Democratic White House hopefuls on Tuesday rounded on the party’s leftist frontrunner, US Senator Bernie Sanders, during a feisty debate, attacking him as too extreme for US voters and a flawed challenger to US President Donald Trump.
Former US vice president Joe Biden, who needs a victory in South Carolina’s crucial primary on Saturday to keep his campaign alive, hit Sanders as soft on gun control, while billionaire former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg claimed Russia was working to help Sanders win the nomination — betting he would be defeated in November.
Sanders’ rivals joined forces in savaging the self-described democratic socialist as too radical to appeal to a broad swathe of Americans.
Photo: AFP
US Senator Elizabeth Warren, former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg and US Senator Amy Klobuchar, all desperate to halt Sanders’ momentum before it is too late, laid into his ability to deliver on costly programs such as universal health care and tuition-free college.
Buttigieg, a 38-year-old military veteran presenting himself as a unifier, warned a Sanders fight against Trump would spell “chaos” and divide the nation.
“I tell you what it adds up to. It ends up as four more years of Donald Trump,” Buttigieg said.
Sanders is in pole position in South Carolina, the last step before Super Tuesday next week when 14 states vote and a whopping one-third of all delegates — the representatives who pick the nominee at the Democratic Party’s July convention — are up for grabs.
The 78-year-old hit back at the charge his policies were too “radical,” insisting such ideas “exist in countries all over the world,” including the notion that health care is a human right.
“The way we beat Trump, which is what everybody up here wants, is we need a campaign of energy and excitement,” Sanders said. “We need to bring working people back into the Democratic Party.”
Talking over one another in often contentious exchanges, the seven candidates aggressively vied for attention, locking horns on everything from housing to China policy, and whether to move the US embassy from Jerusalem back to Tel Aviv.
Seeking to prove he is still in the fight, Biden put in a spirited performance and snapped back at moderators who tried to cut him off, telling them: “I’m not going to be quiet anymore, OK?”
He aimed a sharp attack at Sanders over gun control, an issue largely absent from previous debates, and a significant weakness for the Vermont senator who voted against legislation that would have allowed lawsuits against gun manufacturers.
Bloomberg sought to cast a Sanders nomination as a sure path to losing.
“[Russian President] Vladimir Putin thinks that Donald Trump should be president of the United States, and that’s why Russia is helping you get elected so you’ll lose to him,” he told Sanders in a heated opening exchange.
Sanders had emerged largely unscathed from the previous debate, but he acknowledged he was in the firing line, with rivals seeking to derail his push for the nomination following two straight victories, in New Hampshire and then Nevada.
“I’m hearing my name mentioned a little bit tonight,” he said to laughter. “I wonder why.”
SEPARATE: The MAC rebutted Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is China’s province, asserting that UN Resolution 2758 neither mentions Taiwan nor grants the PRC authority over it The “status quo” of democratic Taiwan and autocratic China not belonging to each other has long been recognized by the international community, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday in its rebuttal of Beijing’s claim that Taiwan can only be represented in the UN as “Taiwan, Province of China.” Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday at a news conference of the third session at the 14th National People’s Congress said that Taiwan can only be referred to as “Taiwan, Province of China” at the UN. Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, which is not only history but
CROSSED A LINE: While entertainers working in China have made pro-China statements before, this time it seriously affected the nation’s security and interests, a source said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) late on Saturday night condemned the comments of Taiwanese entertainers who reposted Chinese statements denigrating Taiwan’s sovereignty. The nation’s cross-strait affairs authority issued the statement after several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑), Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜) and Michelle Chen (陳妍希), on Friday and Saturday shared on their respective Sina Weibo (微博) accounts a post by state broadcaster China Central Television. The post showed an image of a map of Taiwan along with the five stars of the Chinese flag, and the message: “Taiwan is never a country. It never was and never will be.” The post followed remarks
INVESTMENT WATCH: The US activity would not affect the firm’s investment in Taiwan, where 11 production lines would likely be completed this year, C.C. Wei said Investments by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in the US should not be a cause for concern, but rather seen as the moment that the company and Taiwan stepped into the global spotlight, President William Lai (賴清德) told a news conference at the Presidential Office in Taipei yesterday alongside TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家). Wei and US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday announced plans to invest US$100 billion in the US to build three advanced foundries, two packaging plants, and a research and development center, after Trump threatened to slap tariffs on chips made
CONSISTENT COMMITMENT: The American Institute in Taiwan director said that the US would expand investment and trade relationships to make both nations more prosperous The US would not abandon its commitment to Taiwan, and would make Taiwan safer, stronger and more prosperous, American Institute in Taiwan Director Raymond Greene said. “The US’ commitment to Taiwan has been consistent over many administrations and over many years, and we will not abandon our commitment to Taiwan, including our opposition to any attempt to use force or coercion to change Taiwan’s status,” he said in an exclusive interview with the Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) on Friday last week, which was published in the Chinese-language newspaper yesterday. The US would double down on its efforts
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