Tune in on Wednesday for more back-to-back CNN town halls:
Tom Steyer said Monday that he would start a “formal commission on race the first day of my presidency” and would support direct payments to descendants of slaves if that commission recommended the policy.
“I’m the person running who’s for reparations for slavery because I believe that we need to tell the true story of the last 400-plus years of the African-American experience in the United States,” Steyer said.
He added that his commission would be “solutions-oriented” but would also aim to “tell the story of systematic, legal discrimination, injustice and cruelty for over 400 years.”
CNN’s Chris Cuomo followed up, “If the commission suggested direct cash payments to the descendants of slaves, do you support the recommendation of the commission?”
“Yes,” Steyer said.
Steyer has made courting black voters central to his presidential campaign, especially in South Carolina, the state where he is staking his campaign.
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Tom Steyer said he supports 12-year term limits for members of Congress, and named three Republican senators as his argument for his proposal.
“If we want real change, we need new and different people in charge. We need it,” Steyer said. “And, you know, look, the six-word argument for term limits: Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz.”
McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, is the Senate Majority Leader and was elected to the US Senate in 1984. Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1994, and later was elected to the Senate. Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, was elected to the Senate in 2012.
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Tom Steyer said he would mandate that Americans get vaccinated against the coronavirus if there was a vaccine developed and it was necessary to prevent the disease spreading in the US.
“If and when they were to develop a vaccine, if you were president, would you mandate that Americans take the vaccine?” CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked Steyer.
“If it were necessary to take the vaccine to prevent the spread of the coronavirus through the United States, yes, I would,” the billionaire businessman responded.
Steyer criticized President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus and praised former President Barack Obama’s handling of the Ebola outbreak in 2014.
“What we’re seeing is that this is a pandemic that hasn’t been handled well,” Steyer said .
The death toll from the novel coronavirus has risen to 2,698 worldwide, with the vast majority of those in mainland China. The total number of global cases stands at over 80,000. World Health Organization officials say it’s still too early to declare the novel coronavirus a pandemic – but now is the time to prepare.
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Tom Steyer faced an unexpected challenge to his climate credentials on Monday night when an exasperated voter asked how the billionaire can really be “pro-environment” when his campaign is sending out so, so, so much mail.
“How do you justify this unnecessary overkill of mailings and printed material in a digital world that would certainly be much more environmentally friendly?” asked Steven, who said he gets three to five mailers from Steyer every week.
The businessman tried to cut the tension with a joke.
“I think we’re also bombarding you with digital material,” Steyer said, before turning serious. “But we have tried to use only recyclable materials.”
Steyer then turned to his own behavior, claiming that he is the only candidate not to travel on private planes and talking about a family ranch.
“My wife and I raise cattle, chicken and pigs,” he said. “And we’re trying to do it in a way to show that actually you can sequester carbon if you do regenerative agriculture.”
The upshot? That sequestration, Steyer said, more than cancels out his own overall carbon footprint.
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Tom Steyer said Monday that it was a “mistake” for his company to own stock in private prisons earlier in his career.
The comment comes after former Vice President Joe Biden criticized Steyer’s investment in private prisons.
“We bought stock in a private prison company 15 years ago. I thought it was the right thing,” Steyer said. “I decided it was the wrong thing and 15 years ago I sold it for moral reasons.”
He added: “I came to the conclusion that I’ve come to conclude now, this isn’t a place to make money. But I didn’t just make a mistake and correct it. I have worked to get rid of the use of private prisons in my home state, and we’ve successfully done it so that they’re not used either for incarceration or detention.”
Steyer has been making significant inroads in South Carolina, especially with black voters in the state. That rise could hurt Biden, who is betting his campaign on a first-place showing in South Carolina.
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Tom Steyer said it is “inappropriate” for Bernie Sanders to praise former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s regime for its literacy efforts.
The businessman said he would never praise “unelected leaders of countries who completely control without any form of democracy, justice or equality.”
Steyer’s comments come as Sanders faces backlash for saying that Castro’s regime had succeeded in some ways, and cited literacy as an example. The Vermont senator stood by those comments in a CNN town hall Monday night, saying that “the truth is the truth.”
But Steyer said of Castro, who died in 2016: “He’s had the government own the economy and people are hungry and he’s been a cruel controller of the country. I don’t think it’s appropriate to be giving him a lot of compliments.”
“The United States is supposed to be the value driven leader of the world. We stand for freedom. We stand for democracy and justice and equality. And I think when we go out to the world, we should be standing up for the things that we believe in. That’s what the whole idea of the United States is,” Steyer said.
