Democratic presidential contender Mayor Pete Buttigieg was put on the defensive over a fundraiser he hosted inside a Napa Valley “wine cave” earlier this month, after rivals Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders seized on the event during Thursday night’s Democratic debate to criticize his high-dollar fundraising practices.
“We made the decision many years ago that rich people in smoke-filled rooms should not pick the next president of the United States. Billionaires in wine caves should not pick the next president of the United States,” Warren fired off at the Los Angeles forum.
Surrogates for Sanders, a Vermont progressive, donned shirts displaying a URL that referenced the wine cave and linked to a Sanders donation page.
Buttigieg defended his fundraising practices, arguing that he was the only Democrat on stage who was not a millionaire or billionaire, and rejecting what he called Warren’s “purity” test.
“Senator, your net worth is 100 times mine,” he said to Warren. “We need the support from everybody who is committed to helping us defeat Donald Trump.”
Businessman Andrew Yang, who generally avoids criticizing his rivals, noted at one point in the debate that if Americans had more disposable income, candidates wouldn’t have to “shake the money tree in the wine cave.”
A Buttigieg spokesperson said that 98% of the campaign’s donations are under $200 and that the average contribution last quarter was $32. The spokesperson said Buttigieg will pursue campaign finance reforms as president, such as pushing to overturn the 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United and creating a small-dollar public financing system.
One of the Democrats’ witnesses who testified in favor of President Trump’s impeachment cautioned Thursday that in order to officially impeach the president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi must send the articles of impeachment to the Republican-led Senate.
In a Bloomberg op-ed, Harvard legal scholar Noah Feldman said Pelosi, D-Calif., can delay sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate, but not for an “indefinite” period of time.
“Impeachment as contemplated by the Constitution does not consist merely of the vote by the House, but of the process of sending the articles to the Senate for trial. Both parts are necessary to make an impeachment under the Constitution: The House must actually send the articles and send managers to the Senate to prosecute the impeachment. And the Senate must actually hold a trial,” he wrote, going on to say that if the House doesn’t release the articles, Trump could legitimately declare that he was never actually impeached.
“To be sure, if the House just never sends its articles of impeachment to the Senate, there can be no trial there. That’s what the ‘sole power to impeach’ means. But if the House never sends the articles, then Trump could say with strong justification that he was never actually impeached. And that’s probably not the message Congressional Democrats are hoping to send,” Feldman concluded.
He wrote that the blaring headlines in major newspapers that read “Trump Impeached” were “media shorthand, not a technically correct legal statement.”
McConnell, speaking after a meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the top Democrat had insisted on “departing from the unanimous bipartisan precedent that 100 senators approved before the beginning of President [Bill] Clinton’s trial” concerning logistics.
Schumer had requested a “special pre-trial guarantee of certain witnesses whom the House Democrats, themselves, did not bother to pursue as they assemble their case,” McConnell said. He noted that in 1999, “all 100 senators endorsed a common-sense solution” to divide the process into two stages: one laying the groundwork for rules on matters such as opening statements, with another handling “mid-trial questions such as witnesses.”
“Some House Democrats imply they are withholding the [impeachment] articles for some kind of leverage,” McConnell said. “I admit, I’m not sure what leverage there is in refraining from sending us something we do not want. Alas, if they can figure that out, they can explain.”
Feldman testified earlier this month before the House Judiciary Committee, making the case along with two other law professors for why Trump had committed impeachable offenses. Constitutional scholar and George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who was called by Republicans to the same hearing, argued Democrats had overreached and did not have adequate legal grounds for impeachment.
One of the fiercest exchanges was between Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind. Ms. Klobuchar challenged Mr. Buttigieg on his experience and electability — noting that she has repeatedly won in conservative parts of Minnesota, while Mr. Buttigieg has never won a statewide election. Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to Mr. Obama, called the exchange “a significant moment in this primary.”
Strategists were divided, however, on who came out on top.
“The Amy-Pete clash went to Klobuchar,” Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, tweeted. “Top-level experience & winning big elections matter.”
Mo Elleithee, executive director of the Georgetown Institute of Politics anda former spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said the opposite. “Klobuchar continues to be one of the best debaters in the field, and she was solid tonight, but I think the experience attack on Pete was not a good moment,” he tweeted. “Pete continues to handle attacks better than almost anyone else in this format.”
Sanders on race
Early in the debate, Senator Bernie Sanders was asked to comment on the lack of racial diversity onstage: Six of the seven candidates are white. Mr. Sanders pivoted back to the previous topic, climate change, and several commentators expressed frustration.
“While I’m happy that @SenSanders can tie race to environmentalism, the fact that he refused to answer the question about the lack of diversity at this #DemDebate shows he still hasn’t learned the lessons he should have in 2016,” tweeted Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University.
Mr. Sanders did, however, bring his answer back around to race, emphasizing the disproportionate effects climate change has on minority communities.
“One of the best answers I’ve heard from Sanders about race,” Jess Morales Rocketto, political director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, tweeted. “Sort of a clumsy start and finish but good on the inside.”
An evangelical Christian magazine called for Trump’s removal after he was impeached by the House, citing his “immoral” dealings with Ukraine.
Christianity Today’s editor-in-chief said Trump violated the Constitution and questioned his high level of support among evangelicals in light of his “blackened moral record” — suggesting that support damages the community’s reputation.
Evangelical Christians formed one of Trump’s most solid voting blocs in 2016 and have largely stuck by him, but some have questioned the support in light of some of Trump’s opinions and actions, including his multiple divorces.
The magazine was founded by the late famous televangelist Billy Graham, who Trump repeatedly phrased. Trump also spoke at his memorial in 2018.
Evangelical Christian magazine Christianity Today called for Trump to be removed from office after he was impeached by the US House in a stark call that suggests a slip in support from a previously rock-solid part of his base.
Mark Galli, the editor-in-chief of the magazine that was founded by the late famous televangelist Billy Graham, referenced Trump’s dealings with Ukraine – dealings that led to his impeachment by the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
He wrote in an editorial under the under the headline “Trump Should Be Removed from Office” that “the facts in this instance are unambiguous: the president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents.
“That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral,” he wrote.
A call memo produced by the White House itself shows Trump asked Ukraine’s president to investigate Joe Biden, the former vice-president and one of Trump’s 2020 election candidates, in a July phone call.
President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speak during a meeting in New York on September 25, 2019, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
Trump insists that the memo proves that he did nothing wrong, but the House voted to charge Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. This sets up a trial in the Senate, which will likely see Trump acquitted and — out of line with Christianity Today’s newly expressed wishes — kept in office.
Evangelical Christians emerged as one of Trump’s most solid bases during his presidential campaign, and 2016 exit polls found that 80% of the demographic voted for him in 2016.
The demographic is one that leans Republican, but this high level of support for Trump himself is one that many have tried to understand in light of some actions from Trump, including his past divorces, comments about immigrants, and sexual assault allegations made against him.
Galli, in his editorial, called directly to those evangelical Christians who have continued to support Trump despite what he called the president’s “blackened moral record.”
Billy Graham preaches in New Orleans in March 2006. Chris Graythen/Getty Images
“Remember who you are and whom you serve,” he wrote. “Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior.”
He also suggested that the community’s support of Trump harmed its image among those without the same beliefs: “Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency.”
Galli did not say if he thought Trump should be removed by the Senate, or by 2020 voters choosing not to re-elect him, saying it was a matter of “prudential judgment.”
But he highlighted what he said were examples of compromised morality from Trump.
“This president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals.
“He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud.
Among his cricitims were that of Trump’s frequently used Twittter account: “His Twitter feed alone — with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders — is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.”
