Hello everyone!
This took a lot longer than I thought it would and I'm sorry about the wait. The document is kind of long and I thought about shortening it but I didn't want to leave out any of the issues that the candidates talked about on the debate stage.
I also include my personal opinion on each of the candidates so that is another reason why this document is longer than it should be.
This is my first time writing something like this so I'm using this as practice and to look and see on where I need to improve.
Enjoy reading!
On July 31, 2019, it was part two of the Democrat presidential debate. I was not able to get any information regarding the first part of the debate from Tuesday night because I was at work. The presidential candidates that were up on the debate stage last night were former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Kamala Harris from California, Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, Representative Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii, Senator Kirsten Gillibrad from New York, Governor Jay Inslee from Washington, Senator Michael Bennett from Colorado, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City.
The first person that I am going to discuss is former VP Joe Biden. Before we get into his platform, he got a lot of talking time last night due to having to constantly respond and defend himself against the other candidates who brought up legislation that happened while Obama was in office along with legislation that he supported in the past. It seems that Biden was expecting that from some of his opponents because he had some great responses. One of the responses he made was to de Blasio about Obamacare. Biden stated that Obamacare is working and that we need to build on Obamacare. He also said that we need to go back into Obamacare and put in all of the things that Trump took away while he has been in office. Biden also made a couple of good points when discussing how he would handle immigration along with the responses he made to the other candidates, such as Castro and Booker. If he were to be elected, Biden said that deportation rates will not rise and that people are entitled to seek asylum and that if they do, it doesn’t mean that they’re crossing the border illegally. However, if you do cross the border illegally, he believes that you should be sent back. On his response to Castro, he said that it’s illegal for people to cross the border and that the only way it’s not illegal is if they’re seeking asylum. And the part of the law that Castro constantly brings up due to immigration is being abused by Donald Trump’s administration which should give us more of a reason to defeat him and not allow him to get reelected. As for his response to Booker, he wants to increase the amount of immigrants that are able to come to this country because immigrants are what helped build this country so we need to allow them to come here since they have always benefited us.
Another key issue that Biden hit on was climate change. Biden said that he would immediately rejoin the Paris Climate accord and he would bring in the leaders of the other countries together and talk about raising the standard in order to deal with the issues that we’re facing due to climate change. One of the first steps in doing that is to invest $400 billion dollars into this issue that we’re facing. The Trans-Pacific Partnership was also one of the topics brought up to the candidates and Biden said we’ll need to renegotiate with China and that while we’re renegotiating with them, we need to have environmentalists there. The rest of the world also has to join in or else China will write their own rules. We won’t rejoin as it is right now and that we need to hold China accountable for how they’re conducting trade.
One of the most controversial things that Biden supported was the Iraq war and he was receiving backlash for it before the debate and during the debate. During the debate, he admitted that he made a bad judgment call and that when he realized he made a bad decision on it, he became very outspoken about why he opposed it. When Obama was president, he told Biden that he wants to bring our troops home and Biden admits that was one of his proudest moments. He also stated that we should have never gone into Afghanistan and that bringing our troops home from there has been long overdue.
Personal opinion: Former Vice President Joe Biden is one of the three candidates that I support. I personally believe that he is the most capable person to defeat Donald Trump from being reelected and will gain a lot of support from the Democratic party as the race continues. If he were to be the presidential nominee, I believe that Booker or Castro would make a great VP.
The second presidential candidate that I am going to discuss is Senator Kamala Harris. One of the first issues that were presented to her was healthcare. She said that her plan will be a 10 year transition instead of 4, babies will be born into her plan, and that under her plan she’ll make sure that everyone has healthcare. Harris believes that access to healthcare is a right and not just a privilege to those who can afford it. Biden commented on her plan during the debate and said that her healthcare plan will actually increase the copays on the middle class. On the topic regarding immigration and border control, Kamala said that they wouldn’t allow members from Congress into the detention centers which are being paid for by the American taxpayers. So, she got a ladder and climbed up to see what was going on in the detention centers and she said that she saw kids laying down on the ground and that the conditions were awful. When discussing climate change, she said that she would rather have any Democrat on that stage than the current President and that they need to rejoin the Paris agreement.
On beating president Trump, she stated the Trump has made a lot of promises that he couldn’t keep and that he betrayed the American people and their families. Trump beats people down instead of bringing them up. In addition to this, she also talked about the obstruction of justice on Trump during the 2016 election. Harris said that we’ve all watched the testimony and that it made it clear that there are 10 counts of obstruction of justice that Trump committed during the previous election. She also said that the American people are right that there are consequences and that no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States.
