WASHINGTON — Eight Republican presidential candidates met face-to-face in the first debate of the 2024 primary season.
The two-hour debate hosted by the Fox News Channel was notable for who wasn’t there: former President Donald Trump, who has a huge lead in opinion polls for the GOP nomination.
After the debate, Trump campaign senior adviser Susie Wiles decried what she said were “90-second canned sound bites and platitudes from the debate stage,” and that it was clear that “none of the other candidates looked ready to take on” Mr. Biden.
Here are five must-see moments from the first debate:
Ron DeSantis emerged unscathed
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis may be fading in polls but he remains the second choice of Republican primary voters behind Mr. Trump. But when the GOP candidates went after each other, Mr. DeSantis was left alone.
“Candidates seemed much more focused during the night on either the former president, the current president, or Ramaswamy given his recent rise in the polls,” said Ashley Koning, a pollster and professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “While DeSantis did seemingly little on the debate stage to either impress or do damage, his second-place position may have kept him safe from attacks, perhaps a sign that his opponents may want to be an ally of his in the future if he remains a serious contender.”
Mr. DeSantis’ campaign manager, James Uthmeier, pointed out after the debate how his candidate stayed above the fray.
“While other candidates attacked each other, Governor DeSantis stayed focused on the American people and fighting for their future with a clear vision to fix our economy, secure the border, empower parents, back law enforcement, and stand up to the leftist elites and the D.C. establishment,” Mr. Uthmeier said.
But Jason Miller, an adviser to Mr. Trump, said on NBC after the debate that Mr. DeSantis needed a breakout moment and didn’t get it.
“I knew President Trump wasn’t going to be there,” Mr. Miller said. “I didn’t know Ron DeSantis was going to skip the debate as well.”
“The elephant not in the room”
While Mr. Trump skipped the debate stage, he couldn’t escape the debate itself. The panelists were asked whether Mr. Pence did the right thing on Jan. 6, 2021, when he refused Mr. Trump’s demand to throw out state-certified electoral votes from Pennsylvania and other battleground states on bogus grounds of voter fraud.
Mr. Pence said that no vice president in American history had ever done what Mr. Trump was pushing him to do — choosing a single man over the U.S. Constitution.
“I had no right to overturn the election, and Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024,” he said.
At first, Mr. DeSantis didn’t want to answer the Pence question, describing it as a distraction that appeals to Democrats. But after needling from Mr. Pence, he acknowledged, “Mike did his duty, I got no beef with him.”
Ms. Haley, Mr. Scott, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum all agreed that Mr. Pence did the right thing.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie delivered the strongest support for Mr. Pence’s actions.
“Mike Pence stood for the Constitution,” he said. “And he deserves, not grudging credit, he deserves our thanks as Americans for putting his oath of office and the Constitution of the United States before personal, political, and unfair pressure.”
Republicans accused Mr. Biden of using the Justice Department and federal law enforcement to go after Mr. Trump. Attorney General Merrick Garland has retained a U.S. attorney named by Mr. Trump and the FBI director was chosen by the former president.
In addition, Mr. Trump tried to replace acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Philadelphia native Jeffrey Clark, a former acting assistant attorney general. The president only relented when he was told “it would result in mass resignations” at Justice and the White House, according to the federal indictment against Mr. Trump.
Mr. Clark appears to be one of the unnamed co-conspirators in the indictment. Prosecutors alleged that a former Justice Department official worked with the former president “to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.”
Christie wanted to attack somebody
Mr. Christie, the former federal prosecutor, didn’t have Mr. Trump to kick around in person, and he laid off Mr. DeSantis. Instead, he went after entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who is in third place in the Real Clear Politics poll average.
“I’ve heard enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT standing up here,” Mr. Christie said early in the debate. He then pointed out that Mr. Ramaswany’s description of himself as a “skinny guy with a funny last name” mirrored the well-received speech given by Barack Obama at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, when the then-state senator from Illinois also called himself “a skinny kid with a funny name.”
