Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live Event/Special
Democratic Presidential Debates; Interviews with the Candidates. Aired 10:37p-12p ET
Aired July 30, 2019 - 22:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Candidates, thank you so much. That completes tonight's debate. Join us tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. eastern time for round two, 10 more Democratic candidates for president right back here in Detroit. Now, stay tuned for special coverage of tonight's debate with Anderson Cooper and Chris Cuomo. That begins right now.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: And there you have it, night one of the CNN Democratic debate here in Detroit. And it's certainly lived up to the billing in many ways. We saw candidates clashing on stage, sometimes sharply on policy without resorting to name-calling at all. We saw Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren answer tough questions from their opponents and the panel on healthcare and how to pay for it.
There's certainly a clear divide in the Democratic Party right now across a wide range of the issues. And that too played out on stage. Now, whether or not as Senator Warren said a moment ago, Democrats want to be the party of big structural change, it was a serious clash of ideas, certainly, and philosophies and, yes, personality as well.
And if you came into this looking to learn what exactly Democrats believe, what they think is good for the country, and what they think is the best way to beat Donald Trump. Well, it was all there tonight on that stage. We're going to focus on all of it in the hours ahead. My colleague, Chris Cuomo, and I will be talking to some of the candidates who you saw tonight.
We'll, of course, be joined by some of the best political and journalistic voices around as well. CNN chief National Correspondent John King is with us, Host of CNN's Inside Politics. CNN Senior Political Reporter, Nia-Malika Henderson is with us as well. CNN Senior Political Commentator, Axe Files Host, and former senior Obama adviser, David Axelrod joins us here.
[22:44:55] CNN Chief Political Analyst, Gloria Borger, is with us as well. So is CNN Chief -- so is -- excuse me, is CNN Political Commentator and former Clinton 2016 Director of Communications Outreach, Jess McIntosh, also Van Jones, Host of CNN's Van Jones Show, and two CNN political commentators joining us as well, and former -- both are former governors, Jennifer Granholm of Michigan and Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, a lot to talk about. John King, let's start with you. Who stood out to you?
JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Well, what stood out to me, I think, is the most important. The ideological and generational fight in the Democratic Party is alive and well and feisty. It was not settled tonight.
COOPER: It continues.
KING: It continues and it's going to continue, I think, deep into the primary season. The big challenge tonight is -- the big question after tonight and tomorrow night, who gets to continue the fight. And so Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders stood their ground tonight. They were in the middle of the stage. They were challenged repeatedly. Can you sell these big ideas? Is the country ready for this? Can the country afford this?
Will you hand Donald Trump reelection? I think they stood feistily and fought back Elizabeth Warren from the very beginning, saying don't have small ideas and don't be spineless, a direct challenge to those who were challenging her and Senator Sanders. They didn't go at each other. They will have at some day. They hold too much space in this primary to not have a fight at some point.
But that was delayed as they held their ground against the moderates. I think the big question is which of the moderates survive. And that's not up to us. That's up to Democratic donors and Democratic voters who have to send the money or raise them in the polls. Because this in some ways -- I don't want to make it reality TV, is about survival.
And to make the next round of debates, several of those moderates right now don't meet the test, so Governor Bullock, pretty decent night. Do voters believe that? Does had he rise up in the polls? Does he get some money?
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: It's also his first night on --
(CROSSTALK)
KING: He tried to have his introduction as I am from the Trump state. I agree with you on principle, Bernie and Senator Warren, but not in how you want to do it. The Democratic voters are going to decide who gets to live to fight on. But wow, this is a feisty, policy-based, ideological fight. And it's going to go for a long time.
COOPER: Nia-Malika Henderson, certainly former Representative Delaney got a fair amount of attention as a foil to Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: He did. And that was, I think, one of the best exchanges that Warren had with Delaney. When she was saying what's the presidency for. What are you running for presidency for if it's all about what you can't get done and all about what you're afraid of? She kept essentially saying that the moderates were basically spouting GOP talking points and why are the moderates getting caught in that trap.
It was really interesting because you think about last time she wasn't really in the debate as much. And I think she really pushed her way through.
COOPER: Let's go to Chris who has got a guest, Chris?
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: All right, great. Senator Amy Klobuchar is here right now from Minnesota. You had what I would argue as one of the best lines of the night. Do you want to win the argument or do you want to win the election? How do you think that played out on the stage?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think that people need to really think about that, because we want to make a unified case. People are going to have different ideas on policies. But the key is we have got to take this to Donald Trump. I tried to make that case over and over again tonight, and I'm going to continue to do it, because people are watching your show right now that aren't base Democrats or independents or moderate Republicans. And we need them to win the election.
CUOMO: Now, you talked to about this point on -- in a town hall and on the show. And it was coming up a little bit tonight. There's a juxtaposition it seems in your party between those who are at the top of polls who are proposing ideas that weren't just fought on stage but aren't necessarily that popular in the rest of the country. How do you reconcile that with a win?
KLOBUCHAR: You know it's a long way to go here. And I am looking forward to Houston. I am making that debate in the fall. And I think we're going to have a few less people and we can have a better discussion. Because it is really important that people listen to the candidates. But I think in the end, we want to have a candidate that's not running for chair of the Democratic National Committee but is running president of the United States.
And so we have to have a clear vision that brings people together in this country, because Donald Trump has dividing them every day.
CUOMO: Fair or unfair. In order to show your party that you're able to talk on this president, you will have to show that you can take on the people that you consider your friends.
KLOBUCHAR: That's right. That's why I made the point about how we don't want to have free college for wealthy people. That is in the proposal from two of my colleagues up there on the stage who I consider friends. And also that on page eight of the Medicare for All Bill, it clearly says we're going to dismantle people's current insurance and they will no longer be able to get it.
That's half of America. That doesn't mean that I don't have a bold idea, Chris, to bring down the cost of healthcare with a public option, which is a nonprofit option, and also to take on the pharmaceutical companies. I have been doing it since I got to Washington.
CUOMO: Do you think the Democrats can win if the candidate that is your nominee says that they will remove private insurance to replace it with something better? [22:49:47] KLOBUCHAR: I think that would be a very problematic
situation for us, because when people start looking at what this means, they're going to say wait a minute. I want to have -- do no harm. I want to bring the cost down. But half of America says I want to keep my insurance. I don't like the insurance companies. But I don't know what I'm going into.
So I think it's more important to do a public option, which is something that Senator Sanders himself, I pointed out, which no one seems to be talking about, was on the bill last year. Even though his campaign manager tweeted out last week that it's immoral to support a public option, he was actually on the bill last year for a Medicaid public option with me.
CUOMO: There already is an ad out for the Senator Sanders campaign that you can get a t-shirt or a bumper sticker that says, I wrote the damn bill, because of one of his retorts tonight. But your point is he's been on a lot of bills. They don't always say the same thing.
KLOBUCHAR: Right. And I think you need someone that can lead the ticket that can win in those red areas, and that's not exactly his state. I have won in a state that Donald Trump has targeted in every red congressional district. And my point of this is you need someone that can win, but then also someone that can get things done. And I just don't think it's tenable to get that one done.
CUOMO: One opportunity I want to ask you about tonight. Jake asked you, you've said that people up on this stage are making promises just to get elected. He said like who.
KLOBUCHAR: Yeah.
CUOMO: You didn't go there.