Harris touched a little on the pay gap and said that she’ll make corporations post on their website if they’re paying women equally and that if they aren’t paying them equally, they’ll be fined 1% of their previous year profits.
Personal opinion: I personally don’t like her at all and I believe that her record disproves that she’s the best person to lead our country. She couldn’t properly defend herself when the other candidates pointed out her record on criminal justice reform along with why some of her plans won’t benefit the American people. In my opinion, she exaggerates a lot of the things that she said she has done on issues that are a hot topic in our country and doesn’t stick to the whole truth about what she has done about them. We don’t need another liar in the oval office.
The third presidential candidate that I am now going to talk about is Senator Cory Booker. In the beginning, he was interrupted by people from the audience and the moderators asked him to hold on speaking until the people were removed from the building. Like the other candidates, he talked about healthcare. Booker believes that the Democrats need to stand together on the belief that everyone in this country deserves to have healthcare and that they need to come together to fix the broken system. They need to work on Medicare For All so it can get them to that point and they need to stop putting the Democrats against one another. On immigration, Cory said that it’s illegal to cross the border without proper documents and that Trump is violating human rights for people who are crossing the border legally. There are even some who are being denied asylum even though they have the right to. If there are people who have no justifiable reason to be here, they need to be returned.
For climate change, Booker said, “Climate change isn’t a separate issue,” and that the only way that we’re going to deal with climate change is if the US leads. He was asked about voter suppression and he said that the Russians and Republicans purposely targeted the African American voters. The most vital voting group in our country are African American women and that we need to fight against this. Foreign policy is such a big topic in our country and Booker is one of the few candidates who talked about it on the debate stage. He said that he will not tweet out his agenda like Trump has been doing since he has been in office and that he will ensure that he will pull our troops out of Afghanistan. He will also prevent any terrorists from attacking us. For obstruction of justice charges against Trump, he said that we need to start the impeachment proceedings immediately and that we need to use the checks and balances.
Personal opinion: Senator Booker is one of the candidates that I support on being the next POTUS. I believe that he is one of the few people that can bring the change that we need in our country and will bring solutions to issues that Republicans will not discuss or try to fix because of the money that is filling their pockets on those particular issues. I have donated to his campaign a couple of times and if saving money for school wasn’t an issue right now, I would donate more money to his campaign. He’s also (from what I know) the only candidate that visited my campus after the shooting and talked with some of the staff and students. It was great to see that there is someone in the race that is truly passionate about trying to fix this issue and I know there are others in this race who are also passionate about fixing this. And the only way it’s going to be done is if they unite together.
The fourth presidential candidate that is going to be discussed is Andrew Yang He’s an entrepreneur and had the funniest one-liner during the debate about doing the opposite of Trum and have Asians who like math. He also mentioned during his opening statement that Amazon pays $0 in taxes. A quick side note but for a company to be making that millions upon millions of dollars and pay absolutely nothing in taxes completely blows my mind.
Yang talked about healthcare and said that it makes it harder to switch jobs, hire, and start businesses because of it. Healthcare needs to be out of business and businesses shouldn’t be in the distribution of healthcare. On immigration, he stated that the immigrants that are coming into our country are being scapegoated on parts for which they have nothing to do with our economy. We need to talk about the positive immigration stories and not always focus on the distressed ones. For criminal justice reform, he had a very interesting quote on it that I took a note of and it was “We should pay people to stay out of jail because we spend so much keeping them in jail.”
When discussing the racial divide in our country, he said that we’re currently in the midst of the greatest economic transformation in our country and that people of color suffer the most during natural disasters. On the issue of climate change, with where we are at today, he said that we need to do everything we can to move climate change into the right direction. And as for beating Trump, he wants to make a coalition of Democrats, Libertarians, Conservatives, and Independents in order to achieve this goal. As for the topic on pay gap, Yang says that start up businesses struggle the most on fixing this issue and that he wants to give women a leg up when it comes to this. His solution for this is to put $1000 a month into their hands because women do more of the unrecognized and uncompensated work in this country.
