29 Realest Moments From the Univision Democratic Debate
Like two cantankerous snowbirds, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders ambled onto the debate stage at Miami-Dade College in Florida Wednesday evening, one week before the state’s voters cast primary ballots, and just three days after they debated in Michigan. It looked and felt a lot like the debate in Flint, except this time “The Star-Spangled Banner” was sung by a young man in a Charro suit, and questions were considerably blunter than those is the previous seven match-ups — several of them asked en español.
El Debate Democrata was moderated by Univision hosts Maria Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos and the Washington Post‘s Karen Tumulty. They pulled no punches, pointedly asking Clinton if she was “Hispandering” to Latinos and aggressively questioning Sanders about his past support of the Castro regime. Both candidates fielded questions on the topics of immigration reform, child deportations and Donald Trump as well.
Here were the best moments of the night.
1. “It wasn’t the best choice.” -Hillary Clinton on her decision to use a private email server
2. “Oh, for goodness — that is not going to happen. I am not even answering that question.” -Hillary Clinton on whether she would drop out of the race if indicted
3. “I called him out when he was calling Mexicans rapists. When he was engaging in rhetoric that I found deeply offensive, I said basta!” -Hillary Clinton on Donald Trump
4. “His demagoguery, his trafficking in prejudice and paranoia has no place in our political system.” -Hillary Clinton on Donald Trump
5. “The American people are never going to elect a president who insults Mexicans, who insults Muslims, who insults women, who insults African Americans.” -Bernie Sanders on Trump
6. “Let us not forget that several years ago, Trump was in the middle of the so-called birther movement, trying to delegitimize the president of the United States of America.'” -Bernie Sanders
7. “My dad was born in Poland. I know a little bit about the immigrant experience. Nobody has ever asked me for my birth certificate. Maybe it has something to do with the color of my skin.” -Bernie Sanders
8. “Are you pandering to Latinos — what some would call ‘Hispandering’?” -Moderator Maria Elena Salinas
9. “Madam Secretary, I will match my record against yours any day of the week.” -Bernie Sanders on fighting for the poor
10. “He’s talking about a very tall wall, right? A beautiful, tall wall. The most beautiful tall wall — better than the Great Wall of China, that would run the entire border, that he would somehow magically get the Mexican government to pay for…. It’s just a fantasy.” -Hillary Clinton on Trump’s proposed wall
11. “I’m not a natural politician, in case you didn’t notice — like my husband and President Obama. I have to do the best that I can.” -Hillary Clinton
12. “When you get paid $225,000, that means that that speech must have been an extraordinarily wonderful speech. I would think that a speech so great that you got paid so much money for, you would like to share it with the American people.” -Bernie Sanders on Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speech