Galli also noted that the magazine does not often take political stances but that it was similarly critical of former president Bill Clinton during impeachment proceedings against him in 1998.
“Unfortunately, the words that we applied to Mr. Clinton 20 years ago apply almost perfectly to our current president,” he said.
He also said: “Let’s grant this to the president: The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion.”
Donald Trump touches Billy Graham’s casket in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in February 2018. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
And if his magazine has broken with Trump, there is no suggestion that Graham’s family has.
His son, Franklin Graham, said in 2018 that Trump “defends the Christian faith more than any president in my lifetime.”
However, his granddaughter, Jerushah Armfield, criticized Trump in 2017: “I think we can look at his life, look at the intolerance that he’s spoken, I think that my Jesus that I follow was really somebody who fought for the outliers, and I think that Trump has actually done the opposite — kind of ostracizing them.”
Other evangelicals have also previously broken their support for Trump over his actions.
Pastor AR Bernard left the White House’s evangelical advisory board in 2017 over Trump’s response to violent protests in Charlottesville, saying there was a “deepening conflict in values” between him and Trump’s administration.
Seven candidates took the stage for the sixth debate round of the Democratic primary, just one day after the House voted to impeach President Donald Trump. It was the smallest debate stage in the primary thus far.
The final debate of the year started off with measured responses to policy questions but heated up as candidates reverted to speaking over and attacking one another.
Here are some of the top moments from Thursday evening:
Spotlight put on decrease in diversity on the debate stage
Increasingly strict criteria to qualify for the stage has also narrowed the diversity of candidates in the debate, edging out candidates like New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and former Obama administration cabinet member Julián Castro.
“It is both an honor and disappointment to be the lone candidate of color on the stage tonight,” businessman Andrew Yang said. “I miss [Sen. Kamala Harris] and I miss Cory, although I think Cory will be back.”
Yang touted his plan to give Americans a “freedom dividend” of $1,000 a month as an attempt to bolster the campaigns of candidates of color.
“You know what you need to donate to political campaigns? Disposable income,” Yang said.
The candidates signed onto a letter sent to the Democratic National Committee by Booker, arguing that the debate qualification standards should be changed for the early 2020 debates because of the shrinking diversity on stage.
In a tense exchange between Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and PBS moderator Amna Nawaz, Sanders tried to pivot from the question about diversity to a point about climate change.
“Senator, with all due respect, this question is about race. Can you answer the question that was asked?” Nawaz said.
He went on to explain that climate change hits people of color the hardest and highlighted the importance of members of affected communities giving input in policy discussions. He said representation should extend to the debate stage.
“We need an economy that focuses on the needs of oppressed, exploited people, and that is the African American community,” he said.
Americans are divided over impeachment because of the media, Yang says
As in previous Democratic debates since the launch of the inquiry into Trump, impeachment was the first focus of the night on Thursday. Candidates were asked how they can convince Americans to support the impeachment.
Yang hit the news media, saying the reason Americans are divided on impeachment is because of the media they consume. “It’s clear why Americans can’t agree on impeachment, we’re getting our news from different sources and it’s getting hard for us to agree on facts,” he said.
Yang said voters “don’t trust the media networks to tell them the truth.”
“The media networks didn’t do us any favors by missing a reason why Donald Trump became our president in the first place,” Yang said. “If you turn on cable news today, you would think he’s our president because of some combination of Russia, racism, Facebook, Hillary Clinton and emails all mixed together.”
“We have to stop being obsessed over impeachment,” Yang said.
Massachusetts Sen. Warren and Biden said the impeachment process is not about convincing Americans, but rather upholding the Constitution, while Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and businessman Tom Steyer said Trump should allow his staff to testify.
Despite concerns over candidates’ ages, Biden won’t commit to running for a second term
Politico’s Tim Alberta asked Biden if he would commit to running for a second term as president considering that he would be 82 years old upon the end of a first term.
The question comes after Biden denied Politico’s reporting that he was thinking about only serving for one term if elected. The former vice president would be 86 at the end of a second term. Biden said he would not commit one way or the other, but not before a tense exchange with the moderator.
“You’d be the oldest president in American history,” Alberta began to say, as Biden interjected to point out Winston Churchill.
Alberta clarified that he was asking about American history, to which Biden responded, “I was joking, that was a joke.”
“Politico doesn’t have much of a sense of humor,” Biden quipped.
“Oh we’ve got a great sense of humor, they wouldn’t have put me on stage otherwise,” Alberta said.
Asked if he would commit to running for a second term, Biden said, “No, I’m not willing to commit one way or the other.”
“Here’s the deal, I’m not even elected one term yet, and let’s see where we are. Let’s see what happens,” Biden said.
He has previously denied talking to aides about limiting his presidency to one term. He maintains that he brings experience to the presidency.
Sanders, too, was asked about his age. Quoting a report that former President Barack Obama said that having women leaders would lead to worldwide improvements, and that “If you look at the world and look at the problems, it’s usually old people, usually old men, not getting out of the way.”
“Sen. Sanders, you are the oldest candidate on stage,” Alberta said.
“And I’m white as well!” Sanders chimed in.
Warren, too, would be the oldest president ever inaugurated. “I’d also be the youngest woman ever inaugurated,” she responded.
Wine caves and more on wealthy donors
South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg took heat for a recent fundraiser that was held in a wine cave in Napa Valley, Calif.
“We made the decision many years ago that rich people in smoke-filled rooms would not pick the next president of the United States,” Warren said. “Billionaires in wine caves should not pick the next president of the United States.”
But Buttigieg responded that he is the only one on the debate stage in Los Angeles who is not a millionaire or a billionaire. According to Forbes, Buttigieg’s net worth stands at about $100,000.
Warren should not issue “purity tests” that she cannot pass herself, Buttigieg said. Buttigieg argued that Democrats cannot afford to turn any donors or supporters away in order to get as many resources as necessary to defeat President Donald Trump.
Warren called on Buttigieg to swear off fundraising events like the ones Buttigieg attended earlier this week. But Buttigieg said she brought money to her 2020 presidential campaign from previous campaigns where she did hold such events.
Warren wasn’t the only one criticizing Buttigieg’s recent fundraising event. Yang said the country needs to change how campaign finance works so “they don’t have to go shake the money tree in the wine cave.”
Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, twin brother to presidential candidate Julián Castro who is not on Thursday’s debate stage, asked “Did you all talk about the poor in that Silicon Valley wine cave?” on Twitter.
Sanders pitted Biden against Buttigieg for how many billionaire donors they have to their campaign. Per Sanders’ tally, Biden leads Buttigieg 44 to 39.
“Pete, we look forward to you—we know you’re an energetic guy, and a competitive guy—to see if you can take on Joe on that issue,” Sanders said to laughs in the crowd.
“But what is not a laughing matter my friends, this is why three people own more than the bottom half,” Sanders said. “This is why Amazon and other major corporations pay zero in federal taxes. We need to get money out of politics. We should run our campaigns on that basis.”
Ahead of the debate, Sanders’ top strategist Jeff Weaver wore a shirt promoting a “PetesWineCave.com,” a website that goes to a donation page for Sanders’ campaign.
Contributing: Kim Norvell, Nick Coltrain, Rekha Basu, Robin Opsahl, Katie Akin and Rebecca Morin
For that matter, President Richard M. Nixon was also in his second term when he resigned after the approval of articles of impeachment by the House Judiciary Committee in 1974. His vice president and successor, Gerald R. Ford, ended up losing in 1976.
Mr. Trump resolved to reverse that record, and advisers said they had already detected a surge of support from the president’s base. The Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign said they had raised at least $5 million on Thursday alone and $20.6 million in the past month. About 600,000 new volunteers have signed up since September, the party said.
