MILWAUKEE (Michigan News Source) – Those were the words out of former South Carolina Governor and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley’s mouth 15 minutes before the end of the RNC/Fox News Channel Republican presidential debate last night and they were words that summed up the chaotic 2-hour event that took place on the stage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at Fiserv Forum, home of the basketball team, the Milwaukee Bucks.
Haley gave the advice to Fox News debate moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum after the last of many squabbles between former Vice President Mike Pence and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. However, Haley’s suggestion came a little too late for the Fox News moderators who let the debate descend into chaos multiple times during the evening which resulted in many reprimands and floor violations for both the candidates and the vocal crowd.
Donald Trump Jr. took to X/Twitter about halfway through the debate to say, “This GOP Debate is like watching high school kids do bad model UN.”
Earlier in the evening, within the first half hour of the debate, after a spat between former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Ramaswamy, an exasperated Haley decided to channel Margaret Thatcher by using her words, saying, “If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.”
The seven men who stood on the stage with Haley included former Vice President Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.
The eight Republican presidential hopefuls who stood on stage at the first debate of the year were given an opportunity to play a game of eight-on-one against former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden, to make their case to voters who might have soured on both men, but it seemed like the candidates were more interested in going after who was presently on the court in front of them.
The BBC commented that while some might have thought the debate would be boring without Trump there, that was definitely not the case. They called the debate a “rowdy affair” and it was characterized by the media with words like “testy” and “feisty.” Scott even scolded the candidates, telling them to quit being childish.
The night started out badly for the Fox News Channel right away with them asking questions Republicans on social media compared to what moderators from liberal CNN or MSNBC might ask. Before Baier and MacCallum asked any questions about China, the southern border or Ukraine, they talked about the song “Rich Men North of Richmond” by Oliver Anthony and asked questions about abortion, climate change and gun control. It took until about 45 minutes into the debate for them to finally ask about the crime crisis.
And no matter what the question was, there was back-and-forth between many of the candidates that included constant interruptions and the Republican presidential candidates talking over each other.
Without former President Donald Trump there to be a target, Ramaswamy became the object of attention for the other candidates including Pence and Christie who appeared to be looking for a way to increase their polling numbers by attacking the young, rising star. Both men took shots at Ramaswamy throughout the evening calling him an “amateur” and a “rookie” with Pence coming off as what some on social media called a bully and a preaching elder.
Pence told Ramaswamy, “Now is not the time for on-the-job training. We don’t need to bring in people without experience.” And another time, he said to Ramaswamy, “Let me explain it to you, Vivek…I’ll go slower this time.”
Christie said to Ramaswamy, “You’ve never done anything to try to advance the interests of this government except to put yourself forward as a candidate tonight.” Christie also said, “I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT standing up here.”
Ramaswamy, for the most part, was able to stand his ground even with the full-court press against him. At one point he alleged that the other candidates on the stage had allegiances to others, including PACs that they might be affiliated with, and he said he was the only candidate on the stage who wasn’t bought and paid for.
As the night wore on, the moderators often asked the candidates different questions and they gave some candidates more time than others. Pence had the most time to speak (12 mins, 26 seconds), followed by Ramaswamy (11 minutes 38 seconds), Christie (11 minutes 37 seconds), DeSantis (10 minutes, 1 second), Haley (8 minutes, 20 seconds), Scott (7 minutes, 57 seconds), Burgum (7 minutes, 50 seconds) and Hutchinson (7 minutes, 24 seconds).
Pence used his time to tout what he did during the “Trump Pence administration” and got kudos from many of the other candidates for what he did on January 6th. When asked by Baier if Pence did the right thing that day by certifying the election, Scott said, “absolutely!” and DeSantis tapped danced around the question, saying, “It’s not about Jan. 6, 2021, it’s about Jan. 20, 2025, when the president is going to take office.”
Pence said to the debate crowd about that day, “I made it clear and hoped that the issues surrounding the 2020 election and the controversies around Jan. 6 would not come to this, come to criminal proceedings” and then added, “The American people deserve to know that the president asked me in his request that I reject or return votes. He asked me to put him over the Constitution and I chose the Constitution.”
Christie praised Pence for what he did, saying, “(Pence) 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. And the argument we need to have in this party before we can move onto the issues that Ron talked about is we have to dispense with the person (Trump) who said we need to suspend the Constitution to put forward his political career.”
The moderators asked the candidates to raise their hands several times during the evening to answer questions, although DeSantis wasn’t having any of it when they asked if the candidates thought climate change was man-made.
The often un-serious moderators who started the debate talking about a song, even asked Christie if he believed the recent spike in UFO encounters. Annoyed at the question, Christie said, shaking his head, “I get the UFO question? Come on, man!”
On some questions, the candidates seemed more unified. They agreed (except Hutchinson and Christie) to support Trump as the nominee even if he gets convicted of a crime. Christie said about the issue, “Here is the bottom line. Someone’s got to stop normalizing this conduct…Whether or not you believe the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of president of the United States.”
On the subject of Ukraine, there was less unification. Ramaswamy and DeSantis were the only ones who said that as president, they would consider cutting off funding to Kyiv. Ramaswamy said, “We have to put the interests of Americans first, secure our own border instead of someone else’s.”
Haley accused Ramaswamy of wanting to “hand Ukraine to Russia” and “let China eat Taiwan.” She said to him, “You are choosing a murderer” (Putin) over an ally of the United States. She added, “You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.” DeSantis said he’d would stop aid to Ukraine unless the European governments stepped up to “pull their weight.”
