Dems agree Trump economy ‘rigged’
At the first debate of the Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, and the nine other candidates charged that the “rigged” economy under Trump is benefiting only the rich, while they disagreed over the border crisis, military power and how to improve the nation’s health care system.
Must-see TV
More than 15 million Americans tuned in to Night One of the first Democratic presidential debate, suggesting strong interest among voters in hearing from possible opponents to Trump.
Another 9 million viewers watched via livestreams hosted across the internet.
Can Thursday’s debate top those numbers? With former Vice President Joe Biden, Sanders, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and others, it’ll have a shot.
Here are the special guests each candidate invited
Rep. Eric Swalwell entered the debate area on Thursday wearing an orange ribbon to indicate his support for gun reform, which has been a signature issue of his campaign platform. In particular, he wore it in the memory of Jaime Guttenberg, who was killed in the Parkland, Florida, school shooting last year. His guests at Thursday’s debate include her father, Fred Guttenberg, and and Tamar Manasseh, founder of Mothers Against Senseless Killings.
Other candidates were also joined by special guests.
Marianne Williamson brought her daughter, India Williamson, and Frances Fisher, an actress who endorsed the candidate. While Bernie Sanders invited family and staff, Joe Biden was joined by Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottom and Rev. Laurie Steele of Cincinnati, Ohio. Michael Bennet brought his daughter Caroline.
Pete Buttigieg came with the largest announced entourage. He invited his mother Anne Buttigieg and husband Chasten Buttigieg — as well as Sean Shaw, the first black Democratic Nominee for attorney general in Florida; Florida state Rep. Adam Hattersly; Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis; and Victoria Hernandez, the director of government affairs at Miami-Dade College; among other guests.
John Hickenlooper, Andrew Yang, Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand had not announced who they have invited.
Factchecking Night One: What’s true and false
As the first 10 Democratic presidential candidates jostled to make their views heard on the first night of debate amid a historically crowded field of candidates, NBC News fact checked their various claims on everything from the number of daily gun deaths to Americans’ support for Roe v. Wade.
Game on for Bernie Sanders
All your votes are belong to Bernie.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., made some waves in the gaming community this week by becoming one of the first presidential candidate to create a channel on Twitch, the video game-focused streaming platform that is quite possibly the most underrated tech platform in terms of its reach and popularity.
Sanders joins Andrew Yang, whose digital savvy already included a Twitch channel.
The channel is hosting livestreams before and after Thursday’s debate.
Read the full Night One transcript, sortable by topic
We annotated the debate transcript so you can find candidate answers on the top issues of the night.
Top lines from the first night
Here are each of the 10 candidates’ most memorable and stand-out moment of Night One, in order of how they appeared on stage.
More memorable moments
The Democratic presidential primary has been largely — though not completely feud-free — to date. But during the first night of the primary debate in Miami, some took the opportunity to draw sharp contrasts with their opponents — with the targets themselves standing just a few feet away on stage. Here are a few of those memorable moments.
Missed Night One? Watch the 5-minute highlights
Ten of the 2020 presidential candidates faced off in round one of the first Democratic debate, which saw a technical glitch and sparring over immigration and health care.
Here are the rules
The Democratic candidates will have 60 seconds to answer questions and 30 seconds to respond to follow-ups. And there will be no opening statements, though they will have a chance to deliver closing remarks.
The two-hour debate will zip by quickly, with five segments separated by four commercial breaks. With so many candidates, there’s only so much time to go around.
“It’s a little bit of exaggeration calling it a debate,” former Vice President Joe Biden joked in Iowa earlier this month. “It’s like a lightning round.”
For many lesser-known candidates, the debate will their first chance to introduce themselves to a larger national audience, so they know they have to try to pack a lot into a small amount of time.
De Blasio apologizes after quoting Che Guevara at South Florida rally
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio apologized Thursday for quoting Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara during a Wednesday night speech at a union rally in South Florida.
“I did not know the phrase I used in Miami today was associated with Che Guevara & I did not mean to offend anyone who heard it that way,” de Blasio tweeted. “I certainly apologize for not understanding that history. I only meant it as a literal message to the striking airport workers that I believed they would be victorious in their strike.”
De Blasio found himself in hot water over the remarks, with the Florida Democratic Party chair calling on him to apologize.
“Mayor Bill DeBlasio does not speak for Floridians or the Florida Democratic Party and he would be wise to apologize,” Terrie Rizzo, chair of the Florida Democrats, tweeted Thursday.
After Wednesday night’s Democratic debate, de Blasio, who seeks to position himself in the presidential race as a champion of “working people,” ended a speech to a union crowd by chanting Guevara’s slogan “hasta la victoria siempre” or “until victory, always.”
He came under fire from Cuban Floridians, many of whom fled the nation after the communist revolution there. On Thursday afternoon, the remarks were the lead story on the Miami Herald’s website.
President Donald Trump’s campaign communications director, Tim Murtaugh, took aim at the comments Thursday, tweeting, “When you’re quoting murderous communist sociopaths, it probably means you’re losing. Especially in Miami.”