“It’s absolutely been more unifying than anything I’ve seen in years,” said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor. “Impeachment is really Chapter 1 for the 2020 race. It’s setting up the battle lines and people are realigning their strategies based on how certain members voted.”
Catalina Lauf, a former Trump administration official who is challenging Representative Lauren Underwood, Democrat of Illinois, said impeachment had fired up even some Democrats in her district. “You might disagree with the man,” she said, “but you also feel the treatment he’s been given since the day he was elected is pure madness.”
That sense of grievance and persecution neatly fits into the message Mr. Trump has conveyed from the start — that the elites are out to get him, that they hate him and that they hate his supporters, the “deplorables,” to use the word once uttered by Hillary Clinton that has become a rallying cry for the president’s team.
John Fredericks, a radio host in Virginia, said the volume of calls into his morning show on Thursday was so inundating that he finally had to stop answering them.
“People are outraged because they know what is really going on is that Pelosi and the Democrats think that they know best,” Mr. Fredericks said. “Their message to us is, ‘You are really stupid people who go to Walmart and smell and can’t be trusted.’ It’s an insult.”
“This is the first-ever trade coalition of workers, farmers, Republicans, Democrats, business and agriculture groups, organized labor and much more,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a statement celebrating the vote.
Democrats cheered tools to boost enforcement of labor standards, saying they would deter companies from moving jobs to Mexico. Still, some lawmakers and unions have concerns the deal does not go far enough to stop American companies from outsourcing jobs.
USMCA tightens rules of origin for auto parts and requires a larger share of cars to be made by workers earning at least $16 per hour. It also increases access to Canadian dairy markets for American farmers and updates digital trade rules, among other provisions.
Canada and Mexico are the largest U.S. export markets.
“As we know, during the election campaign in the U.S., the current Ukrainian authorities took a unilateral position in support of one of the candidates,” Putin said at a news conference in Budapest on Feb. 2, 2017. “Moreover, some oligarchs, probably with the approval of the political leadership, financed this candidate.”
Former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders late Thursday mocked former Vice President Joe Biden for accentuating a stutter in his response to a question at the sixth 2020 Democratic presidential debate.
Toward the end of the debate in Los Angeles, Sanders mocked Biden on Twitter for emphasizing a stutter in his response to a question about whether, in the spirit of the holidays, there was a candidate on stage to whom the others would ask forgiveness or give a gift.
“I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I hhhave absolutely no idea what Biden is talking about. #DemDebate,” Sanders tweeted.
In his answer on stage, Biden said Warren, who had just emphasized her personal contact with thousands of voters when taking selfies with them on the campaign trail, was not the only person who snapped photos with voters.
The former vice president said he’s done “thousands of them,” adding that people often “lay out their problems,” such as telling Biden — who lost his first wife and infant daughter in a car accident nearly 50 years ago to the day, and his eldest son to brain cancer in 2015 — about how they’ve lost a family member, or asking him whether they’re going to be okay.
Biden said that he and his wife, Jill Biden, have a list of people whom they call on a weekly or monthly basis.
“I tell them I’m here. I give them my private phone number. They keep in touch with me. A little kid who says, ‘I, I, I, I, I, can’t talk. What do I do?’ ” said Biden, who also has spoken recently about how he’s dealt with a history of stuttering.
Biden responded to Sanders in a tweet, saying, “I’ve worked my whole life to overcome a stutter. And it’s my great honor to mentor kids who have experienced the same. It’s called empathy. Look it up.”
Sanders issued a follow-up tweet about 10 minutes after her initial one — both of which she later deleted — that said, “To be clear was not trying to make fun of anyone with a speech impediment. Simply pointing out I can’t follow much of anything Biden is talking about.”
Shortly after that, she apologized.
Sanders resigned as White House press secretary for Trump last summer.
The daughter of former Arkansas GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sanders hinted in November that she was exploring a possible run for governor of the state herself.
“There are two types of people who run for office,” she told The New York Times. “People that are called and people that just want to be a senator or governor. I feel like I’ve been called.”
Sanders’ former boss has mocked people with disabilities. At a presidential campaign rally in 2015, Trump famously mocked New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has a chronic condition called arthrogryposis which affects the movement of his arms, by waving his arms around in a jerky manner.
A report published this week by The Peterson Institute for International Economics, based on the ITC’s original projections for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, said that U.S. GDP will decline by .12%. The nonpartisan, nonprofit institution said the ITC’s projections were based on “the dubious assumption” that the USMCA will spur more U.S. investment by reducing uncertainty in policies on data, e-commerce and intellectual property rights. But it said in the report, “Canada and Mexico have already committed to those reforms through their participation in the successor to the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
“The International Trade Commission’s projections of growth were based on assumptions that there would be a flood of investment because of elimination of uncertainty once the deal was signed,” said a spokesperson for The Peterson Institute. “Our scholars found that assumption as having no basis.”
A spokeswoman for the IMF said “IMF Working Papers” describe research in progress by its authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its board or management.
The ITC referred CNBC to Mnuchin’s office for explanation of any differences in projections.
The White House has been touting the revised trade bill as a victory for President Donald Trump as he gears up for the 2020 election, in which the economy will take center stage. Trump, who counts manufacturers as one of his key constituents, has called NAFTA the “worst trade deal ever made,” blaming it for a decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs.
Manufacturing has continued to drop in the U.S., as jobs shift to services and automation. In December, the ISM Manufacturing Index continued a streak of dips and missed expectations, sending stocks lower. Earlier this month, the Business Roundtable, which represents the chief executives of the nation’s biggest companies, downgraded its outlook for the U.S. economy, citing in part a contraction in the U.S. manufacturing sector.
NAFTA originally went into effect in 1994, with the aim of furthering trade and economic linkage between its countries, a goal the IMF wrote in March was achieved, though the extent of which it said was hard to quantify.
The revised deal that the U.S. first struck with Canada and Mexico in 2018 has language aimed at keeping production in its member countries. It raises the percentage of a car or auto parts that must be made by a partner country in order to obtain a duty-free import status. Auto companies are likely to take as much as a $3 billion hit from those rules over the next 10 years, according to a new report by the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO said the car companies are unlikely to replace higher-priced imports entirely with domestic production.
In later concessions to the Democratic-led House, the White House agreed to eliminate language that would have given 10-year patent protections for the classification of drugs known as “biologics,” which are often the most cutting edge in the industry. Republicans and pharmaceutical companies fought for its inclusion, arguing it protected U.S. drugs from intellectual property theft and limited the country’s reliance on medicine made overseas.
As result of that concession, the industry trade group for pharmaceutical companies, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, has said it would not support USMCA. Its members include Allergan, Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKline.
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, the largest U.S. private-sector union, has also expressed serious concerns about the deal because it omits country-of-origin labeling requirements. “Consumers have a right to know where their food is from, whether it’s safe, and if it’s produced by American workers,” wrote the group’s president in a statement Wednesday.
Democrats will head into 2020 after a contentious debate that featured fewer of them – and only one candidate of color – on stage.
It was a pointed last debate of the year as the calendar ticks closer to the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. Candidates traded barbs on climate change, women in politics, Democrats who hold closed-door fundraisers and political experience – or lack thereof.
Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was specifically targeted for the latter two as he rises in early state polls. Sen. Elizabeth Warren pointed to his recent fundraiser in a wine cave in Napa Valley. Sen. Amy Klobuchar accused the mayor of “denigrating” the experience of the senators on stage.
In a shift from previous debates, it took two hours to broach the topic of health care in Thursday’s PBS NewsHour and POLITICO debate.
