Democrats unite on Trump impeachment
But White House hopefuls differ on policy in most polite debate yet
Democratic White House contenders united in supporting the impeachment inquiry against Republican President Donald Trump at a debate on Wednesday that featured differences on policy details but few of the bitter attacks on one another that marked earlier encounters.
During the fifth debate in the Democratic race to pick a challenger to Trump in the November 2020 election, the 10 candidates aired differences on healthcare and taxing the wealthy, but kept the exchanges polite and instead heaped heavy criticism on Trump.
US senator Elizabeth Warren, the progressive pushing ambitious plans to tax wealth and create government-run health care, and Pete Buttigieg, 37year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who has been rising in the polls, escaped sustained criticism from rivals.
Buttigieg, running to be the first openly gay president, was pressed on his failure to make inroads with African-Americans a key Democratic constituency and drew a parallel to his experience of being gay.
“I do have the experience of feeling like a stranger in my own country, turning on the news and seeing my own rights coming up for debate,” he said.
He also defended his relative lack of experience, but said he had “the right experience to take on Donald Trump” as he was from the demographic that is Trump’s base.
US senator Amy Klobuchar said there was a double standard when it came to women candidates.
“If you think a woman can’t beat Trump, [House Speaker]
Nancy day.”
Hours after the fourth day of public impeachment hearings in Congress, the candidates repeatedly blasted Trump and said his efforts to press Ukraine to investigate former vice-president Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential contender, were an example of the administration’s corruption.
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Representatives had launched an impeachment inquiry into Trump’s bid to get Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son Hunter, who served on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
Warren said: “We have to establish the principle that noone is above the law, we have a constitutional responsibility and we need to meet it.”
Warren said no donor would be appointed ambassador under her presidency.
Trump donor Gordon Sondland, US ambassador to the EU, testified on Wednesday he “followed the president’s orders” to carry out the pressure campaign against Ukraine.
“We are not going to give away ambassador posts to the highest bidder,” Warren said.
Asked if he would support a criminal investigation into
Trump after he left the White House, Biden said he would leave it to the department of justice to decide. The Democratic debate comes 11 weeks before the first nominating contest in Iowa, on February 3.
The candidates also condemned Trump’s conduct of foreign policy beyond Ukraine.
Biden said Trump, who has met three times with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, had given Pyongyang they wanted”.
US Senator Bernie Sanders criticised Trump for conducting foreign policy “in a tweet at 3 o’clock in the morning”.
The Democratic White House race has featured a three-way battle at the top of recent national polls between moderate Biden and more progressive leaders Warren and Sanders.
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