
SECOND DEMOCRATIC DEBATE LINE UP - NIGHT TWO From left of screen Michael Bennet Kirsten Gillibrand Julian Castro Cory Booker Joe Biden Kamala Harris Andrew Yang Tulsi Gabbard Jay Inslee Bill de Blasio Advertisement

Liberals hammered moderates and centrists swung at left-wingers on Wednesday, as Democrats debating on America's biggest political stage exchanged unfriendly fire that left White House hopefuls battered and bruised.

The hotly anticipated clashes between former Vice President Joe Biden and California Senator Kamala Harris materialized, but so did smackdowns and clap-backs involving more than half of the 10 presidential contenders on stage who got high-profile summertime close-ups.

Healthcare, criminal justice reform, trade policy, gender equality and other hot buttons drew fire to the front-runner and the rival who famously flogged him a month ago over racial desegregation and forced busing.

The second collection of would-be presidents spent more than two hours stripping the bark off of each other with so much energy that attacking President Donald Trump was a relative afterthought.

Along the way a pair of boisterous protests about illegal immigrant deportations and the death of a black New Yorker at a police officer's hands were momentary distractions aimed at Biden and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. By night's end, the White House hopefuls themselves fired more potent salvos at each other.

The president tweeted as the dust settled that '[t]he people on the stage tonight, and last [night], were not those that will either Make America Great Again or Keep America Great.'

Biden sliced at New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker over policing and crime in Newark, New Jersey where he spent eight years as mayor. Booker blamed the former vice president for causing 'mass-incarceration' by backing a 1994 crime bill and other legislation as a senator.

The front-runner was ready, trashing Booker for embracing 'zero tolerance' law enforcement strategies and controversial 'stop-and-frisk' arrests.

The street-smart Booker grinned and glared at the patrician career politician. 'Mr. Vice President, there's a saying in my community,' he said. 'You're dipping into the Kool-aid and you don't even know the flavor. You need to come to the city of Newark and see the reforms that we put in place.'

'If you want to compare records – frankly, I'm shocked that you do – I'm happy to do that,' Booker added.

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand hit Biden with a gender card, claiming he had written in a 1981 op-ed that women who had jobs other than raising children at home would cause 'deterioration of family.'

Biden responded by citing the senator's praise for him as an equal-rights crusader in the past. 'I don't know what's happened, except you’re running for president,' he said.

Night two of the second Democratic debate, moderated by CNN, kicked off at 8pm Wednesday in Detroit, Michigan

From left to right are: Michael Bennet, Kirsten Gillibrand, Julian Castro, Cory Booker, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Inslee and Bill de Blasio

Taking the stage, Joe Biden greeted Kamala Harris - his biggest competitor - with a half-joking plea: 'Go easy on me, kid'

Advocates for an aggressive 'Medicare for All' healthcare system argued with opponents who want to build on the Affordable Care Act by adding a public-funding option that died in Congress when Obamacare was enacted.

Biden struck first at Harris, who has demanded the more liberal track, saying Americans won't vote for a plan that reduces their choices.

'You will lose your employer-based insurance,' he warned. 'You can't beat President Trump with double talk.'

With public polls showing most Americans want to be able to keep their private insurance, Biden said the Harris plan 'will require middle class taxes to go up, not down.'

And he hinted at the difficulty of implementing a stopgap while a new system is negotiated. 'What happens in the meantime?' he asked.

Harris insisted that 'for a Democrat to be running for president with a plan that does not cover everyone, I think, is without excuse.'

Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet warned that her one-size-fits-all plan 'bans employer-based insurance and taxes the middle class to the tune of $30 trillion.' She insisted cost concerns were a 'Republican talking point.'

'The Republicans are trying to kill Obamacare,' Biden protested. 'This idea is a bunch of malarkey that we're talking about here.'

Biden and Harris went head-to-head on healthcare early when the former VP attacked the California senator's healthcare plan

Biden came prepared to spar with Harris, riffing on a mental opposition research file as he accused her of abusing minorities for eight years when she was California's attorney general.