KLOBUCHAR: Well, I did. I was mentioning the two of them because I mentioned their bills. And I also wanted to make the case that when we have a president that said over 10,000 lies, that you want to have a candidate leading the ticket that's going to be straight with people, look them in the eye, and tell them the truth.
CUOMO: Senator Klobuchar, thank you. Congratulations on tonight. Good luck going forward.
KLOBUCHAR: Appreciate it. Thank you, Chris.
CUOMO: Back to you, Anderson.
COOPER: Chris thanks very much. Joining right now us is Vermont Senator, Bernie Sanders. How did you feel it went out there for you, Senator?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I hope the American people had a chance to hear the serious discussion about serious issues and not candidates, who are trying to, you know, destroy each other. COOPER: It did seem like certainly both you and Senator Warren
received a fair amount of incoming from people on either side of you. And it is a very fundamental difference of approach within the Democratic Party. Do you think you sold your case for what moderates say is taking private insurance away from people?
SANDERS: Well, first of all, I mean, that's a decision for the American people to make. But I think what the American people understand is we have a dysfunctional healthcare system now, the only major country not to guarantee healthcare to all people. Fifteen minutes away from here, you end up in the hospital with heart surgery and you come out of that hospital without a bill. You go to any doctor you want without taking out your wallet.
And in Canada, they end up spending half as much per capita on healthcare as we do. In this country, you got over 80 million people who are either uninsured or underinsured, 500,000 people go bankrupt every year for outrageous medical bills. But I got to day there's some good news. The healthcare industry made $100 billion in profit last year. To answer your question, look, nobody loves the health insurance company.
What they love is their doctors. They love their nurses. They may well love the hospital experience they had. Under Medicare for All, everybody in this country, unlike the status quo, will be able to go to the doctor they want or the hospital they want.
COOPER: I want to play, if I can, one of the exchanges you had, the question was about Medicare from Jake Tapper. You started talking about it. Congressman Ryan responded. But it's also probably one of the most memorable lines from the night. Let's just play that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: If Medicare for All is enacted, there are more than 600,000 union members here in Michigan who would be forced to give up their private healthcare plans. Now, I understand that it would provide universal coverage. But can you guarantee those union members that the benefits under Medicare for All will be as good as the benefits that their representatives, their union reps, fought hard to negotiate?
SANDERS: Well, two things. They will be better because Medicare for All is comprehensive. It covers all healthcare needs for senior citizens. It will finally include dental care, hearing aids, and eyeglasses.
TIM RYAN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: But you don't know that, Bernie.
SANDERS: Second of all -- I do know, I wrote the damn bill.
RYAN: These union members are losing their jobs. Their wages have been stagnant. The world is crumbling around them. The only thing they have is possibly really good healthcare. And the Democratic message is going to be we're going to go in, and the only thing you have left we're going to take it, and we're going to do better.
I do not think that's a recipe for success for us. It's bad policy. And it's certainly bad politics.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: So what Congressman Ryan is saying is that, you know, that there are union members in this state, 600,000, many of whom like the health insurance they have, and that it's not a winning message to say we're going to take that away from you.
[22:54:49] SANDERS: I am perhaps the strongest pro-union member of the United States Senate. I've been fighting for workers my entire life. Under Medicare for All, workers will have comprehensive healthcare for all of their healthcare needs without paying a nickel in deductibles, co-payments, or premiums. And in fact, what they can finally begin to do is sit down and negotiate contracts, union contracts, with the companies and not have to give up wage increases in order to protect the healthcare that they have.
Now, they can start focusing on getting decent wage increases. This is absolutely a positive thing for the workers of America, and especially union workers.
COOPER: There was a piece by Tom Friedman a couple of weeks ago and it echoes what many on the right of the Democratic Party argue, that essentially Friedman was saying, look, do we really need a revolution? Can't we just win against Donald Trump? And when I say we, he meant the Democratic Party.
SANDERS: Well, I think that the way to win is not to do politics in the old status quo way. If we do not bring out millions of young people who have not voted in the past, if we do not increase the vote in the African-American community, the Latino community, the white working class community, Trump is going to win this election. And the only way that I know how to beat Trump is you run a campaign of excitement, energy, which speaks to the needs of working families.
And what working families understand is they are getting ripped off and beaten up every day by corporate America, where CEOs are making 300 times more than the workers, where their jobs are being destroyed in America as companies move to China and Mexico. The time is now to stand up with the working class of this country. And when you do that, good policy becomes good politics.
COOPER: Does it alienate -- I understand your call for a revolution, your desire to bring in the young voters, people who stood by the sidelines the last time, weren't motivated to come out. Is there room, though for -- and is it a mistake not to also reach out in some way to those who voted for Trump and are on the fence?
SANDERS: Anderson, I think we can. I mean, I think, look, I won Michigan in the Democratic primary. I won Wisconsin by a pretty big vote. I think that the issues that I am talking about, making sure that every American has healthcare as a human right, raising the minimum wage, which I helped lead the fight on to at least 15 bucks an hour, passing legislation that makes it easier for workers to join unions, creating millions of good-paying jobs, rebuilding our infrastructure. You know what? That will resonate in Trump land as well as all over this country.
COOPER: At some point, well, you know, the pundits say -- and I am sure you've heard this and probably disagree with it. But at some point, you have to -- tonight you and Senator Warren were pretty much together. Many of your ideas are very similar or at least in the same kind of lane. At some point, what happens between the two of you?
SANDERS: She runs her campaign and I run my campaign. That's what happens. Elizabeth Warren has been a friend of mine for 25 years. I respect her. She is an excellent senator. We worked together on many issues. She's running a campaign. I am running my campaign. And all I can say is I am extraordinarily proud. I think we have broken the world's record in now having 2 million individual contributions at this point in the campaign, averaging all of $19 apiece.
COOPER: Wow.
SANDERS: I don't think anybody has ever done that. I am pretty proud of that. We have well over a million volunteers. We're going to win this primary. And we're going to beat Trump, because we are going to put together an unprecedentedly-strong grassroots movement and do -- and bring forth the fights that the American people want.
COOPER: Senator Sanders, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.
SANDERS: Thank you. David Axelrod, you heard from Senator Sanders there. I am wondering how you felt he and Elizabeth Warren did in this divide between the more moderate side and the more progressive wing.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, they were at the center of the stage for a reason. They've done very well in this campaign. I think they did very well in this debate expressing their points of view. And I thought, you know, Senator Sanders was much more energetic than he was in the first debate. I think he knew he had to be, and he was.
And I thought Elizabeth Warren was very, very strong as well. The question is really which direction the party should take. She made an interesting comment when she was -- in the middle of the debate, not just the one that Nia mentioned toward Delaney, that I don't know why you'd run for president just to tell people what we can't do. But she also said she spoke to the fear that Democrats have about losing to Donald Trump.
And she said we can't nominate a candidate in who we don't believe because we're afraid. And she really, in that sense, confronted the nub of the issue. I think one of the problems that the moderates on that platform, and you saw it with Amy Klobuchar had tonight was they were making essentially a political argument, which was we can't be for these things because we would lose the election.
That's not as appealing as the argument that these are things we believe in and we should fight for them.
[23:00:00] That's not as appealing as the argument that these are things we believe and then we should fight for them. And I think moderates have to make a strong argument for their points of view here not just a political argument.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the interesting thing about Elizabeth Warren was that she also made the electability argument. Because the rap against her, yes, she's a great debater, she's been a candidate of ideas, maybe they're too liberal for a lot of the country.