The last issue that he discussed on the debate stage was the Iran nuclear deal. Yang stated that we need to de-escalate in the area around Iran and in Iran. We also need to renegotiate the timeline on this deal because it doesn’t make much sense with where it’s currently at. Also, the US needs to invest in resources to solve the problem at home. We’ve been at a constant state of war for the past 18 years and this isn’t what the American people want and we need to do what we can to fix this.
Personal opinion: Andrew Yang is definitely one of the smartest guys out of all of the presidential candidates and his solutions to issues are very realistic since it’s coming from a business mindset that can be applied. It may take some more persuasion from the opposing side but it can work with the plans that he is talking about. I don’t believe that he has enough momentum to continue on in the race and become the next POTUS but I hope that whoever does become President puts him in their cabinet because he would be a good person to have around in thinking of solutions that need to be fixed within our country, especially when it comes to healthcare and the pay gap.
We’re officially halfway through this review which means that the fifth presidential candidate that I am going to discuss is former Secretary of HUD Julian Castro. Castro wants to strengthen Medicare and he doesn’t believe in the profit motive behind big pharma and insurance companies. From what I saw on the debate stage, he was the only candidate that talked about repeal Section 13 25 as the only way to guarantee that we won’t have family separation amongst the immigrant families. He also talked about putting the undocumented immigrants on the path of citizenship if they haven’t committed any seroius crimes. The other thing he discussed about immigration is that he wants to find a way to help those people in their home countries before coming to the United States. When responding to Biden about it, he said that he wants to fix the legal immigration process and that there will still be consequences for those who illegally cross the border.
Julian was one of the few candidates who was given the topic on racial divide and what he’ll do to fix it. On that issue, he said that he would invest in tremendous educational opportunities and make the education system better along with investing in housing that’s affordable. Castro also mentioned that he was one of the first people to call for Trump being impeached and that we should go forward with the impeachment process. The president of the United States shouldn’t direct the Attorney General to prosecute or not prosecute and that we’re likely going to see a prosecution of Trump.
Personal opinion: He is the third candidate that I like and I believe that he has a platform that a lot of people could get behind. He has experience working under Obama and has developed solutions that were needed to fix problems when he was Secretary of HUD. I think it’s also good to see that there’s a Hispanic running for President and he’s made it so far. Hispanics have been constantly targeted during the Trump administration, whether it be by the President or his supporters. If he doesn’t become the presidential nominee for the Democratic party, I would hope that one of the other candidates would put him in their cabinet due to his experience.
Now, for this candidate, she really turned heads on her responses to Senator Harris. Tulsi Gabbard, who was a major in the Army National Guard, said that Harris kept people in prison to use them for cheap labor within California’s prison system. She also said that Harris blocked evidence that would’ve freed innocent people. She’s passionate about helping minorities and wants to make it easier for people to seek asylum in this country and reform the laws when it comes to this issue. On beating president Trump, she spoke on what a lot of people don’t want to mention. One of the reasons why Trump won the election was that there were people in this country who felt like they were left behind by people who cared more about politics than those people.
With her experience serving our country, Tulsi wants to end the war in Afghanistan since we've been spending so much money there for the past eighteen years and invest that money in the resources that we need back home. Her plan also involves bringing the troops home from Afghanistan within the first year. There have been so many consequences and has cost so much for the soldiers than their families when they have been sent over to Afghanistan to fight a war that should have ended a long time ago. As for maintaining competitive against China on world trade, Gabbard isn’t going to give away American jobs or make deals that would harm the environment. Her plan also involves making fair deals with other countries but she wouldn’t keep the tariffs on China.
Personal opinion: I like her but not enough to throw my support behind her. I believe that she’s a woman who is capable of many things and she has proven that during the debates but she doesn’t have the momentum to make it far in the race. She did get a lot of praise for bringing up Harris’s record on criminal justice reform but that is the only thing people really remember about her from the debate.
The seventh candidate is Senator Kirsten Gillibrand from New York. She’s one of the candidates who had a clever one liner which was: “I’m going to Clorox the Oval Office.” I will admit that the comment made me laugh as I was watching the debates but her platform needs to prove that she is capable of doing that. While in New York, she worked with gay couples to gain basic rights. She also met with immigrants who were coming to the states to flee the gangs and violence that were in their country to live a better life. In her opinion, those people should be given a civil violation for crossing the border illegally if they’re coming here for those reasons.
