Marianne Williamson Drops Out of 2020 Race

10Jan

Author Marianne Williamson dropped out of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary on Friday, writing in a note to supporters on her website that her campaign would not be able to get enough votes “to elevate our conversation any more than it is now.”

“I stayed in the race to take advantage of every possible effort to share our message. With caucuses and primaries now about to begin, however, we will not be able to garner enough votes in the election to elevate our conversation any more than it is now,” Williamson said in the statement.

“The primaries might be tightly contested among the top contenders, and I don’t want to get in the way of a progressive candidate winning any of them,” she continued.

Williamson also pledged to support the eventual Democratic nominee in the general election against President Trump.

“I wish you all my best on the road ahead. It was an honor being among you,” she said. “Whichever one of you wins the nomination, I will be there with all my energy and in full support.”

A number of recent signs pointed to a flailing campaign that had failed to gain traction in the polls.

The candidate, known for her spiritual references, laid off her entire campaign staff earlier this month. A former staffer told The Hill that financial pressures were behind the layoffs.

Williamson raised just over $3 million in the third quarter of 2019, but spent roughly 94 percent of what she took in.

Williamson garnered attention for a number of one-liners during the first and second primary debates.

“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,” Williamson said at the presidential debate in July.

Williamson became the most-searched-for candidate on the Internet during the same debate.

However, Williamson often made it a point to combat descriptions of her as an unserious candidate.

“The establishment media sees me as a real threat to the status quo,” she told Hill.TV in July. “People are so invested in creating this false narrative about me as the ‘crystal lady,’ ‘wacky new-age nutcase.’ If you really think about it, I must be doing something right that they’re so scared.”

By Julia Manchester [The Hill]

Biden Remains at the Top of the Dem Field, NBC/WSJ Poll Finds

19Dec

Former Vice President Joe Biden remains the frontrunner in the race for the Democratic nomination, while Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has returned to the level of support that preceded her autumn surge, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows.

Biden gets the support of 28 percent of Democratic primary voters, statistically unchanged from his standing in the NBC/WSJ October poll, while Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders stands at 21 percent and Warren has 18 percent.

Warren’s 18 percent share is a 5-point drop from her level of support in October and a 7 point fall from her peak in September.

The trio of top candidates is trailed by South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 9 percent, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 5 percent, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg at 4 percent, and businessman Andrew Yang at 3 percent.

Both Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker have the support of 2 percent of Democratic primary voters, while the remainder of the candidates — businessman Tom Steyer, former Housing Secretary Julian Castro, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, former Maryland Rep. John Delaney, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and author Marianne Williamson — receive 1 percent support or less.

The poll comes as seven Democratic candidates prepare for their sixth primary debate Thursday night. The seven candidates who have met the DNC threshold to participate are: Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Steyer and Yang.

The poll’s margin of error among Democratic primary voters is +/- 4.84 percentage points.

Older voters, African Americans continue to be Biden’s key base

Biden’s strength in the poll is largely due to his support among African Americans (50 percent support him, compared with 15 percent for Warren and 8 percent for Sanders), and Democrats over 50 (38 percent back him, compared with 14 percent for Warren and 7 percent for Sanders).

Republican pollster Bill McInturff, whose firm conducted the poll along with Democratic firm Hart Research Associates, says those groups form the backbone of Biden’s durability as a candidate.

“Joe Biden is sitting on a stable result, with a stable political base that has shown no inclination to vote for two of the other candidates [Sanders and Warren],” McInturff said, adding that both Sanders and Warren are also well-positioned to remain competitive as the race goes on.

As the Democratic primary race competes with wall-to-wall coverage of the impeachment of President Donald Trump, Biden is also a favorite among Democrats who prefer the party to focus on impeachment now rather than looking to the ballot box in 2020.

Of the 45 percent of Democratic voters who say the party should focus on removing Trump from office through impeachment, Biden leads by double digits. Among the 46 percent who say the party should pay more attention to efforts to oust Trump in November 2020, however, the three top candidates are essentially tied.