And in a debate starting 24 hours after the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump, Democrats were asked how they can convince most Americans to support the impeachment process. Warren and former vice president Joe Biden said the impeachment process is not about convincing Americans, but rather upholding the Constitution. Sen. Bernie Sanders said he would highlight Trump’s failed campaign promises on the trail.
Both Klobuchar and entrepreneur Tom Steyer called for Trump to be more transparent and allow his staff to testify during an imminent Senate impeachment trial.
“This is a global Watergate. In the case of Watergate, a paranoid president facing election looked for dirt on a political opponent. He did it by getting people to break in. This president did it by calling a foreign leader to look for dirt on a political opponent,” she said. “And I would make this case, as we face this trial in the Senate if the president claims that he is so innocent then why doesn’t he have all the presidents’ men testify? Richard Nixon had his top people testify.”
Forgiveness or a gift?
For the last question of the debate, moderator Judy Woodruff gave each candidate a choice: they could ask forgiveness from another person on stage or give a gift to someone else on stage.
Andrew Yang took a second to come up with a response to the unexpected question as the crowd laughed but eventually responded he was happy Warren mentioned she was reading her book, and that he would give everyone else on the stage a copy of his book— especially people who love data.
Buttigieg said it would be a gift for anyone on stage at the Democratic presidential debate to be president instead of Trump.
Both Warren and Klobuchar said they would ask for forgiveness of any of the people on stage, but did not name any other specific candidates. Warren said sometimes gets worked up because of the people she meets on the campaign trail, such as a family that shared a single insulin prescription.
“I will ask for forgiveness,” Warren said. “I know that sometimes I get really worked up and sometimes I get a little hot. I don’t really mean to.”
Biden also shared stories of the people he met on the campaign trail, who asked for help as they struggle with grief and personal troubles and connect through his shared experience of losing family members.
“My wife and I have a call list of between 20 and 100 people that we call at least every week or every month and tell them I’m here, I give them my private phone number, they keep in touch with me,” he said.
“The little kid who says, ‘I-I-I-I-I can’t, I can’t talk, what do I do?’” Biden continued, a nod to his own childhood when he had a stutter. “I have scores of these young women and men who I keep in contact with … There’s a lot of people who are hurting very, very badly.”
— Robin Opsahl and Katie Akin
Sanders, Biden spar over health care
When former Biden started talking about why Medicare for All wasn’t as good an idea as his plan to bolster the Affordable Care Act, he paused.
“Put your hand down for a second Bernie,” he said.
“Just waving to you Joe,” Sanders responded. “Saying hello.”
It was a light moment in the first substantive exchange on health care of the evening — more than two hours in, when the topic had previously opened up every Democratic debate — before getting truly testy.
Sanders argued Congress would come around to his vision of universal health care coverage once the American people realize its benefits. Biden retorted that Washington should not be “dictating to you that you cannot keep your current plan.”
Sanders said that was preserving a status quo where families can pay 20% of their income for health care coverage. He argues his Medicare for All tax plan would be a net costsaver — $1,200 a year on an income of $60,000 a year, versus $12,000 he says is more common now.
“At least before, he was honest about it, that it was going to increase personal taxes,” Biden interjected.
“That’s right, we are going to increase personal taxes,” Sanders snapped back. “But we’re eliminating premiums. We’re eliminating copayments. We’re eliminating deductibles. We’re eliminating all out of pocket expenses, and no family in america will spend more than $200 a year on prescription drugs.”
— Nick Coltrain
Biden: I was on the opposite side of the Pentagon on Afghanistan
Biden was asked to defend his time in the White House, when the Obama administration was giving “constant pressure” to provide evidence that the military’s surge in Afghanistan was effective, “despite hard evidence to the contrary,” according to The Afghanistan Papers, published by The Washington Post earlier this month.
In his first answer, Biden said he would bring all combat troops home, leaving behind small numbers of special forces if an anti-terrorism deal isn’t successfully negotiated.
Moderator Amna Nawaz of PBS pressed him to respond specifically to his time in the White House and the decisions that came to light in The Afghanistan Papers.
“Since 2009, go back and look, I was on the opposite side of that with the Pentagon. I can speak to it now because it’s been published, it’s been published thoroughly,” Biden said. “I’m the guy from the beginning who argued that it was a big, big mistake to surge forces to Afghanistan. Period. We should not have done it. And I argued against it constantly.”
— Kim Norvell
How would trans Americans be protected?
Sanders and Warren answered questions on how they would ensure the safety of transgender Americans — particularly transgender women of color, who face higher rates of violence and death than the rest of the population.
Sanders said the president needs to provide moral leadership to end all forms of discrimination against transgender people and people of color. He also said transgender people would be provided “comprehensive health care” under his Medicare for All plan. He did not specify on stage whether Medicare for All would cover gender reassignment surgery or hormone treatments.
Warren said as president, she would read the names of transgender women and people of color who were killed that year in the White House Rose Garden.
“I will read their names so that as a nation we are forced to address the particular vulnerabilities,” she said.
— Robin Opsahl
Warren defends free college proposal
Warren was asked to defend one capstone of her campaign – free college and trade school for anyone who wants it – even for the children of the wealthy. It would be paid for with her proposed 2% wealth tax on fortunes over $50 million.
“This is about money. But this is also about values,” she said. “We need to make an investment in our future, and the best way to do that I less invest in the public education for our children.”
Buttigieg was asked to respond. He has also released a free college tuition plan for families earning less than $100,000. He would pay for his plan with a 1% capital gains tax on the richest Americans.
“I very much agree with Senator Warren on raising more tax revenue from millionaires and billionaires,” he said. “I just don’t agree on the part about spending it on millionaires and billionaires when it comes to their college tuition.”
— Kim Norvell
Klobuchar rips Buttigieg over lack of experience
Klobuchar took aim at Buttigieg on his lack of experience. She accused the mayor of “denigrating” the experience of the senators on stage.
“We should have someone heading up this ticket that has actually won and been able to show that they can gather the support that you talked about from moderate Republicans and independents, as well as a fired-up Democratic base,” Klobuchar said. “And not just done it once – I have done it three times.”
Buttigieg responded that he could bring together a coalition of voters: “Try putting together a coalition to bring you back to office with 80% if the vote as a gay dude in Mike Pence’s Indiana.”
Referring to Buttigieg’s 2010 race for state treasurer, Klobuchar shot back, “If you had won in Indiana, that would be one thing. You tried and you lost by 20 points.”
— Katie Akin
How many billionaires do you know?
Sanders pitted Biden against mayor Buttigieg for how many billionaire donors they have to their campaign. Per Sanders’ tally, Biden leads Buttigieg 44 to 39.
“Pete, we look forward to you — we know you’re an energetic guy, and a competitive guy — to see if you can take on Joe on that issue,” Sanders said to laughs in the crowd.
“But what is not a laughing matter my friends — this is why three people own more than the bottom half. This is why Amazon and other major corporations pay zero in federal taxes. We need to get money out of politics. We should run our campaigns on that basis.”
— Katie Akin
Wine cave meetings shouldn’t decide the president
Warren criticized Buttigieg on his recent fundraiser in a wine cave.
“Billionaires in wine caves should not pick the next president of the United States,” she said.
But Buttigieg responded that he is the only one on the debate stage in Los Angeles who is not a millionaire or a billionaire.
Warren should not issue “purity tests” that she cannot pass herself, Buttigieg said. He argued that Democrats cannot afford to turn any donors or supporters away in order to get as many resources as necessary to defeat Trump.
Warren called on Buttigieg to swear off fundraising events like the ones Buttigieg attended earlier this week. But Buttigieg said she brought money to her 2020 presidential campaign from previous campaigns where she did hold such events.
Warren wasn’t the only one criticizing Buttigieg’s recent fundraising event. Yang said the country needs to change how campaign finance works so “they don’t have to go shake the money tree in the wine cave.”
