20 February 2020 - Democratic debate: Bloomberg’s credibility on the wane
'Cause of death: Elizabeth Warren': Democratic debate's brutality delights viewers
Max Benwell (The Guardian, 20/02/2020)
It only took nine debates and eight months, but the Democratic candidates for president have finally taken their gloves off and gone for each other. And – with the likely exception of Mike Bloomberg’s supporters – it seems that most viewers have been delighted.
From the very start of the Las Vegas debate, the tone for the night was set. It all kicked off when Elizabeth Warren branded Michael Bloomberg a “billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians” in her first answer.
Bloomberg was then attacked from all sides over his problematic legacy as mayor and history of unsettling remarks about women.
What happened in Vegas? Who won, who lost and takeaways from the Democratic debate
Politico staff (Politico, 20/02/2020)
It took less than five minutes for Elizabeth Warren to set the tone for the Democratic debate.
She leapt into the middle of a Bernie Sanders-Michael Bloomberg tiff over electability to denounce Bloomberg’s treatment of women, stirring waves of applause in the debate hall — and setting off a rollicking two hours when the Democratic presidential candidates finally said what they really think about each other.
Bloomberg took the brunt of the fire after spending his way onto the debate stage for the first time, but everyone had to take their turn playing offense and defense. Warren critiqued every other candidate’s health care plan in a single answer, injecting a rush of new energy into her campaign. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar continued a running battle that has built over several debates, while Biden lit into Bloomberg over Obamacare and Sanders faced questions about his policy disagreements with a powerful Nevada labor union.
Bloomberg’s Debate Downer
Gail Collins (The New York Times, 19/02/2020)
Well, money can’t buy everything.
Michael Bloomberg, star of a trillion TV ads, made his big debut at the Democratic debate and basically closed on opening night. In his chance to introduce himself as something warmer than a stone-faced billionaire, he looked pretty much like … a stone-faced billionaire.
“I’m the only one here I think that’s ever started a business. Is that fair? OK,” he said irritability during one of the many arguments that turned into an attack on the new kid in town.
Bernie Sanders argued that having as much money as Bloomberg was “immoral.” In return, Bloomberg compared democratic socialism to communism.
Facing Improbable Odds in Nevada, Elizabeth Warren Goes on the Attack Against Mike Bloomberg
Ryan Grim, Akela Lacy and Aída Chávez (The Intercept, 20/02/2020)
Elizabeth Warren rose to stardom slaying villains. The first time she was widely noticed on the national stage came with a gavel in her hand, as she pounded then-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner for his mishandling of the Wall Street bailout. Elected to the Senate in 2012, she quickly transformed her perch on the sleepy Banking Committee into a public studio that regularly produced viral videos of her slicing hapless banking regulators and Wall Street executives to pieces. And her damning interrogation of Wells Fargo CEO Timothy Sloan was widely credited as leading to his “resignation.”
That combative spirit fueled a draft-Warren campaign for president, which she resisted in 2016. But in the 2020 cycle, she largely sheathed her knife until the Democratic debate, foiled by the muddled intra-party politics of a primary in which there was no obvious villain who could match a Geithner or Sloan.