Biden also performs particularly well with Democratic voters who say they prefer smaller-scale policy changes that might be less costly and easier to pass than larger-scale proposals. Of the four-in-ten Democratic voters who prefer smaller-scale change, Biden gets 39 percent support. (Only one other candidate — Pete Buttigieg — breaks double digits with those voters).

But of the 56 percent of Democratic voters who say they prefer larger-scale policies that may be harder to pass but would create major change, Sanders receives 32 percent support and Warren gets 25 percent. That’s compared with just 18 percent for Biden.

Sanders has enthusiasm edge

While the former vice president’s lead has been durable, it’s Sanders who now enjoys the most enthusiastic base.

A third of Democratic primary voters — 33 percent — say they’re enthusiastic about Sanders’ candidacy, compared with 29 percent for Warren and 26 percent for Biden.

And among those who say Sanders is their first choice for the nomination, 58 percent say they’ll definitely vote for him, while the remainder say they’ll probably vote for him (27 percent) or are merely leaning toward supporting him at this time (15 percent).

That’s compared with 45 percent of Biden first-choice supporters who say they’ll definitely vote for him, 25 percent who say they probably will, and 28 percent who say they’re just leaning toward it.

For her part, despite her recent dip, Warren still enjoys the lowest level of discomfort among Democratic primary voters.

A combined 26 percent say they either have some reservations about Warren or are uncomfortable with her candidacy, compared with 32 percent who say the same of Sanders and 35 percent who say the same of Biden.

And Warren is also the most popular second-choice candidate in the field, with 22 percent of primary voters picking her as their top alternative, compared with 17 percent for Sanders, 13 percent for Buttigieg and 12 percent for Biden.

Those advantages make for a race that could see some volatility once voters actually start making their preferences known at the polls.

“It’s easy to see the potential weakness for any of these three candidates. It’s easy to see their strengths. But it’s not easy to see how that really plays out over four months of actual voting,” McInturff said.

How two other candidates are faring after some time in the limelight

For Buttigieg, who has recently taken heat from progressive foes for his moderate policy positions and his previous work for a major consulting company, about half of Democrats are either enthusiastic (18 percent) or comfortable (32 percent) with him, while 31 percent say they have reservations or are uncomfortable.

That 31 percent is a slight uptick from September, when 27 percent of primary voters expressed concerns about the South Bend mayor.

Bloomberg, who entered the race last month, debuts in this survey at 4 percent support, besting many of the race’s more established candidates after spending more than $100 million of his personal fortune on television ads.

But the bad news likely outweighs the good for the billionaire newcomer; more than half of Democratic primary voters (52 percent) say they are very uncomfortable with his candidacy or have reservations about it, and not a single supporter of either Sanders or Warren picked Bloomberg as a potential second choice.

Single-payer Medicare for All still popular with Democrats

As the Democratic candidates continue to draw battle lines over health care policy, the survey finds that a single-payer government health care plan that would eliminate private insurance garners the support of nearly seven-in-ten Democratic primary voters — 68 percent. In September, 63 percent said the same.

But the appeal of such a program is limited outside the Democratic base; just 44 percent of all adults say they back that proposal, including 48 percent of independents and just 14 percent of Republicans.

Unlike the single-payer plan, a proposal to allow all adults to buy in to Medicare — just like buying private insurance — is overwhelmingly popular both inside and outside the Democratic base, with 72 percent of all adults and 81 percent of Democratic primary voters saying they support such a policy.

The NBC/WSJ poll was conducted Dec. 14-17 of 900 adults — more than half of whom were reached by cell phone — and it has an overall margin of error of +/- 3.3 percentage points.

The margin of error for 410 Democratic primary voters is +/- 4.84 percentage points.

By Carrie Dan [NBC]

Pelosi Announces Full Speed Ahead With Articles of Impeachment Against Trump

05Dec

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced Thursday that she was asking the House Judiciary Committee and chairmen of other committees to proceed with drafting articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, saying “the president leaves us no choice but to act.”

“Sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our founders and our heart full of love for America, today, I am asking our chairmen to proceed with articles of impeachment,” Pelosi said in a brief televised statement from the Capitol, speaking directly to the American people.

The facts of Trump’s alleged wrongdoing involving Ukraine, she said, “are uncontested.”

“The president abused his power for his own personal, political benefit at the expense of our national security by withholding military aid and crucial Oval Office meeting in exchange for an announcement of an investigation into his political rival,” Pelosi said, adding that his actions “seriously violated the Constitution.”

“Our democracy is what’s at stake,” Pelosi continued. “The president leaves us no choice but to act because he is trying to corrupt, once again, the election for his own benefit.”

Pelosi began her statement citing deliberations by the Founding Fathers with regard to impeachment, saying in particular that “they feared the prospect of a king-president corrupted by foreign influence.”

To protect the nation from that possibility, Pelosi said that the founders “created a Constitutional remedy to protect against the dangerous or corrupt leader — impeachment.”

The House Judiciary Committee announced afterward that it will hold its next impeachment hearing on Monday at 9 a.m. ET, when the panel will receive presentations from Democratic and GOP counsels to the Intelligence Committee on the evidence collected in the inquiry.

Pelosi did not say whether she had set a deadline for committees to write the articles of impeachment or when a full House vote would take place. Members who attended a closed-door Democratic caucus meeting on Wednesday, however, said they understood that the House would vote on articles before the holiday recess. One member said they were told to “not make plans” for Dec. 21 or 22, the weekend before Christmas.

The speaker did not specify whether the articles would encompass other oversight investigations that Democrats had already been conducting before the Ukraine case surfaced. Some lawmakers have floated the idea of wrapping in articles that would involve findings from the Mueller report, but no final decisions have been made.

At her weekly press conference later Thursday morning, asked what her “aha moment” was, Pelosi said that moment for the country occurred when the intelligence community’s inspector general informed Congress about the whistleblower complaint “of grave concern” about the president’s conduct involving Ukraine.

“The facts of the Ukraine situation just changed everything,” she said.

At the end of her press conference, Pelosi began to walk off stage and a reporter shouted from the audience, “Do you hate the president?”

“I don’t hate anybody,” said Pelosi, who then walked back to the microphone.

“As a Catholic, I resent that you use the word ‘hate’ in a sentence that addresses me. I don’t hate anyone. I was raised in a way that is a heart full of love,” she said. “Don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.”

Pelosi’s announcement came a day after the House Judiciary Committee held its first hearing in the inquiry in which three of the four witnesses argued that Trump committed impeachable offenses, including in his campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. The three scholars were called as witnesses by Democrats on the committee, while the fourth, a Republican witness, said impeachment was not warranted at this time.

Earlier this week, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released a 300-page report on Trump’s conduct, saying the investigation “uncovered a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.” It also made clear that the president and his White House have obstructed the impeachment inquiry by blocking witnesses from complying with subpoenas requesting testimony or certain documents. Republicans, in a separate report, said Trump did nothing wrong.

About an hour and a half before Pelosi delivered her remarks, the president appeared to dare Democrats to impeach him and said they should just get it over with.

“The Do Nothing Democrats had a historically bad day yesterday in the House. They have no Impeachment case and are demeaning our Country. But nothing matters to them, they have gone crazy. Therefore I say, if you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast….”

Trump continued in a follow-up tweet by saying that he wants a fair trial in the Senate and said, “We will have Schiff, the Bidens, Pelosi and many more testify, and will reveal, for the first time, how corrupt our system really is. I was elected to “Clean the Swamp,” and that’s what I am doing!”

After Pelosi spoke, the president blasted her remarks. “The Do Nothing, Radical Left Democrats have just announced that they are going to seek to Impeach me over NOTHING. They already gave up on the ridiculous Mueller ‘stuff,’ so now they hang their hats on two totally appropriate (perfect) phone calls with the Ukrainian President…” he wrote on Twitter.