Also speaking to murder, but talking about deaths that have happened as a result of fentanyl coming across the open border, DeSantis pledged to send the military into Mexico to fight the cartels on “day one” if elected president. He said, “When these drug pushers are bringing fentanyl across the border, that is going to be the last thing they do. We are going to use force and leave them stone-cold dead.”
The rundown of the winners and losers of the night from the BBC seemed to mirror many of the reports on social media and the internet which declared Haley and Ramaswamy to be the winners of the night, an opinion that was also shared by the Washington Examiner. Political commentator Meghan McCain also declared Haley the winner with a “well done” comment. Former President George W. Bush Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said that DeSantis and Ramaswamy won the evening. He also said, “Pence, Asa and Christie have no chance. Burgum has good ideas but won’t catch on. Scott’s closing was good.”
DeSantis appeared on both “winner” and “loser” lists although the Washington Times called him a winner saying he was “direct, confident and got his messages across clearly while fending off attacks and criticizing frontrunner Donald Trump on his handling of the Covid pandemic. He probably solidified his second-place status and won over some voters.”
According to the Drudge poll, Ramaswamy was the debate winner with 32% of the vote, followed by Haley (20%), DeSantis (18%), Christie (18%) and DeSantis (18%). Everyone else polled at 4% and below.
Haley’s performance got support from many Democrats including from President Biden who praised her in an X/tweet for going after DeSantis, Scott and Pence for voting to raise the debt. MSNBC’s Jen Psaki, former press secretary to Biden also commended Haley for pushing back on Vivek. MSNBC’s Joy Reid added that Haley “acquitted herself quite well, to be honest with you, and seemed like a reasonable Republican politician who kind of made sense.” Rachel Maddow said Haley had “probably the most effective presentation” on the issue of foreign policy.” CNN political commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin said, “Nikki Haley was the winner of the night. If you’re trying to pull for the sort of alternative to Trump who can get mainstream Republicans and win a general election, she did that.”
Those who were behaving themselves during the night like Scott, Hutchinson and Burgum were less noticeable but came across a little more adult-like than some of the others who were involved in the infighting. Burgum had a good line about big cities needing small town accountability. Scott used his closing remarks of the night to say that his mother taught him, “if you’re able bodied in America, you work, if you take out a loan, you pay it back, if you commit a violent crime, you go to jail, and if God made you a man, you play sports against men.” Hutchinson, like the other candidates, wore a flag pin on his lapel, but he also wore a flag of Israel, as he is a vocal supporter of the country. When asked how he thought the debate went by ABC News’ Terry Moran, Hutchinson said it was a good night for him, accomplishing his objective of showing voters there are alternatives to Trump.
Former President Donald Trump, who refused to go to the debate because he is so far ahead of the other candidates in the polls, also weighed in on the events of the night. He went on Truth Social in the wee hours of the morning to commend Ramaswamy’s comment that Trump was the best president of the 21st century. Trump also pointed to the bad reaction from the crowd to former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, asking, “Why is he wasting his time?” The former president also went after DeSantis multiple times, saying, “DeSanctimonious was a “BOMB” tonight, especially with his softball interview with Sean Hannity. This guy has totally forgotten his past. Who cares!?!?”
When Trump’s name came up in a debate question, Baier called him “the elephant not in the room,” a comment that drew the ire of the crowd and was met by boos. There were many times that the audience booed during the evening – at which time Baier would reprimand the crowd and tell them that they wouldn’t be able to finish the debate with delays, saying things like, “Let’s just get through this section…”
At the same time the debate was going on, Trump participated in an online interview with Tucker Carlson that was seen on X/Twitter. In the interview, Trump said about not showing up in the debate, “Do I sit there for an hour or two hours – whatever it’s going to be – and get harassed by people that shouldn’t even be running for president?” Obviously the answer was no.
Trump’s campaign has touted 154.7 million “views” of his interview on Elon Musks’ social media platform, which amounts to the number of impressions, not necessarily how many times the post was watched. The Fox News debate only had 23.9 million viewers according to CooPWB (Co-operation of Worldwide Broadcast) while the Trump interview had 73 million views in the first 30 minutes of its release.
While many criticized former President Trump for staying away from the debate, others said that he was still the winner of the night. The Washington Post said, “It could scarcely have turned out better for the absentee frontrunner. He decided to skip the debate because it wasn’t worth his time – what with his nearly 40-point lead in the polls.” Republican and former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake X-ed/Tweeted, “President Donald J. Trump: the first man in history to win a debate without even being on stage!”
Even the leftist website The Daily Beast said that the GOP candidates made Trump look like a “genius” for skipping the mudslinging debate.
The importance of Wisconsin being the site for the Republican debate and their upcoming convention was not lost on President Biden’s campaign who had the president traveling to Milwaukee last week to talk about having created manufacturing jobs. His campaign also announced that they would be spending $25 million to run ads in seven states including Michigan and Wisconsin to to counter the Republicans. Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz told Spectrum News that the debate was a stage for “out of touch tone-deaf positions” and “We think across the board, whether it’s on the debate state or on Tucker Carlson” that Americans would see the most “extreme and out of touch platform for any Republican slate in history.”
So while none of the candidates had a slam dunk at the debate and it wasn’t really a “game changer” for any of the candidates, many of them were able to speak past the shot clock buzzer to get their points across and a few of them were able to rebound. However, others like Hutchinson and Burgum, had a few air balls that went out of bounds never to be seen again and most likely won’t appear in the second debate coming up.
The next Republican presidential debate is scheduled for Wednesday, September 27th at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. The second debate will be hosted by FOX Business, Univision and Rumble. The moderators for this debate have not been chosen yet.
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