Coming into this debate,
there have been a lot of new developments.
All right, Elizabeth Warren has surged in the polls.
Joe Biden and his son have become targets
of the Trump administration.
Bernie Sanders had a heart attack.
And last week, Pete Buttigieg
snuck into his first R-rated movie
-(laughter) -But...
by far the biggest development since the last debate
has been the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
So that was the first topic of the night.
I don't really think this impeachment process
is gonna take very long, 'cause as a former prosecutor,
I know a confession when I see it.
This president had obstructed justice.
This president, on three occasions,
three occasions, has invited foreign governments
and heads of government to get engaged
in trying to alter our election.
We have to impeach this president...
He lied to investigators, obstructed justice,
fired James Comey, head of the FBI,
tried to fire Mueller...
The president ten years, or a hundred years from now,
will look back at this moment and draw the conclusion
either that no one is above the law
or that a president can get away with anything.
Okay, I hear what you're saying,
but let's be honest, the way the planet is going,
in a hundred years from now,
the president isn't gonna be worried about impeachment,
he's gonna be worried about the price of lizard blood.
-(laughter) -And as for Biden,
his question was a little different.
He was asked why it's not okay for a president's family
to be working with foreign businesses and foreign companies
but it's okay for a vice president's family to do.
And I... I think I get where he was going,
but it took a while for him to get there.
Look, uh...
my son did nothing wrong.
I did nothing wrong.
My son's statement speaks for itself.
What I think is important
is we focus on why it's so important
to remove this man from office.
On the 17...
Look, the fact that...
George Washington worried...
on the first time he spoke after being elected president,
that what we had to worry about is foreign interference
in our election.
Okay, one minute he's talking about his son,
then it's George Washington, then something about the 17?
Like, Joe Biden is the only candidate who remixes his speech
while he's giving it.
He's just like, "Removing this man from...
(imitates record scratching)
"...seven, on the sev, seven, seven, sev, 17th,
and the fact, that the fact that..."
This is, like, a weird thing that he does.
And aside from impeachment, aside from impeachment,
health care was a major topic tonight,
with the standard debate about whether government-run insurance
should be an option or the only option.
But the thing that got the crowd going
was when the O.G. of Medicare stepped into the game
and showed everyone
why they should put respect on his name.
The issue is whether the Democratic Party has the guts
to stand up to the health care industry,
which made a hundred billion dollars in profit.
Whether we have the guts to stand up
to the corrupt, price-fixing pharmaceutical industry,
which is charging us the highest prices in the world
for prescription drugs.
-(applause) -And if we don't have the guts to do that,
if all we can do is take their money,
-we should be ashamed of ourselves. -Thank you.
Ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai-ai! Bernie Sanders!
-(cheering, applause) -You can't deny it.
You cannot deny it. No one speaks about health care
with the passion that Bernie does.
I also have a suspicion that that's the same speech he gave
every time the nurses tried to give him pills.
He was like, "No more pills!
"I have the guts to stand up to the pharmaceutical industry!
I just need a nap. I'll be fine!"
Now, you probably didn't notice tonight,
but one of the 52 candidates on stage
was Tom Steyer, right?
Hedge fund billionaire and scarecrow from Oz.
And... most people,
most people only know Steyer from his TV ads
where he calls on President Trump to be impeached.
And if you think about it, it's a pretty cool perk
of being a billionaire.
You can just buy ads on TV and make everyone listen
to what you want to talk about. Yeah.
Like, if I was a billionaire, my ads would just be petty.
You know, I'd be like, "Hello, I'm billionaire Trevor Noah,
"and my Thai food was supposed to be here half an hour ago.
"Please, somebody call the restaurant for me
and see where it is."
Anyway, you may remember,
Bernie Sanders, a few weeks ago, made headlines
by saying billionaires should not exist.
So, of course, the moderators asked Tom Steyer,
an actual billionaire, about Bernie's comment,
and his answer was not what you'd expect.
Senator Sanders is right.
There have been 40 years
where corporations have bought this government,
and those 40 years have meant
a40-year attack on the rights of working people,
and specifically, on organized labor.
I was one of the first people on this stage
to propose a wealth tax.
I would undo every Republican tax cut
for rich people and major corporations.
Yes, the billionaire just said the government needs
to tax the shit out of billionaires.
And you saw Bernie's face, he was like,
"Is this a trap? Is this a joke?
"Wh-What? He's taking my thing.
You can't take my thing."
And, you know, it seems weird, but when you think about it,
it actually makes sense.
If you're already a billionaire,
you don't want more billionaires.
Yeah, it makes it less special. You'd be like,
"Yeah, tax them. I don't want them becoming billionaires."
Yeah. It's the same way I think America
has enough South African late night comedians.
Like, yeah. Zero was too few, and one is more than enough.
We get it. Apartheid. We get it. Move on.
We get it. One's enough.
(cheers and applause)
So the debate then moved to foreign policy,
in particular, President Trump's decision
to pull troops out of northern Syria.
And although all the Democrats had different proposals
on how they thought they would handle the conflict in the area,
they all agreed on one thing, that Trump is doing it wrong.
What this president has done
is that he has sucked up to dictators,
he has made impulsive decisions
that often his own team doesn't understand.
What he has done is wreck our ability to do foreign policy
because nobody in the world
will believe this pathological liar.
This president is caging kids on the border,
and effectively letting ISIS prisoners run free.
