MILWAUKEE (CN) — Eight Republican presidential candidates gathered in Milwaukee Wednesday for the GOP’s first primary debate took the gloves off early and often, trading barbs with each other while blasting President Joe Biden’s administration and handling the delicate issue of an absent Donald Trump.
Republican Party leaders and event organizers said they were treating Wednesday night's debate as a tune-up for the party’s national convention scheduled for July 15-18 next summer in Wisconsin’s largest city.
The debate — organized by Fox News and hosted by that network’s anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum — offered coming attractions for how the candidates might try to fight their way out of the crowded field and become the party’s presidential nominee amid Trump’s legal jeopardy, fervent base of supporters and continued polling dominance.
After much hedging, Trump — who faces four separate criminal indictments for his conduct before, during and after his time in office — ultimately opted to skip the debate in favor of an interview with erstwhile Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, which aired on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, during the debate.
The candidates who qualified for the debate at Fiserv Forum included Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; former Vice President Mike Pence; former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie; North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum; former South Carolina Governor and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley; South Carolina U.S. Senator Tim Scott; biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy; and, as a late addition, former Arkansas Governor and U.S. Attorney Asa Hutchinson.
Among the first topics debated were the state of the economy and the detrimental effects of “Bidenomics,” how each candidate feels about climate change and what they may do as president to address it, abortion rights and how to handle crime and gun laws.
The candidates largely agreed that Biden’s economic policies are putting America in decline due to entrenched inflation from wasteful government spending. But Haley also blamed Republicans for passing $2.2 trillion in Covid-19 stimulus, saying: “I think it’s time for an accountant in the White House.”
DeSantis in part blamed Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns for a downturn in the economy, pointing to how Florida resisted those efforts from the start.
On climate change, Haley was the only candidate to clearly state she believes in climate change, though she said what needs to be done is to focus less on America’s contributions to a warming planet and to tell China and India to lower their emissions.
Ramaswamy, a political outsider who shares some of Trump’s populist streak and penchant for conspiracy theories, put his position bluntly: “The climate change agenda is a hoax.” He then went on to say all the other candidates are “bought and paid for,” and earlier in the evening he called them “super PAC puppets.”
Christie then charged that Ramaswamy is an “amateur” and “sounds like ChatGPT,” leading to some brief bickering between them, a dynamic that cropped up multiple times throughout the evening between the 38-year-old Ramaswamy and other candidates.
Truly, if there was one target for the other candidates Wednesday night, it was Ramaswamy, whose age, outsider status and willingness to be polarizing set him apart. He stressed a desire for generational change and something like a “revolution” in U.S. politics and emphasized the need for a multi-ethnic, working class coalition for Republicans.
Leading off the second half of the program was discussion of Trump, who Baier referred to as “the elephant not in the room.” Six of the eight candidates, some tentatively, raised their hand in the affirmative when asked if they would support Trump if he became the nominee, with only Christie and Hutchinson declining.
Christie, by far the most outspoken critic of the former president among the candidates, said “someone needs to stop normalizing [Trump’s] conduct,” and, responding to boos from the audience, said “booing is allowed but doesn’t change the truth.”
Here as well Ramaswamy pushed the envelope further than his Republican rivals, calling Trump the greatest president of the 21st century and blasting Christie for vengefully going after him.
When discussing education, DeSantis echoed a much-refrained point that “we need education in this country, not indoctrination” into left-wing ideologies. Burgum and Ramaswamy said they would shut down the U.S. Department of Education if elected, and the latter joined Christie and Scott in pledging to go after teachers’ unions.
Asked whether they would slow down the federal government’s assistance to Ukraine in fighting its war against Russia’s invasion, DeSantis said “Europe needs to step up and do its part,” Ramaswamy vowed to stop fighting no-win wars, and Haley leaned into the need for moral clarity and roundly condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “thug” and a “murderer.”
Also discussed repeatedly throughout the evening were the need to rein in China’s negative influence on the global stage and potentially mobilizing the military to secure the southern border with Mexico and combat that country’s drug cartels.
The candidates disagreed on whether a federal abortion ban, at six weeks or 15 weeks, was necessary or even an option in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in summer 2022 overturning the federal right to abortion and handing the issue back to the states. Many took the opportunity to blast what they claimed was Democrats’ extremism on abortion rights, including what Scott called “abortion on demand.” Haley said “we need to stop demonizing this issue” and urged consensus.
Several candidates — and the moderators — took opportunities to invoke, praise or compare themselves to Ronald Reagan. The next GOP primary debate will take place at Reagan’s presidential library in Simi Valley, California, on Sept. 27.
Groups of protesters — many supporting Trump — mingled and talked to reporters in the roughly 100-degree Fahrenheit heat in the afternoon hours before the debate. At one point a group of them addressed a TV news crew while standing in front of a DeSantis 2024 campaign bus and waving signs spoofing the Florida governor and referring to Wednesday’s debate as “VP tryouts 2023.”
It was also reported by a local NBC station that dozens of protesters representing the SEIU union marched to Fiserv Forum Wednesday afternoon in opposition to the event.
Republicans’ choice of Milwaukee as the site of their first primary debate and national convention is significant: Wisconsin, a purple-hued perennial swing state, is considered a linchpin to victory for the left and the right, and inroads with voters in the Democratic stronghold city, particularly its surrounding ring of suburbs, will be crucial for conservatives.
The Badger State’s last two general elections were decided by narrow margins of around one percent. Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 over Hillary Clinton, then lost it to Biden four years later. The latter contest sparked a recount that Trump demanded, numerous lawsuits unsuccessfully challenging the result and three audits, none of which found evidence of widespread voter fraud many conservatives claimed — and which some, like Trump, continue to claim — affected the outcome of the election.
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