Harris 'had a police department when she was there that in fact was abusing people's rights,' he claimed, keeping exculpatory information from criminal defense lawyers.

'She in fact was told by her own people, her own staff, that she should do something about [that]. ... She didn't do that. She never did it,' he said.

'And so what happened? Along came a federal judge and said, "Enough, enough." And he freed 1,000 of these people.'

Biden challenged voters to search '1,000 prisoners freed, Kamala Harris' on Google.

Harris shot back that she had received awards for criminal justice reform work.

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard piled on with complaints about Harris's record prosecuting low-level marijuana offenders, keeping convicts locked up beyond their sentences and denying justice to wrongly convicted death row inmates.

'In the case of those who are on death row – innocent people – you actually blocked evidence from being revealed that would have freed them, until you were forced to do so,' Gabbard charged.

'There is no excuse for that. And the people who suffered under your reign as prosecutor? You owe them an apology.'

Gabbard also insisted Harris 'fought to keep the cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way.' The resulting applause appeared to stun Harris.

The senator said she had opposed the death penalty for the entirety of her career, and that families of crime victims often criticized her for declining to seek capital punishment.

Booker watched the Democrat-on-Democrat dueling. 'The person who is enjoying this debate most right now is Donald Trump,' he said.

Eventually the president materialized as a presence hovering over the state of the Fox Theater, but mostly conjured forth by shopworn insults.

Trump, Biden said, 'is ripping at the social fabric of this country' daily and stands against the impacts and interests of nonwhite voters.

'Just look at this stage, made up of diverse people from diverse backgrounds,' he said.

'This is America,' he said, gesturing to a tableau of 10 candidates of whom half are minorities. 'And we are strong and great because of this diversity, Mr. President, not in spite of it. We love it. We are not leaving it. We are here to stay and we're certainly not going to leave it to you.'

Cory Booker's opening statement was interrupted by anti-de Blasio protesters chanting: 'Fire Pantaleo.' Daniel Pantaleo is the New York police officer whose street-corner struggle with Eric Garner resulted in the man's death

Another protester stood up with a banner that said: 'Stop all deportations on day one'

The woman is seen showing off her sign outside the debate arena after being removed for her outburst

Immigration protesters skewered the former vice president over Obama-era surges in deporting illegal immigrants, chanting, 'Three million deportations! Three million deportations!'

Despite his campaign rhetoric about walling off America's southern edge and stopping border-jumpers, President Trump hasn't matched that record. And Booker skewered Biden for refusing to renounce it.

'You invoke President Obama more than anybody in this campaign. You can't do it when it's convenient and dodge it when it's not,' he said, drawing blood.

A related issue flushed Trump out of the White House residence to tweet, showing that he was watching the drama unfold.

After three candidates complained about 'cages' used to house children brought to the U.S. by adults who crossed the border illegally, the president boomed that it was Obama's fault.

'The cages for kids were built by the Obama Administration in 2014. He had the policy of child separation. I ended it even as I realized that more families would then come to the Border!' Trump wrote.

Gabbard vented about seeing 'children at these detention facilities who have been separated from their parents, when we see human beings crowded into cages in abhorrent, inhumane conditions.'

Booker described seeing 'children sleeping on pavement, people being put in cages – nursing mothers, small children.'

Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet spoke to the White House's famed audience of one in his opening statement: 'Mr. President; kids belong in classrooms, not cages.'

Gabbard, a military veteran, had lectured the president about love for country.

'I know what patriotism is and I have known many great patriots throughout my life. And let me tell you this: Donald Trump is not behaving like a patriot,' she said.

Former housing and urban development secretary Julian Castro ripped Trump along the lines of his successful 2016 slogan, 'Make America Great Again.'

'I don't want to make American anything "again." I don't want to go backward,' Castro said.