“I am afraid we are dealing with the same type of amateur standing on stage tonight,” Mr. Christie said.
“Give me a hug just like you did to Obama and you’ll help elect me just like you did to Obama,” Mr. Ramaswamy said, referring to the greeting the then-New Jersey governor gave to Mr. Obama when he visited the state to tour the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy shortly before the 2012 presidential election. The “hug” plagued Mr. Christie throughout his 2016 presidential run.
Later, the two men talked over each other during a question about Mr. Trump’s indictments.
“Someone’s got to stop normalizing this conduct,” Mr. Christie said. “Whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of president of the United States.”
As the audience booed, Mr. Christie responded, “This is the great thing about this country: Booing is allowed but it doesn’t change the truth.”
Mr. Ramaswamy fired back.
“President Trump, I believe, was the best president of the 21st century,” he said. “And Chris Christie, honest to God, your claim that Donald Trump is motivated by vengeance and grievance would be a lot more credible if your entire campaign were not based on vengeance and grievance against one man.”
GOP candidates gang up against Ramaswamy over Ukraine
Some of the GOP candidates hammered Mr. Ramaswamy over his views on the war in Ukraine — where he said the U.S. should pull its resources and instead invest in protecting the southern border.
Mr. Pence called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a dictator and a murderer,” and said the “U.S. must stand up to authoritarianism.”
The strongest punch came from Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador under Mr. Trump. Ms. Haley argued that Mr. Ramaswamy, who calls on Ukraine to “make some major concessions to Russia,” effectively wants to “hand Ukraine to Russia.”
“[Putin] is a murderer and you are choosing a murderer over a pro-American country,” she said to the entrepreneur. “You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.”
Mr. Ramaswamy, who previously said he “would not send another dollar” to support Ukraine, insisted that the war with Russia was not a major priority for the U.S. He chastised Republicans and Democrats who supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, arguing the country shouldn’t invest in endless wars anymore. The biggest threat to America, he said, is “communist China.”
Mr. DeSantis weighed in that he wanted to deploy troops along the U.S. border with Mexico rather than the Ukrainian border with Russia.
“I’m not going to send troops to Ukraine but I am going to send them to our border,” he said.
The only disagreement on abortion was how stringent a ban should be
While the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year to overturn Roe v. Wade left abortion rights decisions to the states, nearly all the Republican candidates argued in favor of banning the procedure and most wanted the federal government to get involved.
“It’s not a states-only issue, it’s a moral issue,” Mr. Pence said. He and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said they supported a ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Mr. Scott said states like California, Minnesota, Illinois and others should not be allowed to provide “abortions on demand.”
Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Burgum both have signed legislation restricting abortions after six weeks.
“You’ve got to do what you think is right,” Mr. DeSantis said. “I believe in a culture of life.”
Ms. Haley said that since opponents of abortion rights lack the 60 votes needed to overcome a Senate filibuster and pass a national ban, she would try to develop a consensus around some limits.
“Can’t we all agree that we should ban late-term abortions?” she said “Can’t we all agree that we should encourage adoptions? Can’t we all agree that doctors and nurses who don’t believe in abortion shouldn’t have to perform them? Can’t we all agree that contraception should be available? And can’t we all agree that we are not going to put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty if she gets an abortion?”
Some Republicans also went on the attack, accusing Democrats of supporting abortion “all the way up to birth.”
But late-term abortions are exceptionally rare. KFF, a health care research group, said abortions just before or after birth “do not occur, nor are they legal.” And procedures after 21 weeks account for just 1% of all abortions nationwide, and are performed primarily if the life of the mother or fetus is at risk, or if barriers prevent a woman from getting medical care earlier, the group said.
Jonathan D. Salant: jsalant@post-gazette.com, @JDSalant; Benjamin Kail: bkail@post-gazette.com, @BenKail
First Published: August 24, 2023, 10:02 a.m.
Updated: August 24, 2023, 9:44 p.m.