And as a woman with white privilege, she wants to take advantage of that and speak to the Trump supporters along with other white people about what prevents their kids from being shot in comparison to black kids. This is an issue that needs to be explained to their communities all across America that is all of our responsibilities and we must come together to fix this racial divide. In America, healthcare should be a right and that’s exactly what Senator Gillibrand talked about on the debate stage. She mentioned that they are companies that are for-profit and need to hit quarterly profits so they’re constantly jacking up the prices.
There are people in our country that can’t afford epipens which are essential for them being able to live but the companies in the health industry raise the prices so much that it makes it impossible for them. This causes those people to go to the black market to get those epipens for a cheaper price even though it’s illegal.
Personal opinion: Personally, I really don’t like her and I truly don’t believe she has what it takes to beat Trump. Even though I have those thoughts about her, she did make some valid points on the debate stage that everybody should take into consideration.
Next up is Governor Jay Inslee of Washington. He believes that defeating the climate crisis has to be our top priority. He wants there to be 100% clean energy and bring union jobs back to America. While speaking on the climate change issue, we have to act now and it’s not a singular issue that people are making it out to be. It’s an issue that is affecting our health and national security is.
When talking about solutions to the issues that were brought up to candidates, he mentioned what has been done in his state to prove that he is the man capable of the job. For example, on healthcare, his state was the first to offer publicly sanctioned healthcare to their citizens. It was also the first state to take care of their senior citizens and to put them first. Even still, he says that we need to give people adequate mental healthcare in our country. On the pay gap, he won the largest pay increase for the educators in his state. While speaking about that, he stated that women have almost always been underpaid.
On immigration, we have to allow America to be a place of refuge for those that are seeking it. Governor Inslee was the first governor to sue President Trump on the Muslim ban and when he was mayor, he sued the president 21 times and won every single time.
Personal opinion: I thought he was an interesting candidate during the first democratic debate but during this one, he really didn’t have my attention. My first thought when I saw him on the debate stage with his glasses on July 31st was, “He’s trying to appeal to the voters with his appearance even if what he says doesn’t make them like him.” He’s another candidate that I don’t like and who I don’t believe will make it to the fall debate.
The second to last candidate is a Senator Michael Bennett from Colorado. He also said something that was directed at the president. “Mr. Trump, kids belong in classrooms not cages and they deserve something better than a bully in the White House.” He also agrees with the other candidates that we need to give citizenship to the immigrants who are coming here legally and that we can’t keep separating parents from their children. And again, just like so many of the other candidates, he spoke on impeaching the current President. He doesn’t want it to end in an acquittal by McConnell and for the president to use that saying that he has been acquitted of obstruction of justice.
Bennett says that when it comes to trading, we need to invest in our country first. We have spent $5.6 trillion dollars since we’ve been involved in the middle east. That money could have been used in America and hasn’t been making any progress with foreign policy in the middle east. The money could have been used to fix roads and bridges in our country, could have fixed every airport that needs to be fixed, could have fixed Flint, and could also have fixed Social Security that can be used for his kids and their kids.
Personal opinion: He isn’t the strongest candidate on the stage and defended himself poorly against the others. He also had some good one-liners throughout the night but nobody is speaking about it because he isn’t a memorable candidate. I highly doubt that he is going to continue on to the fall debate and if he does, I will be really shocked.
The final presidential candidate that is going to be discussed is Bill de Blasio. He was a former campaign manager for Hillary Clinton in 2004. In his state, he has raised minimum wage to $15 an hour. Blasio mentioned that over the years, the rich have gotten richer and have paid less in taxes. He believes in having comprehensive immigration reform and wants the insurance and healthcare companies to cover mental health costs. Along those lines, the union workers and families from the middle class said to him that they want better insurance. As for criminal justice reform, he stated that he will not allow another Eric Garner to happen.
In New York, there have been housing issues and he discussed about it on the debate stage. He declared the eradication of all lead in housing which got rid of the spread of lead poisoning. Because of that, lead poisoning has gone down 90% since 2005. We need to take out lead in all public places across the country. The families and their children need to be kept safe in where they choose to live and not have to worry about this happening to them.
Personal opinion: I think that he has the best intentions with his platform but he will not win enough votes in 2020 if we he were to be the presidential nominee for the Democratic Party. He is too cautious around issues that people from his party are pushing which will cause them to disassociate themselves from him and not throw their support behind him if he were to become the nominee. To me, he reminds me too much of Kamala Harris and I really don’t like her. Also, I don’t believe in raising minimum wage due to how it affects small businesses along with inflation.
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