The strength of the party's progressive wing was on vivid display in South Florida, starting in the first minutes of the debate when Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts branded the federal government as thoroughly corrupt
MIAMI — Democratic presidential candidates leveled a stark critique of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and the condition of the American working class in the first primary debate Wednesday but split in unmistakable terms over just how aggressively the next president should seek to transform the country along more liberal lines.
The strength of the party’s progressive wing was on vivid display in South Florida, starting in the first minutes of the debate when Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts branded the federal government as thoroughly corrupt. Warren, the highest-polling candidate onstage, called for the government to bring to heel oil companies and pharmaceutical companies, and embraced the replacement of private health insurance with single-payer care.
“We need to make structural change in our government, in our economy and in our country,” Warren said, setting the tone for the handful of populists in the debate.
Joining Warren in driving hard from the left were two lesser-known candidates — Julián Castro, the former housing secretary, and Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York — who sought to jump-start their campaigns by confronting rivals who hesitated to match their progressive demands on immigration, health care and national security policy.
The debate, the first of two featuring 10 candidates each, underscored just how sharply Democrats have veered in a liberal direction since Trump’s election. On issues ranging from immigration and health care to gun control and foreign policy, they demonstrated that they were far more uneasy about being perceived as insufficiently progressive by primary voters than about inviting Republican attacks in the general election.
But there were also several avowed pragmatists who voiced hesitation or outright disagreement over some of their party’s most ambitious policy demands. Most prominent among them was Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who expressed doubts about liberal plans for single-payer health care and free college education; she instead called for more modest alternatives like the creation of an optional government-backed health insurance plan.
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