Booker vented that Trump's attacks on minority lawmakers and the majority-black city of Baltimore, 'using the tired old language of demagogues, of fear mongers, of racists, to try and divide the country against itself.'

Andrew Yang elicited laughter when he declared himself the opposite of Donald Trump: 'An Asian man who likes math.' New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand got lots of laughter and applause when she said: 'The first thing I'm going to do when I am president is, I'm going to Clorox the Oval Office'

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who promotes a guaranteed minimum income as an economic imperative, quipped that 'the opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math.'

'The first thing I'm going to do when I am president is, I'm going to Clorox the Oval Office,' Gillibrand offered later.

One of CNN’s three debate moderators directly attacked the president on both debate nights. Don Lemon called him and his Twitter posts 'racist' on Wednesday, hours after Trump blasted him as 'the dumbest man on television' for doing the same thing a night earlier.

Lemon asked Bennet on Wednesday why he is 'the best candidate to heal the racial divide that exists in this country today, which has been stoked by the president's racist rhetoric.'

The CNN host also condemned 'the president's racist tweets attacking Baltimore' and the black congressman who represents it.

The president said he is 'the least racist person in the world' and needled CNN for its steadily sliding ratings.

Tuesday's debate included no mention of former special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russia that has brought the president's political future into sharp relief and polarized Congress.

Wednesday went in a different direction, leading some Democrats on stage to bring up the 'I' word.

'I believe that we in the United States Congress should start impeachment proceedings immediately,' Booker said.

'We swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. The politics of this be dammed.'

Castro, who was the first Democratic presidential candidate to call for impeaching Trump, said Mueller identified 10 instances 'where this president either obstructed justice or attempted to obstruct justice.'

Harris, the longtime former prosecutor, upped the ante with talk of criminal prosecution.

'I've read the report. There are 10 clear incidents of obstruction of justice by this president, and he needs to be held accountable,' she said. 'I have seen people go to prison for far less.'

De Blasio cautioned that while Trump 'has committed the crimes worthy of impeachment,' Democrats should focus on denying him another four-year term.

'That's how we're actually going to beat Donald Trump. The best impeachment is beating him in the election of 2020,' he said.

Bennet warned that since Republicans control the Senate, which is responsible for holding impeachment trials, any move by the House would hand the president a PR victory.

'I just want to make sure whatever we do doesn't end up with an acquittal by Mitch McConnell in the Senate, which it surely would,' said Bennet. 'And then President Trump would be running saying that he had been acquitted by the United States Congress.'

De Blasio used his opening statement Tuesday to boast that he wants to 'restructure society' along socialist lines.'

'We will even up the score and we will tax the hell out of the wealthy,' he pledged.

The mayor ended the night by promoting a fundraising website called 'TaxTheHell.com.'

As Booker began his opening pitch, noisy hecklers interrupted the live broadcast with shouts of 'Fire Pantaleo!' – a protest against de Blasio.

Daniel Pantaleo is the New York police officer whose street-corner struggle with Eric Garner resulted in the man's death.

His final words, 'I can't breathe,' have become a social justice rallying cry in the Big Apple.

De Blasio met the protesters' anger head-on. 'I heard you. I saw you. I thank you,' he tweeted during a commercial break. 'This is what democracy looks like and no one said it was pretty.'

He shrugged it off later, telling reporters after the debate: 'I've been a part of so many elections, you're going to have protesters. I believe there will be justice in this case and we'll move forward.'

But all eyes were on Biden and Harris, the half-dynamic duo who sparred a month ago about the politics of race.

Taking the stage, Biden greeted Harris with a half-joking plea: 'Go easy on me, kid.'

The Republican National Committee went hard on Democrats after the debate. RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a snarky statement that party moderates had ceded ground to socialists.

'Proving that nothing is impossible, Democrats moved even further to the left tonight,' she said, claiming they 'boasted extreme, socialist policies and a government takeover of every aspect of our lives.'