So, what she had to do is tell people she's electable, and she did. She said, I'm a capitalist. I know how to fight. And I know how to win. And she was saying, everybody, don't worry about me. I can take on -- I can take on Donald Trump.
And I think Bernie Sanders did not do that as well as Elizabeth Warren did tonight. She knew that she had to confront that. Delaney started the debate right out of the box by saying, look, we're going to get Donald Trump re-elected. This is McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis. Democrats don't like to hear that.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Yes.
BORGER: And he was talking about Sanders and Warren. And she just gave it right back to him and said, uh-uh, that's not the case.
COOPER: It really was. You heard from a lot of the moderates, from Delaney, from also from Bullock, saying, you know, this is like sort of wishful thinking, this is a laundry list of just wishes, it's not something that's actually going to be possible and get Democrats elected.
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And to David's point, we're in a primary where you want to love a candidate, you want passion, you want someone to represent you. There is a hunger in the Democratic Party for ideas.
So just saying, well, you'll lose Wisconsin, you'll lose Michigan. You might be right, this is an untested proposition what Senators Sanders was just describing, what Senator Warren is describing, has not happened in our lifetime, that a Democrat can run on a national election to be for Medicare for all, free college tuition, maybe for reparations, for giving healthcare to undocumented immigrants.
A host of liberal proposals way to the left of the last Democrat who won, Barack Obama. Way, way, way, way, way, way, way, left to Bill Clinton, the Democrat to win before that.
My first campaign was Dukakis. He was not as liberal as many of these candidates. That doesn't mean they can't win, it's just never been done before. That doesn't mean it's impossible, it's just never been done. So, they're asking the party, take a huge bet on me, I can beat Donald Trump with this agenda that's never been done before. I think the interesting part was, did any of the moderates tonight --
this is why we're going to watch tomorrow night too. Does Joe Biden more passionately stake out that you can't do this to the Democratic Party, why? Not just we can't win, but why?
Why is my -- why is protecting Obamacare, building on it better than Medicare for all? We'll see if that happens tomorrow night.
I do think interestingly tonight, Mayor Buttigieg and Beto O'Rourke did not join the other moderates in a passionate way. Might one or two examples where they took issue a little bit. They decided to do their own business tonight to try to help their own standing, not to join the ideological fight.
It might have been a little different if the other -- if they joined in. But they're already qualified for the next debate, so they didn't have to do it tonight. And they decided to step back I think and just try to do a little bit of their own business.
BORGER: Bullock did and Delaney did because they had to do it.
KING: Right.
BORGER: They had to do it tonight.
COOPER: I want to turn to our partisan, Jess, what stood out to you?
JESS MCINTOSH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, Elizabeth Warren obviously stood out to me. I think if we're talking about the progressive/moderate divide, it's sort of no secret which side of that line I come down on. I'm definitely more on the progressive side. But those labels aren't on the ballot when people go to vote.
And ultimately, I don't think people are voting for which health care plan they want. They're voting for a leader. So, you have to have policies that they feel good about, but mostly they have to trust you.
They have to see that you have a vision for the country post-Trump, which requires recognizing that Trump is not the first thing to come along and be wrong with the Republican Party or wrong with racism in America, which requires some pretty big bold ideas to get us out of this.
COOPER: But Van, they also -- people have to believe that you can beat Donald Trump.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, look, on Elizabeth Warren, look, Bernie is the comeback kid a little bit tonight. The last time he was weaker, he seemed like he was fading. He was strong tonight. He reminded you why you like Bernie and he was tough.
MCINTOSH: He made me like him for the first time tonight.
JONES: So, listen, I'm proud because, you know, this was a clean fight. There were no stunts. There were no cheap shots. Nobody came in there with something they're going to do to try to get attention for themselves. It was a clean fight between people with different points of view. That's good for the country, it's good for the party.
Bernie Sanders re-established himself as trying to lead the revolution. Elizabeth Warren is trying to lead the country. She is trying to be president of the United States.
BORGER: You think Bernie is not?
JONES: Listen, when you listen to Elizabeth Warren, she is doing the business of saying, hey, look, I am electable because I have courage, because I have character, I believe in what I'm talking about.
And here's the thing. This whole left versus right, there's something else going on. It gets called progressive, moderate. What it is, it's authenticity versus phoniness. It's courage versus cowardice. OK? If somebody is going to take a stand versus somebody who's going to calculate.
[23:05:00] And so, you saw a conviction candidate who can unify this party, electrify voters, with Elizabeth Warren.
I just want to say one last thing, though. I thought that Pete did very well tonight. I thought he was strong on faith. I thought he was strong on guns. I thought he made his age an asset for himself. But he still is not yet connecting on the race questions. And that is going to continue to dog him till he figures it out.
COOPER: Mayor Pete Buttigieg of course you were talking about. I want to go back to Chris with the debate moderators, Jake Tapper, Dana Bash, and Don Lemon. Chris?
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: All right, thank you. Good job, each and all. Good to have you. Represented the team well. Dana, what do you think stood out on that stage tonight in terms of the dynamic that formed among their answers?
DANA BASH, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Listen, we weren't sure exactly how much the very real divide that is in the Democratic Party and that is, you know, seen among these Democratic candidates would show, and it showed from the first nanosecond when Jake was asking about healthcare, which is obviously the biggest issue and has the biggest divide among the candidates.
The leaders on this stage, including and starting with Bernie Sanders, who wrote the Medicare for all bill, are absolutely, positively, unabashedly, unapologetic about it. As they, you know, as you would expect them to be. And that is what their supporters love.
But the idea of whether or not a Bernie Sanders, an Elizabeth Warren, people with those progressive ideas, can make it to the general election and pass the general election to beat a Donald Trump, they made their argument pretty strongly.
Elizabeth Warren in particular when she said, you need ideas and you can't run for president saying no. But I'm not so sure they convinced anybody besides the people who they're already talking to.
CUOMO: The idea that it may be popular in the party.
BASH: Right.
CUOMO: With the progressive wing, Don, but it's not the most popular position in the country, especially this new piece of taking away private insurance and replacing it with something else.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Well, I think that, you know, that is a big -- one of the biggest issues if not the biggest issue in the party. And that is -- and whether -- who gets elected next time, is if the party is moving too far left. Right?
If they are -- if the -- if -- are people's taxpayer money going to go to undocumented immigrants getting healthcare and so on and so forth and where people stand on those issues.
But I think -- I think everyone pretty much made a valid point right off from the beginning. Yes, we may have some disagreements. But basically, they are similar on what they want. And they think that Trump is the existential threat, and that's who they really were going for.
CUOMO: Yes. But they got so tangled up in it. Jake, you had some great questions on the topic. Amy Klobuchar early on said, you want to win the argument or you want to win an election?
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Right.
CUOMO: And then you gave her this great opportunity. You said very pointedly, you've said some people up here making promises just to get elected, like who?
TAPPER: Yes, and she didn't -- she didn't bite. Actually, it's funny. You know, we do these mock debates where we have ten very gifted, or 20 in this case, very gifted producers who are super smart and study up on the candidates they're assigned.
And that answer was given by Kristin Donnelly, one of my senior producers, who played Amy Klobuchar in the mock, which was, well -- I mean, she's talking about, I'm guessing, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, but she won't name them.
So, she pivoted to, Donald Trump makes promises he can't keep, which is what Kristin Donnelly, our superb senior producer who also played Klobuchar, did in our mock, so it didn't surprise me. That actually happens not --
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: She said everybody is making promise on this this stage, right?