He later added: “Nancy Pelosi just had a nervous fit. She hates that we will soon have 182 great new judges and sooo much more. Stock Market and employment records. She says she ‘prays for the President.’ I don’t believe her, not even close. Help the homeless in your district Nancy. USMCA?”

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham also weighed in, saying the House speaker and Democrats “should be ashamed.”

Trump “has done nothing but lead our country — resulting in a booming economy, more jobs & a stronger military, to name just a few of his major accomplishments,” Grisham tweeted. We look forward to a fair trial in the Senate.”

Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, tweeted that Nadler told him this week to provide him with his witness list.

“But Pelosi’s press conference seemed to indicate we’re moving straight to articles of impeachment. Judiciary has jurisdiction over articles of impeachment, but does the chairman even know what’s going on?”

On the Democratic side, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said she felt Pelosi’s call to move forward with articles of impeachment is “entirely appropriate” because “the evidence that the president abused his power is overwhelming” and is “deserving of impeachment.”

Congress is scheduled to be in session until Christmas week, and Democrats are facing pressure to wrap up their end of the impeachment process before the end of the year, possibly with a floor vote of the House on whether Trump should be impeached. If the House impeaches the president, the process then moves to the Senate, which is expected to hold a trial early next year.

By Rebecca Shabad [NBC]

Kamala Harris Drops Out Of Presidential Race

03Dec

California Sen. Kamala Harris is dropping out of the presidential race, citing a lack of funds. She informed her campaign staff of the decision on a conference call and later sent an email to supporters, in which she wrote “my campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue.”

Harris’ departure, two months before voting and caucusing begin in the presidential contest, marks an abrupt end to a campaign that, for much of the winter and spring, looked like that of a top-tier presidential contender.

“I’ve taken stock, and I’ve looked at this from every angle, and over the last few days, I have come to one of the hardest decisions of my life,” Harris said in a video announcing her decision. “As the campaign has gone on, it has become harder and harder to raise the money we need to compete.”

Harris kicked off her campaign in front of 20,000 supporters in Oakland, Calif., and consistently drew large crowds in Iowa, South Carolina, and other early primary states. She was among the top tier of candidates in both polling and fundraising and briefly surged toward the very top of the field shortly after the first presidential debate, when she confronted former Vice President Joe Biden about his early opposition to federal busing policies.

But that exchange was a high-water mark of sorts for her campaign, and as Harris dropped in the polls over the summer and fall, she had to lay off campaign staff and all but shutter operations in New Hampshire, and she struggled to raise money from donors.

Harris, who came from behind in the polls in her runs for both San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, tried to stay in the race by focusing her efforts on Iowa but ultimately ended her bid exactly two months before the caucuses there.

Amid a crowded field filled with both moderate and progressive candidates, Harris struggled to carve out her own policy lane. She shifted positions several times on a defining issue for Democrats: health care. Harris initially backed the total elimination of private health insurance, only to later roll out a health care plan that allowed private plans as long as they met government standards.

Harris backtracked in several other high-profile moments, including her criticism of Biden’s anti-busing stances as a senator. She later admitted that her views of the federal government’s role in setting local policies was essentially the same as Biden’s.

Still, Harris was one of only seven candidates to qualify for December’s debate. At the moment, nine days before the deadline, no other nonwhite candidate has qualified for the debate stage.

That means that after a historically diverse field of candidates entered the Democratic primary race, the next debate is likely to consist of all white candidates.

By Scott Detrow & Asma Khalid [NPR]

Michael Bloomberg Joins Crowded 2020 Democratic Field

24Nov

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced he is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, offering his own mix of moderate policy stances and experience in business, government and philanthropy as the way to beat President Donald Trump.

Bloomberg, 77, called Trump “an existential threat to our country and our values” as he joined a crowded field of candidates, with fewer than three months before the Iowa caucuses. His late entry will create added difficulties as he seeks to build a campaign infrastructure and support in key states.

