Savannah Guthrie was the lead moderator of the debates, joined by Lester Holt, Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow, and José Díaz-Balart.
[93] Booker, Castro, and O'Rourke all spoke Spanish at different times during the debate, which received mixed reception and was met with jokes from second-night competitors Williamson and Yang on Twitter.
[96] The second night was also notable for the performance of Williamson, who received significant attention for comments she made during the debate perceived as strange, including a reference to the Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern.
[112] CNN received criticism for allegedly inciting conflicts between candidates and making questions from Republican talking points, as well as enforcing the time limits too strictly.
CNN anchors Erin Burnett and Anderson Cooper and New York Times national editor Marc Lacey served as the debate moderators.
Yang, the only candidate of color, expressed lament that Kamala Harris and Cory Booker were absent, and declared that his universal-basic-income proposal would diversify the field.
[206][207] The Chinese government censored a live feed of the debate after moderator Judy Woodruff asked Pete Buttigieg if the U.S. should boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing over China's alleged human rights abuses of Uyghur citizens.
The Democratic Party's seventh presidential debate was held from 8 to 10:15 p.m. CT[30] on Tuesday, January 14, 2020, at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
Moderator Linsey Davis also inquired Buttigieg on the rise in marijuana-related incarcerations of African Americans in South Bend during his tenure as mayor, which he attributed to "systemic racism".
[229] On the topic of campaign finance, Elizabeth Warren stated that political action committees had assisted all of the non-billionaire candidates except for Amy Klobuchar and herself.
[56] The Democratic Party's ninth presidential debate was held from 6–8 p.m. PST[239] on Wednesday, February 19, 2020, at Paris Las Vegas in Paradise, Nevada.
[228] Bloomberg, who made his debate stage debut after qualifying only a day prior,[240] was widely regarded by multiple news outlets as having performed poorly.
[241][242] Bloomberg's political and personal record came under heavy scrutiny by other candidates, including his previous support of stop-and-frisk policies during his tenure as mayor of New York City.
[252] On the other hand, Klobuchar argued that Sanders's Medicare for All proposal would be too radical to garner enough support in the Senate, whereas Buttigieg expressed disapproval at the idea of letting the government decide what healthcare plan is best for unions, calling it "condescension and arrogance".
[228] Following his landslide victory in Nevada the prior week, Sanders was targeted by several other candidates who attempted to dampen his momentum going into the upcoming South Carolina and Super Tuesday primaries.
This provoked a reaction from Biden, who said that while Obama did acknowledge Cuba's progress in increasing life expectancy during a 2016 town hall, he did not "in any way suggest that there was anything positive about the Cuban government" and proceeded to condemn the dictatorial regime.
[270][271] The crowd's negative reception of Sanders led to the proliferation of rumors on social media that the debate audience had been "stacked against" him, pointing to the high entry costs which ranged from $1,750 to $3,200 as evidence.
In that scenario, the DNC would have had to accept inviting 21 candidates, or invent a supplementing final tiebreak rule (for example, drawing lots for the last spot, or deciding the tie by their number of unique donors).
[318] During the closing statements for the third debate, in which candidates were asked to recall moments of resilience after a professional setback, protesters interrupted Joe Biden for approximately two minutes.
[322] On August 23, Gabbard's campaign protested the failure of the DNC to release "their criteria for selecting the 16 polling organizations they deem 'certified'" for qualifying candidates for the third debate.
"[121] They called on the DNC to revise the set of polls it considers for qualifying and also asked them "to hold true to their promise and make adjustments to the process now to ensure transparency and fairness.
[338] On March 3, as Super Tuesday results were announced, DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa tweeted that the qualification threshold would likely increase, giving the reason that almost 2,000 delegates would have been allocated by the time of the debate.
[294] Yang, along with Marianne Williamson and Eric Swalwell, complained of microphone problems not allowing them to speak unless called upon when other candidates seemed to be able to freely interject at all times.
[347] Yang ended his boycott on December 27 by going on the TV show All in with Chris Hayes, stating "I decided that I'd prefer to speak to as many Americans as possible – our message is too important" on Twitter.
[202] Due to a Sodexo worker strike at the new venue, Loyola Marymount University, Warren announced that she would not attend the debate unless the labor dispute was resolved, followed soon after by Sanders and Yang.
Sanders stated in his reply "as a matter of fact, I didn't say it" and received the follow-up question from Phillip: "I do want to be clear here, you're saying that you never told Senator Warren that a woman could not win the election?"
"[356][357] MSNBC hosts Mika Brzezinski and Donny Deutsch the next day on Morning Joe criticized the question, describing it as "bizarre" and "a miss" respectively.
[358] Senior reporter at HuffPost Zach Carter stated that he believes CNN "botched" the debate[359] and Matt Taibi from Rolling Stone described the moderation as "shameful" and "villainous".
[232] DNC spokesperson Adrienne Watson stated that the prior rules were "appropriate for the opening stages of the race, when candidates were building their organizations and there were no metrics available outside of polling to distinguish those making progress from those who weren't.
[374] CBS was also widely criticized for doing a poor job of moderating the debate and letting candidates talk over each other, often leading to 10–20 seconds of unintelligible shouting.