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, twin brother to presidential candidate Julián Castro who is not on Thursday’s debate stage, asked “Did you all talk about the poor in that Silicon Valley wine cave?” on Twitter.
— Robin Opsahl
Are women better leaders? Obama says yes
A question was poised about former President Barack Obama’s recent comments that if women were leaders, there would be “significant improvement across the board.” He also said “it’s usually old people, usually old men, not getting out of the way.”
Moderators first asked two men – Sanders and Biden to respond. Klobuchar eventually jumped in: “Thank you for asking a woman this question. First of all, we have not had enough women in our government.”
Sanders said he thinks the United States’ problem is billionaires buying elections and stifling the voices of working-class people – not just men or just women.
“I got a lot of respect for Barack Obama, but I think I disagree with him on this one,” he said. “It may be a little self-serving, but I disagree.”
Meanwhile, Biden touted his 47-year political career.
“I’m going guess he wasn’t talking about me either,” Biden said, to crowd laugher. “I’m running because I’ve been around, my experience.”
Later, in a pivot to Warren, the moderator said she’d be the oldest president ever inaugurated. “I’d also be the youngest woman ever inaugurated,” she quipped back.
— Kim Norvell
Where’s health care?
The most dominant issue not on the stage tonight? Health care. It’s the first hour of a Democratic presidential debate this cycle that hasn’t spent a significant amount of time on the candidates’ plans on health care.
A November report by the New York Times found that health care had dominated the debates so far. 95.4 minutes were spent on the issue, besting the second-most mentioned issue of foreign policy by over 22 minutes.
Debates over Sanders’ proposed Medicare for All plan and other candidates’ alternative plans were often the first questions asked in previous debates. Democratic presidential candidates have agreed that the current U.S. health care system needs to change in addition to criticizing the pharmaceutical industry for rising costs of medicine.
Sanders did bring up Medicare for All outside of specific questions on health care in the Los Angeles debate already.
— Robin Opsahl
A return to normalcy?
Biden was asked whether a “return to normalcy” is what the United States needs after Trump.
“I didn’t say return to normal, normal’s not enough,” he said. “We have to move beyond normal.”
He said there are plenty of things that the United States needs to move past, even some policies from Obama’s administration on health care and the environment. But Biden made sure to emphasize that he still thinks working across the aisle with Republicans is necessary going forward. If bipartisan consensus can’t be reached in the government, the U.S. is “dead as a country” he said.
He brought up how Republicans in U.S. Congress have treated him and his family because of Trump’s impeachment and upcoming Senate trial, which involve allegations that Trump said he would withhold military aid from Ukraine if the country wouldn’t investigate Biden and his son Hunter.
“If anyone has reason to be angry with the Republicans, it’s me,” he said. “The way that they’ve attacked me and my son and my family — I have no love. But we have to be able to get things done.”
— Robin Opsahl
Buttigieg won’t rule out boycotting the Olympics
Buttigieg wouldn’t say whether he would call on the U.S. to boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, if he was president, but said all options are on the table.
“Any tool ought to be on the table, especially social, diplomatic, and economic tools,” he said.
Over the past several months, pro-democracy demonstrators have taken to the streets of Hong Kong where the protestors and local police have clashed. In addition, China has detained Muslim minorities in camps.
Buttigieg said that the United States can’t ignore China’s detention of Muslim Uighurs or protests in Hong Kong. Under his administration, Buttigieg said that he would isolate China “from the free world” if the continue violating human rights.
— Rebecca Morin
Yang highlights lack of diversity on stage
In response to a question on the lack of diversity on the stage tonight, Yang gave a shoutout to U.S. Sens. Kamala Harris, who dropped out of the presidential race, and Cory Booker, who failed to qualify for the December debate.
“It is both an honor and disappointment to be the lone candidate of color on the stage tonight,” Yang said.
Citing statistics on economic disparities in black and Latino communities, Yang argued that a reason candidates of color were struggling to stay in the race is a lack of disposable income among voters. If people had more disposable income, he argued, then they could contribute more to the campaigns of candidates of color.
“I guarantee if we had a freedom dividend of $1000 a month, I would not be the only candidate of color on the stage tonight,” he said.
— Katie Akin
Biden, Sanders detail ‘enormous opportunities’ on climate change
Biden said he views the fight against climate change as an opportunity to create new standards for businesses and homeowners. He proposes requiring every new building be “energy contained” so no energy is leaked, providing tax credits for solar powers on homes, and building electrical vehicle charging stations on all highways.
“We have enormous opportunities,” he said.
Sanders declared the Paris Climate Agreement to be “fine” but it “ain’t enough.” The international accord was a partisan football, with Trump withdrawing the United States from it as soon as he could in his administration.
Sanders proposed going further: Declaring climate change a national emergency and convincing the world to turn their budgets for war against climate change.
“The United States has got to lead the world,” Sanders said. “And maybe just maybe instead of spending $1.8 trillion a year globally on weapons of destruction, maybe a American president, i.e. Bernie Sanders, can lead the world instead of spending money to kill each other, maybe we pool our resources and fight our common enemy, which is climate change.”
The crowd responded with enthusiastic applause.
— Nick Coltrain
Steyer singles out Buttigieg on climate change
In response to a question on climate change policy, Steyer touted his record in the private sector before singling out Buttigieg.
“I know everybody is worried about this, but for instance, I would call on Mayor Buttigieg to prioritize this higher,” Steyer said. The people in his generation understand that this is a crisis.”
Buttigieg responded that his hometown of South Bend had faced historic flooding and he would prioritize the issue in office.
“I want to make sure that our vision for climate includes people from the autoworker down the block from me in South Bend to a farmer, a few minutes away so that they understand that we are asking, recruiting them to be part of the solution,” Buttigieg said.
— Katie Akin
Warren brushes off criticism of wealth tax
In an extended question on the economy, moderator and PBS NewsHour anchor Judy Woodruff asked Warren to respond to critics of her proposed 2% wealth tax on Americans who have more than $50 million would say it would have a negative effect on the economy.
“Oh, they’re just wrong,” Warren responded.
Warren said the wealth tax would be used to improve early childhood education and family child care, which would help the economy down the line.
— Robin Opsahl
Yang: Voters don’t trust the media
Yang hit the media during his first remarks of the night, saying that Americans can’t agree on impeachment because of news media.
“It’s clear why Americans can’t agree on impeachment, we’re getting our news from different sources and it’s getting hard for us to agree on facts,” he said.
Yang said voters “don’t trust the media networks to tell them the truth.”
“The media networks didn’t do us any favors by missing a reason why Donald Trump became our president in the first place,” he said. “If you turn on cable news today, you would think he’s our president because of some combination of Russia, racism, Facebook, Hillary Clinton and emails all mixed together.”
“We have to stop being obsessed over impeachment … and start actually digging in and solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place,” he continued.
Yang has repeatedly criticized MSNBC for his minimal speaking time at last month’s debate in Atlanta, which was hosted by NBC. He called on the MSNBC to apologize and even declined to appear on the network.
— Rebecca Morin
Sanders touts his vote against NAFTA
Sanders drew a distinction as being the only person on stage who voted against NAFTA, the trade deal President Trump is trying to replace with the USMCA.
Sanders agreed the new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada approved by the House this week is “a modest improvement” but he still won’t vote for it because it he doesn’t think it will stop the outsourcing of jobs Mexico. He added that the words “climate change” don’t seem to be anywhere in the agreement.
The moderator launched the question to Sanders by noting the new trade deal has the backing of trade groups like the AFL-CIO. Sanders champions labor unions on the trail and, in a story surrogate Randy Bryce likes to tell, Sanders often asks if there’s any picket lines he can visit.