“I’m running for president to defeat Donald Trump and rebuild America. We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions,” Bloomberg said in a statement announcing his candidacy. “If he wins another term in office, we may never recover from the damage.”

He reconsidered his earlier decision not to run in 2020 as he saw the Democratic field struggling to produce a front-runner to take on Trump, with none of the current leading contenders able to break out of the pack.

Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. He served as New York’s mayor for three terms and now funds a global philanthropic arm.

In his announcement video, Bloomberg portrayed himself as no-nonsense business and government leader, who created jobs at his own company, helped rebuild New York City after the Sept. 11 attacks and threw himself behind the biggest challenges facing the country, including climate change and gun control. Bloomberg founded Everytown for Gun Safety and Beyond Carbon on the climate front, and his announcement said that he has given $10 billion to charitable causes and that Bloomberg Philanthropies works in 129 countries.

At the same time, Bloomberg faces significant hurdles in the campaign, including his late start and questions about why a billionaire and former Republican with a past career on Wall Street should be the standard-bearer for a party whose base increasingly is moving to the left, with young, diverse voters often skeptical of big business.

Bloomberg has been sharply at odds with many of the key ideas driving the Democratic party’s progressive base, opposing a tax on wealth and Medicare for All plans backed by senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said the re-election effort was ready for Bloomberg’s entry.

“It’s not that Michael Bloomberg may be unwelcome by the national electorate. It’s, is he welcome in his own Democratic primary?” Conway said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden entered the race as the front-runner, but he has struggled to raise money and at 77, has faced questions about his age, verbal gaffes and other out-of-step comments. Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has broken into a solid lead in Iowa with similarly centrist views, but lags in single digits in national polls and in predominantly non-white areas. That has potentially created an opening for Bloomberg with centrist Democratic voters looking for someone who can defeat Trump.

Warren and Sanders have cemented their positions in the top tier of candidates but also raised concerns in the party that moving too far left would ensure Trump’s re-election.

Bloomberg spent more than $100 million to help Democrats take control of the U.S. House in 2018. He plans to finance his own campaign, he said.

Refusing donations means that Bloomberg will not qualify for any debates regulated by the Democratic Party, which has required candidates to meet a certain threshold of donations and polling numbers.

“If that changes and we meet the eligibility requirements, we would gladly participate,” campaign spokesman Jason Schechter said.

Bloomberg’s campaign announced a record-setting ad buy late last week, topping $34 million. That fueled criticism from some about self-funding a presidential campaign.

“We do not believe that billionaires have the right to buy elections,” Sanders tweeted on Sunday. “That is why multi-billionaires like Michael Bloomberg are not going to get very far in this election.”

And the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which supports Warren, called Bloomberg “the human embodiment of Elizabeth Warren’s core case for being president.”

In addition, Bloomberg already made plans to spend $100 million on a digital advertising campaign against Trump in the battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He also announced plans to spend another $15 million to $20 million to register voters in competitive states.

When Bloomberg was mayor, Republicans derided his efforts to limit the consumption of sugary drinks as a “Big-Gulp ban” and a symbol of government overreach. His support of a “stop-and-frisk” policing policy as mayor has been criticized for targeting blacks and Hispanics, key Democratic constituencies.

Last week, Bloomberg apologized for the “stop-and-frisk” policy in a speech to the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn.

The campaign website Bloomberg launched Sunday includes a biographical video and touts his work to stop gun violence and climate change. It says, “But now, he sees a different kind of menace coming from Washington, so there’s no stopping here.”

The video says everyone should have access to health insurance and “everyone who likes theirs can go ahead and keep it.” It also says the wealthy will pay more in taxes, the struggling middle class “will get their fair share” and jobs will be created “that let you get ahead.”

Biden addressed the new rival in a CNN interview that aired Friday.

“I welcome the competition,” he said. “Watch me. Watch me. The idea that I’m not in better shape than Mayor Bloomberg physically and otherwise?”

