The best lines from last night’s Democratic 2020 debate

| 9:09 am EDT August 1, 2019
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Last night’s 2020 Democratic presidential primary debate consisted of nearly three hours of often nuanced, often spirited debate among ten different candidates. Palmer Report has already spelled out who we think won and lost based on substance. But in case you missed it, here are the best and most memorable one-liners from last night’s debate.

Kirsten Gillibrand hasn’t found much success thus far in the 2020 race, as she’s polling quite poorly. But she delivered what might be the best and most biting zinger against Donald Trump to date when she said that “The first thing I’m going to do as president is I am going to Clorox the Oval Office.” We’re guessing The Clorox Company was thrilled by the happenstance product placement.

Joe Biden had a much stronger debate performance last night than he did last month. Biden came off as unprepared and arrogant during the first debate, a bad combination, as Kamala Harris pummeled him. But he showed necessary humility this time around when he opened the debate by telling Harris, “Go easy on me, kid.” It was enough to make us overlook his bizarre “joe30330” flub.

Julián Castro had a pretty strong debate performance, and people would probably be talking about him right now if Cory Booker hadn’t stolen the show. But Castro made the best argument yet for why the House must impeach Donald Trump even if the GOP Senate will then refuse to remove him. It was too long to count as a one-liner, but Castro explained that if Trump isn’t impeach, he’ll campaign in 2020 on the claim that the Democrats didn’t have enough dirt on him to even get so far as articles of impeachment.