This president has betrayed American values...
Turning the moral leadership
of this country into a dumpster fire...
We have an erratic, crazy president
who knows not a damn thing about foreign policy.
Okay, okay. Hold on. Hold on.
You may not like Donald Trump but you can't say
he doesn't know a damn thing about foreign policy.
Because, unlike Trump, not one of these Democrats
has congratulated the country of Nambia
on their health care system, all right?
And maybe that's because there is no country called Nambia,
but that's not the point.
The point is not one of you can find it on a map!
(laughter)
Now, since the debate was in Ohio,
the moderators also spent time
focusing on the opioid epidemic
which has ravaged the Buckeye State.
And the candidates had different thoughts on the problem
but many of them agreed on who should help solve it.
Let's go after these pharmaceutical companies
for what they've been doing to destroy our country.
They are nothing more than some high-level dope dealers.
Until we hold those responsible, accountable for their actions--
Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson,
we're gonna continue to have this problem.
The people that should pay for this,
that should pay for the treatment,
are the very people that got people hooked
and killed them in the first place,
and that is the people
that are manufacturing these opioids.
Yeah. Yeah.
I 100% agree with Klobuchar.
Drug companies should have to pay to rehabilitate
all the people that they got addicted,
oftentimes on purpose.
And you know what? It shouldn't just be drug companies.
Every industry-- If you create something addictive,
you should be responsible for making it harder to consume.
Like Oreos.
If they're gonna make those cookies so goddamn addictive,
the least they could do is after, like,
every fourth cookie, put a mousetrap inside.
Bam! Slows the addiction down.
"Ow. I'll try again tomorrow."
Yeah. Or, like, Pornhub.
Pornhub-- every hour that you're on there,
they should randomly pop up a picture of your grandmother.
Just, you'll be like, "Ah! I guess I'm done.
Hi, Nana."
But the elephant in the room the whole night
was Bernie's heart attack.
And eventually, the moderators got around to asking about it
in a very, very awkward way.
There is a question on a lot of people's minds
and I want to address it tonight.
You're 78 years old and you just had a heart attack.
How do you reassure Democratic voters
that you're up to the stress of the presidency?
If you're elected you will turn 80 during your first term.
Last month former President Jimmy Carter said
he could not have undertaken the duties
of the presidency at 80 years old.
Why are you so sure that you can?
If you win the presidency,
you would be the oldest president
ever inaugurated in a first term.
You would be 71.
Congressman Gabbard, you're 38 years old,
and you would be the youngest president if elected.
Should age matter when choosing a president?
Okay. Okay. Is it just me
or did the moderators ask everyone about their health
just to hide the awkwardness of them asking Bernie?
Right? 'Cause they were like, "Bernie, heart attack."
Then they're like, "But everyone. Everyone. Everyone."
I even, like, get the part
about asking people about being too old,
but asking Tulsi Gabbard about being too young?
Is that really a concern?
"Tulsi, uh, are you too fit
"and vibrant for the presidency?
Is it possible you might die of young age?"
And that-And that wasn't the weirdest part of the night.
The weirdest part of the night might have been
when Kamala Harris started a real life Twitter beef.
Senator Warren, I just want to say that I was surprised
to hear that you did not agree with me
that on this subject of what should be the rules
around corporate responsibility for these big tech companies,
when I called on Twitter to suspend
Donald Trump's account,
that you did not agree.
And I would, I would urge you to join me.
Twitter should be held accountable
and shut down that site.
It is a matter of safety and corporate accountability.
LACEY: Thank you. Senator Warren, you can respond.
So, look, I don't just want
to push Donald Trump off Twitter.
I want to push him out of the White House.
-That's our job. But the way... -But join me...
-But the... -Join me in saying that his Twitter account
-should be shut down. -But let's figure... No.
-Let's figure out... -No?
(laughs) Wow.
Someone's mad they didn't get a retweet.
What happened there?
It's just like, "You didn't...
you didn't say the thing with me."
Elizabeth's like, "No, I don't care about that."
I... And I'll be honest. I'll be honest.
I kind of understand Warren's point here.
Like, we need Trump on Twitter.
It's the only way we can monitor what he's up to.
Yeah, otherwise, he's doing that shit in secret.
You got to think of Twitter like a presidential baby monitor.
That's what you got to think of it as. Yeah.
The whole time you're looking, you're like, "Hold on, hold on.
"He's awake, and he wants to nuke a hurricane.
I got to go. I got to go. I got to go."
(laughter)
But Harris, Harris wasn't the only one
picking a fight with Elizabeth Warren tonight.
No, in fact, as the evening went on,
the attacks on Elizabeth Warren only grew more intense.
I want to give a reality check here to Elizabeth,
because no one on this stage wants to protect billionaires.
Not even the billionaire wants to protect billionaires.
Uh, we just have different approaches.
Senator Warren is more focused on being punitive
or pitting some part of the country
against the other.
Your signature, Senator, is to have a plan for everything--
except this.
I appreciate Elizabeth's work,
but, again, the difference between a plan and a pipe dream
is something that you can actually get done.
Damn. Elizabeth Warren might have an even bigger target
on her back now than Joe Biden, and it makes sense.
I mean, she's risen to the top of the polls,
and now her competitors have their sights set on her.
And that, really, was the big takeaway of tonight,
is that they're coming for you, Elizabeth,
and all I can say is I hope you got a plan for that.