Tonight when being asked about the plan, moderator Andrea Mitchell described it as a “very detailed plan”.
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Democratic presidential candidates took the stage in Charleston amid a tightening race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
While Clinton remains the national front-runner, grassroots enthusiasm for Sanders’ outsider candidacy and his unapologetically liberal message has imperiled her lead in Iowa and expanded his advantage in New Hampshire.
But Clinton has said she would break up big banks if need be and that her plan expands on Dodd-Frank regulations. Clinton, by contrast, urged less sweeping action to build on President Barack Obama’s health care plan by reducing out-of-pocket costs and control spending on prescription drugs. Clinton warned that reopening the health care debate would put Obama’s health care law at risk.
Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley was also on stage but had a tough time getting a word in. “I know a little bit about this, having spent many hours in the situation room, advising President Obama”, Clinton said.
Questioning her commitment to policing excess on Wall Street, Sanders twice invoked Clinton’s receipt of lucrative speaking fees after leaving her post as secretary of state in early 2013. “And when they are providing speaker fees to individuals”, he continued.
The leading contenders stepped up their attacks on each other during the past week, battling over guns, health care and Wall Street with growing intensity as polls showed Sanders gaining ground on Clinton in key states.
Clinton, whose campaign has been surprised by the resilience of what Sanders called his “political revolution”, presented herself as the candidate best qualified to “bring our country together” during polarising times.
It was a topic bound to come up: Wall Street and the big banks. But he faced questions over how he would pay for it all. “It’s whether we have the guts to stand up to the private insurance companies”. “It’s a pretty good deal”, he said.
“Ultimately I don’t think this debate will shift the needle any more than it has or where it already is”, she said. “I helped write it”, he said.
Killer Mike has been unabashed in his support of Senator Bernie Sanders’ campaign for presidency. They all weighed in on gun control, an area where Sanders recently changed his position.
Mr Sanders listed several moments when he and Mr Obama supported each other.
Sanders, in turn, said Clinton’s assertion that he kowtowed to the gun lobby was “very disingenuous” and pointed to his lifetime rating of a D-minus from the NRA.
O’Malley chimed in and said he had actually pushed through gun control measures in Maryland.
Just before the debate Bernie sanders released a health care plan.
Then Sanders finished his thought on health care, telling Clinton “in all due respect, you’re missing the main point”.
“What a Medicare-for-all program does is finally provide in this country health care for every man, woman and child as a right”, he said.
Instead, Clinton appeared to have embraced the policies of President Barack Obama in whose first term she served as the Secretary of State.
The former secretary of state, former US senator and wife of former President Bill Clinton said Sanders’ healthcare plan would undermine Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act at a time when Republican legislators were still trying to repeal and replace it.
“The comments that Senator Sanders has made… don’t just affect me, I can take that, but he’s criticized President Obama for taking donations from Wall Street”.
At the January 17 Democratic debate in Charleston, S.C., Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton went out of her way to stress her ties to President Obama.
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Martin O’Malley, who struggled to get his voice in during Sanders’ and Clinton’s many faceoffs, managed to distinguish himself, once again, on immigration. “I’m going to ask for his advice”.
