Gun control featured prominently in the third Democratic debate in Houston, with most of the 10 candidates trying to one-up each other on the issue while also jabbing repeatedly at President Trump.
The Democratic White House hopefuls gathered on stage at Texas Southern University, a historically black college about 700 miles from El Paso, where 22 people died in an August shooting massacre, and 500 miles from Midland-Odessa, where eight people died weeks later in another rampage. Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who represented El Paso in Congress, won praise from many of his rivals for his leadership after tragedy shook his hometown.
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O’Rourke offered some of the most memorable rhetoric over gun control, including calls to confront the National Rifle Association. O’Rourke, 46, also used the nationally televised platform to reiterate his unabashed plan for a mandatory firearm buyback program.
“Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” the former lawmaker said.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who describes himself as the only senator “who goes home to a low-income inner-city community,” in an impassioned monologue vowed to “bring a fight to the NRA and corporate gun lobby like they have never seen before.” After a tussle between former Vice President Joe Biden and California Sen. Kamala Harris on the constitutionality of firearm control executive orders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren called for the abolition of the Senate filibuster, arguing action will continue to be stymied unless the procedural rule is rolled back.
The policy squabble over gun control was emblematic of a more dynamic debate between the crowded primary field, which showcased attempts at memorable one-liners, digs at opponents, and swings at Trump over the course of the three-hour format with varying degrees of success.
Thursday’s debate was the first of three so far sponsored by the Democratic National Committee to go for a single night. Several contenders who appeared in the prior contests, including Reps. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and Tim Ryan of Ohio, didn’t make the cut.
In Houston, though, leading 2020 Democrats Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Warren sparred for the first time on the same stage
Biden sought to portray himself as a natural heir to the president under whom he served, Barack Obama. Biden hit back at candidates to his Left, most conspicuously Sanders, over healthcare, climate change, and student loan debt, which the former vice president deemed as unrealistic fantasies rather than smart public policy.
“It’s not a bad idea if you like it. I don’t like it,” Biden said of Sanders and Warren’s advocacy of “Medicare for all,” admitting his plan for building out Obamacare with a public option would cost “a lot of money.”
Obama administration Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, another Texas home state favorite from San Antonio, who had earlier said the country needed a hopeful who had a “bold vision” to bring together a “young, diverse coalition,” went after Biden for his public option stance.
“You do not have to buy in,” said Biden, Delaware’s senator for 36 years before the vice presidency.
“You just said that two minutes ago. Did you forget what you said just two minutes ago?” Castro replied, asserting he was “fulfilling the legacy of Barack Obama” and his former No. 2 was not.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar dropped her “Minnesota nice” pretense, siding with Biden in the “Medicare for all” discussion by slamming it as “a bad idea.” Klobuchar particularly ripped the provisions in Sanders’ signature bill that nix private health insurance.
“While Bernie wrote the bill, I read the bill,” she said.
South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg added “the damn bill … doesn’t trust the American people.”
Harris, in a strategy previewed by her campaign, tried to steer the conversation back to the current occupant of the White House.
“Let’s focus on the end goal. If we don’t get Donald Trump out of office, he’s going to get rid of all of it,” she said, referring specifically to the Affordable Care Act.
From the outset, contenders took aim at Trump, a stark departure from the two prior rounds of debates, when the president was largely an afterthought.
“I may not be the loudest person up here, but we’ve already got that in the White House. Houston, we’ve got a problem,” Klobuchar said during her opening statement.
O’Rourke evoked what he categorized as Trump’s racism during his introductory remarks, citing the El Paso shooting, perpetrated by a white supremacist who left behind an anti-immigrant manifesto parroting Trump-like language. The shooter was “inspired to kill by our president,” he said, pegging the president as “a mortal danger” to the immigrant community.
Harris stated “the only reason” Trump had “not been indicted is because there’s a memo in the Department of Justice,” mentioning DOJ’s internal guidance that suggests a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime that was widely circulated amid special counsel Robert Mueller’s federal Russia investigation.
The Trump attacks, ironically, shortly after the commander in chief declined to scrutinize the Democratic field, even proffering “respect” for candidates he had so long vilified.
There were moments where the Democrats embraced some of the Trump administration’s policies, including tariffs. Another notable exchange centered around entrepreneur Andrew Yang’s pitch for his “Freedom Dividend.” The founder of Venture for America announced he would choose 10 randomly selected families to receive $1,000 per month for a year, a small-scale version of his proposal.
“It’s original, I’ll give you that,” Buttigieg said, over laughs from Booker, Harris, and Klobuchar.
The field will reconvene on a debate stage on Oct. 15 and Oct. 16 in an undisclosed city in Ohio. The next series will include Democratic megadonor Tom Steyer, the billionaire hedge fund manager and impeachment advocate who entered the race in July.