— Nick Coltrain
‘This is a global Watergate’
Candidates were first asked how they can convince most Americans to support impeachment of Trump, like they were persuaded when President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974.
Warren and Biden said the impeachment process is not about convincing Americans, but rather upholding the constitution. Klobuchar and Steyer called for Trump to allow his staff to testify.
“This is a global Watergate. In the case of Watergate, a paranoid president facing election looked for dirt on a political opponent,” Klobuchar said. “If the president claims that he is so innocent, then why doesn’t he have all the presidents’ men testify?”
Sanders said he would highlight the need for Trump’s removal on the campaign trail.
“I will personally be doing this in the coming weeks and months, is making the case that we have a president who has sold out the working families of this country, who wants to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid after he promised he would not do that, and who has documentally lied thousands of times since he became president,” he said.
— Kim Norvell
And we’re off
The last debate of 2019 is underway in Los Angeles. Seven candidates have taken the stage 46 days from the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. They are:
Former Vice President Joe Biden
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders
Businessman Tom Steyer
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Businessman Andrew Yang
It is the sixth debate of the 2020 election cycle, hosted by PBS NewsHour and Politico.
— Nick Coltrain
Sanders campaign pokes at Buttigieg fundraiser
Sanders’ campaign bought and is promoting a new website: PetesWineCave.com.
The address goes to a website to donate to Sanders campaign. The URL is a dig at Buttigieg, who hosted a fundraiser Sunday at a Napa Valley winery owned by billionaires. Sanders communication director Mike Casca first tweeted about the website on Monday.
At the debate Thursday, Sanders’ top strategist Jeff Weaver is wearing a shirt promoting the website.
— Rebecca Morin
Yang announces Childish Gambino endorsement
Yang came into the debate with a celebrity endorsement.
Donald Glover, the “Community” and “Atlanta” actor who also performed under the stage name Childish Gambino, has taken a creative consult role for Yang, his campaign team announced Thursday.
The new position comes on the heels of the actor hosting a pop-up store in downtown Los Angeles, where supporters could purchase limited editions of Yang2020 merchandise designed by Glover. Some hoodies were signed by Glover and Yang and cost $1,000, the New York Times reported.
— Kim Norvell
Things to watch for tonight
In November, Buttigieg survived the debate relatively attack-free debate after surging in several early-state polls. As a leading contender in Iowa and New Hampshire, which vote first, other candidates may step up their criticisms of the 37-year-old mayor from South Bend, Indiana.
Warren and Sanders likely will criticize other candidates’ private, high-dollar fundraisers. Bowing to pressure earlier this month, Buttigieg agreed to allow press in his fundraising events and released the names of some of his donation bundlers. Warren and Sanders also will likely hit the billionaires running in the race – former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is not on the debate stage, and Steyer, who is.
Warren has largely shied away from direct attacks on fellow candidates, but in a recent shift has ramped up her criticism. She’s particularly been critical of Buttigieg as the two spar over “Medicare for All,” which Warren supports. Buttigieg does not, calling his health care plan “Medicare for All Who Want It.”
With impeachment top of mind, Biden may be pressed on details related to his son’s involvement in Ukraine. Biden has had some shaky moments at previous debates, but still maintains a large lead over his rivals in national polling.
— Kim Norvell
Candidates sign letter to DNC about qualifying standards
All seven qualifying candidates have signed a letter from Sen. Cory Booker to the Democratic National Committee asking to change its debate qualification standards for the January and February debates. Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, who did not qualify for the debate, also signed the letter.
The letter argues the more stringent qualifying standards have pushed out the field’s diverse candidates. Yang is the only person of color on tonight’s debate stage.
Neither Booker of New Jersey nor Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii qualified for this debate, two candidates who appeared on stage just a month ago. Sen. Kamala Harris of California qualified for the debate but dropped out earlier this month.
The DNC has raised it polling and fundraising thresholds with each debate. To qualify for tonight, candidates must have received 4% or more support in at least four national or early voting state polls, as well as hit 6% support in two single-state polls. Candidates also had to get at least 200,000 unique donors, with a minimum of 800 unique donors per state in at least 20 U.S. states.
What happens next: Impeachment does not mean that the president has been removed from office. The Senate must hold a trial to make that determination. A trial is expected to take place in January. Here’s more on what happens next.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks Thursday during his annual news conference in Moscow. During the four-hour session, the longtime Russian leader called the U.S. impeachment process “far-fetched,” making the prediction that Donald Trump will be acquitted in the Senate.
Pavel Golovkin/AP
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Pavel Golovkin/AP
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks Thursday during his annual news conference in Moscow. During the four-hour session, the longtime Russian leader called the U.S. impeachment process “far-fetched,” making the prediction that Donald Trump will be acquitted in the Senate.
Pavel Golovkin/AP
Halfway across the world from Washington, D.C., where President Trump on Wednesday became just the third president in U.S. history to be impeached, Trump’s counterpart in the Kremlin made clear that he has the American president’s back.
During his annual marathon news conference in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the charges against Trump as “completely made up.”
“The Democratic party, which lost the elections, is now trying to revise this history through the means that they have at their disposal — first by accusing Trump of collusion with Russia. But then it turned out there was no collusion,” Putin said Thursday during the hours-long event, echoing the arguments put forth by Trump and his Republican colleagues in Congress. “It could not form the basis for impeachment, and now there is this made-up pressure on Ukraine.”
Trump faces the possibility of removal from office, after the House on Wednesday night approved two articles of impeachment — abuse of power, for withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Ukraine, and obstruction of the congressional investigation into the matter. Every Republican voted against impeachment.
Now the process should head to the GOP-controlled Senate, where a trial is expected.
Putin said he believes the president’s job remains safe because of his party’s majority: “It’s unlikely they will want to remove their party member from office based on what are, in my opinion, completely fabricated reasons.”
The comments came amid a marathon Q&A, an event that has become an end-of-year tradition during Putin’s nearly two decades in power. He began holding them in 2001, and for roughly a decade each session has lasted more than four hours.
This year was no different, with a throng of journalists from around the world allowed to attend and put questions directly to the Russian leader. As in past years, the topics ranged widely — touching not only on world news such as American politics and Chinese relations, but also on local issues, such as high airfares to locations in the Russian far east.
Among the points Putin addressed was the matter of term limits, which do not allow a Russian president to serve more than two terms in a row. Putin famously slid into the role of prime minister between 2008 and 2012 for this reason, effectively leading the country as premier while his handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, occupied the role of president.
He returned to office in 2012 and won reelection to a six-year term last year.
“One thing that could be changed about these terms is removing the clause about ‘successive’ [terms],” Putin said, suggesting an end to term limits, according to a Reuters translation.
The ban on serving more than two consecutive terms “troubles some of our political analysts and public figures,” he added in a nod to supporters who want him to continue in office. “Well, maybe it could be removed.”
Putin also addressed the simmering diplomatic dispute between Russia and Germany over the murder of a former Chechen insurgent commander in Berlin. Earlier this month German authorities ordered the expulsion of two Russian diplomats, alleging the Kremlin’s involvement in Zelimkhan Khangoshvili’s killing, and a defiant Russia retaliated by expelling a pair of German diplomats in turn.
Asked about the situation, Putin did not directly deny Russia’s role in the murder, instead electing to voice his anger that Khangoshvili, who had been seeking asylum in Germany, was able to walk freely on the streets of Berlin despite his
Putin passed up opportunity to deny Russian role in killing of former Chechen commander in Germany, instead expressing outrage that he walked freely on streets of Berlin despite his prominent involvement with Chechen separatists.
NPR’s Moscow correspondent, Lucian Kim, contributed to this report.