TAPPER: Right.
LEMON: Those was her answer. TAPPER: But one of the things that's interesting about the way the
DNC is doing debates, the previous debates in 2016, there would be an undercard debate. So, you would have the top 10 candidates and then there would be, whatever five, or 10 on a different stage.
The DNC wouldn't allow that. So, there are -- I mean, so the showdown between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden with Kamala Karris, with -- my mind is blank. You know, every --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: You've had a long night.
TAPPER: The top four, five candidates. Elizabeth Warren.
LEMON: Yes.
TAPPER: We didn't get that. Right? And we're not going to get that until the field winnows --
CUOMO: Right.
TAPPER: -- because the DNC rules say that's not going to happen. So instead of having Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren debate this moderate versus progressive divide in the party, we couldn't do that tonight.
So, we have the arguments basically that Biden would be making, being made by other moderates in the party who aren't as popular right now, at least in the polls --
CUOMO: They made them, though.
TAPPER: John Delaney, Steve Bullock, and John Hickenlooper. So, I mean, so for anybody who's wondering like why were we doing that? It's because this is a very serious divide in the party right now.
CUOMO: Right.
LEMON: Right.
TAPPER: -- with Joe Biden as really the ringleader of the moderate party -- of the moderate lane, and also saying if you elect these people, we're going to lose.
(CROSSTALK)
[23:10:01] LEMON: Well, Chris, you know -- sorry.
BASH: And also, Jake, a divide among voters, among Democratic voters.
TAPPER: Yes. That's what I mean by in the party.
BASH: Yes. Exactly. And that really is -- it is the fundamental right now. It is --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: This private insurance piece is going to be dispositive on the issue. They have to figure out how to tell people -- because look, let's be honest, if the President Obama -- you can say it was fair or unfair, that you can keep your doctor, and you didn't.
If that is something that had such a stain, such a legacy, what will "you can keep your plan, we'll figure it out," but then the plan gets taken away, how ominous that would be for people. So, they are going to have to figure it out.
TAPPER: Kamala Harris is trying to split the difference.
BASH: And I --
CUOMO: Right.
BASH: Yes. If I may, I just think -- I think that one of the most potent examples of that was when Jake asked about unions and about the fact that they have private plans, and they negotiated private plans they really like.
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Tim Ryan from Ohio which --
BASH: Tim Ryan jumped on it before you even got to answer the question.
CUOMO: Well, look, what you guys are supposed to do is give them the opportunity to distinguish themselves, and you did exactly that on a number of points.
LEMON: But can I say something? I think that everyone thought the heat was going to be in the center of the stage. I don't mean us. I mean, people at home. Because you know, those are the guys that --
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: Bernie and Warren?
LEMON: Yes, Bernie and Warren. They thought the heat. But I actually thought it was well distributed. And I thought the other people conducted themselves and comported themselves very well. They showed up, they made their points, and they weren't rude.
CUOMO: Right.
LEMON: But I thought there was a lot of substance coming from --
CUOMO: The fringe.
LEMON: -- the fringe as well.
CUOMO: Yes, it makes sense. In the middle, the people at the top, you expect poise in this. And on the ends, you expect noise, because they've got to get heard and recognized.
Let's get back to Anderson, really quick, pick up on the coverage, and we'll check back here in a little bit. Anderson, to you.
COOPER: Yes, Chris, thanks very much. Great job to all our moderators. Really an incredibly difficult task and I thought done extraordinarily well. Governor Granholm, what stood out to you tonight?
JENNIFER GRANHOLM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that the people who had a full theory of the case, the ones who have authentic passion, which were tonight I think Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, clearly. But I also think there were a couple of other people that had moments that were really compelling.
For example, I do think that Tim Ryan, when he was talking about the unions negotiating for those healthcare benefits, was very powerful. And I also think that Marianne Williamson, when she talked about reparations and the reason behind it, I thought it was really compelling and authentic.
And when she talked about living in Grosse Pointe and how Grosse Pointe, for those who don't know, is a very wealthy suburb here, that the Flint water situation would never happen in Grosse Pointe, was very resonant.
So, I think, you know, she did herself some favor. I'll be interested to see what happens. I know a lot people like to mock her, but honestly, I think she brought it for that.
JONES: She really did.
AXELROD: Yes. You think she could be the nominee for the Democrat --
GRANHOLM: No. But I do think that she --
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: OK. All right. I just wanted to clear that up.
GRANHOLM: Yes. I mean, no, I don't.
COOPER: But she is speak -- she is speaking to some people that others aren't.
GRANHOLM: Right.
COOPER: She's saying things which others are not.
GRANHOLM: She always answers questions on a different level than everybody else. But all I can say is, I'm so glad there's a primary, because these issues, these fundamental issues, and I too don't like to say, you know, moderate versus progressive, et cetera.
But there is two -- there's several theories of the case and I'm glad there's a primary. COOPER: Governor, I mean, Governor Granholm brought up Williamson.
One of the critiques she has made in both debates now is, you know, wonkiness or plans alone, that's not going to win the election, there's got to be more than that, there's got to be a deep understanding of undercurrents in America, and I'm not even sure how she phrased it because I --
GRANHOLM: Dark and psychic forces.
COOPER: OK. But to that point, what did you see tonight?
TERRY MCAULIFFE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, listen, I thought it was fascinating. I thought you had a nonaggression pact between Warren and Sanders which I found fascinating. They decided not to go after each other. I thought she did an excellent job.
COOPER: Which by the way at this stage, do -- I mean, do you think they needed to go after each other?
MCAULIFFE: Well, let me just tell you, it's not going to last. Let me be very clear. They're going after the basket of progressive voters. It's not going to last. They decided to do it today. They got ganged up by Delaney and Hickenlooper and Bullock and Ryan.
And I think Beto and Pete, where's Waldo? They were just -- because they were not in that debate, they didn't move at all tonight. They were already on the next debate stage.
But the big issue coming out of tonight is four or five of these folks are not going to continue. They're not going to be on the next debate stage. And what happens is you just run out of money.
JONES: Yes.
MCAULIFFE: And for the donors now looking there, they're not going to support some of these candidates tonight. There wasn't a breakout moment for the candidates who actually need --
GRANHOLM: Who's not going to be there next time?
MCAULIFFE: Well, you know, it's not -- listen. I give them credit for running for president.
GRANHOLM: Come on, come on.
MCAULIFFE: Because I don't want -- let them make that decision. I thought Steve Bullock did a great job in his first debate. Is it too late? But you know, to go out and try and put all those donors together, four or five are going to go out of this thing.
And Warren and Bernie, they are going to go after, they have to go after each other, that's going to come up very soon.
[23:15:00] BORGER: Well, but they didn't have to do it tonight.
COOPER: Right. BORGER: Because they were a joint force.
MCAULIFFE: Right.
BORGER: Because they were being attacked by everybody else. But let me say something about -- I guess we call them the moderates on the stage.
I think, if I'm Joe Biden watching this, I'm thinking, I better do a better job than they did. And there were a lot of phrases that were used that reminded me of voodoo economics. You know, Bush's phrase against Reagan. There was wish list economics. Massive government expansion.
JONES: Fairy tale economics.
BORGER: Right, fairy tale economics. All kinds of things that eventually could be used against either, you know, Sanders or Warren. And the Democrats have to figure this out.
Because as Amy Klobuchar said, she said, let's get real here. And I believe that there are lots of Democrats that believe that Sanders and Warren can't win.
