Bloomberg Takes Debate Stage for First Time & Struggles to Face His History of Misogyny, Racism

Tensions flared at the ninth Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday. Senator Bernie Sanders sought to defend his position as front-runner in the Democrats' nomination fight, and former Vice President Joe Biden, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar tried to attract more supporters. Senator Elizabeth Warren led a night full of attacks on the new person on stage: billionaire former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Bloomberg faced questions about his vast wealth, his defense of stop-and-frisk and his treatment of women.

We host a roundtable on the debate and Saturday's Nevada caucuses: Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of The Nation, America's oldest weekly magazine, and a columnist for WashingtonPost.com; journalist and activist Raquel Willis is executive editor of Out magazine, as well as a supporter of Senator Elizabeth Warren; Ana Maria Archila is co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, a progressive advocacy group that has endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders; Annise Parker is the former mayor of Houston, now president of the Victory Fund, which works to increase the number of openly LGBTQ officials in government and has endorsed Pete Buttigieg for president. The Victory Fund is the largest LGBTQ political action committee in the United States.