*There will be some commentary on this overview of the debates 

A dozen candidates take their shot on the debate stage as the primaries near closer

To watch the full debate click here.

Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julián Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang qualified for the debate last night. 

Each candidate received 75 seconds to answer direct questions and 45 seconds to respond and rebuttal. They also received 15 seconds for a clarification. This debate did not start with opening statements.

Impeachment

Elizabeth Warren claimed that the President Donald Trump inquiry was “bigger than politics.”

Kamala Harris, Tulsi Gabbard and Beto O’Rourke all agreed that they would impeach the president, saying otherwise we are abandoning the ideals of the nation. 

Tom Steyer made his debut on the demoratic stage by attacking Trump as the “criminal in the White House,” and claiming that everyone on the stage was more “decent, more coherent and more patriotic” than the President. 

Bernie Sanders brought the conversation back to healthcare, climate change and minimum wage laws, while also agreeing that we should impeach the president. 

Joe Biden faced some tough questions regarding his son and the impeachment inquiry. He continued to deflect and claim that his son did nothing incorrect. Biden said he never talked to his son about Ukraine, although his son clearly claimed otherwise. This hurt his cause even more. 

There was an overall resounding desire for impeachment. What really boggles the mind, however, is why this matters to democrats. They are fighting for the presidency, so why would they not focus on beating the president? Furthermore, why would they not ask whether or not the house should formally vote on impeachment. 

Economy 

Warren was asked again about whether or not she would raise taxes on the middle class. She again claimed that costs for the middle family will go down, and costs for the rich and businesses will go up. 

Pete Buttigieg attacked Warren for not addressing exactly how she was going to pay for her medicare plan and proposed a “medicare for all who want it” type of plan. 

Sanders said that taxes are going to increase and there will be no longer out of pocket costs for healthcare. 

Kamala Harris shifted the conversation to women’s rights to reproductive healthcare. “Women will die… because these Republican legislators… who are out of touch with America are telling women what to do with our bodies.” This felt a lot like a talking point she just could not wait to say. At this point, she was entirely pandering and the audience loved it. 

Jobs

Sanders promised a job for every individual who loses their job to automation, and also shifted the conversation back to climate change again. H, did not clarify how he planned to do this, except for saying that he was going to supply college to everyone. 

Andrew Yang is for a federal jobs guarantee. He said he knows that most people do not want to work for the federal government, however a freedom dividend will recognize everyone, including the work of the stay at home mom. 

Cory Booker attacked the questioners and questions for attacking Joe Biden, instead of Trump, and for not allowing him to have a say in the debate. He also talked about healthcare and how everyone deserves healthcare, and women deserve to control their own bodies. He did not say a word about how he would create more jobs. 

Warren said that trade policies, most specifically by larger corporations, are the reason that there are so few jobs in America. She wants to make it easier to join a union, and to give them more power. Furthermore, she suggested that each social security check should be increased by $200, even though social security is already imploding. 

It is quite clear at this point that Warren is the favored candidate. The moderators are not doing much to regulate her time, and are throwing her softball questions. 

“That is a moral and economic outrage,”  Sanders said, regarding the top one percent owning so much of the wealth in America. 

Steyer, though he is the only billionaire on the stage, agreed that the wealthy need to be taxed at a higher rate. 

Biden had another gaf saying that he would “eliminate the capital gains tax” and then claimed he would “raise it to 39 percent,” as high as it can be. He then stumbled, saying thirdly when he meant secondly. He also complained that everyone “tries to squeeze everything into every answer that is given,” and that the debates were crazy, while doing the same thing, and even yielding his time to the moderators.

To say the least, Biden showed his age tremendously and practically handed the victory to Warren who sounds firm on what she believes. She said “no let me finish please,” when told to be quiet and the moderators allowed it. Furthermore, Warren standing her ground makes her look like a  competitor and someone who is ready to beat Trump. 

Everyone on the stage is also intermittently taking attacked at Trump. Harris and Booker seem very drowned out of the conversation. 

“As Democrats, we are going to succeed when we dream big and fight hard, not when we dream small and quit before we get started,” said Warren.

Amy Klobuchar tried very hard to go after Warren, and then complained that the Democrats are spending too much time going after each other and not after the president. Booker later joined her in this sentiment. 

Harris was then asked about a tax credit versus a wealth tax and brought the conversation back to an anecdote about her childhood and went on an unrelated tangent without answering the question. 

