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Debate
night
brawl:
Bloomberg,
Sanders
attacked
by
rivals
By
STEVE
PEOPLES,
ALEXANDRA
JAFFE
and
MICHELLE
L. PRICE
apnews.com
LAS
VEGAS -
From the
opening
bell,
Democrats
savaged
New York
billionaire
Mike
Bloomberg
and
raised
pointed
questions
about
Bernie
Sanders’
take-no-prisoners
politics
during a
contentious
debate
Wednesday
night
that
threatened
to
further
muddy
the
party’s
urgent
quest to
defeat
President
Donald
Trump.
Bloomberg,
the
former
New York
mayor
who was
once a
Republican,
was
forced
to
defend
his
record
and past
comments
related
to race,
gender
and his
personal
wealth
in an
occasionally
rocky
debate
stage
debut.
Sanders,
meanwhile,
tried to
beat
back
pointed
questions
about
his
embrace
of
democratic
socialism
and his
health
following
a heart
attack
last
year.
The
ninth
debate
of this
cycle
featured
the most
aggressive
sustained
period
of
infighting
in the
Democrats’
yearlong
search
for a
presidential
nominee.
The
tension
reflected
growing
anxiety
among
candidates
and
party
leaders
that the
nomination
fight
could
yield a
candidate
who will
struggle
to build
a
winning
coalition
in
November
to beat
Trump.
The
campaign
is about
to
quickly
intensify.
Nevada
votes on
Saturday
and
South
Carolina
follows
on
February
29. More
than a
dozen
states
host
Super
Tuesday
contests
in less
than two
weeks
with
about
one-third
of the
delegates
needed
to win
the
nomination
at
stake.
Massachusetts
Sen.
Elizabeth
Warren
was in a
fight
for
survival
and
stood
out with
repeated
attacks
on
Bloomberg.
She
sought
to
undermine
him with
core
Democratic
voters
who are
uncomfortable
with his
vast
wealth,
his
offensive
remarks
about
policing
of
minorities
and
demeaning
comments
about
women,
including
those
who
worked
at his
company.
Warren
labeled
Bloomberg
“a
billionaire
who
calls
people
fat
broads
and
horse-faced
lesbians.”
She
wasn’t
alone.
Sanders
lashed
out at
Bloomberg’s
policing
policies
as New
York
City
mayor
that he
said
targeted
“African-American
and
Latinos
in an
outrageous
way.”
And
former
Vice
President
Joe
Biden
charged
that
Bloomberg’s
“stop-and-frisk”
policy
ended up
“throwing
5
million
black
men up
against
the
wall.”
Watching
during
his
Western
campaign
swing,
Trump
joined
the
Bloomberg
pile on.
“Mini
Mike
Bloomberg’s
debate
performance
tonight
was
perhaps
the
worst in
the
history
of
debates,
and
there
have
been
some
really
bad
ones,”
Trump
tweeted.
“He was
stumbling,
bumbling
and
grossly
incompetent.
If this
doesn’t
knock
him out
of the
race,
nothing
will.
Not so
easy to
do what
I did!”
After
the
debate,
Warren
told
reporters:
“I have
no doubt
that
Michael
Bloomberg
is
reaching
in his
pocket
right
now, and
spending
another
hundred
million
dollars
to try
to erase
every
American’s
memory
about
what
happened
on the
debate
stage.”
On a
night
that
threatened
to
tarnish
the
shine of
his
carefully
constructed
TV-ad
image,
Bloomberg
faltered
when
attacked
on
issues
related
to race
and
gender.
But he
was firm
and
unapologetic
about
his
wealth
and how
he has
used it
to
affect
change
important
to
Democrats.
He took
particular
aim at
Sanders
and his
self-description
as a
democratic
socialist.
“I
don’t
think
there’s
any
chance
of the
senator
beating
Donald
Trump,”
Bloomberg
declared
before
noting
Sanders’
rising
wealth.
