Even though he didn’t participate in the Republican presidential debate, former President Donald Trump remains the clear frontrunner in the Republican nomination for president in 2024.
On Wednesday night at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, the seven GOP candidates squared off, and the event provided a number of memorable moments, including former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley unleashing what seemed to be the field’s pent-up frustration with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
She told him, “I feel a little bit dumber for what you say, every time I hear you.”
Joe Biden has been the target of early attacks from the Republican presidential debate field. Tim Scott, a senator from South Carolina, has remarked that instead of being on the picket line with the striking auto workers union in Michigan on Tuesday, Biden should be at the southern border. Biden, according to ex-Vice President Mike Pence, should be “on the unemployment queue.” Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, accused Biden of interfering with “free markets.”
The results of the Republican presidential debate organised by Fox Business Network and Univision are unlikely to alter the course of the Republican presidential debate, where Trump continues to lead in both national and early-state polls.
Furthermore, many viewers may have stopped paying attention due to the chaotic, difficult-to-follow crosstalk.
What we learned during the second Republican presidential debate:
Trump’s cautious strategy appears to be successful.
Trump may have played it safe in the 2024 GOP primary by not participating in the debates and instead running as an incumbent.
It’s hard to imagine, though, that he would lose much support among party members as a result of skipping Wednesday night’s embarrassing event.
Some of Trump’s opponents made some critical remarks. DeSantis criticised him for running a budget deficit. Early in the evening, Christie insulted him by labelling him “Donald Duck” for not attending the debate, and in his closing remarks, he said that he would “vote Trump off the GOP island.”
This individual has not only caused strife within our party, but also between American families. Christie said that his actions had caused rifts among Americans. To quote one of the contestants: “He needs to be voted off the island and he needs to be taken out of this process.”
A field of candidates wooing voters who have a mainly positive view of Trump’s leadership shielded him from real criticism during his four years in the Oval Office.
Trump senior adviser Chris LaCivita stated in a statement, “Tonight’s GOP debate was as boring and inconsequential as the first Republican presidential debate and nothing that was said will change the dynamics of the primary contest.”
Interruptions, crosstalk, and lengthy squabbles between candidates and moderators over speaking time marred the second GOP primary debate.
This is problematic for viewers who are trying to make sense of it all, but it’s downright disastrous for the candidates who are trying to distinguish themselves as preferable to an absent Trump.
DeSantis and Haley, two of the top polling candidates behind Trump, were also among the least willing to plunge into the dirt, especially in the important first hour. The moderators made many early attempts to give the floor to the governor of Florida. But for the first fifteen minutes, he barely registered.
When compared to his competitors, Ramaswamy fared better because he was able to talk more loudly and more quickly. On multiple occasions, he became mired in the mud of his own talking points and the crossfire of criticism from dissatisfied contenders like Scott.
Even though the moderator team will receive criticism for losing order in the room within the first half hour, voters can still learn valuable information from a chaotic debate.
Whacking with a palmetto
Scott seemed to be on the lookout for conflict all night, and he found it when he locked eyes on fellow South Carolinian Haley.
Haley cut off his line of attack with a ‘Bring it’ when he accused her of wasting taxpayer money on $50,000 worth of curtains at a $15 million subsidised site while she was the US ambassador to the UN.
The two Republican presidential debate then began arguing about who should pay for the curtains. Haley responded, “Do your homework, Tim, since Obama bought those curtains,” and Scott asked again, “Did you send them back? When asked, “Did you return them?” Following this, Haley asked, “Did you send them back? If anyone works in Congress, it’s you.
It wasn’t the most heated exchange of the evening, but it was close. A decade ago, when Haley was governor of South Carolina and Scott’s predecessor, Republican Jim DeMint, resigned from the Senate, the animosity between the two native sons of the Palmetto State looked deep. Scott appears to have lost a lot of support due to the current presidential campaign.
DeSantis’s performance was erratic.
DeSantis, facing his Republican presidential debate rivals for the first time in earnest, gave an inconsistent performance from the debate’s centre stage, a position he held with much more confidence before the first debate in Milwaukee but now holds much less sway over.
DeSantis let Fox go to commercial when Pence seemed to blame the governor for the murderer in the Parkland school shooting getting a life sentence instead of the death penalty, despite the rules allowing candidates to respond if they were invoked. (DeSantis disagreed with the ruling and pushed for a statute that lowered the bar for sending someone to Florida’s death row.) When Vice President Pence criticised DeSantis of overspending Florida’s budget by 30% during his administration, DeSantis did not defend himself.
Later, he gave Scott the last say on changing Florida’s Black history curriculum standards, and he had trouble responding to Haley’s (correct) criticism that he had already taken actions to halt fracking in the state by then.
For example, prior to the first Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee, a top strategist for a pro-DeSantis super PAC told contributors, “79% of the people tonight are going to watch the debate and turn it off after 19 minutes.”
According to this metric, the governor of Florida waited until 16 minutes into Wednesday night’s debate before making his opening statement. When he did speak, he maintained the more direct criticism of the GOP frontrunner that he has been hinting at for the past few weeks.