Media captionGunshots were heard outside Russia’s security services HQ
At least one person has been killed and five wounded in a shooting at the headquarters of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in central Moscow, Russian media say.
A gunman who opened fire with an automatic weapon at the entrance of the building was killed by an armed officer, Interfax news agency reports.
Security forces cordoned off the area and moved bystanders into buildings.
The shooting came hours after President Putin’s annual press conference.
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption
Armed officers ushered bystanders into nearby buildings for their safety
Details of the incident, which began shortly after 18:00 (15:00 GMT), remain unclear.
The FSB denied earlier reports suggesting there were three gunmen in the attack on its headquarters. The unconfirmed reports said two had been killed in the lobby while the third ran off to a nearby building where he was later killed in a shootout with police.
Among the injured were two seriously hurt officers, the Health Ministry told Russian media. Shortly afterwards, the intelligence agency itself confirmed the death of one FSB officer – though it is not clear if he is one of the two reported injured in the earlier report.
Image copyright Reuters
Image caption
Police vehicles blocked the streets outside the FSB building in Moscow
Russian investigators have opened criminal proceedings into the attempted murder of law enforcement officers.
They are looking into whether the attack was timed to coincide with Vladimir Putin’s four-hour press conference, which ended during the afternoon.
At the scene
Will Vernon, BBC News, Moscow
The area around the FSB’s two main buildings in central Moscow has been completely sealed off with large numbers of police and special forces – some armed with assault rifles – in the area.
Eyewitness Vladimir Adyasov told the BBC that he was in the vicinity of the FSB’s main building on Lubyanka Square when he heard loud bangs. Mr Adyasov said he initially thought it was fireworks, but quickly released that it was gunfire. Police officers shouted for people to flee, he added.
Videos on social media appear to show the attacker firing an assault rifle indiscriminately at the heavily-guarded building.
The attack took place on the eve of security services day – a special holiday for security staff – in Russia, and Mr Putin was addressing a meeting at the time to mark the occasion.
“We must not reduce the intensity of your work… and above all it applies to counter-terrorism,” Mr Putin said, a short distance away from the attack in Moscow.
“Terrorism is an insidious and dangerous enemy, and the fight against it must continue systematically and decisively… with an emphasis on the prevention of terrorism, on preventive, offensive operations.”
Some footage posted on social media appeared to capture the sound of gunshots in the area of the attack, while other video showed armed men running away from the FSB headquarters on Lubyanka Square.
IT’S DEBATE DAY. PBS NewsHour and POLITICO are hosting this year’s final Democratic presidential primary debate tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern, and we couldn’t be more excited.
ONLY SEVEN CANDIDATES WILL BE ONSTAGE: Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang. Kamala Harris qualified but dropped out, and Cory Booker and Julián Castro didn’t make the cut — putting a diverse Democratic Party in the awkward position of hosting a debate with a decidedly non-diverse cast.
IT’S ALSO A BIT AWKWARD to be holding a debate a day after the House voted to impeach the president, a subject these candidates want to avoid like a drunken co-worker at the company holiday party; they’d rather outline their plans on health care, student debt and family leave. Still, polls show that’s exactly what Democratic voters want to hear about. Impeachment isn’t going to affect their lives one iota, as most realize by now that Donald Trump isn’t going anywhere.
THAT SAID, IMPEACHMENT IS ALSO AN OPPORTUNITY for one of the candidates to cast themselves as something very different from the sturm and drang of Washington. Could this be PETE BUTTIGIEG? The South Bend mayor has been testing an outsider message in a field dominated by D.C. insiders, but he’s been a bit sidetracked by his pillow fight with ELIZABETH WARREN and endless stories about his Harvard days, McKinsey clients and wine-cave fundraisers in Napa.
OR WILL IT BE AMY KLOBUCHAR? The Minnesota senator has been positioning herself as the sensible Midwestern answer to the sweeping promises of Warren and BERNIE SANDERS, and she’s had a couple good moments in the last two debates. A less crowded stage could give her more room to shine. Then there’s JOE BIDEN, who has yet to turn in a sterling debate performance but seems to enjoy the confidence of a remarkably stable portion of the Democratic base. We’ll be watching — and hope you will, too.
IN THE CAPITOL THIS MORNING, SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI played down the chatter that she might hold the articles of impeachment from the Senate indefinitely. “We are ready. When we see what they have, we will know who and how many [impeachment managers] we will send over,” Pelosi said in her weekly presser, referring to the Senate. “We don’t know what arena we are in.” Earlier: “McConnell taunts Pelosi as ‘too afraid’ to send impeachment articles”
PELOSI ON IMPEACHMENT: “Seems like people have a spring in their step because the president was held accountable. … I have a spring in my step because of the moral courage of our caucus.”
Good Thursday afternoon. Blake Hounshell here, filling in for Jake and Anna, along with Garrett Ross. We’re expecting the the House to approve the revised USMCA this afternoon with a strong bipartisan majority. The Senate won’t be taking it up until the new year, however.
IMPEACHMENT CLIP PACKET … MARIANNE LEVINE and BURGESS EVERETT: “Senate Republicans pray Trump won’t tweet during trial”: “Trump has not exactly hid his feelings about the House impeachment proceedings, often tweeting that it’s “phony” and a “hoax.” The president even posted tweets attacking several witnesses who testified during the House’s impeachment inquiry.
“And if he continues the barrage during his impeachment trial in the Senate, it could derail the Senate GOP’s strategy, annoy undecided senators and end up hurting his efforts to win unanimous acquittal from the Republican Party. ‘He needs to be respectful of the process,’ said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump’s most vocal defenders in the Senate. ‘He can defend himself, he has a right to express his grievances but if I were him I would … keep a low profile.’” POLITICO
— “Chief Justice to Enter Spotlight in Trump Impeachment Trial,” by WSJ’s Jess Bravin: “Chief Justice [John] Roberts, seated during the trial at the Senate chamber’s rostrum, might appear to be the authority before whom the president’s accusers and defenders plead their cases. Yet he will hold less power over the proceedings than a municipal court judge hearing a pickpocketing case. The trial’s rules will be written by the jury — the Senate — whose Republican leadership has already pronounced the defendant not guilty.
“The Trump trial procedures will be adapted from the Senate’s 1986 impeachment guidelines, which allow the chief justice to decide ‘questions of relevancy, materiality, and redundancy of evidence,’ among other matters. But the Senate can overrule those decisions by simple majority, akin to letting seven of 12 jurors reverse a trial judge on any given motion in an ordinary case.” WSJ
— NYT DEEP DIVE: “How 2 Soviet Émigrés Fueled the Trump Impeachment Flames:‘Lev and Igor’ were obscure businessmen who became fixtures of the Republican donor set. Then they played an unlikely role in the proceedings gripping the nation,” by Michael Rothfeld, Ben Protess, William Rashbaum, Ken Vogel and Andrew Kramer
THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW — “Putin says Trump was impeached for ‘far-fetched’ reasons,” by AP’s Vladimir Isachenkov and Harriet Morris in Moscow: “Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that U.S. President Donald Trump was impeached for ‘far-fetched’ reasons, calling the move by Democrats a continuation of their fight against the Republican leader.
“‘The party that lost the (2016) election, the Democratic Party, is trying to achieve results by other means,’ Putin said at his annual news conference in Moscow. He likened Trump’s impeachment to the earlier U.S. probe into collusion with Russia, which Putin played down as groundless.” AP
IMPEACHMENT FALLOUT … FROM DARREN SAMUELSOHN: “House Democrats and the Justice Department have found something they can agree on: less paperwork. Attorneys for both sides Thursday asked for permission from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to file one round of legal briefs apiece — rather than two — to make their arguments about what the recent House impeachment vote means for pending litigation over lawmakers’ access to Robert Mueller’s grand jury materials and testimony from former White House counsel Don McGahn. Orders issued last night by the court just after the impeachment vote set out a 4 p.m. deadline for DOJ and the House Judiciary Committee to file their supplemental briefings. Josh Gerstein wrote about that here.”