Through a random-chance drawing, all ten debaters Tuesday night were white; all the people of color among President Donald Trump's 2020 rivals drew a Wednesday card.

That set up slavery reparations, affirmative action and 'environmental racism' as hotter topics than they were a night ago.

And Biden's decades-long support for criminal justice laws that disproportionately harm minorities continued to dog him as an opposition talking point.

The president's camp is awaiting whoever emerges from the scrum of more than two dozen rivals who want his job. But for now his aides are happy to pile on the man Trump calls 'Sleepy Joe.'

'This isn't some brilliant pioneer getting arrows in his back,' a Trump re-election campaign official said Wednesday. 'It's Joe freakin' Biden. He's just going to get clobbered because he's weak.'

Biden's anxious supporters tuned in to see if he handled incoming fire better than he did in June, when Harris needled him about desegregation and forced school busing when she was a child and he was a youngish senator.

And they flipped to CNN to see if the intra-party schism that bloomed uneasily on Tuesday would deepen and widen.

California Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a military veteran, lectured the president about love for country. 'I know what patriotism is and I have known many great patriots throughout my life. And let me tell you this: Donald Trump is not behaving like a patriot,' she said. Former housing and urban development secretary Julian Castro ripped Trump along the lines of his successful 2016 slogan, 'Make America Great Again.' 'I don't want to make American anything 'again.' I don't want to go backward,' he said

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio used his opening to boast that he wants to 'restructure society' along socialist lines

Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet warned that her one-size-fits-all plan 'bans employer-based insurance and taxes the middle class to the tune of $30 trillion'

Unlike Tuesday night, when Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders put their socialist policies at center stage as the night's top-polling contenders, the former vice president stood there as a political pragmatist not known for taking risks or tempting history.

No one will vote for any of them for another six months. But campaigns, especially those gasping for oxygen, feel pressure to break out of the pack on high-profile debate nights.

And as each successive debate comes with tougher prerequisites for an invitation – largely polling numbers and a head-count of grassroots donors – candidates are attacking each other more than the president whose job they want.

Host network CNN vowed to punish any candidate who interrupts too much with a loss of talk time. Moderators Jake Tapper, Dana Bash and Don Lemon are seen at the start of the debate

Both nights of the second Democratic debate were held at the Fox Theater in Detroit

CNN's ratings on Tuesday were disappointing, with an audience numbering about 8.7 million. That was a sharp drop from the 15.3 million viewers who saw the first of two debate nights in late June on NBC. The second night drew 18.1 million.

President Trump mocked the Democrats' first 10 debaters on Wednesday, returning to his well-worn contention that the news media owe boosts in viewers and readers to his swashbuckling leadership style and take-no-prisoners approach to political combat.

'Very low ratings for the Democratic Debate last night – they're desperate for Trump!' he tweeted.

The president won his office in 2016 by playing the role of political anti-hero, slashing his way through a field of officeholders and capturing the imagination of the party's fickle base.

That role so far belongs to Marianne Williamson, a first-time candidate known for her self-help books and her affinity for crystals and New Age philosophy.

President Trump mocked the Democrats' first 10 debaters via Twitter on Wednesday

On Tuesday she warned against substituting intellectual policy discussions for heartfelt appeals, saying only an emotional argument can thwart Trump's use of racially charged language.

'If you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I'm afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days, she said.'

She said slavery reparations in amounts up to a half-trillion dollars were justified in order to cleanse America of 'an injustice that continues to form a toxicity underneath the surface, an emotional turbulence that only reparations will heal.'

She lapsed into chatter about dispassionate voters who view politics with a 'yada-yada-yada' indifference – and broke into a brief yodel while trying to decide how far left to veer on healthcare.

'There is no one else like you on that stage,' CNN host Anderson Cooper told her afterward, high praise for an unknown aspirant whose lack of political resume had previously been seen as a liability.

By midnight she had charmed the post-debate 'spin room' and stunned a 10-year-old cub reporter by telling him that her pet cat had died.