Similar to how DeSantis blamed Biden for inflation and the autoworkers strike, Trump’s absence in California was compared to Biden’s lack of “completely missing in action for leadership” on the economy.
And who else do you know has disappeared? DeSantis has claimed that President Trump has gone silent. He needs to be here tonight. For your sake, he should defend his past actions.
However, after the Republican presidential debate, DeSantis mainly refrained from making any more direct attacks on Trump, saving his challenge for a post-debate interview on Fox News.
DeSantis closed the Republican presidential debate with a powerful statement. He asserted leadership by rejecting moderator Dana Perino’s calls for contenders to “vote off the island” one of their rivals. A idea that Trump’s polling lead in September meant anything was firmly shot down as he called it a night.
“Polls don’t elect presidents, voters elect presidents,” he stated, before blaming Trump for the GOP’s poor showing in the polls over the past three elections.
However, as the super PAC strategist had before noted, by that time, no one cared.
Latino voters face challenging concerns about immigration
As the discussion was winding down, Univision co-host Ilia Calderón asked Vice President Pence how he planned to reach out to Latino voters who may have felt the Republican Party was hostile or uninterested in them.
“I’m incredibly proud of the tax cut and tax reform bill,” he remarked, alluding to the Republicans’ comprehensive 2017 tax plan. He added that Hispanic unemployment has been low under the Trump-Pence administration.
When asked the same thing, Scott emphasised the need for a leader to set an example. “My chief of staff is the only Hispanic female chief of staff in the Senate,” he said. I decided to recruit her since she is the most qualified candidate we had available.
The immigration and gun violence records of the contenders were the primary focus of Calderón’s series of policy questions. Some of them had trouble giving a straightforward answer at times.
She pressed Pence on whether he would coordinate with lawmakers to resolve the issue of illegally-admitted minors. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which provided legal protections to these youth, was terminated by the Trump-Pence administration. After Pence’s answer centred on his efforts to secure the border, she asked the same thing again. Next, he elaborated on his time serving in Congress.
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First, let me inform you that I served in Congress for 12 years, even though it felt like much more. “But you know, something I’ve done differently than everybody on this stage is I’ve actually secured reform in Congress.”
Candidates and Republican presidential debate moderators avoid discussing abortion.
On Wednesday night, it took over an hour and a half before anyone even brought up the topic of abortion.
After five minutes, the topic of discussion had changed. What could be the most important factor in the upcoming election was given less airtime than TikTok.
It was telling that nobody on stage cared.
DeSantis was first asked about this by Perino, who asked him if he thought that the eventual Republican nominee would be hampered by the electoral backlash to abortion laws or the probability of its passage.
DeSantis, who signed the six-week moratorium in April, rejected those worries by citing his popularity in liberal sections of Florida as evidence that he will easily win reelection in 2022. Then, he took aim at Trump for calling the new legislation “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”
Christie followed a similar course, arguing that his success as governor of New Jersey, a blue state that often supports abortion rights, for two terms proved that anti-abortion leaders could win in such states.
And that put an abrupt end to the “Republican presidential debate” around abortion in Simi Valley. There are no further questions, and no other contestants are trying to join the conversation in any way.
Politicians attack Dr. Ramaswamy
Others on stage were hesitant to participate because of Ramaswamy’s impressive performance in the first discussion.
Scott attacked the internet mogul early in Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, saying that his financial history shows connections to the Chinese Communist Party and donations to Hunter Biden. Ramaswamy, clearly irritated, changed tack from applauding the other candidates on stage to defending his professional track record. In the end, Scott and Ramaswamy spoke over one another.
Pence began his response a few time later with a knock on Ramaswamy’s door and the words, “I’m glad Vivek pulled out of his business deal in China.” Haley interrupted Ramaswamy again after he had responded to a question concerning his use of TikTok by saying, “Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber from what you say,” and continuing, “We can’t trust you.” We don’t believe you.” Ramaswamy was attempting to regain his united front when Scott made an apparent attempt to cut him off.
While Haley pounces, DeSantis and Pence avoid questions about health care.
Moderators tried to corner DeSantis and Pence on their health care records, but neither candidate had a good answer.
Pence dodged a question on the Trump administration’s failure to repeal Obamacare by redirecting attention to the issue of mass shootings. Pence again declined to answer Perino’s question of why Obamacare is still not only functional but also popular.
Fox’s Stuart Varney questioned DeSantis similarly, asking him to provide light on the issue of 2.5 million uninsured Floridians.
DeSantis resurrected a tried-and-true enemy of California Republicans: inflation. DeSantis didn’t have much to say in response to Varney’s criticism that it didn’t address why Florida has one of the highest uninsurance rates in the country.
DeSantis remarked, “Our state is a dynamic state,” before citing Florida’s population surge and the state’s relatively meagre welfare payments.
However, it seemed as though Haley was prepared to discuss health care, as she advocated for price transparency to reduce the influence of insurance corporations and providers and for a reform of litigation regulations that would make it more difficult to sue doctors.
One can reasonably ask, “How can we be the best country in the world and have the most expensive health care in the world?” – Haley.
