Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Trump slams Democratic debates at G20 summit over healthcare for migrants: ‘That’s the end of that race!’

'I look forward to spending time with you rather than watching that,' president tells world leaders about 2020 debates

Chris Riotta
New York
Friday 28 June 2019 03:34 BST
Comments
Democratic debate: Bernie Sanders says a 'socialist' can defeat 'pathological liar' Donald Trump: 'We're ten points up'

Donald Trump attacked the first two nights of the 2020 Democratic debates while attending the G20 summit in Japan on Thursday.

The president said the first night of debates among leading Democrats in Miami, Florida “wasn’t very exciting” and lambasted his opponents for supporting health care for undocumented immigrants during the second night of debates.

While meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the US president said, “You know they have a debate going on. They had the first debate last night, perhaps you saw it — it wasn’t very exciting, I can tell you that.”

“They have another going on today,” he continued, speaking with the German leader on Thursday night as the debates were going on. “They definitely have plenty of candidates. That’s about it.”

“I look forward to spending time with you rather than watching that,” he added.

Still, the president reportedly claimed to have passed by a television during Thursday night’s summit when he noticed the second round of debates at a moment when politicians were responding to a question about providing health care insurance for undocumented immigrants.

Each of the 2020 hopefuls on stage at Thursday night’s contentious debate were in agreement over providing health care to migrants who arrived at the nation’s borders with documentation.

Mr Trump tweeted seemingly in between meetings: “All Democrats just raised their hands for giving millions of illegal aliens unlimited healthcare.”

“How about taking care of American Citizens first!?” he continued, adding, “That’s the end of that race!”

On Wednesday night, the president tweeted the first night of debates were “BORING!” and did not live-tweet the entirety of the events as some reports suggested he was planning on doing while travelling to the G20 summit.

Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

Numerous candidates took a turn to swipe at Mr Trump during their remarks at the multi-day debates, with leading candidates like Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren each portraying themselves as the president’s polar opposite in terms of rhetoric, policies and proposals.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in