July 30 2019, 10:25 p.m.
THE MOST PROGRESSIVE candidates
on stage at the Democratic presidential primary debate in Detroit on
Tuesday, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., dominated
the event — despite a bizarre decision by the host network, CNN, to frame the
discussion as a running critique of their far-reaching policy proposals to
reform the federal government.
As Yousef Munayyer of the U.S.
Campaign for Palestinian Rights observed,
“CNN set up this debate as a multi-front ambush on Warren and Sanders.” Indeed,
the entire structure of the debate, starting with the first questions about
Medicare for All, introduced by Sanders and supported by Warren, was based
on the premise, recently
popular with pundits, that Democrats are in danger of moving too far to the
left.
That framing led to the
bizarre opening exchange in which a fringe candidate, former Rep. John Delaney,
D-Md., was invited by moderator Take Japper to attack the two highest-polling
candidates, Sanders and Warren, for planning to replace the private health
insurance industry with a government-run plan. In a forceful rebuttal to
Delaney, Warren pointed out that by accusing Sanders of wanting to take
people’s private health insurance away, the former Democratic congressman was
channeling the Republicans.
Let's stop using Republican
talking points. #DemDebate
“Let’s be clear about this: We
are the Democrats,” Warren said in a moment that was tweeted out by her
campaign. “We are not about trying to take away health care from anyone. That’s
what the Republicans are trying to do, and we should stop using Republican
talking points in order to talk with each other about how to best provide that
health care.”
Sanders and Warren were then pressed
repeatedly by Tapper to say if moving to Medicare for All would require
some middle-class families to pay more in taxes. Sanders noted that
middle-class families would pay less overall — because any increase in taxes
would be less than their current costs for insurance and deductibles. And he
slammed Tapper for the premise of the question — which is, as he pointed out
twice, a Republican talking point. “And by the way,” he added, “the health care
industry will be advertising tonight on this program … with that talking
point.”
Tapper: “Will you raise taxes
for the middle class?”
Bernie: I’m talking about no deductibles and no copays
Jake, your question is a Republican talking point.
And by the way the healthcare industry will be advertising on this program with that talking point. #DemDebate
Bernie: I’m talking about no deductibles and no copays
Jake, your question is a Republican talking point.
And by the way the healthcare industry will be advertising on this program with that talking point. #DemDebate
“Why doesn’t CNN ask basic questions
about drug companies gouging the public, or the health care industry using its
largesse to manipulate the media and Congress to maintain the status quo,” my
colleague Lee Fang tweeted. “Why
only this narrow question about taxes that never gets asked about other policy
demands?”
When Tapper then put forward
the argument against Medicare for All offered by Joe Biden — that union members
who have fought for good health care plans should be allowed to keep them —
Sanders shut down criticism by Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, another centrist, of what
his plan would provide. “But you don’t know that, Bernie,” Ryan interjected.
Sanders replied: “I do know it, I wrote the damn bill.”
Ryan said Sanders’ promises
around "Medicare for All" were wrong and maybe he wasn’t clear on the
numbers.
Sanders: "I wrote the damn bill." https://cnn.it/2K3wQhQ #DemDebate
Sanders: "I wrote the damn bill." https://cnn.it/2K3wQhQ #DemDebate
Before the debate was even
over, the Sanders campaign had made those words into a sticker and was using it
to solicit donations from supporters.
Delaney then criticized
Sanders and Warren for not understanding the health care industry he has been
part of and profited
from. “I’m the only one on the stage who actually has experience in the
health care business, and with all due respect, I don’t think my colleagues
understand the business,” Delaney said.
“It’s not a business!” Sanders
replied. “Maybe you did that and made money off health care,” Sanders added
moments later, “but our job is to run a nonprofit health care system.”
"Maybe you did that and
made money off healthcare, but our job is to run a nonprofit healthcare
system" @BernieSanders #DemDebate
As the debate wore on, the
framing, which invited the low-polling centrist Democrats to attack the
front-runners at center stage, irritated more and more observers.
Hello, random candidate, do
you think the front runners and clearly superior candidates onstage tonight are
dangerously left wing? THANK YOU. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK
YOU THANK YOU
Again and again, the
moderators urged centrist candidates to voice their concerns with the proposals
of Warren and Sanders. One of those questions led Warren to respond to Delaney
with the signature reply of the night.
RIP John Delaney #DemDebate
“I don’t understand why
anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States
just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for,” Warren
said to cheers.
Later, Warren even rubbed her
hands with glee when Delaney was informed that his net worth of $65 million
would make him subject to her proposed wealth tax.
Having constructed the entire
debate to generate disagreements between the progressive candidates, whose
ideas are finding support from Democratic primary voters, and centrist candidates
who are struggling to get past 1 percent in the polls, CNN concluded the
evening with the headline it had worked so hard to create: “Breaking News:
Liberal and Moderate Democrats Clash in Detroit.”
“Liberal and moderate
democrats clash in Detroit”. This was a joke. @CNN
used the #DemocraticDebate
#DemDebate for its
own benefit and produce drama to feed their narrative of Dems clashing. It was
a sham and the @DNC needs to be smarter.
Update: Wednesday, July 31,
3:21 p.m. EDT
The morning after the debate,
the Republican party helpfully proved that Warren and Sanders were right to say
that it was a Republican talking point to focus only on the need to increase
taxes to pay for Medicare for All, while ignoring the fact that total costs
would go down for working families that no longer have to pay outrageous
premiums and deductibles.
On Wednesday morning, the
Republican National Committee tweeted out video of a post-debate interview in
which Chris Matthews of MSNBC repeatedly pressed Warren to say if taxes would
go up, and completely ignored her point that “out of pocket costs for middle
class families,” are, under the plan she and Sanders endorse, “actually going
to go down.”
MSNBC’s Matthews grills Warren
for dodging on middle class tax hikes under government health care takeover https://youtu.be/sBbsMFbKrnE
Warren’s supporters shared the
same clip, but to praise what they called her articulate refusal to accept the
premise of the question — which would, no doubt, have been instantly used in
Republican attack ads.
Chris Matthews rudely keeps
pushing a loaded question he knows is misleading about M4A and taxes going up
and Elizabeth Warren is not having it, sets him straight that overall costs
going down is what matters.
The exchange is worth watching
in full. After failing to get Warren to accept the premise of the question — in
which only tax rates are discussed, and the greater savings from not paying for
terrible health insurance are ignored — Matthews even insisted that “it’s not a
Republican talking point.”
The more important point,
Warren said is “a question about where people are going to come out
economically.” As Matthews objected, “that’s not my question — my question is
how much will taxes go up,” Warren replied: “Look… I spent most of my life
studying families that went broke, and a huge chunk of them went broke because
of high medical bills and many of them had health insurance. So the question is
not, Do you have health insurance or not have health insurance? The question is
how much are you going to have to dig in your pocket to pay?”
“I know that’s the answer that
you’d like to give, but will your taxes go up?” Matthews asked.
“No, it is the answer,” Warren
said, “the question is your total costs.”
“Okay but there’s no answer to
the question, Will your taxes go up?”
“There is an answer to the
question about your costs,” Warren said, “because it’s costs that matter to
people.”
It seems worth noting that the
copy of the video shared by the RNC on social networks also included an
unexplained glitch, in which the word “broke” was deleted from Warren’s
statement that her career before politics — studying bankruptcy in middle class
families — meant that she had “spent most of my life studying families that
went broke.”
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