While most Democratic presidential contenders railed against President Donald Trump on Dec. 19 at the 2020 debate, businessman Andrew Yang urged Democrats to focus on presenting “a new, positive vision for the country.”
Six of the seven Democratic contenders were unable to say why no House Republicans—and most of Senate Republicans—either voted against impeachment or have signaled they will vote to acquit President Donald Trump.
Amid declining support in polls for impeaching the president and removing him from office, while a Democrat Congressman switched to the GOP and another Democrat abstained from voting, six 2020 contenders at the Dec. 19 debate tried making the case about why Trump should be convicted. But none were able to say why not a single Republican supported the House vote to impeach Trump.
Most candidates lashed out at Trump.
Former Vice President Joe Biden called the president “a pathological liar” and “a fraud,” while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) claimed that the president “has sold out the working families of this country,” “wants to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid after he promised he would not do that,” and lied a lot.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) claimed that Trump is “the most corrupt president in living history.”
Yang took a different tune, starting by noting that most Americans don’t trust mainstream media or Congress.
“The media networks didn’t do us any favors by missing the reason why Donald Trump became our president in the first place. If you turn on cable network news today, you would think he’s our president because of some combination of Russia, racism, Facebook, and Hillary Clinton, all mixed together,” Yang said.
But Trump won because of the major loss of manufacturing jobs in the year leading up to 2016, Yang said.
“We have to stop being obsessed over impeachment—which unfortunately strikes many Americans like a ball game where you know what the score is going to be—and start actually digging in and solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place,” Yang said. “We have to take every opportunity to present a new, positive vision for the country, a new way forward to help beat him in 2020.
“Because make no mistake, he’ll be there at the ballot box for us to defeat,” Yang added.
The House approved two articles of impeachment against Trump on Wednesday, one for abuse of office and another for obstruction for Congress.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did not allow a vote for the naming of House managers before the chamber broke for Christmas on Thursday, and has not said when she’ll submit the impeachment resolution to allow the Senate to begin its impeachment trial. The impeachment effort by the House will need to win the support of the Republican-majority Senate before the president can be impeached and removed from office.
The other candidates on stage were former Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and billionaire Tom Steyer.
A number of other candidates did not meet the thresholds for the debate.
They are: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), former Obama administration cabinet secretary Julian Castro, author Marianne Williamson, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), and former Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.).