“The
best
known
socialist
in the
country
happens
to be a
millionaire
with
three
houses!”
Sanders
defended
owning
multiple
houses,
noting
he has
one in
Washington,
where he
works,
and two
in
Vermont,
the
state he
represents
in the
Senate.
While
Bloomberg
was the
shiny
new
object
Wednesday,
the
debate
also
marked a
major
test for
Sanders,
who is
emerging
as the
front-runner
in the
Democrats’
nomination
fight,
whether
his
party’s
establishment
likes it
or not.
A
growing
group of
donors,
elected
officials
and
political
operatives
fear
that
Sanders’
uncompromising
progressive
politics
could be
a
disaster
in the
general
election
against
Trump,
yet
they’ve
struggled
to
coalesce
behind a
single
moderate
alternative.
Pete
Buttigieg,
the
former
mayor of
South
Bend,
Indiana,
went
after
both
Bloomberg
and
Sanders,
warning
that one
threatened
to “burn
down”
the
Democratic
Party
and the
other
was
trying
to buy
it.
He
called
them
“the two
most
polarizing
figures
on this
stage,”
with
little
chance
of
defeating
Trump or
helping
congressional
Democrats
in
contests
with
Republicans.
Bloomberg
and
Sanders
were
prime
targets,
but the
stakes
were no
less
dire for
the
other
four
candidates
on
stage.
Longtime
establishment
favorite
Biden, a
two-term
vice
president,
desperately
needed
to
breathe
new life
into his
flailing
campaign,
which
entered
the
night at
the
bottom
of a
moderate
muddle
behind
Buttigieg
and
Minnesota
Sen. Amy
Klobuchar.
And
after a
bad
finish
last
week in
New
Hampshire,
Warren
was
fighting
to
resurrect
her
stalled
White
House
bid.
A
Warren
campaign
aide
said on
Twitter
that her
fiery
first
hour of
debate
was her
best
hour of
fundraising
“to
date.”
The
other
leading
progressive
in the
race,
Sanders
came
under
attack
from
Biden
and
Bloomberg
for his
embrace
of
democratic
socialism.
Sanders,
as he
has
repeatedly
over the
last
year,
defended
the cost
of his
signature
“Medicare
for All”
healthcare
plan,
which
would
eliminate
the
private
insurance
industry
in favor
of a
government-backed
healthcare
system
that
would
cover
all
Americans.
“When
you
asked
Bernie
how much
it cost
last
time he
said...‘We’ll
find
out,’”
Biden
quipped.
“It
costs
over $35
trillion,
let’s
get
real.”
And
ongoing
animosity
flared
between
Buttigieg
and
Klobuchar
when the
former
Indiana
mayor
slammed
the
three-term
Minnesota
senator
for
failing
to
answer
questions
in a
recent
interview
about
Mexican
policy
and
forgetting
the name
of the
Mexican
president.
Buttigieg
noted
that
she’s on
a
committee
that
oversees
trade
issues
in
Mexico
and she
“was not
able to
speak to
literally
the
first
thing
about
the
politics
of the
country.”
She
shot
back:
“Are you
trying
to say
I’m
dumb?
Are you
mocking
me
here?”
Later in
the
night
she
lashed
out at
Buttigieg
again:
“I wish
everyone
else was
as
perfect
as you,
Pete.”
The
debate
closed
with a
question
about
the
possibility
that
Democrats
remain
divided
deep
into the
primary
season
with a
final
resolution
coming
during a
contested
national
convention
in July.
Asked if
the
candidate
with the
most
delegates
should
be the
nominee
-- even
if he or
she is
short of
a
delegate
majority,
almost
every
candidate
suggested
that the
convention
process
should
“work
its way
out,” as
Biden
put it.
Sanders,
who
helped
force
changes
to the
nomination
process
this
year and
hopes to
take a
significant
delegate
lead in
the
coming
weeks,
was the
only
exception.
“The
person
who has
the most
votes
should
become
the
nominee,”
he said.
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