On Wednesday she told a national TV audience that longtime friend and confidante Oprah Winfrey wasn't advising her on her political aspirations.

On Instagram, she thanked her growing base of supporters for providing 'energy, money, prayerfulness, encouragement and support of every kind.'

'We need to put the rockets on full blast now!!!!' she added.

RECAP: HOW THE CANDIDATES FARED ON NIGHT TWO

There was no clear winner on the second night of the second Democratic debate as fiercely unfriendly fire left White House hopefuls battered and bruised.

Wednesday's face-off was decidedly less civilized than the night before as all ten candidates came out ready to rip into each other, leaning heavily on their individual records.

The audience also joined in on the onslaught as the debate was interrupted multiple times by protesters.

It was an attack from Tulsi Gabbard that appeared to have the most impact online as the Hawaii congresswoman became the most-searched candidate on Google and topped a Drudge poll with over 42 percent of the vote.

Gabbard's strong performance peaked when she went head-to-head with Kamala Harris, piling on with complaints about the California senator's record prosecuting low-level marijuana offenders, keeping convicts locked up beyond their sentences and denying justice to wrongly convicted death row inmates.

'In the case of those who are on death row – innocent people – you actually blocked evidence from being revealed that would have freed them, until you were forced to do so,' Gabbard charged.

'There is no excuse for that. And the people who suffered under your reign as prosecutor? You owe them an apology.'

Gabbard also insisted Harris 'fought to keep the cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way.'

The resulting applause appeared to stun Harris.

The senator said she had opposed the death penalty for the entirety of her career, and that families of crime victims often criticized her for declining to seek capital punishment.

Summing up Gabbard's performance, CNN Editor-at-Large Chris Cillizza wrote: 'Gabbard was reasonable but also pointed: She did real damage to Harris on criminal justice reform. She was poised and knowledgeable throughout. And she made the most of the relatively limited talking time she had, using it to talk about her resume - most notably her service in the Iraq War.'

‹ Slide me › The maps above show Google search data for the candidates before and after the debate

Gabbard's strong performance peaked when she took on Harris, piling on complaints about the California senator's record prosecuting low-level marijuana offenders, keeping convicts locked up beyond their sentences and denying justice to wrongly convicted death row inmates

Coming into the debate, all eyes were on Harris and fellow front-runner Joe Biden, whose sparring dominated the stage during last month's debate.

The former vice president and California senator took up the most speaking time, roughly 20 and 18 minutes respectively, as they spent most of the debate responding to attacks from fellow candidates desperate to knock them off the top.

For the most part pundits have agreed that both Biden and Harris had uneven performances, but their standing in the race is unlikely to shift significantly as a result.

Analyst Bill Palmer listed Harris' post-debate standing as 'sideways', writing: 'After her strong and soaring performance in the first debate, Harris may have been a victim of high expectations tonight.

'Her performance was just fine, but it may not be enough to push her higher in the polls.'

Cillizza had Harris in the 'losers' column, contending that 'the California senator learned on Wednesday night how much harder it is to be the target rather than the targeter' as she weathered attacks from Biden, Gillibrand, Colorado Sen Michael Bennet and, of course, Gabbard.

'Harris at times effectively parried those attacks, but she didn't do it enough,' Cillizza wrote.

Cillizza listed Biden as one of his winners, writing: 'He was, in places, quite strong - particularly when he was going after Sen. Kamala Harris (California) and Booker (New Jersey).

'But Biden was much less confident when he was under attack - especially when the topic turned to race and criminal justice reform, though as the frontrunner, he did withstand fire through the entire debate.

'Biden also struggled in several answers to spit out the right words at the right time. And he continued to stop himself in mid-thought and immediately stop talking when his time ran out.

'Add it all up and I believe that Biden wound up doing *just* enough to quiet - if not silence - questions about whether he is up to the job. That, plus Harris' struggles, get the former vice president into the "win" column. Barely.'

