Candidates aim at new front-runner
Warren takes hot seat as Democratic debate focuses on funding her health care proposal
WESTERVILLE, Ohio — Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, an emerging front-runner in the Democratic presidential race, battled sustained criticism from her Democratic rivals over her position on health care in a debate Tuesday night, squeezed by a combination of moderate and progressive opponents who pressed her to describe in plain terms how she would fund a “Medicare for All”-style system.
Warren, who has endorsed a proposal by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont for single-payer care, has consistently refused to say that she would embrace middleclass tax increases to finance the plan. She maintained that practiced position on the stage in Ohio, vowing that she would lower health care costs for all but the wealthy yet repeatedly sidestepping the question of whether she would enact a broad-based tax increase.
“I will not sign a bill into law that does not lower costs for middle-class families,” Warren said, declining to go into detail. But the answer failed to keep her foes at bay, and for the first time in the race Warren found herself assailed from multiple sides over an extended period in the debate. Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., accused her of evading “a yes-or-no question,” while Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota called the single-payer proposal backed by Warren and Sanders a “pipe dream.”
Klobuchar reserved her sharpest words, however, for only one of those two progressives. “At least Bernie’s being honest here,” Klobuchar said, challenging Warren to tell voters “where we’re going to send the invoice” for singlepayer care.
Warren was not alone in facing scrutiny early in the debate: Joe Biden was quickly pressed on the issue of his son Hunter and his work
for a Ukrainian gas company while his father was vice president. Biden responded to a question about his son’s overseas work in narrow and repetitive terms, saying several times that he and his son had done “nothing wrong.”
The drawn-out argument over health care, in a debate sponsored by CNN and The New York Times, captured one of the defining themes in the Democratic race: the ideological divide over the best way to provide universal coverage, and over the proper scale and cost of government-backed social programs. Up to this point, the Democrats’ policy debate has largely been defined by Warren and Sanders, with their promises to restructure huge parts of the American economy. The debate in Ohio represented the most assertive effort so far by candidates skeptical of their policies to put up resistance to those ideas.
The fierce exchange also signaled that the race had entered a new phase, defined by Warren’s apparent status as a leader of the Democratic pack and a new mood of urgency among other candidates eager to challenge that status.
Sanders, who has observed a kind of informal nonaggression pact with Warren so far, did not exactly break from that approach Tuesday night. But he called it “appropriate” for candidates to explain the fiscal trade-offs involved in a Medicare for All system: Sanders said that voters would see their taxes go up, but that they would save money overall because of the way health care would be restructured.
“Premiums are gone, copayments are gone, deductibles are gone, all out-ofpocket expenses are gone,” Sanders said, adding, “The tax increase they pay will be substantially less, substantially less than what they were paying for premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.”
But Sanders more forcefully scolded the candidates onstage who opposed single-payer care and whom he described as “defending a system which is dysfunctional, which is cruel.”
The Democratic field appeared far more eager to attack Warren for her health care policies than to critique Biden, who remains a top candidate in the race, for the family business entanglements that have defined a weekslong clash between Biden and President Donald Trump.
Biden has tried to put to rest criticism of his son’s financial dealings in Ukraine and China. Over the weekend, he said he would not allow members of his family to do business overseas during a potential Biden presidency, and Hunter Biden stepped down from his role at an investment fund linked to China.
Prompted by a moderator to explain why his family had not observed similar restrictions while he was vice president, Biden avoided answering directly and repeatedly defended his son. He pointed to an interview Hunter Biden gave to ABC News, in which he described his decision to work in Ukraine as an error of judgment but said he had not done anything wrong ethically.
“I carried out the policy of the United States government in rooting out corruption in Ukraine,” Biden said, adding, “My son’s statement speaks for itself.”
The other Democrats onstage did not appear eager to press the issue, in part because they believe there is no appetite among primary voters for criticism of Biden’s family. There is also a feeling among some Democrats that Biden is on the downswing in the race and that it makes little sense to attack him in ways that might antagonize his supporters. Neither Warren nor Sanders, Biden’s two most formidable rivals, took up the line of attack on Ukraine.
Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who in previous debates took on Biden in pointed terms, instead scolded the moderators for even asking Biden about his son’s work in Ukraine.
“The only person sitting at home enjoying that was Donald Trump,” said Booker, lamenting what he called “elevating a lie and attacking a statesman.”
After presenting her message at the previous three debates with only intermittent challenges from her rivals, Warren was met with cutting criticism of her signature populist flourishes.
“I want to give a reality check to Elizabeth,” Klobuchar said, before alluding to hedge fund executive Tom Steyer, one of the 12 candidates onstage. “No one on this stage wants to protect billionaires. Not even the billionaire wants to protect billionaires. We just have different approaches.”
Buttigieg was just as pointed, repeatedly casting Warren as a “Washington politician,” but they were not alone. Even lagging candidates such as former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas and Andrew Yang, a former tech entrepreneur, took on Warren, all but confirming her front-runner status.
Warren largely refrained from responding to the candidates in personal terms and reaffirmed her progressive message.
Other candidates besides Warren occasionally found themselves under attack. After weeks of sparring from afar over gun control, Buttigieg and O’Rourke clashed heatedly over an issue on which Democrats have sought to outdo one another with far-reaching proposals in the wake of a series of mass shootings.
“I don’t need lessons from you on courage, political or personal,” Buttigieg said before O’Rourke could even get off his sharpest criticism about what he said were his rival’s cautious, “poll-tested” proposals on guns.
With a dozen candidates onstage and impeachment in the air, it was unclear heading into Tuesday’s debate whether it would prove to be a turning point in the race.