DETROIT — Sens. Bernard Sanders and Elizabeth Warren joined forces on the debate stage Tuesday to defend their far-left agenda from an onslaught of attacks from moderate rivals who warned it would doom the country to four more years of President Trump.
Exposing the depth of the rift in the Democratic Party, the moderate candidates shot down the left’s most cherished proposals such as “Medicare for All” government-run health care, decriminalized illegal immigration and the “Green New Deal” environmental overhaul the U.S. economy.
Former Rep. John Delaney of Maryland accused Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren of peddling “fairytale economics.”
He warned that the party will lose if it embraces the liberal agenda of Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren, invoking past Democratic presidential losers — George McGovern, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis — as a cautionary tale of what happens when the party moves too far left.
“We don’t have to go around and be the party of subtraction and telling half the country that their private health insurance is illegal,” he said.
Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper warned that the party would lose the election if it embraced the “Green New Deal” and a socialist agenda.
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“You might as well Fed-Ex the election to Donald Trump,” he said.
New Age guru Marianne Williamson, who said she usually sides with the duo on the radical left, joined the moderate doubters on Medicare for All.
“I have a concern that it will make it harder to win and will make it harder to govern,” Ms. Williamson said.
Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren, though both vying to lead the party’s far-left wing, found themselves standing side by side at center stage, a veritable tag-team beating back the moderates.
“Democrats win when we figure out what is right and go out there and fight for it,” said Ms. Warren, Massachusetts Democrat.
She accused the moderate Democrats of being co-opted by Republicans when they complained that Medicare for All was too expensive and would strip thousands of Americans of private insurance.
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“We are the Democrats,” she said. “We are not about trying to take away health care from anyone. That’s what the Republicans are trying to do. And we should stop using Republican talking points.”
She also mocked Mr. Delaney’s criticisms saying she didn’t understand his point.
“I don’t understand why anyone 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,” Ms. Warren said.
Mr. Sanders said it was the insurance companies who were the bad guys and accused his rivals of toeing the insurance company’s line.
“By the way, the health care industry will be advertising tonight on this program,” he said. “They will be advertising tonight with that talking point.”
He also insisted his proposals had broad appeal.
“Every credible poll I’ve seen has me beating Donald Trump,” Mr. Sanders said.
In another exchange, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock admonished his rivals for “playing into Donald Trump’s hands” by promising to decriminalize illegal immigration and give illegals free health care.
“We’ve got 100,000 people showing up at the border right now. If we decriminalize entry, if we give health care to everyone, we’ll have multiples of that,” the governor said, citing Jeh Johnson, President Barack Obama’s homeland security secretary.
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg urged Democrats to stop worrying about what Republicans will say about their policy ideas.
“If we embrace a far-left agenda, they’re going to say we’re a bunch of crazy socialists,” Mr. Buttigieg said. “If we embrace a conservative agenda, they’re going to say we’re a bunch of crazy socialists. Let’s just stand up for the right policy, and go out and defend it.”
Mr. Buttigieg, along with Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders, said ending the criminal sanction against illegal immigration is critical to defanging Mr. Trump’s policies.
“The point is not about criminalization. That has given Donald Trump the tool to break families apart,” Ms. Warren said.
“We need to fix the crisis at the border, and a big part of how we do that is we do not play into Donald Trump’s hands,” Ms. Warren said.
“But you are playing into Donald Trump’s hands,” Mr. Bullock countered.
CNN devoted about 10 minutes to the issue of illegal immigration Tuesday night — far less than it gave to health care — and barely touched on the complexities of the matter, asking chiefly about some candidates’ push to end the criminal penalties.
Mr. Sanders, for his part, objected to having his universal government-run health care plan — Medicare for All — attacked for covering illegal immigrants, too.
“I happen to believe that when I talk about health care as a human right, that applies to all people in this country,” he said.
Democrats sent a message by selecting the Motor City for the second showdown — that they are focused on putting Michigan back in the blue column in the 2020 general election.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, is seeking to be the first Republican since President Ronald Reagan to carry the state in back-to-back presidential elections after taking a stunning 10,000-vote upset over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
For Democrats, the key to unlocking Michigan could be in Wayne County, which is home to more than 1.7 million people and has backed Democrats in every presidential race since 1932.
Mrs. Clinton won the area in 2016, but she dramatically underperformed compared with Mr. Obama, who had strong support in the Detroit metropolitan area, particularly among blacks. The voters offset losses elsewhere and handed him victory in Michigan in 2008 and 2012.
In Detroit, 80% of the residents are black and 14% are white, according to the U.S. census.
The debate was held a week after nine of the contenders parachuted into Detroit to woo black leaders and activists at the annual NAACP gathering. The opening debate features all white candidates.
Mr. Trump’s recent Twitter attacks against Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland and the Rev. Al Sharpton only intensified the focus on race and the struggles of urban America.
The next stop on the debate schedule is slated for September in Houston, where eight candidates have claimed spots. That leaves the lower-tier candidates scrambling over the next six weeks to meet the stiffer polling and financial thresholds needed to qualify.
Each of the 10 candidates Tuesday was given a minute to deliver an opening statement, a closing statement and responses to questions from debate moderators Dana Bash, Don Lemon and Jake Tapper.
For months, Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren have carefully competed to dominate the far-left lane of the race.
On the debate stage, they also competed with a crowd of candidates who are polling in low single digits and trying to differentiate themselves as moderates.
Mr. Buttigieg and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, who occupy the fifth and sixth positions in the polls, respectively, attempted to carve out room in the center of the Democratic Party.
Other lower-polling candidates in the showdown Tuesday were Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio.
Mr. Sanders, 77, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, blazed the far-left trail. His 2016 presidential bid came up short but nevertheless set a liberal agenda for the Democratic Party that includes tuition-free public universities and a Medicare of All program of government-run health care. These formerly radical proposals have become normal, if not unanimous, among the 2020 Democratic hopefuls.
Ms. Warren, 70, forged a similar political brand for herself with a decadeslong crusade against Wall Street and income inequality, which propelled her to the U.S. Senate and onto the presidential campaign trail.
Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren each lead separate movements of far-left activists, and they face the same challenge to unify the movements.
They also jockeyed for the second-place position in polls behind the front-runner, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden.
Mr. Biden and other top contenders, including Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California, will be among the 10 candidates on the debate stage Wednesday.
Ms. Warren was widely viewed as on the rise in recent weeks, but Mr. Sanders has maintained solid support from his base and managed to bounce in and out of the No. 2 spot.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday gave Mr. Biden a wide lead of 34%, followed by Ms. Warren at 15%, Ms. Harris at 12% and Mr. Sanders at 11%.
A survey by Emerson Polling released Tuesday showed Mr. Biden at 33%, Mr. Sanders in second at 20% and Ms. Warren in third at 14%.
The tougher criteria that the Democratic Central Committee set to get into the Houston debate includes higher polling and donor thresholds. The candidates will need to get 2% in four qualified polls and 130,000 donors across 20 states, up from 1% in polls and 65,000 donors needed for the first two debates.
The candidates have to achieve both the polling and donor benchmarks to earn a spot in that debate, rather than one measure that sufficed in the first two debates.
So far, eight candidates appear to have made the cut for Houston: Mr. Biden, Mr. Sanders, Ms. Warren, Ms. Harris, Mr. Buttigieg, Mr. O’Rourke, Mr. Booker and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.
⦁ Stephen Dinan contributed to this report.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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