Cory Booker - who came into the debate ranked number six in the polls with less than two percent, per Real Clear Politics - has been widely regarded as one of the night's biggest winners, masterfully defending against attacks that came his way while delivering plenty of his own devastating blows to others.

Palmer said of Booker: 'He came off as smart, passionate, warm, and presidential. He didn't have a perfect night, but this was huge turning point for him.'

Palmer predicted that the New Jersey senator's poll numbers, which stood below two percent before the debate, will likely triple this week.

Democratic strategist Paul Begala also praised Booker, saying he 'consistently brought the fight back to Trump, rather than participating in the circular firing squad'.

Cillizza said of the senator: 'Booker was a happy warrior - balancing attacks (primarily against former Vice President Joe Biden) with an optimistic demeanor.

'Booker spoke powerfully about criminal justice reform and immigration. And he made a very good point when he noted that Biden was trying to have it both ways when it came to former President Barack Obama - taking credit when it works for him and distancing himself from the Obama legacy when that is more politically convenient.

'Booker has considerable natural gifts as a candidate - and they shone through on Wednesday night.'

At the losing end of the spectrum was New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who took a bad hit early from an unexpected source: the audience.

Midway through the opening statements, protesters began chanting: 'Fire Pantaleo' - referencing the New York police officer whose street-corner struggle with Eric Garner resulted in the man's death.

His final words, 'I can't breathe,' have become a social justice rallying cry in the Big Apple.

De Blasio met the protesters' anger head-on. 'I heard you. I saw you. I thank you,' he tweeted during a commercial break. 'This is what democracy looks like and no one said it was pretty.'

Over the course of the debate, de Blasio took up the second-smallest amount of speaking time at nine minutes and 42 seconds.

Palmer remarked that the mayor 'did little with [his stage time] beyond annoying people'.

'It was difficult to figure out what he was even talking about when he was going head to head with Biden,' he added.

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who came into the debate with the fourth-highest polling numbers out of the ten candidates on stage at roughly two percent, took up the least speaking time (eight minutes and 38 seconds) - but he made the most of that time.

Palmer gave Yang an 'honorable mention' on his analysis, writing: 'There has never been any question about Yang's intellect. The question has been whether he could translate it to political and social issues. In the first debate, he seemed out of place. Tonight, he impressed.'

Former San Antonio mayor and HUD secretary Julián Castro, who was widely regarded as the winner of his first debate last month, stood out once again on Wednesday.

One of his best moments came early when he told Biden: 'It looks like one of us has learned the lessons of the past and one of us hasn't.'

He also landed a harsh hit on de Blasio's handling of Pantaleo.

Cillizza noted that Castro still faces an uphill battle in qualifying for the next two debates in September and October, but said he could 'really make noise in the race' if he pulls it off.

Another candidate who really needed a strong night was New York Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, who is currently polling at half a percent. Unfortunately, many pundits felt she didn't manage to pull it off.

Last week, Gillibrand revealed a debate tactic she was hiding up her sleeve during a campaign event in Iowa when she said: 'We have Democratic candidates running for president right now who do not believe necessarily that it's a good idea that women work outside the home. No joke.'

It wasn't long before the media exposed who she was talking about via reports that her campaign team had unearthed an op-ed from the 80s in which Biden expressed concern about the deterioration of the family if a woman was working outside the home.

Cillizza roasted Gillibrand for showing her hand so early and giving Biden ample time to prepare for her inevitably bringing it up at the debate.

'Biden was completely and totally ready for it - and gave a solid answer, citing his own personal experiences as a single dad and noting that both his deceased wife and his current wife had and have always worked outside the home,' Cillizza wrote.

'I'll never understand why Gillibrand told Biden what she was going to hit him with days in advance. Giant missed opportunity for a candidate who can't afford one.'

Bennet and Washington Gov Jay Inslee - who both barely qualified for slots on the debate stage - have received little to no mention on pundits' debate breakdowns, indicating that their performances were fairly forgettable compared to fellow candidates.