Tonight on our coverage, we are gonna be hosting the Democratic presidential candidates to respond to tonight's Republican debate. And we are very proud as a network to be the first to bring together all of the contenders at the same place, at the same time. [00:00:15] And we wanna point out that we did invite President Joe Biden, but as has unfortunately been the trend, he and the Democratic establishment seem to prefer that this primary be silent if has to occur at all. But I don't think that silence is good for democracy. So we've decided to give our microphone to the candidates. [00:00:32] And now let's welcome those candidates. Marianne Williamson is an American author and speaker. Welcome, Marianne. >> Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you. Wonderful to be here. >> Speaker 1: Good to be speaking with you once again. Representative Gene Phillips is a businessman who has represented Minnesota's 3rd congressional district since 2019. [00:00:49] Welcome. >> Speaker 3: Good evening, everybody. >> Speaker 1: Good to have you here. Cenk Uygur is a political commentator, host of the Young Turks and author. Cenk, it is good to meet you for the first time ever. >> Speaker 4: All right, good to be here. [LAUGH] >> Good to have you here. So, I wanna talk a little bit about what we're gonna be doing tonight. [00:01:04] This is not a debate, this is a forum. We are hoping to bring together all of the contenders to get an idea of what they think about politics and exchange of ideas. And to that end, because there is a lot that we're gonna be talking about, we would ask that all of you try to be concise in your answers to [00:01:20] make sure that we can cover as many important topics as possible. And with that said, I wanna start off with sort of the context that this forum occurs in. We just had the fourth Republican debate, there will likely be more. And yet on the Democratic side, no debates. [00:01:37] Is that a big loss for democracy? Is it a loss for the Democratic Party? Marianne, I want to start with you, what do you think about this? >> Speaker 2: It's a big loss, and we have something worse going on now than just the fact that we don't have debates. We have the fact that in Florida and possibly in some other states, [00:01:53] as some as I'm sure Cenk and Dean are aware, there's some funny stuff going on in Tennessee and in North Carolina. I'm thinking of it now as ballot gate. So we have a bigger problem than even the fact that they're not having debates. And that's that there is a concerted effort by Democratic parties around [00:02:09] the country to make sure that Joe Biden is basically the only person running, even to the point of excluding us from the ballots. And that's a very big deal. And, yes, it's a threat to our democracy. >> Speaker 1: Representative. [00:02:25] >> Speaker 3: For me, well, my goodness, how can you have the two leading candidates right now, which is gonna change by the way, hopefully on both sides of the aisle, literally not agreeing to debate. It's absurd, Donald Trump not showing up for a GOP debate. There's not even an incumbent GOP president right now. [00:02:43] And I think it's more than anything sad, a sad commentary on the Democratic Party and sadly, on Joe Biden. That he would, before he even knew who might be running in this primary, would say there would be no debates. And as a Democrat, a proud one, I know I'm with other ones here on this Zoom tonight. [00:03:01] If debate dies, democracy dies. It's as simple as that. It's appalling, but I'm glad to be with all of you. And we're gonna show people not just how to debate but how to do it respectfully and in a way that I think America is demanding. >> Speaker 1: Cenk, what do you think? >> Speaker 4: Yeah, first, I wanna say something about Marianne and Dean. [00:03:17] Marianne Williamson has been in this race longer than anybody, showed tremendous courage by getting in from the beginning. And then Dean coming in when he did was also huge. It brought more attention to the weakness of Joe Biden. And he did it while taking on huge parts of the Democratic establishment that were [00:03:34] very unhappy for him doing that. I think they showed tremendous courage on both of their parts, and I wanna commend them for that. Now, unfortunately for Joe Biden, we haven't seen that kind of courage. I guess he's worried about us because it's not just that he doesn't debate us. [00:03:51] And come on, I mean, we see his state, I'm sorry, but he couldn't. And if you're worried that he can't withstand a debate with us, how's he gonna do against Donald Trump? But more importantly, as Marianne pointed out, now Florida has just canceled their election. Look, we all got into this race because we're worried to death that Donald Trump [00:04:07] is going to end democracy as we know it. And now he's bragging about wanting to be a dictator. So, the Democratic Party ending elections in the primaries is an epic disaster. It's a disaster for the Democratic voters, it's a disaster for the process, [00:04:23] and a disaster for our prospects in the general election. How are you gonna make the case that Donald Trump is endangering democracy when you're canceling elections across the country? Now, North Carolina and Tennessee has taken all three of us off the ballot as well. It's outrageous, it's indefensible, and it's not what the Democratic Party should stand for. [00:04:40] >> Speaker 1: And I'd like to remind our audience, as we often have, that when you don't have contested vigorous primaries, sure, maybe you protect the incumbents, at least through the primary process. But you don't have a period of driving news, of getting people fired up, getting people talking about politics in these different states, and [00:04:55] that almost certainly has lingering effects for the general election.