NBC INVESTIGATION: “Chinese parts, hidden ownership, growing scrutiny: Inside America’s biggest voting machine maker,” by Ben Popken, Cynthia McFadden and Kevin Monahan in Omaha, Neb.: “The secrecy of [Election Systems & Software LLC] and its competitors has pushed politicians to send the companies letters requesting information on security, oversight, finances and ownership. This month, a group of Democratic politicians sent the private equity firms that own the major election vendors a letter asking them to disclose a range of information, including ownership, finances and research investments. …
“NBC News examined publicly available online shipping records for ES&S for the past five years and found that many parts, including electronics and tablets, were made in China and the Philippines, raising concerns about technology theft or sabotage. … Chinese manufacturers are a risk for U.S. companies because they can be forced to cooperate with requests from Chinese intelligence officials to share any information about the technology, said NBC News analyst Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant director of the FBI for counterintelligence.” NBC
FEATURED VIDEO:Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are proposing major taxes on the richest Americans. It’s been tried abroad, but could it work here?
— “Elizabeth Warren to hold private meeting with tribal leaders Sunday in effort to atone for past claims,” by WaPo’s Annie Linskey: “Representatives from all of the roughly 40 federally recognized tribes in the state were invited to a round table meeting with Warren in Tulsa on Sunday morning, ahead of a town hall meeting she is hosting that evening in Oklahoma City. By Tuesday evening, about a dozen had indicated they will attend, according to a person familiar with the schedule who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
“The previously unreported meeting will focus on Warren’s agenda for Native Americans and is part of a broader effort to highlight issues important to them. Warren is also trying to blunt the criticism she has faced over the years for appropriating Native American culture by identifying as such, according to three people familiar with the meeting who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it.” WaPo
— “Andrew Yang Is Onstage, but Offstage, Asian-Americans Wonder Where They Fit In,” by NYT’s Jennifer Medina and Matt Stevens in Los Angeles: “The debate in one of America’s most ethnically diverse cities will not include any candidate who is black or Latino. Though it will feature two women — Senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar — and a gay man, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind. the lineup does not satisfy some in the party who believe that Democrats could pay dearly if the demographics of its candidates do not reflect its voters. …
“The intense focus on racial identity in politics has once again left some in the Asian-American community considering what diversity really means — and how exactly they fit in. … After decades of immigrant exclusion, second-generation Asian-Americans have come of age and experts say they are showing increasing interest and engagement in American politics.” NYT … Eugene Daniels: “Andrew Yang just wants some respect”
THE FATE OF OBAMACARE — “7 unanswered questions left by the Obamacare ruling,” by Adriel Bettelheim and Susannah Luthi: “Wednesday’s dramatic court ruling striking down Obamacare’s individual mandate lets President Donald Trump assure Americans their insurance is safe while telling his base he’s fighting the law to the death in court.
“It also allows Democrats to re-assert that Trump and his GOP allies are hellbent on gutting protections for people with preexisting conditions.
“[T]he timing of the decision makes it highly unlikely that the Supreme Court will weigh in on the matter before the 2020 election, leaving the ultimate fate of the health law in limbo.
“The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision for the most part punted on the central question of whether the Affordable Care Act is still valid now that Congress removed the penalty for not having insurance. Instead, the question will go to a federal judge in Texas who’s already ruled the entire law unconstitutional, keeping a cloud over Obamacare’s future. A group of Democratic-led states is appealing to the Supreme Court.” POLITICO
MASSIVE NYT PROJECT: “Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy: What we learned from the spy in your pocket,” by Stuart Thompson and Charlie Warzel: “Every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized — are logging the movements of tens of millions of people with mobile phones and storing the information in gigantic data files. The Times Privacy Project obtained one such file, by far the largest and most sensitive ever to be reviewed by journalists. It holds more than 50 billion location pings from the phones of more than 12 million Americans as they moved through several major cities, including Washington, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
“Each piece of information in this file represents the precise location of a single smartphone over a period of several months in 2016 and 2017. The data was provided to Times Opinion by sources who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to share it and could face severe penalties for doing so. The sources of the information said they had grown alarmed about how it might be abused and urgently wanted to inform the public and lawmakers.
“After spending months sifting through the data, tracking the movements of people across the country and speaking with dozens of data companies, technologists, lawyers and academics who study this field, we feel the same sense of alarm. In the cities that the data file covers, it tracks people from nearly every neighborhood and block, whether they live in mobile homes in Alexandria, Va., or luxury towers in Manhattan.
“One search turned up more than a dozen people visiting the Playboy Mansion, some overnight. Without much effort we spotted visitors to the estates of Johnny Depp, Tiger Woods and Arnold Schwarzenegger, connecting the devices’ owners to the residences indefinitely. If you lived in one of the cities the dataset covers and use apps that share your location — anything from weather apps to local news apps to coupon savers — you could be in there, too.” NYT … Tweet thread from Thompson showing pings at the Pentagon, White House and Mar-a-Lago
PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION — “Democratic Senators Have Been Privately Pushing A Major Museum In D.C To Change An Exhibit ‘Sanitizing’ Torture,” by BuzzFeed’s Emma Loop and Jason Leopold: “The exhibit at the International Spy Museum, which features a replica waterboard and cartoonlike illustrations of torture, has already undergone one change, and more are possible in the new year, according to a letter from the senators.” BuzzFeed
MEDIAWATCH … MICHAEL CALDERONE: “‘Stunning piece of propaganda’: Journalists blast One America News series”: “[F]or much of the media world, OAN’s decision to give Giuliani a direct role in preparing its Ukraine report presents a troubling ethical development in the media landscape. Where once opinion shows began supplanting traditional news, now openly partisan content – presented largely unfiltered by the president’s personal attorney – is seeking to supplant content that’s opinionated but still independent.” POLITICO
— @mlcalderone: “Fox News names @edhenry co-anchor of ‘America’s Morning,’ as @BillHemmer heads to 3pm slot.” … Nick Baumann is joining The Atlantic as politics editor. He previously was senior enterprise editor at HuffPost.
SPOTTED: Paul Ryan and Joe Crowley walking into Bobby Van’s on 15th Street on Wednesday afternoon. Pic of Ryan outside … SPOTTED at the Harvard Club of D.C. annual award’s dinner Wednesday night at the University Club, where Harvard President Larry Bacow presented the award to David Rubenstein: Fed Chairman Jay Powell. Pic
TRANSITIONS — Joseph McMonigle will be secretary general of the International Energy Forum executive board starting in August 2020. He currently is president of the Abraham Group, senior energy policy analyst at Hedgeye Risk Management and a principal at Blank Rome. … Minhee Cho is now a media relations associate for Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. She previously was director of public relations for ProPublica. … James Maloney and Milan Dalal have co-founded Tiger Hill Partners. Maloney previously was founder and president of the JHM Group. Dalal previously was of counsel for Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.
ENGAGED — Noah Weinrich, press secretary for Heritage Action For America, and Danielle DiQuattro, associate at Baron Public Affairs, got engaged Wednesday night in front of the Capitol Christmas Tree. Pic … Another pic
— Lizzy Guyton, communications director for Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and a Scott Brown and Jackie Walorski alum, and Tim Johnson, a principal at CSQ Realty, got engaged Wednesday night in front of the Massachusetts state house. Pic… Another pic
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