AXELROD: Yes.
JONES: In some ways the big winner tonight was really Biden. Because --
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: Well in a way, yes.
JONES: Because what you saw was a lot of very strong conversations, arguments, coming from the moderate wing, coming from the right of our party. You saw Bernie and Elizabeth dealing with it as best as they could. Nobody came after Biden.
And now Biden has a little bit more of an understanding about what they're going to do to him when it's his time to go.
Tomorrow night, I mean, we want to get to -- we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but tomorrow night is going to be a very different dynamic because you're going to have -- race is going to play a much big role.
COOPER: But also, I mean, if you're Joe Biden sitting there and watching this, I'm not privy to what questions are going to be asked tomorrow or I wasn't privy to what questions were going to be asked tonight.
If I'm Joe Biden sitting there watching this, I'm now sort of looking at everybody else on that stage and thinking, OK, who's the far-left person who they're going to ask --
(CROSSTALK) JONES: But none of those moderates are going to make it. In other words, all the moderates fired on the progressives.
COOPER: Right.
JONES: He saw how they dealt with it. Most of those guys are not going to be there are and he's going to have the benefit of having watched that.
(CROSSTALK)
MCINTOSH: Well, Joe Biden has to do a better job than the moderates tonight did in making a proactive, positive case. They decided to frame their fire by saying --
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: The moderates tonight just --
MCINTOSH: -- I don't want it.
BORGER: About policy.
JONES: Go ahead.
MCINTOSH: I think we agree on this point, you can't just say, I don't want this, I don't want to stand up for this, the country doesn't want this. We are really looking for someone to articulate a positive vision of what's coming next.
And if Joe Biden can't do that, then I think he's going to keep on the trend down. The weird thing about the September deadline --
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: Although you know -- I'm sorry, Jess, go ahead.
MCINTOSH: Quick point. The September deadline, and how much I think the field is going to narrow, I think we lose a lot of white men. I think we're going to get to September with a lot of the diversity still intact. And even more so as we narrow it down to the last eight or 10.
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: You know, you said something --
(CROSSTALK)
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: And a lot of those men are in the race because they thought they were going to replace Biden, right?
MCINTOSH: Right.
BORGER: Right. HENDERSON: The thought, theory was that Biden, you know --
COOPER: Would collapse.
(CROSSTALK)
HENDERSON: -- wouldn't go in or that he would collapse. And I think tonight you saw people who can't really compete with him in the moderate lane.
AXELROD: You said something interesting which was, it isn't good enough to argue that the country doesn't want this. It does seem if you're running for president that you ought to take into consideration what the country wants.
And the fact is large numbers of people oppose the Medicare for all proposal if it replaces private insurance.
MCINTOSH: Right.
AXELROD: We've seen it in poll after poll after poll. A large number of people in this country do not believe the borders should be decriminalized. A large number of people in this country don't believe that undocumented immigrants should qualify for public --
MCINTOSH: But those numbers actually are squishier if you're able to have the conversation with the voters.
BORGER: Fair enough.
AXELROD: Jess, the numbers are very good. They come across --
MCINTOSH: I have to believe that we have time to do that.
AXELROD: I honestly -- I appreciate your feelings about these issues and I'm very passionate about healthcare myself. I was in the White House when we fought just to get the Affordable Care Act. Couldn't get a public option.
COOPER: Right.
AXELROD: So, Bernie Sanders was there. He knows that. He knows that what he's talking about is not going to happen any time soon. And so, should the party move forward -- this is what Democrats are asking.
Do we move forward with, you know, these idealized proposals that are going to beg opposition and make it easier for Donald Trump to make his case and win re-election when the stakes are so high?
COOPER: And also --
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: This is what a lot of Democrats are worried about.
BORGER: I mean, there are enough differences with Donald Trump which you don't even have to --
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: And you know what, Gloria, the one -- the biggest one I'm surprised didn't come up tonight, except in glancing ways. The fact of the matter is, we've never had a president whose political project is so dependent on dividing the country --
(CROSSTALK)
GRANHOLM: Yes, exactly.
AXELROD: -- every single day to the point where you have this chaotic situation when it's very hard to get things done.
JONES: Can I say something?
AXELROD: And that seems to me to be kind of fundamental.
MCINTOSH: Sure.
AXELROD: And it wasn't really discussed at great length tonight.
JONES: This is I think the key. There's ra difference in just what went wrong in 2016? I think we're still all in therapy trying to figure out what went wrong in 2016.
[23:20:03] And depending on who your therapist is, you have a different answer. I think for a lot of progressives you're correct, some of these ideas, they may be a bridge too far. And I had that same fear.
But I just want to speak to the people who say, you know what, we don't care, at this point when you have a president who has gone so far to the right and said, and done so many things and then rewarded for the audacity of it, why can't we be audacious? And why can't we actually fight for what we believe in? And so, I think what you're seeing is --
(CROSSTALK)
BORGER: Because you want to win.
JONES: Well, no.
BORGER: And the economy is good.
JONES: But listen, but listen, this is where I really think we talk past each other. Electability is key for progressives as well, but we think you're going to be more electable if you -- and electrify the people who have never voted before and those are going to be the people who need big solutions and these moderate answers may actually demobilize your own base. That's the only thing.
COOPER: All right. We got to take a quick break. We're going to hear from Mayor Pete Buttigieg coming up as well as some of other candidates tonight. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:25:00] CUOMO: All right. Welcome back to our coverage of night one of the CNN Democratic debate.
The candidates are talking about their clash of ideas and their fight in many ways for the heart of the Democratic Party.
I am here with Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Good to see you, Mr. Mayor. Congratulations on tonight.
MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG (D-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you.
CUOMO: You had a couple of big lines tonight. The first one, I want to know if this was planned for the effect at least it had on me. You said the idea that this president got within a cheating chance of the presidency. Those are very particular words.
BUTTIGIEG: Yes, I think about it a lot. Because we're so worried about this president, we've got to ask ourselves, how does a guy like this ever get there? It should never have been close.
And the fact that it was, let alone the fact that he won, I think tells us about the ground shifting beneath our feet. And it's one of the reasons why we can't just recycle the same argument or recycle the same ideas and expect to get a lot of traction where it works.
CUOMO: I want to get to that. Because you said that tonight, it was obviously on display.
BUTTIGIEG: Yes.
CUOMO: However, cheating chance. Is there an implication there that Russian interference is why he won?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, we know Russian interference played a role, we may never know just how big of a role. Again, the point is, it should never have been within that distance that Russian interference could play a role.
Look, we're going to continue to see attacks on our democracy, they're happening right now, and this administration is not doing anything about it.
Obviously, as president I will seek to deter that so that it never happens again. But in the meantime, we've got to figure out how to speak to the American people to the point where a guy like this never gets to the level where it would matter if there was a thumb on the scale coming from overseas.
CUOMO: Now one of the dynamics on the stage tonight was a deep dive of relative progressivism about how far you'll go on healthcare and that was going on. At one point you piped up and said, there's a lot of people here talking about the wrong source of criticism. Let's play it for the audience. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUTTIGIEG: It is time to stop worrying about what the Republicans will say.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
(APPLAUSE)
BUTTIGIEG: Look, if it's true that if we embrace a far-left agenda they're going to say we're a bunch of crazy socialists, if we embrace a conservative agenda, you know what they're going to do? They're going to say we're a bunch of crazy socialists.
