New Magazin Saleb Opinion

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks during the Democratic presidential debate on July 30, 2019. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images “We will withdraw,” the South Bend, Indiana, mayor and Afghanistan vet responded. “We have to.” South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg said during Tuesday’s Democratic debate that he’s committed to withdrawing all troops from Afghanistan by the end of his first year in office if elected president. The 2020 Democratic candidate, who did a seventh-month tour in Afghanistan as a naval officer, made the promise during the first night of this week’s Democratic primary debates in response to a question from CNN’s Jake Tapper. Tapper mentioned the two US service members who were just killed in Afghanistan this week — making that 14 deaths in 2019 , the 18th year of the war. “You said one thing everybody can agree on is we’re getting out of Afghanistan. Will you withdraw all US service members by the end of your first year in office?” Tapper said...

Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) speak during the first night of the second Democratic debate on July 30, 2019. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Their policies were also central to many of the night’s biggest exchanges. If speaking time is any indication, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders completely dominated the first night of this week’s Democratic debates . Not only was discussion over their policies on health care and trade central to some of the night’s biggest exchanges, they also offered notable responses to attacks from moderates like Rep. Tim Ryan . (See: Sanders’s “I wrote the damn bill!” when Ryan questioned his claims about Medicare-for-all.) According to a Washington Post tracker , Warren spoke the most of the 10 candidates onstage, for a total of 17.9 minutes. Sanders came in a close second, talking for 17.6 minutes. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke , mea...

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images Elizabeth Warren versus John Delaney is not the drama we’ve been craving. Most of the standout moments during the Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday night involved Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren teeing off against someone nobody has heard of. But these exchanges about decriminalizing illegal entry into the United States, replacing union health plans with a new government-run plan, providing public health benefits to unauthorized immigrants, and other topics that pit activist priorities against public opinion are critical to the 2020 primary. The problem is that the candidates taking the more moderate stance on these issues relative to Warren and Sanders — Tim Ryan , John Delaney , John Hickenlooper , and Steve Bullock — are not even remotely central to the 2020 primary. But that’s not because moderates have become marginal in the Democratic Party. It’s because Joe Biden, who sits at the top of the polls and broadly agrees with Ryan, Delane...