Democrats unleashed a roaring assault against Bernie Sanders and seized on Mike Bloomberg’s past with women in the workplace during a contentious debate that tested the strength of the two men at the center of the party’s presidential nomination fight.
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Also in the debate were U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar; business exec Tom Steyer; former Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg; and former Vice President Joe Biden, whose campaign apologized for yet another of its candidate’s gaffes.
During the debate, Biden said 150 million people have been killed in gun violence since 2007.
Late Tuesday, Biden’s campaign said he meant to say 150,000.
Biden needs a strong showing in Saturday’s South Carolina primary to remain a viable candidate after three poor showings in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
Biden, who also said he would put an African American woman on the U.S. Supreme Court if elected, said he will win the Palmetto State as well as South Carolina’s black voters.
As the undeniable Democratic front-runner, Sanders faced the brunt of the attacks for much of the night, and for one of the few times, fellow progressive Warren was among the critics. The Massachusetts senator pressed the case that she could execute ideas that the Vermont senator could only talk about.
“Bernie and I agree on a lot of things,” she said. “But I think I would make a better president than Bernie.”
»MORE: CBS moderators get low grades for out-of-control Democratic debate
Sanders called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “reactionary racist,” and said he would move the American Embassy back to Tel Aviv.
President Donald Trump fulfilled a campaign promise when he moved the embassy to Jerusalem.
Klobuchar, who is leading in her home state of Minnesota on Super Tuesday but trailing just about everywhere else, criticized Trump’s style of diplomacy.
Klobuchar also addressed what she thinks is the biggest misconception about her.
Steyer sought to court the desperately needed black vote not only in South Carolina but the nation, as the debate moved to the topic of racial justice.
Bloomberg, who for years defended New York’s stop-and-frisk policing policy that a federal court struck down, made an overt appeal to the nation’s black voters.
“I know that if I were black, my success would have been a lot harder to achieve,” he said. “That’s a fact that we’ve got to do something about.”
Bloomberg took some heat on social media for allegedly buying tickets to the debate for his supporters to pack the crowd in his favor. Bloomberg himself took credit for “buying” about 40 Democratic House members.
Bloomberg campaign ads played during commercial breaks.
The billionaire also said Russia is helping Sanders’ campaign.
“Vladimir Putin thinks Donald Trump should be president of the United States and that’s why Russia is helping you get elected so you lose to him,” Bloomberg said to Sanders.
Klobuchar repeatedly contended she alone could win the votes of battleground state moderates. And Buttigieg pointed to Sanders’ self-described democratic socialism and his recent comments expressing admiration for Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro’s push for education.
“I am not looking forward to a scenario where it comes down to Donald Trump with his nostalgia for the social order of the 1950s and Bernie Sanders with a nostalgia for the revolutionary politics of the 1960s,” Buttigieg said.
But on Wednesday, Buttigieg’s campaign announced it had canceled a major Florida fundraising tour, leading to speculation Buttigieg might soon be out of the race.
Trump, who returned to Washington early Wednesday after a two-day trip to India, responded to a reporter’s shouted question about whether he’d seen the debate: “I did,” he said while stepping into a car. “Not too good, not too good.”
Trump’s reelection campaign later released a statement.
The 10th debate of the 2020 primary season, sponsored by CBS and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, was four days before South Carolina’s first-in-the-South primary and one week before more than a dozen states vote on Super Tuesday. The Democratic White House hopefuls will not stand side by side on the debate stage again until the middle of March. That made Tuesday’s debate likely the last chance for some candidates to save themselves and alter the trajectory of the nomination fight.
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