ASMA KHALID: Hey there, I'm Asma Khalid. I'm one of the political
reporters with NPR.
DON GONYEA: And I'm Don Gonyea. I cover national politics. I bounce
around the country. And we're in Las Vegas.
KHALID: Yeah, we are here in Las Vegas because the Democrats just
finished their ninth debate of this campaign cycle. And I will
say to me, it felt like the most contentious debate we've seen.
GONYEA: It was certainly lively and it was absolutely the most
contentious that I've seen. I mean, the gloves were off
literally from the beginning. Mike Bloomberg faced early, fast
attacks.
BERNIE SANDERS: Mr. Bloomberg had policies in New York City of stop and frisk,
which went after African-American and Latino people in an
outrageous way. That is not a way you're going to grow voter
turnout.
ELIZABETH WARREN: Look, I'll support whoever the Democratic nominee is. But
understand this. Democrats take a huge risk if we just substitute
one arrogant billionaire for another.
KHALID: So I think there were a lot of questions about the degree to
which here's a guy who just actually hasn't debated for a
decade plus, how he would fare. And and to me, he looked a little
rough as a debater.
GONYEA: You know, a little bit rusty. There were times where he was
very confident.
But there were other moments where he he didn't have kind of
quick, smooth, ready answers, especially when attacked on
questions of the environment, the workplace environment at his
companies. Lawsuits that women who have worked for him have
filed regarding harassment.
He said that none of his actions were ever subject of
those lawsuits. But maybe he made some jokes.
MIKE BLOOMBERG: We have a very few nondisclosure agreements.
WARREN: How many is that?
BLOOMBERG: Let me finish.
WARREN: How many is that?
BLOOMBERG: None of them accuse me of doing anything other than maybe
they didn't like a joke I told. And let me just... and let me
point out...
KHALID: And there was this sort of prosecutorial attack going on
with Elizabeth Warren, the senator from Massachusetts, who
was really, you know, on fire. And to me, her sort of fighting
spirit tonight was so different than her presence that we saw
certainly in the last debate where I think some folks like she
kind of had receded into the background.
WARREN: When you say it is up to...
I just want to be clear. Some is how many? And and when you,
and when you say they sign them and they wanted then if they wish
now to speak out and tell their side of the story about what it
is they alleged, that's now okay with you? You're releasing them
on television tonight?
KHALID: I think tonight we saw a very clear sense of the
fact that she she was a high school debate champion and that
she's somebody who had who grilled, you know, folks on
Capitol Hill.
>> The language he used is about stop and frisk. It's about how it
turned out. Now, this isn't about how it turned out. This is about
what it was designed to do to begin with. It targeted
communities of color. It targeted black and brown men from the
beginning.
KHALID: I mean, to me, in some ways, she she did the work that a lot
of these other candidates felt they needed to do against
Bloomberg. And I'm not clear that, you know, when we see the
caucus results on Saturday, will she be the beneficiary of all
this? But she was certainly the bad cop who who was able to
critique and attack Bloomberg, perhaps more than anybody else.
So, Don, the other sort of simmering tension. I felt that we
saw tonight and we certainly have seen it before, was between Amy
Klobuchar, senator from Minnesota, and the former mayor,
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor, Pete Buttigieg. It clearly seemed like
there were moments where one got under the other's skin.
PETE BUTTIGIEG: You're staking your candidacy on your Washington experience.
You're on the committee that oversees border security. You're
on the committee that does trade. You're literally in a part of the
committee that's overseeing these things. And were not able to
speak to literally the first thing about the politics of the
country to ourselves.
AMY KLOBUCHAR: Are you trying to say that I'm dumb? Are you mocking me here,
Pete? I said I made an error.
GONYEA: She was specifically asked a question about an interview she
gave recently where she was unable to name the president of
Mexico. And she said it was a momentary slip up. I forgot a
name. Buttigieg was hearing nothing of that. She retorted
that she had worked on immigration reform. She then
noted that Bernie Sanders as a senator, had voted against it.
This is back when President Obama was in office and she made the
turn saying, I've been in the arena, I've been doing this work.
I've dedicated so much time to this, all while you were the
mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
KHALID: And she has long said the fact that she was able to win all
across the state of Minnesota, win in a variety of red and blue
congressional districts, makes her electable. And Pete
Buttigieg's response to this was a particular sort of witty
response.
BUTTIGIEG: If winning a race for Senate in Minnesota, translated directly to
becoming president, I would have grown up under the presidency of
Walter Mondale.
GONYEA: So that was the other source of real friction on that stage
tonight.
KHALID: So Don, what did you make of the dynamic on the stage between
Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, who in my view, you know, they are
largely seen as the men who have been traditionally leading in the
polls.
GONYEA: It was interesting. I think they both played to their usual
roles. Bernie was talking about the need for a revolution as he
does, and giving the working class voter a voice finally, as
opposed to billionaires, clearly a dig at Bloomberg just to his
right.
And we really did get his, his basic pitch on health care, on
immigration, on climate change, on all of those things.
SANDERS: Somehow or another, Canada can provide universal health care.
All that people have the cost. UK can do it. France can do with
Germany and all of Europe to do it. Gee whiz.
Somehow or another, we are the only major country on earth that
can't do it. Why is that? I'll tell you why. It's because last
year the health care industry made a hundred billion dollars in
profits.
GONYEA: Biden I think much the same. He was he was giving us Joe
Biden. I mean, how many times did he start a statement with
something along the lines of I'm the only one on this stage...
JOE BIDEN: I'm the only one on this stage that actually got anything done
on health care, OK?
I'm the guy the president said go get the votes for Obamacare.
GONYEA: He again, was, you know, reminding Nevada voters of his
experience, whether or not that is something that's effective at
this point.
KHALID: And that to me was so interesting because it was a very
similar style of debating that we've seen from him. And yet we
saw both in Iowa and New Hampshire. He did not have
particularly strong finishes. So it will be interesting to see if
in Nevada, he'll have a different set of results and be more
successful here.
GONYEA: And again, Mike Bloomberg, first time on the debate stage
tonight, will not be on the ballot here Saturday. His day is
Super Tuesday and then he's in from that point on. And he made
it clear, if he hadn't already, he's got the money and
he's ready to keep spending it, so.
ASMA: All right. Well, that is a wrap from us here in the spin
room in Las Vegas.
Of course if you want more political coverage, you can
always tune in to your local public radio station. You can
catch us on Morning Edition, All Things Considered and of course,
the NPR Politics podcast.