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Tom Steyer said the American people haven’t spoken “just yet” when asked how he would combat Bernie Sanders’ momentum in the presidential race.
CNN’s Chris Cuomo pointed out that Sanders won Nevada, New Hampshire and had a strong showing in Iowa, where results are still being examined and Pete Buttigieg holds a narrow lead over Sanders.
“You are in a hole versus (Sanders) in terms of how those results have gone,” Cuomo said. “Do you have a plan to change your fate?”
The billionaire businessman responded, “So far, Bernie has 39 delegates out of the 2,000 that he needs to be the Democratic nominee. So I would say the people of America haven’t spoken just yet.”
Steyer said South Carolina is a diverse state with a high proportion of African Americans and Latinos, and reflects the Democratic Party and the United States.
“How about let’s let the people of South Carolina have their say, and say what they care about and stop declaring that this is over and that the conversation is over and we should just end it,” Steyer said.
“That is so early and premature, I can’t believe it,” he continued.
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Businessman Tom Steyer had barely said hello before he began taking his shot at the Democratic front-runner.
“I know there’s been a lot of talk this week about Bernie Sanders,” Steyer said. “And I think we all owe Bernie Sanders a lot of thanks for bringing up real issues that are confronting America and Americans.”
The crowd cheered. Then Steyer got to his criticism.
The answer, Steyer argued, was to “break the corporate stranglehold” on the government.
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Pete Buttigieg was asked to tell the town hall audience three things the American people don’t already know about him.
“That’s a hard one, just because I feel like when you run for president, somebody once called it an MRI of the soul. By the end of it, or frankly by the middle of it, you feel like people have gotten to know just about everything about you,” Buttigieg said.
“I’ll mention one,” Buttigieg continued.
“It’s probably why I’ve learned to deal with things in a way that tries to be as calm as possible, because I feel so passionate about things I see going on around the world and things I see happening right around me,” he continued.
The former mayor said the American people probably “don’t know as much about the things I’m bad at because you don’t advertise those, although I think people are beginning to learn I can’t dance.”
“I just can’t,” Buttigieg said. “Exactly. Somebody saw me doing the — I won’t even do it, the raise the roof thing,” he joked, raising his hands above his head for a moment.
He said his favorite food is beef jerky, and said he is “pretty well-behaved” when asked by CNN’s Don Lemon if he eats in the middle of the night.
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Pete Buttigieg turned a question about how he would handle the threat of the coronavirus into an attack on President Donald Trump’s push for a wall on the US-Mexico border.
“We have to meet 21st Century security threats with a forward looking policy. This President’s idea of keeping us safe is a big wall. That’s a 17th Century security solution,” he said.
The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor said his coronavirus response would focus on coordination across the federal government.
Buttigieg also said it was crucial to “restore the credibility of the United States in the rest of the world.”
“The virus does not care what country it is in, and in order to deal with an issue like that, you need international partnerships and global relationships of the very kind that this president is tearing to shreds on an almost daily basis,” he said.
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Businessman Tom Steyer has taken the stage. CNN’s Chris Cuomo is moderating.
Pete Buttigieg recalled a campaign event in Colorado where a 9-year-old asked the former mayor for advice on how to be brave in telling other people that he is gay.
“And that’s more or less what I told him,” he continued. “Although I gave him the best advice that I could for the future, which is mainly just to let him know that even if it’s not always easy, that I was going to be rooting for him and other people were, too.”
“There have been so many moments like that. Whether it’s a young person who is wondering where they fit, and this campaign sends a signal to them that they belong,” he said.
“Or people I meet sometimes who are my parents’ age who come up to me, sometimes with tears in their eyes, to let me know they never thought this day would come, that this would even be possible,” Buttigieg continued.
“And that whole thing makes me hopeful,” he said.
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Pete Buttigieg said Monday that all non-profit institutions, including colleges and shelters, should lose their federal funding if they refuse to hire LGBTQ Americans.
“Do you believe other religious and non-profit institutions like colleges and homeless charities should lose federal funding if they refuse to hire or serve LGBTQ people,” CNN’s Don Lemon asked Buttigieg.
The response came after Buttigieg was asked by a voter about how he would uphold the separation of church and state, particularly when it comes to federal funding.
“It’s very simple. I believe that federal funding should never be used to discriminate,” he said. “It’s a basic principle. I feel this way as citizen and a person of faith.”
