WASHINGTON — Overshadowed by impeachment, Ukraine and Syria over the last three weeks, the 2020 Democratic presidential race returns to the political spotlight tonight with the fourth round of debates from Westerville, Ohio.
But the attention on the 2020 race also seems more like an intermission to a much bigger story playing out in Washington.
Here are the five storylines we’re watching as 12 candidates take the debate stage tonight beginning at 8:00 pm ET.
- A focus on foreign policy: With Turkey’s incursion into Syria — at President Trump’s open invitation — don’t be surprised if foreign policy becomes an opening topic at tonight’s debate, especially since it’s barely received attention in the previous rounds. Health care and the economy dominated the first questions at the earlier debates, but will Syria start tonight’s debate? It’s very possible.
- Hunter Biden: Given the impeachment/Ukraine news, it’s almost guaranteed that Joe Biden and the other candidates will get a question about Hunter Biden’s work on the board of a Ukraine energy company. And while we can envision Biden’s rivals pulling off a “people are sick and tired about hearing about the damn attacks on Hunter Biden,” it will be interesting to see how they might square that with their general money-in-politics/corporate greed/revolving door critiques.
- The two frontrunners: Since their face off in last month’s debate in Texas, Joe Biden’s and Elizabeth Warren’s dominance over the 2020 field has grown even stronger, with the two becoming the co-frontrunners.
- Bernie Sanders’ health: The other noteworthy development since the last debate was Bernie Sanders’ heart attack, and tonight’s debate will be his first real campaign event after that health scare. The latest national Quinnipiac poll had Sanders’ support dropping 5 points (from 16 percent to 11 percent), while both Warren and Biden ticked up a point.
- Desperation time for the 2 percenters: Twelve candidates qualified for tonight’s debate, including new participant Tom Steyer. But that number is guaranteed to get smaller at next month’s debate, given the heightened qualification requirements. Four of tonight’s participants have NOT qualified for November’s debate — Beto O’Rourke, Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard and Amy Klobuchar — and they have every incentive to try to mix it up. See Beto vs. Pete Buttigieg below.
Tonight's debate is co-hosted by CNN and the New York Times.
John Bolton: Team Trump’s Ukraine efforts amounted to a “drug deal”
This news just further underscores how the Trump administration’s Ukraine operation was an open secret inside the White House.
“Former national security adviser John Bolton was so disturbed by the efforts to get the Ukrainians to investigate President Donald Trump’s political opponents that he called it a ‘drug deal,’ former White House official Fiona Hill reportedly told Congress on Monday,” per NBC’s Josh Lederman and Phil Helsel.
The New York Times, which first reported on Fiona Hill’s testimony about Bolton’s concerns, adds that Bolton told Hill “to notify the chief lawyer for the National Security Council about a rogue effort by Mr. Sondland, Mr. Giuliani and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, according to the people familiar with the testimony.”
“‘I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up,’ Mr. Bolton, a Yale-trained lawyer, told Ms. Hill to tell White House lawyers, according to two people at the deposition. (Another person in the room initially said Mr. Bolton referred to Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Mulvaney, but two others said he cited Mr. Sondland.)”
The Trump Era has been a character test for many well-known Washington figures. And we’re finding out which ones were unwilling to cross certain ethical and constitutional lines.
Tweet of the day
Another State Department official, George Kent, testifies on Ukraine
Meanwhile, NBC’s Geoff Bennett and Garrett Haake report that another State Department official is set to testify as part of the House’s impeachment inquiry on Ukraine.
“Today, the committees are set to hear from George Kent, the State Department official responsible for Ukraine, who was among those raising red flags about Rudy Giuliani’s smear campaign against ousted U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Kent reportedly warned in an e-mail to colleagues that Yovanovitch had become the target of a ‘classic disinformation operation.’”
2020 Vision: Hunter Biden speaks
NBC’s Mike Memoli flags a portion of Hunter Biden’s interview with ABC News.
ABC's Amy Robach: "If your last name wasn’t Biden do you think you would have been asked to be on the board of Burisma?"
Hunter Biden: "I don’t know. I don’t know. Probably not. But that’s – you know, I, I don’t think that there’s a lot of things that would have happened in my life if my last name wasn’t Biden"
Robach: "Why did you leave then board in April?"
Biden: "It’s a five-year term. … And I chose not to."
Robach: "Why?"
