Top Democratic presidential contenders launched repeated attacks on President Donald Trump during a debate on Thursday, but for a second consecutive night there was sharp disagreement over the best way to boost access to healthcare insurance coverage.
Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders trained their sights on Trump immediately as the second night of Democratic debates began.
“The American people understand that Trump is a phony, that Trump is a pathological liar and a racist and that he lied to the American people during his campaign,” said Sanders, a U.S. senator running second to Biden in opinion polls among Democrats vying to challenge the Republican president in the November 2020 election.
Biden, the former vice president making his third run for the White House, said Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy and other economic policies were increasing economic inequality in the United States.
“Donald Trump has put us in a horrible situation. We do have enormous income inequality,” Biden said. “The one thing I agree on is we can make massive cuts in the $1.6 trillion in tax loopholes out there, and I would be going about eliminating Donald Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy.”
Sanders and Biden shared the stage with eight other Democrats, including two other top-tier candidates: Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California.
The debate also included U.S. Senators Michael Bennet and Kirsten Gillibrand, former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell, self-help guru Marianne Williamson and entrepreneur Andrew Yang. All six are polling nationally around 1% or less.
But like the Democrats who debated on Wednesday, the contenders disagreed on the best way to expand healthcare coverage. Asked who would back a plan that eliminated private insurance, only Sanders and Harris raised their hands.