His late entry into the race gives him little time to catch up, so Bloomberg plans to adopt an untested approach. He plans to bypass the first four contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina – the traditional route to the nomination. Instead, he will focus on California and the other delegate-rich U.S. states voting in the March 3 Super Tuesday contests and later.

By Mark Niquette [Bloomberg]

Top 2020 Democrats Played it Safe at the Atlanta Debate

21Nov

They’re playing not to lose.

The top four candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination barely even sparred with one another at a 10-person MSNBC/Washington Post debate at Tyler Perry’s sprawling studio complex here Wednesday night.

Without a doubt, the incentive structures and circumstances were a bit different for each member of the breakaway group — former Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg — but they all added up to taking a lap under a caution flag in a race in which many candidates have failed but no one has taken a commanding lead.

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The others had little reason to go after Buttigieg, who has struggled with black voters across the country at the same time he’s risen to the top of the polls in the Iowa caucuses, according to Howard Franklin, an Atlanta-based Democratic strategist.

“He is already lacking support from the constituency that could propel him deep into the primary — black voters,” Franklin said. “His connection to other segments of the electorate is strong and authentic, so there’s little upside in picking at his sore spot or attacking from a new, likely ineffective angle.”

There’s also risk, Franklin added: “Mayor Pete has also cultivated the ‘nice guy’ persona in the race, and his highly educated base of voters would likely remember and resent a public broadside, possibly withholding their support from the attacker [later], even if the criticism rang true.”

According to NBC’s tracker, Biden leveled one attack at Warren and one at Sanders; Buttigieg knocked Warren once; Sanders hit Biden once; and Warren went after Trump, the “ultra-rich” and corporations — but none of her Democratic opponents.

For Biden, who has shown resilience as the front-runner in the race since he entered it seven months ago, there’s enough to worry about in terms of not tripping over his own words that delivering attacks on other candidates might be a risky proposition. And, at the same time, sentiment about him in the Democratic Party is so positive that he has proven to be a sympathetic figure when under fire from others.

That means his rivals know they swing at their own peril.

For Warren, the reluctance isn’t just situational but in line with a strategy built around focusing on her own vision rather than what her opponents are saying.

“It’s largely been Warren’s plan” not to fight with other Democrats on stage, said Christina Reynolds, a senior aide on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, who noted that this contest featured lines of questioning on issues such as housing and abortion that haven’t received much attention in previous debates this year. “They used that opportunity to pitch their own plans and contrast with Trump more than each other, which, as a Democrat, I’m OK with.”

For months, Democratic strategists have said that the party’s voters aren’t interested in seeing internecine warfare at a time when they are unified in their disdain for both President Donald Trump’s policies and his bombastic attacks on a wide variety of Americans.

The cautionary tale on that score has been Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., whose earlier scraps with Biden fueled a temporary bump in her polling but may also have turned some persuadable voters away from her campaign more permanently.

On Wednesday, Harris pointedly passed up an opportunity to take Buttigieg to task when she was asked about his campaign using an image of a Kenyan woman in association with its plan for improving the lives of black Americans.

“I believe the mayor’s apologized for that,” Harris said, turning the question to the “larger issue” of white candidates relying on black voters to help them win elections and then not returning to black communities to deliver on policy once elected.

“Show up for me,” she said.

And while one of the lower-ranked candidates, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, did fire off several rounds of volleys at fellow Democrats, there was also a top-tier contender who may have wanted to mix it up a little more.

Sanders was ready to go toe-to-toe with other leading candidates, according to his campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, said.

“I don’t think there’s any unwillingness to engage,” he said, adding that he believed the format didn’t allow for enough direct exchange between the competitors. “There’s just not opportunity to do so unless you really have to just speak over everybody and say, ‘Hey, you know,’ insert yourself and say, ‘Stop talking everybody, I want to engage Mayor Buttigieg.’ It just didn’t allow for it.

Asked whether that means Sanders will be looking to strike at the next debate, Shakir said, “I’ll hold and reserve that.”

By Jonathan Allen [NBC]