Everything That Happened During the Sixth Democratic Presidential Debate

It starts slow. Maybe after months of such incredible drama, with day-long live hearings on TV, a parade of damning witnesses, constitutional experts, raving Republicans, and a madly tweeting president—all culminating in an actual impeachment on Wednesday—it is hard to compete. Can you blame us if the seven Democratic hopefuls who qualified for last night’s debate in Los Angeles are, well, less than exciting?

Still, we have to run someone, and presumably it will be one of these birds. The DNC has tightened the rules, which means only former vice president Joe Biden; Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.); Senator Bernie Sanders (Vt.); South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.); Andrew Yang; and Tom Steyer made the grade.

The first question concerns—well, duh—impeachment, and the candidates are asked why lots of Americans don’t yet support canning the president, and how they could be won over. In what will become a pattern, most decline to answer this directly. Biden tells us that we need to restore the integrity of the office; Sanders calls Trump a pathological liar; Warren says we have to prosecute the case against the president; Klobuchar says James Madison was five foot four and that this is a global Watergate; Buttigieg alleges that the good news is that “it’s up to us.” Steyer reminds everyone that he started the Need to Impeach movement over two years ago.

The next question concerns the economy. Biden looks sad. He says the middle class is not behind the eight-ball. Buttigieg says we need to talk about poverty. Yang talks about suicide and drug overdoses; Warren says America’s middle class is being hollowed out, and she blames “corruption, plain and simple.” Sanders reminds us that “tonight, while three people own more wealth than the bottom half of America, 500,000 Americans, including 30,000 veterans, are sleeping out on the streets.” Warren is asked how she answers economists who say her wealth plan would stifle growth, and she replies, “Oh, they’re just wrong!” Steyer says he agrees with Warren, and that he is in favor of undoing all the tax breaks for rich people.

Climate change! Klobuchar is asked if people in Miami should be forced to relocate; she says climate change is an existential crisis. Steyer wants to declare a state of emergency on climate change from his first day in office; Buttigieg says this will be “a topic of day one action.” He reminds us that he lives by the river. (Has he been listening to the Clash? Maybe not, since London Calling was released in 1979, three years before he was born.) Biden says we shouldn’t build another new highway in America that doesn’t have charging stations on it. Sanders thunders that “the issue now is whether we save the planet for our children and our grandchildren.”

Yang is asked about the miserable lack of racial diversity on the stage, and he responds, “It’s both an honor and disappointment to be the lone candidate of color on the stage tonight. I miss Kamala. I miss Cory, though I think Cory will be back.” Klobuchar quotes Martin Luther King, “What good is it to integrate a lunch counter if you can’t afford a hamburger?”

Then, a change of topic: Sanders insists that U.S. foreign policy must not just be about being pro-Israel, but “we must be pro-Palestinian, as well.” (Does he get this question first because he is the only Jewish person up there?) Biden—who is maybe a tiny bit sharper tonight?—argues for a two-state solution. Warren is asked about being the oldest president ever inaugurated, in case she wins. She gets perhaps the biggest applause of the night when she answers that “I’d also be the youngest woman ever inaugurated.”

Fireworks at 9:20! Warren attacks Buttigieg for taking money from Richie-Riches, saying “the mayor just recently had a fundraiser that was held in a wine cave full of crystals and served $900-a-bottle wine.” Pete snaps back: “You know, according to Forbes magazine, I am literally the only person on this stage who is not a millionaire or a billionaire…. This is the problem with issuing purity tests you cannot yourself pass.” Klobuchar says she has never been to a wine cave—but she has been to a wind cave in South Dakota. And Yang offers this astonishing observation: “If you get too many men alone and leave us alone for too long, we kinda become morons.”

Next up is immigration. Everyone seems to agree with Steyer, who says, “We have to go back to the idea that every American is worth being a full human being on every right…the president is break[ing] the laws of humanity in our name.” Buttigieg says we should pay reparations to migrant children separated at the border. Then suddenly, Klobuchar goes after Buttigieg, saying, “When we were in the last debate, Mayor, you basically mocked the hundred years of experience on the stage.” Buttigieg replies, “If you want to talk about the capacity to win, try putting together a coalition to bring you back to office with 80 percent of the vote as a gay dude in Mike Pence’s Indiana.”

There’s so much to fix in 2020: The debate traverses people with disabilities, Dreamers, trans women of color, Afghanistan, tuition, judges, Medicare for all. And finally, it is time for closing statements. Warren declares, “This is a dark moment in America, and yet I come here tonight with a heart filled with hope.” Biden still insists he’s the only one who can beat Trump. But let’s give Sanders the last word: “The truth is that real change always takes place from the bottom on up, never from the top on down.”

Originally Appeared on Vogue