He added: “Of course it is so important to the fabric of the country that people of every religion and of no religion can practice their faith to the best of their conscience. But like any other freedom, that freedom ends where it you begin to invoke it to harm other people.”
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Pete Buttigieg said he hasn’t spoken with any Democratic presidential rivals about consolidating the field so that one moderate alternative to Bernie Sanders emerges.
The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor said that “of course I think it would be beneficial if everybody else were to drop out and support” his campaign.
He said he’s demonstrated that he has support across the ideological spectrum, and noted his apparent win in Iowa, where he and Sanders are virtually tied in state delegate equivalents. Sanders then won the New Hampshire primary and the Nevada caucuses.
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After Sanders won the Democratic caucuses in Nevada last week, Buttigieg gave a speech warning against a “rush” to nominate the Vermont senator.
He returned to that argument on Monday night – this time in response to Sanders’ refusal to back off his praise of Fidel Castro’s early efforts to spread literacy in Cuba.
Asked if he could appreciate the nuance of Sanders’ remarks, which also included a criticism of the Castro regime’s abuses, Buttigieg seemed exasperated.
“Of course literacy is a good thing,” he said, “but why are we spotlighting the literacy programs of a brutal dictator instead of being unambiguous in our condemnation about the way he was treating his own people.”
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Pete Buttigieg said Monday that he has a simple message for Americans who backed President Donald Trump in 2016: “This President does not respect you.”
The answer came in response to a question about how Buttigieg could convince Trump supporters that he is a better bet than the President.
Buttigieg, throughout his campaign, has made a concerted effort to court what he calls “future former Republicans,” people who likely voted for Trump in 2016 but are now disillusioned by the President.
“We’re not going to win over everybody,” Buttigieg said. “But I also think there’s an opportunity to bring a lot of people back into the Democratic Party.”
Buttigieg added that this is where he sees “things differently from Sen. Sanders.”
“I believe we can be true to our progressive values and be inviting to a lot of people who feel politically without a home,” Buttigieg said.
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Pete Buttigieg, pressed on why black Americans should support him, said that he “recognizes” and is “humbled” by the fact that he has to earn the support of black voters, something he has struggled to do since announcing his presidential bid.
“This is a vote that has been won within living memory. It’s not just expressing a political preference, it is something that was earned with blood and sweat and tears,” he said. “I recognize that and I’m humbled by that.”
Buttigieg went on to say that he “recognize(s)” that he has not had to experience a host of things that impact black America directly because of the color of his skin.
Buttigieg, for the bulk of his campaign, has struggled to win over black voters, with the issue becoming one that has followed him for months.
It is particularly pressing in South Carolina, a state where 60% of the electorate was black in 2016.
Buttigieg, in response to a follow-up from CNN’s Don Lemon, said that he wants black voters to support him not just because of what is in his plan, but also because of his “determination to make sure that we win so we can deliver on those.”
“I know that nobody is feeling the pain of living under the presidency of Donald Trump more than Americans of color,” Buttigieg said. “And so many voters I talk to are laser-focused on making sure we defeat the President.”
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Pete Buttigieg said he would focus on making the case for how to defeat President Donald Trump when asked how he would stop Bernie Sanders’ momentum in the presidential race.
CNN’s Don Lemon said to Buttigieg, “Mayor Pete, the crowd loves you, we can see. They loved you in Indiana, they loved you in Iowa, they loved you in New Hampshire. You ran neck and neck with Senator Bernie Sanders there.”
“But (Sanders) pulled away in Nevada, where he was a clear front-runner,” Lemon continued. “Tomorrow night on the debate stage you’ll have the chance to stop his momentum. How are you going to do that?”
Buttigieg responded, “Well, by making the case for how we will defeat Donald Trump.”
“And it’s going to be more important than ever that we build a coalition that can invite people – not just fellow die hard Democrats, but Independents. I’m seeing what I call future former Republicans who are not going to agree on me with everything but they’re disgusted with what’s going on in this White House,” Buttigieg continued.
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Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has walked on the stage. CNN’s Don Lemon is moderating.
Bernie Sanders said it’s “absolutely untrue” that he considered challenging then-President Barack Obama in the 2012 Democratic primary.
He called an attack ad from Joe Biden’s campaign – which highlights a report from The Atlantic that Sanders had considered a run – “not true at all” and part of campaign “silly season.”
“I did not give any consideration to running for president of the United States until 2015,” he said. And that run, he said, came only after he waited to see whether Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren would run, and she chose not to.
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