(APPLAUSE)
BUTTIGIEG: So, let's just stand up for the right policy, go out there, and defend it. That's the policy I'm putting forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: What does it mean to you that the top two poll people on that stage have ideas that, yes, are popular within your party, but not in the country necessarily? Especially with this new component of removing private healthcare that people have now in favor of something else.
BUTTIGIEG: Right. To me it makes more sense to have a glide path, we call it Medicare for all who want it, that lets people find their own way to what I think will be a superior Medicare-style option. But the bigger question here --
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: Elizabeth Warren shook a figure at you though.
BUTTIGIEG: Yes.
CUOMO: That's a half measure.
BUTTIGIEG: Look.
CUOMO: We need big ideas or don't run?
BUTTIGIEG: I wouldn't be running if I didn't have big ideas and some of my ideas about reforming democracy, I think are leading the field. But, you know, this can't be about ideology.
The youngest guys on the stage but I was the one who feltlike the folks around me were in a throwback to a dorm room debate over, you know, how conservative or how progressive the ideas are.
Voters aren't sitting around at home aligning every one of our ideologies with a dot on a line and then picking out the dot that matches them most. I mean, where I come from there's a lot of people who voted for Barack
Obama, Donald Trump, voted for Mike Pence for governor, voted for me for mayor.
So, it's obviously not just about ideology. It's about who can lead, it's about who's going to break through the status quo we're living with, and part what was I tried to communicate tonight is what's at stake.
We cannot keep having these circular debates or psych ourselves out worrying about what the Republicans will say or outdo each other to be the most pure, when the wolf isn't just at the gates, the wolf is through the gates.
And again, in my view, it's not just the problem created by this president. It is the problems that created this problem. If we're not speaking to that with something different, I'm very worried about whether we'll ever get another shot.
CUOMO: And while it is interesting at least in part to hear where you guys are in this policy, you guys have to know you will not be having this conversation if you're the nominee.
You're not going to sit on a stage with Donald Trump -- they may ask him about healthcare but he's just going to keep pointing at you calling you a socialist --
(CROSSTALK)
BUTTIGIEG: That's my point.
CUOMO: -- saying that these guys are trying to kill us and ruin us and everything and like the ACA wasn't bad enough. So, are you preparing for that fight?
BUTTIGIEG: He's going to say this no matter what. We can change the politics around an idea. Look at the ACA itself, right? Twenty-ten, first time I was running for office as a Democrat in Indiana running for treasurer, we got absolutely smashed over the Affordable Care Act. Eight years later it was the winning issue for Democrats. Why? Because people realized the difference it made in their lives.
And by defending it by name, even defending it whether it was called ACA or Obamacare, we changed the political profile of the idea. We've got to be willing to do that. Part of how we got here was that Republicans spent decades coming out for ideas that were considered crazy in the '60s where mainstream Republican by the '80s, and by the 2000s Democrats were doing the same thing.
We've got to have the same level of ambition. I just think we've got to be for what we think is right, go out there and sell it, and then we'll win.
Mr. Mayor, thank you very much. Congratulations on tonight.
BUTTIGIEG: Thank you. CUOMO: Good luck going forward
[23:30:00] BUTTIGIEG: I appreciate it.
CUOMO: All right. Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Good to have him. We're going to be getting you back to Anderson for more coverage.
[23:30:00] This was a big night.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Chris, thanks very much. I'm here with Marianne Williamson. Now, according to CNN's Brian Stelter, she was the most searched of the 10 candidates during this debate in 49 out of 50 states. I want to play a moment from Ms. Williamson from earlier tonight talking about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: My response on the Flint water crisis is that Flint is just the tip of the iceberg. I was recently in Denmark, South Carolina where it is -- there's a lot of talk about it being the next Flint. We have an administration that has gutted the Clean Water Act.
We have communities, particularly communities of color and disadvantaged communities all over this country, who are suffering from environmental injustice. I assure you, I lived in Grosse Pointe. What happened in Flint would not have happened in Grosse Pointe. This is part of the dark underbelly of American society.
(APPLAUSE)
WILLIAMSON: The racism, the bigotry, and the entire conversation that we're having here tonight, if you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I'm afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days.
We need to say it like it is. It's bigger than Flint. It's all over this country. It's particularly people of color. It's particularly people who do not have the money to fight back. If the Democrats don't start saying it, then why would those people feel that they're there for us? And if the people don't see it, they won't vote for us, and Donald Trump will win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Welcome.
WILLIAMSON: Thank you.
COOPER: How did you feel you did tonight?
WILLIAMSON: Well, I didn't feel I did very good, but then I got offstage and I was told I did OK.
COOPER: It's interesting to me because you played a similar role in both debates that I've seen you in and part of it is almost at times -- it's almost like a narrator in a play sometimes commenting on -- it's like a production of "Our Town" and you're narrating --
WILLIAMSON: Greek chorus.
COOPER: Yes, Greek chorus, you're narrating what's going on. You've made this point now twice and I think it's really interesting and valid one which is if you think plan -- I think in the first debate, you said, plans alone are not going to do it. In this case, you said, wonkiness, you know, is not going to be enough.
I understand the argument that's not enough, that there's something larger, you used to call them darker forces at play. What is it that is needed if it's not wonkiness and plans, because obviously those are needed, but what else? What is that?
WILLIAMSON: We've never dealt with a figure like this in American history before. This man, our president, is not just a politician, he's a phenomenon, and an insider political game will not be able to defeat him. We need --
COOPER: I'm sorry. Can you put your mike just a little closer to your mouth? Put it just a little closer to your mouth like that.
WILLIAMSON: I'm sorry.
COOPER: That's fine.
WILLIAMSON: OK. What I was saying is that the president is not just a politician, he's a phenomenon, and an insider political game will not defeat him. The only thing will defeat him is if we have a phenomenon of equal force and that phenomenon is a moral uprising of the American people.
You know, people laugh at the idea that love has political power. I don't know how anybody could say that after looking at Gandhi and the Indian independence movement or Dr. King and the civil rights movement. But if you look at terrorism and you look at Nazism, clearly hatred has a lot to do with what unfolds politically.
We need an emotional and psychological uprising among people who have been so chronically disengaged from the political process and a conversation only about wonkiness and intellectual analysis. The part of the brain that intellectually analyzes an issue is not the same part of the brain that decides who to vote for.
COOPER: Donald Trump was not elected because he wanted to take Iraq's oil and surround the oil fields with soldiers and drain all the oil, which was an impossible thing. You're saying he was elected because he tapped into --
WILLIAMSON: He tapped into racism. He taps -- it's not just what he did, it is what he's continuing to do: racism, bigotry, homophobia, anti-Semitism, although he covers the anti-Semitism with all this pro- Israel stuff, xenophobia. He taps into the worst aspects of the human character. This is what authoritarian, fascist dictators do.
COOPER: So Senator Sanders is calling for a revolution, getting young people involved, getting people involved in the process. You're calling for a moral uprising?
WILLIAMSON: Well, I think we need both, clearly. Remember, I agree with most of the political plans of people such as Senator Sanders and Senator Warren --
COOPER: But what does that look like?
WILLIAMSON: We need both.
COOPER: What does a moral uprising look like?
WILLIAMSON: It means that you realize how much of our public policy is heartless. As soon as we bought in, and this began 40 years ago, as soon as we allowed an amoral -- what is essentially a sociopathic economic system to take hold and corrupt our government like it does, what do I mean by that?
When I was a child, the corporation was expected to care. The American corporation was expected to care if somebody worked at the corporation for decades, that they had a dignified retirement.
