11:00 p.m. ET
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg stood by his plan to make some colleges free for most Americans, but not the richest ones.
Asked why he’d block out rich people from free college when they can access public libraries and other public services, Buttigieg said during the debate on Tuesday night: “It’s simple. We expect and hope for everyone to get through 12th grade. It’s not the same for college.”
“I don’t want cost ever to be a barrier to somebody seeking to attend college, and under my plan, it won’t be. Matter of fact, for the first 80 percent of Americans by income, it is free—at public colleges. But if you’re in that top income bracket, don’t get me wrong, I still wish you well, I hope you succeed when you go to college—I just need you to go ahead and pay that tuition,” he added.
10:20 p.m. ET
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he doesn’t support the U.S.–Mexico–Canada trade agreement because it doesn’t address climate change.
“We could do much better than a Trump–led trade deal. This deal, and I think the proponents of it would acknowledge, will result in the continuation of the loss of hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs as a result of outsourcing,” he said during the Democratic presidential debate in Iowa on Jan. 14.
He said that workers lost jobs because they were forced to compete with workers in Mexico, China, and other countries.
10:00 p.m. ET
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) disputed Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) claim that he told her last year that a woman couldn’t become president.
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t say it,” Sanders said at the Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday night.
“Anybody knows me knows it is incomprehensible that I wouldn’t think that a woman could be president of the United States,” he continued, referencing a video circulating this week showing him decades ago saying a woman should be president.
“Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by three million votes. How could anybody in a million years not believe that a woman could become president of the United States?” Sanders wondered, adding that he “deferred” to Warren in 2015 and only ran after she decided not to. He said that he would support any woman who wins the nomination.
Warren said that Sanders did tell her that a woman couldn’t win the election.
“I disagreed” at the time,” Warren said of the December 2018 meeting. “Bernie is my friend, and I am not here to try to fight with Bernie. But, look, this question of whether or not a woman can be president has been raised, and it’s time to address it head-on.”
She said that the men on the debate stage collectively “lost 10 elections.”
9:45 p.m. ET
Former Vice President said that it was a “mistake” to trust the President George W. Bush administration on whether they were going to war with Iraq.
Biden, 77, was a senator and Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2002 when he voted in favor of a resolution that authorized Bush to use military force against Iraq. Speaking to lawmakers before the vote, Biden said that “failure to overwhelmingly support” the resolution was “likely to enhance the prospects that war will occur.”
He voiced support for the invasion of Iraq for years until saying, for the first time in 2005, that the vote was “a mistake.”
Asked about the situation during the Democratic presidential debate on Jan. 14, Biden said: “It was a mistake to trust they weren’t going to war. They said they weren’t going to war.”
After the war started, Biden said, “I was in a position of making the case that it was a big, big mistake.”
9:30 p.m. ET
Pressed on what they’d do with Iran if elected president, Democratic candidates said on Tuesday night that they wouldn’t let the Middle Eastern country get a nuclear weapon.
Republican President Donald Trump told America recently following strikes against Iraqi bases by Iran that he would pursue peace.
But he also said: “As long as I am President of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said during the Democratic presidential debate in Iowa that she would work on negotiating a new agreement or a reworked agreement following Trump’s exit from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran—also commonly referred to as the Iran nuclear deal.
“I would not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. You have to have a president that sees this as a number one goal,” she said.
She said she would like to see changes to the deal, which still exists as other countries involved, such as France and China, haven’t exited it. Some changes include a “better sunset”—parts of the deal are slated to end in the coming years—and better enforcement, Klobuchar said.
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg also said he wouldn’t let Iran get a nuclear weapon.
“Our security depends on ensuring Iran does not become nuclear,” Buttigieg said. “Ensuring that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons will, of course, be a priority, because it’s such an important part of keeping America safe,” he said.
Former Vice President Joe Biden noted that he was in office when the nuclear deal was reached, adding: “It was working. And look what’s happened. We’re now isolated. We’re in a situation where our allies in Europe are making a comparison between the United States and Iran, saying both have to stand down.”
“The next president has to be able to pull those folks back together, re-establish our alliances, and insist that Iran go back into the agreement,” he added.
Epoch Times reporter Zachary Stieber contributed to this report
