Hillary Rodham Clinton, seeking to halt the momentum of her insurgent challenger, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, aggressively questioned his values, positions and voting history Tuesday night in the first Democratic presidential debate, turning a showdown that had been expected to scrutinize her character into a forceful critique of his record.
In a series of sometimes biting exchanges, Mrs. Clinton declared that Mr. Sanders was mistaken in his handling of crucial votes on gun control and misguided in his grasp of the essentialness of capitalism to the American identity. Mocking Mr. Sanders’s admiration for the health care system of Denmark, she interrupted a moderator to offer a stinging assessment of his logic, suggesting he was unprepared to grapple with the realities of governing a superpower.
“We are not Denmark,” Mrs. Clinton said, adding with a sly smile, “I love Denmark. We are the United States of America.”
The crowd erupted in applause.
A few moments later, Mrs. Clinton took aim at what may be Mr. Sanders’s greatest vulnerability with the Democratic left, asking why he had voted to shield gun makers and dealers from liability lawsuits. Mr. Sanders, who linked his record on gun control to his representation of a rural state, called the bill “large and complicated.”