The Second Democratic Debate Has Already Turned Into a Complete Mess

The second Democratic primary debate is underway and things are getting very wild.

Ostensibly, the first big dust-up of the evening kicked off when California Rep. Eric Swalwell went after former Vice President Joe Biden for being too old to run for office—something he couched using Biden’s own previous words that it was time to “pass the torch” to a new generation.

With that, things started to get messy. First Biden responded with some vague ideas about making things better for younger Americans struggling with college debt. Then Sen. Bernie Sanders jumped in to say that he too was old, but was also the only candidate with the guts to take on Wall Street.

After that, things went sideways. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand attempted to join the scrum, only to have Sanders not budge, resulting in a shouty bout of un-intelligible crosstalk with several other candidates joining in, and which only ended when Sen. Kamala Harris decided now was her moment to act like (dare I say?) the adult in the room.

“Hey guys, you know what?” Harris said, addressing the rest of the debate stage. “America does not want to witness a food fight. They wanna know how we’re gonna put food on their table.”

The crowd loved it. The other candidates shut up. And folks, we’re off to the races.