Democratic debate: Winners, losers, protests, arguments and all the key moments from Las Vegas
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Your support makes all the difference.The six leading Democratic presidential candidates have have sparred on stage in Las Vegas last presidential primary debate before the Nevada caucuses, marking the most heated clash yet in the primary season
Finally joining the candidates who have been vying for a shot at unseating Donald Trump in the key early voting states is Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire White House hopeful who has gotten under the president’s skin in recent weeks thanks to a heavily-funded advertising spree. Mr Trump attacked the former New York City mayor as a “pathetic debater” ahead of tonight’s event, to which Mr Bloomberg replied: “Impeached president says what?”
But Mr Bloomberg's fellow Democrats all saw him as an apparent obvious target, and repeatedly attacked him for his wealth, and his decision to bankroll his own campaign and to skip the first few nominating states altogether (including Nevada).
Enjoying his status as front-runner, Bernie Sanders steered through the night with relatively few attacks on his campaign, and reliably stuck to his general message arguing against billionaires — including Mr Bloomberg.
It was Elizabeth Warren who may have stolen the show, though, with a heated attack on Mr Bloomberg early on for his use of NDAs in his business, which he refused to pull from women who might have accusations to be made against him.
The president wasn’t the only one lobbing attacks against Mr Bloomberg before the debate, either: as the Democrats prepared to spar, Ms Warren warned the billionaire she would use the debate to show how she handles an “egomaniac billionaire", along with several other candidates who said they would take on the former mayor.
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Sanders invites people to come see him on the campaign trail and see how healthy he seems.
Buttigieg notes that Barack Obama released his medical records, and that Trump has "lowered" that standard.
Buttigieg offers to "get a physical, put out the result".
"Let's level, OK? Let's level, Pete," Sanders says after Buttigieg says the candidates need to "level" with the American people about the costs of their healthcare plans.
Sanders attacks Buttigieg's plan for costing individual Americans thousands of dollars. He also notes a study has shown financial savings to the country if Medicare for All is put into place.
Bloomberg says "it just takes a lot of time" when asked why the American people can't see his tax returns, and says he "can't go to TurboTax" because he makes too much money.
"We probably could go to TurboTax," Klobuchar says in response to Bloomberg's explanation for not releasing his tax returns.
She notes that Trump hasn't released his tax returns, and that her husband does her family's taxes.
Bloomberg attacks the other candidates for "being at it" for years on the campaign trail (Buttigieg attacks saying because they were meeting voters "and humbling ourselves in backyards").
Bloomberg defends himself against reports of sexist remarks by noting that he hired women while he was as mayor.
Warren challenges Bloomberg to release his former employees from NDAs.
Bloomberg says it is "up to them" to get out. He says there are "some" people who are in NDA's.
Warren responds by grilling him, before saying "we are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who knows how many non-disclosure agreements" and suggests there may be a "drip drip drip" of women coming forward with allegations against Bloomberg.
Biden attacks Bloomberg for not releasing people from their NDAs.
"This is about transparency," he says.
"I've said we are not going to end these agreements because they were made consensually and they have the right to remain" private, Bloomberg says.
Sanders now jumps in and asks how he "supported George W Bush for president, put money into Republican candidates for the United States Senate when some of us, Joe and I" were working to keep Democrats "in the United States Senate".
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