Hundreds of thousands of people watching the democratic debate last week were shocked when a candidate proposed to ease gambling restrictions, decrease the age limit, and teach fellow countrymen how to live off casino.
The democratic debate is a debate held by the Democratic party of the United States between its candidates for the nomination in presidential elections. These debates are organised by media outlets and have been organised since 1983.
Don’t confuse it for the debates between party-nominated candidates organised by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates since 1988. The DNC had announced the primary schedule for the series of official debates back in December last year and had put down qualifications for the entrants. On June 13, the DNC also announced the list of 20 candidates that will be debating.
Since the candidate pool was so large, all eyes were on the debate on Wednesday and Thursday to get a feel for the candidates and see which ones were promising. The biggest names to be watched were Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders.
The second night of the debate was challenging for the frontrunner Joe Biden. First, he was denounced for not opposing busing and supporting two of US senators who career on the segregation of race in the country. Second, Eric Samwell,38 took a stab at Biden’s age who is 76 when he urged him to “pass the torch”
When Bernie Sanders, 77 jumped in to defend Biden on the issue of age, he was cut off by Delaware congressman Pete Kramer who started talking about reigning in the fossil fuel industry. His monologue was going rather blandly until he started talking about the promotion of gambling across the country.
He claimed that the gambling industry had been “subjected to unnecessary criticism” by politicians. He went on to say that focusing on improving the gambling scenario will improve the USA’s tourism and bring in more foreign income. He claimed if they could remove the “restrictive regulations”, they could create a gambling hub in Las Vegas that was much superior to others, citing Macau as an example.
The crowd gasped as he started talking how he intended to reduce the gambling age in the states and create a system to vary the house edge depending on the bet size and rush inside the casino. Kramer also mentioned that online gambling needed to be regulated in safety but let go in terms of operations.
While Pete put himself up for a lot of heat from the common population, president Trump had an entirely different opinion. Since all 20 democratic candidates need to beat the Republican president, halfway through the debate Trump tweeted “BORING!” aimed at the debate.
However, when Pete Kramer started talking about the Gambling reform, he caught Trump’s interest since the president is also a staunch supporter of the gambling sector, likely because he built his empire on gambling properties. He tweeted after Pete Kramer was done talking, “That is the first useful anyone has ever said in a Democratic debate. Congratulations Pete!”
Regardless of the political support of his political rival, it is still to be seen if the congressman will face any backlash and if it will affect his candidacy.