The attacks in Thursday night’s general election debate between Michigan Senate candidates Abdul el Sayed and Mike Rogers began with the very first question, with the candidates trading personal insults and clashing over surveillance technology, immigration enforcement, healthcare, gas prices, and U.S. policy in the Middle East while producing no policy agreements.

The barbs were unrelenting, such that, at one point, upon returning from a commercial break, the moderator said “that in 30 years of doing debates, I’ve never seen it continue during the commercial, but it did.”