from the wrong local law enforcement agency about Roof.
Sanders made the case that he has been, and remains, a supporter of the president. But Roof was able to purchase the gun after a three-day waiting period expired.
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The pair repeatedly tangled Sunday night over who’s tougher on gun control and Wall Street and how to shape the future of health care in America. Sanders was against waiting periods for background checks.