[23:34:57] Once we bought into this trickle-down economic theory where all that matters is (INAUDIBLE) responsibility to the stockholders, even if it's at the expense of other stakeholders such as the workers, such as the environment, such as the community, we split ourselves of from any soul, from any ethics, from any conscience, from any remorse. That is what a sociopath is.
So what it has done, it has made us a heartless country. When you have in the richest country in the world children who go to school hungry, asking the teacher, do you have anything to eat? That's heartless.
When you have people who are hungry and you do not feed them, when you have children who need educating and you do not educate them, when you have tax policies and other economic policies that make it so much easier for the already rich to get richer and more difficult for anyone else to make it at all, this is heartless.
It is divorced from ethics. It is divorced from morality. That always leads to disaster, whether it is for an individual or for a nation.
COOPER: So, how -- is there any candidate out there -- look, this is a political race in the end. If you're not the one, are you -- have you already identified somebody you would support?
WILLIAMSON: Well, but wait a minute, let's talk about is there someone who is doing that? And the person is me. But other than that, that person whose politics I would support? I'm a Bernie and Elizabeth person.
COOPER: But just in terms -- I just find it really interesting, this notion that a plan is not enough, and who else -- does anybody else that you have seen of all --
WILLIAMSON: Why do you need anybody else? You got me.
(LAUGHTER)
WILLIAMSON: What is this anybody else? No, that's my point.
COOPER: Yeah, I agree, there is no one else like you on that stage that I can -- I don't take positions, but I can tell you, that is a position I will stand by.
WILLIAMSON: You got me, so what more do you need?
COOPER: So what is it like to be on that stage with the background -- you know, you have a fascinating background of dealing with people's emotions and people's feelings and addressing people in a -- in grief and in difficult times in their life, and it's a background unlike any of these other folks on this stage, what is it like to see a debate through your eyes as you are standing there?
WILLIAMSON: Well, it's disappointing because the conversation that's being had in a debate like that, I know is not the conversation that will win. It's not a conversation -- that's not a level of conversation that will defeat the level of collectivized hatred and real fascistic waters that this man is dipping into. And so it's frustrating for me.
But this is the good news. When I'm out with voters, voters are ready. American civilization is not stuck in the 20th century the way American politics is. Everybody else has moved forward, in business, in education, in medicine. We have a much more whole person perspective in life. People go to therapy, people are religious, people have -- people go to yoga classes, people know now -- it's just this political system that's so stuck in the overly secularized --
COOPER: It does seem to me that -- it does seem to me and maybe it is just that I am, you know, in a grieving process and many people have come up to me in grief and connect with me in that way, and it's -- it is a different kind of thinking.
And I feel like you exist in that space always. That is the realm in which you work. And it is a very difficult -- it's a different life and it's a very real thing that many Americans are feeling and experiencing in pain, which you discuss, but no one else really discusses. It's kind of interesting.
WILLIAMSON: OK, so let's talk about that. The truth of the matter is a lot of people discuss it but they don't discuss it within political field because the political field isn't open. It makes us feel -- talks about us like we're wacky, talks about us like we're crazy. You've seen what's happened. So it's very difficult to penetrate that field.
But the truth of that is this is how the American people talk today. The political conversation is not the way the American people talk. The American people -- things happen. People go to therapy, people lose people, people go through heartbreak, people lose people to death, and people get sick.
This conversation, we're only going to keep it about the symptom and never about the cause and only about things on this the outside. That is how we got here, Anderson.
COOPER: This is why you were the most-searched person tonight. I know this, Ms. Williamson. Thank you.
WILLIAMSON: Thank you. Thank you so much.
COOPER: A pleasure to talk to. We're going to take a short break. We got more candidates just ahead.
[23:40:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CUOMO: All right, definitely a clash of ideas tonight in Detroit, not so much about how to beat Donald Trump, but about relative stands on health care within the Democratic Party. Let's talk about it. We have two of CNN's finest here, CNN political director David Chalian and CNN political analyst Kirsten Powers.
So, Marianne Williamson was just on with Anderson. You know, I've been a fan of her books, obviously "A Return to Love," about a course in miracles, "Healing the Soul of America." This was the first time tonight, Kirsten, I heard her harness that voice in her riff about racism and it being bigger and what it means to the party. It was one of the biggest applause lines of the night.
KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. In full disclosure, I'm friends with Marianne, so, you know, I am a big fan of hers as well.
CUOMO: Full disclosure, I don't really know her, I like the books, she kind of thought I was part of the security team when I came up to her.
(LAUGHTER)
POWERS: You know, I think people got to see the Marianne that I know tonight a little bit. She is somebody who has been thinking about these issues particularly race for a long time. She has been talking about reparations for a long time long before a lot of people in the Democratic Party were talking about it. I think that world view came through very clearly that it's something that she's thinking about and is serious about.
And I think she has a really interesting -- Anderson was sort of getting into this with her, just in this prior interview. She's bringing something really fresh and different to the debate stage, right, because she has a completely different perspective.
CUOMO: Right because it's very -- look, she's coming from a very deep and soulful place.
POWERS: Yeah, exactly.
CUOMO: That's not what was playing out on the stage. I don't mean that as a criticism. It's just an observation. We were just looking here on the other side of your screen, Senator Elizabeth Warren. This is the opposite end of the emotional spectrum that was going on.
[23:45:02] She was a hammer tonight, Elizabeth Warren. You want to come at me? I'm going to smack you down. I'm going to talk about these ideas. Here's the problem as I see it. Maybe it's not, David. She's at the top of the polls here, top three or four, however you want to look at it, but the ideas are not three or four most popular in this country that she's trying to sell.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yeah, but maybe -- when you say she's top of the polls, you mean the polls of the democratic primary --
CUOMO: Yes.
CHALIAN: -- and they are -- some of her ideas are quite popular within the democratic primary electorate, and this is the whole conversation that's going on inside the Democratic Party right now. I thought Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren had really good night tonight on the stage. They took a lot of incoming, as you described. But I thought they made a really forceful case.
And what I -- as I was watching the debate, I said, wow, if you thought this ideological battle that is going on inside this nomination race is somehow going to wrap up early before the voters weigh in, that's not the case.
CUOMO: You heard Klobuchar, did you win the argument or did you win the election? I think that that's a valid point.
CHALIAN: It is a totally valid point. What I'm saying is what I saw on the debate stage tonight were two leading candidates who are going to make the argument and take the argument the distance here to some degree.
So I do think what we saw is there's going to be a longevity in this nomination race to the party trying to figure out which wing is going to be the one that can, as you know, it's not either or preposition in politics, it's both end.
You've got to be able to bring the middle of the country along and inspire and excite your base. And so I just think the way that they pushed back, remember, they were taking the incoming from one percenter, right? I'm very curious to see, they may have won the debate tonight, the progressives on this stage. Do they win it tomorrow night when the country gets to see Biden and Harris on the stage as well and compare the other --
CUOMO: When you start getting into a debate, Kirsten, when people have a vested interest and say, you want to take my insurance --
POWERS: Yeah.
CUOMO: -- you want to take 150 million people's insurance, the union people that you used to have that are coming to me more and more because of exactly things like this, but then there is this other point that I've heard you make many times eloquently on Anderson show and others, they're not going to have this discussion with Donald Trump. He's not going to talk about their health care plan. He's going to call them a socialist --
POWERS: Right.