Anecdotes seemed to make up the rest of the rationales for this conversation. 

Foreign Policy

All candidates pretty much agreed that they would do the opposite of whatever Trump had plans to do, including keeping troops in Syria.

Trust

When asked how we are going to get the people to trust America/the presidency again, most of the candidates basically undermined the president and said that the only solution was to impeach him. You cannot campaign on “not that guy.” At some point, the candidates are going to have to come up with some of their own stances. 

Russia

Again, pretty much everyone would just do whatever Trump is not doing, and they would not work with Russia at all.

Gun Control 

Beto O’Rourke was asked how he was going to ensure that he would get rid of all the guns in America, though he doesn’t know where they are, he regurgitated the talking points about how badly he wants to save lives and naming how many have been lost. Again, there was no practical answer here, only blaming Trump, and saying that he trusts that the people will willingly turn in their weapons. 

He also claimed that if someone does not want to give up their weapon it will be taken from them and they will have repercussions with law enforcement. This gun buy-back sounds an awful lot like confiscation. 

Buttigieg brought up an argument regarding suicide, saying that we cannot wait any longer without proposing an actual solution. He also said we need to take this to the NRA and their lobbyists in Congress, again, without proposing a single thing to implement. 

Cory Booker continued the sentiments of how much of an issue guns are in this country without posing a solution. 

Klobuchar expressed how much she wants something to change but she said the only way for that to happen is for all to agree. She mentioned universal background checks and magazine limits, but not much more. 

Warren shifted the conversation to how sad this problem is and how much work it is going to be to solve. Harris strongly agreed with her, and criticized Congress for how slow they are and said she would pass an executive order. 

This was probably the most comical take, since Harris is currently in Congress. Also, that would be a serious overreach of power, something she accuses the current president of doing. 

In case you have missed it by now, there were still no clear cut solutions proposed or extremely supported aside from Harris’ executive order to ban guns. 

Opioids

Everyone pretty much agreed that the opioid epidemic is being caused by pharmaceutical companies, and supported sending these executives to prison. 

Age

Biden is old, but he claimed that his experience brings “wisdom” and is going to help him.

Sanders said he is back on the trail and ready to fight. He proved this by announcing his next rally. 

Elizabeth Warren shifted the conversation to how age does not matter but how unless the Democrats propose radical solutions none of them are going to win. 

Big Tech

Again, there was a large scale agreement on the stage that there needs to be less interfering in our elections that the big tech companies have too much power that needs to end. 

Harris reaffirmed her call for Trump’s twitter to be taken down. This is absurd. She is single handedly trying to destroy the first amendment. 

“I don’t just want to push him off Twitter ,I want to push him out of the White House,” was Warren’s response. She cushioned this by reminding that she is not taking any money from big companies. 

Reproductive Rights 

Harris said that she would not let any law be put into place if it did not follow Roe v. Wade or the Constitution. She pandered quite a lot reiterating the “hands off my body” sentiment.

Booker called the pro-life laws being passed around the country an attack “one of the most sacrosanct ideals in our country,” of liberty.In my opinion, the “right” to an abortion is not an ideal of liberty, it is in fact taking away the liberty of a child.

The party seems to have in general moved from “safe, legal, and rare,” to promoting abortion on demand; this is with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard who was not supported in her opinion. 

“Reproductive rights are a constitutional right,” Biden claimed.

Biden, Warren, Sanders 

For about five minutes these candidates, the clear frontrunners, attacked each other’s positions and previous successes in governments. This made Biden look weak, Warren came out stronger.

Unique Friendships

This question revolved around Ellen DeGeneres and George Bush and whether or not it was okay for her to be friends with someone who disagrees so strongly with her. Most of the Democrats, surprisingly, defended DeGeneres and demonstrated their understanding of the need for bipartisan support to get anything done in the government. This was not well received by the audience. 

Summary – Winners and Losers 

No one really showed up or showed out at this debate. Although Steyer made his debut, Gabbard looked stronger than normal and Yang finally got some speaking time, everyone is drowned out when compared to Biden and Warren. 

Warren did well attacking her real competition in Biden, who stumbled and couldn’t get out complete thoughts the majority of the time. Warren, however, couldn’t answer a question directly at all and when she was attacked she had very weak rebuttals. 

Biden still seems to narrowly be hanging onto his lead; however, yet again, I think Trump won this Democratic debate.