Democrat presidential candidates clash over funding and age at latest debate

Candidates have clashed over funding and age at the latest Democrat presidential debate in Los Angeles.

Elizabeth Warren attacked Pete Buttigieg for holding closed-door fundraising events where he spent time “with millionaires or billionaires” and, in return, he accused Warren of issuing “purity tests” she could not live up to.

Joining the pair on stage were five other candidates: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobahcar, Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer.

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Much of the debate was “fairly staid”, CNN says and according to The Guardian “there was no clear ‘winner,” but Klobuchar “will probably be praised for her performance, and Biden’s supporters will breathe a sigh of relief to see him putting moderately intelligible sentences together”.

The recent impeachment of Donald Trump was raised during the discussion, with Sanders calling the president a “pathological liar” who is “running the most corrupt administration in the modern history of this country”.

However, Yang said: “We have to stop being obsessed over impeachment, which unfortunately strikes many Americans like a ball game where you know what the score is going to be, and start actually digging in and solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place.”

Age was also a topic of discussion. Asked about recent comments by Barack Obama that there would be fewer problems in the world if there were more women leaders and fewer “old men”, Biden joked: “I’m going to guess he wasn’t talking about me either.”

The Independent says the seniors on stage - Biden and Sanders - enjoyed “steady evenings”. When Warren was told that she would be the “oldest president ever inaugurated” if elected, she responded: “I’d also be the youngest woman ever inaugurated.”

The latest CNN poll put Biden as the frontrunner on 26 points, followed by Sanders on 20, Warren on 16, Buttigieg on eight, and Michael Bloomberg on five.

The next Democratic debate will be held on Tuesday, January 14, 2020, at Drake University in Des Moines.

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