The ninth debate of this cycle featured the most aggressive sustained period of infighting in the Democrats’ yearlong search for a presidential nominee.
Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, went after both former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, warning that one threatened to “burn down” the Democratic Party and the other was trying to buy it.
He called them “the two most polarizing figures on this stage,” with little chance of defeating Trump or helping congressional Democrats in contests with Republicans.
And ongoing animosity flared between Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar when he slammed the three-term Minnesota senator for failing to answer questions in a recent interview about Mexican policy and forgetting the name of the Mexican president.
Buttigieg noted that she’s on a committee that oversees trade issues in Mexico and she “was not able to speak to literally the first thing about the politics of the country.”