CUOMO: - and then say that you guys are trying to destroy the country, you're the "Squad" -- this is an identity politics game. It's not a policy match.
POWERS: But I think Mayor Pete Buttigieg is right about this when he says it doesn't matter what you do, they are going to call you a socialist. This is what they did to Nancy Pelosi, right?
You have to remember that there were so many people that were saying in 2016, Nancy Pelosi needs to step down because she's going to drag the Democrats down and they pinned her as the San Francisco liberal. And, you know, come on, that was ridiculous. And of course, Nancy Pelosi has ended up being the only person really --
CUOMO: Right.
POWERS: -- who can deal with Donald Trump.
CUOMO: She has done a great job for her interests. What they underestimated about Nancy Pelosi, I don't know that it applies to this field, which is they slept on her experience.
POWERS: Yeah.
CUOMO: This field does not have that kind of experience that she has in the trenches, doing the job that she was put there to do and winning. So, we'll see. Very good points. And Anderson, back to you. You heard Kirsten and I talking about it. That was a deep conversation you had with Marianne Williamson and it might have been one of the most interesting things I've heard tonight.
COOPER: We were going to go deeper, but you know, ran out of time, you know how it is.
(LAUGHTER)
COOPER: Chris, thanks very much. Joining us right now is Beto O'Rourke. It's great to have you here. I heard your campaign manager earlier today saying that what you needed to do today is introduce yourself to the American people on the stage. Do you feel you did that?
BETO O'ROURKE, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I did. I am grateful for the opportunity to do that. To describe why this moment is so important and what we could lose in this country. And the way to meet that is not to pit ourselves against each other or to write some part of the country off or to make this about the orthodoxy of our views. It's got to be about bringing everyone in. That's the kind of race that we ran in Texas. We just saw a new poll today that has us up 11 points on Donald Trump in Texas, those 38 Electoral College votes. That way that you run to bring everyone in, that's what defeats Donald Trump at the end of the day.
And it's also how you bring this country together on the really big issues that we talked about, whether health care, climate change, immigration, gun sense legislation. You can't write people off, you've got to bring people in.
COOPER: One of the things you said on the stage, it's interesting, we are seeing that you think it's a false choice between improving the Affordable Care Act and Medicare for All, that it's not necessarily a binary choice in that sense. Can you explain why?
O'ROURKE: Yeah. So, as I travel and listen to people, they're telling me they want to make sure that everyone is able to see a doctor, anyone can go to a mental health care provider, every woman can make her own decisions about her own body and has access to the care that makes that happen.
But many of them are also telling me they like their insurance. Members of unions, culinary workers in Nevada, to give you an example, fought for the health care plan they like. They don't want to go over to Medicare. So, I respect them and their judgment and their wisdom, and that's reflected in our plan, Medicare for America.
[23:50:03] You are enrolled in Medicare if you're uninsured or insufficiently insured, you can't afford your co-pays or premiums. But if you like your health care plan, you're able to keep your health care plan under our plan. And importantly -- we got to make this point tonight in the debate -- we are not going to raise taxes on the middle class in order to pay for this.
COOPER: So how do you do it? I mean, how do you pay for it?
O'ROURKE: You want to make sure that the very wealthiest are paying their fair share. You also make sure that you tax capital at the same rate that you tax ordinary income.
COOPER: Tax in capital gains.
O'ROURKE: That's right. And you also have to realize the gains from things like immigration reform which will generate hundreds of billions of dollars to the economy. Ending the wars we're fighting today, also a dividend that produces hundreds of billions of dollars.
So, with the tax code, with these structural changes in our economy, and investing in people and communities and their well-being, that produces a return far and and above what the initial cost is of the investment.
COOPER: Taxing capital gains is an interesting thing because so many people focus on income. For a lot of people who are in those crazy levels of money, it's not even a salary that they are getting that's taxed, it's the capital gains, it's the money they're making from investments they already have which is being taxed at a much lower level.
O'ROURKE: Which makes no sense. We have a system today in this country where the wealthiest are not paying their fair share. We also need to roll back some of the worst of the Trump tax cuts. So, corporations went from paying 35 percent down to 21 percent. Even if you just move it to 28, you would generate hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 10 years.
So, there's a way to pay for these investments that we want to make in people. And then when we do, everyone can participate in the success of this economy, and the American economy grows much more quickly as a result.
COOPER: I hate talking about polls, particularly at this point in the race. These are national polls and stuff. It is a snapshot in time. But that is a metric by which your campaign is judged. I think in the latest Quinnipiac, I think you're around two percent. What do you feel you need to do to push that forward?
O'ROURKE: Tonight was great for us. Tomorrow when we are in Nevada, connecting with voters, one conversation, one town hall at time, gaining those commitments from people to vote for us or to support us or to work on this campaign, and then also to remind people about Texas.
That poll -- if we're going to talk about polls -- that shows us up 11 over Donald Trump. No other democratic contender is even close to that number. Some are losing to Donald Trump in Texas. So, those 38 Electoral College votes, they not only allow to defeat Donald Trump, they forever changed the political map, the electoral landscape in the United States.
And I think there is only one way to win Texas. It's a way that we did it. We can produce that result in November of 2020. We can make sure that we have the kind of majorities that we need to pass the ambitious legislation that we're talking about.
COOPER: Listen, I mean, you did lose to Ted Cruz in Texas. It was a very close race. But in the end, it was not the outcome you wanted.
O'ROURKE: In a midterm year, we had a turnout that almost eclipsed a presidential election year. Won more votes than any Democrat in the history of the state, won independents for the first time in decades which is critical nationally and also brought along nearly half a million Republicans. That's the recipe nationally to defeat Trump.
It's not a person. It is not even a party. It's got to be a movement. That is what I got to be a part of in Texas, an extraordinary experience but something that shows us how to do this in a way to defeat Donald Trump, in a way that brings this divided country back together.
COOPER: Beto O'Rourke, thank you very much.
O'ROURKE: Thank you. I appreciate it. COOPER: We are going to take a short break. Coming up next, Senator Elizabeth Warren joins us as our special CNN debate coverage continues.
[23:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: If you're just now joining us, we are coming up on midnight here in Detroit, and we are talking about a serious and sometimes passionate first night of the CNN democratic debate. Agree or disagree with their views, every candidate tonight presented them clearly, for the most part factually and without a lot of personal back and forth.
Tomorrow night, of course, is another big one especially for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Tonight, one of the leading voices was Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. She joins us now. Senator Warren, how did you think you did tonight?
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It was a chance to be able to talk with millions of people across this country about a government that now works for the wealthy and the well-connected for a thin slice of the top, and how in 2020 we have a real chance to change that.
We can attack the corruption head on. We can restructure basic parts of this economy. And we didn't get to talk about it, we can protect our democracy, so that everybody in America really has a chance to vote and to get that vote.
COOPER: There was obviously an ideological battle going on. You and Senator Sanders, some more, I guess, considered a more moderate members of the party, and it was a real difference of it's a larger clash or difference of ideas, strategies that is going on in the Democratic Party. I want to play an exchange you had with -- I believe it was Governor Bullock -- no, with Delaney. Let us play that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARREN (on camera): 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.
(APPLAUSE)
WARREN (on camera): Our biggest problem in Washington is corruption. It is giant corporations that have taken our government and that are holding it by the throat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The quote of the night. "I don't understand why anybody goes through all the trouble of running for the president of the United States to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for."
WARREN: Yeah.
COOPER: Ouch.
