Republican debate: GOP hopefuls meet for second time as Trump visits Michigan
Seven GOP presidential candidates will take the stage in the second Republican National Committee debate of the 2024 election cycle.
The 2024 hopefuls are meeting for the second time to make their case for why they should be their party’s standard-bearer as former President Donald Trump holds a strong lead over the primary field. The lineup is slightly smaller than the first because former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson did not meet the criteria set out by the RNC to be eligible to take the stage.
Trump will also not participate in the debate despite meeting both the polling and donor thresholds, and he is scheduled to speak in Michigan as the United Auto Workers strike continues.
The two-hour event will be hosted by Fox Business host Stuart Varney, Fox News host Dana Perino, and Univision anchor Ilia Calderon. The debate will start at 9 p.m. Eastern time.
Check back here for live coverage throughout the night.
Whether it was Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) attacking Vivek Ramaswamy for ties to China or Nikki Haley falsely attacking Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for banning fracking, there was far too much fire aimed at the candidates on the stage Wednesday night and not nearly enough attention focused on the establishment front-runner, Donald Trump.
No candidate stood out. The format didn’t allow it. There are just too many people onstage.
Former President Donald Trump promised a booming economy if returned to office and asked repeatedly for a union endorsement in a Michigan campaign speech.
Speaking before and then opposite the second GOP presidential debate, Trump made the case for a long-shot endorsement from the United Auto Workers, a union that is on strike.
“Do me a favor. Just get your union guys, your leaders to endorse me,” Trump said at one point, though he asked several times. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
Debate moderators sought to end the debate by addressing the inevitable: Who is the strongest contender to challenge former President Donald Trump for the nomination?
However, the Fox News hosts pushed the candidates to do in a strange way, asking each of the presidential hopefuls to write down a name of someone else on the stage indicating who they would “vote off the island.”
“None of you have indicated that you’re dropping out. So which one of you on stage tonight should be voted off the island?” host Dana Perino said. “Please use your marker to write your choice on the notepad in front of you.”
The candidates responded with confusion, indicating they would not follow through with the request.
“With all due respect, I mean, we’re here like we’re happy to debate,” Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said. I think that that’s disrespectful for my fellow candidates.”
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie offered to answer the question, noting he would oust the one candidate notably absent from the stage.
“I’d vote Donald Trump off the island right now,” he said. “Every person on this stage is showing the respect for Republican voters to come here. To express their views honestly, candidly, and directly and to take your questions. Honestly, I have respect for every man and woman on this stage.”
None of the candidates want to answer the question, but Dana raises a crucial point: If the candidates don’t rally around a final figure to take on Trump, the former president will win the nomination. Period.
This is an issue with which Democrats don’t seem to struggle. Back in the 2020 campaign, for example, Buttigieg and Klobuchar had no qualms with dropping out to endorse Biden when it became clear he had the best chance at beating Trump. Why can’t Republicans do the same?
The second GOP debate is crawling to a close, with candidates offering their closing statements on stage after a fiery and oftentimes tense meeting of the seven presidential hopefuls.
No one cares about Nikki Haley’s curtains. That was a waste of time and weird and strange reach by Scott.
The Republican debate took a bizarre turn Wednesday as former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Vice President Mike Pence traded comments about “sleeping” with teachers.
“The public school system is no longer run by the public. It is run by the teachers unions,” Christie said, referring to first lady Jill Biden, who is a professor. “They’re taking the worst of their members and defending them rather than advocating for our kids. And when you have the president of the United States sleeping with a member of the teachers union, there is no chance that you can take the stranglehold away from the teachers union.”
After several other candidates weighed in on education, many of whom focused on parental rights and school choice, Pence referenced Christie’s remark, saying, “I’ve been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years.” However, he noted that his wife, Karen Pence, is not a member of a teachers union.
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The Univision moderator is clearly a far left activist. But that doesn’t mean she is a bad choice as a Republican debate moderator. Republican candidates are going to face these far left questions from reporters on the trail in a general election. It is good to see how they respond to the bias.
DeSantis rejects the framing that pro-lifers are to blame for poor electoral results for the GOP and puts Trump in the hot seat instead.
He showed respect for pro-life voters, but the moderator’s question was about winning over independents and moderates; he should’ve also talked about broader pro-life legislation, such as tax credits and pro-family policy, to win over people on the fence.
Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) doesn’t get much time to participate in the debate. However, when he does, he makes the most of it and provides some of the debate’s most substantive answers. He raises excellent points about energy policies and border security, policies that he not only talks about but has actually implemented during his time in office.
He probably doesn’t have a prayer at being onstage for the third debate, but it would have been good to hear more of what he had to say.
Several Republican candidates addressed failures in America’s healthcare system during the second Republican primary debate for the 2024 election cycle.
When asked about the Trump administration’s failure to fulfill the campaign promise of repealing and replacing Obamacare, former Vice President Mike Pence squared himself against former President Donald Trump by saying that he intends to shrink the size of the federal government.
“It’s my intention to make the federal government smaller by returning to the states those resources and programs that are rightfully theirs under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, that means all Obamacare funding, all housing funding, all [health and human services] funding, all of it goes back to the States,” said Pence.
Sparks flew between candidates while responding to questions on energy on Wednesday, specifically as they sought to attack one another on stances regarding drilling and fracking.
Candidates attacked President Joe Biden over his energy policies, which the president has sought to establish as one of his signature issues as he pushes for clean-energy policies.
“It’s not about climate change that we should be worried,” Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) said. “It’s about the Biden climate policies that are actually the existential threat to America’s future.”
However, the candidates also knocked each other on the issue, seeking to establish themselves as the best candidate when it comes to energy policies. Nikki Haley hit out against Ron DeSantis for being “against fracking and drilling,” which the Florida governor vehemently denied.
“He always talks about what happens on day one, you better watch out because what happens on day two is when you’re in trouble,” Haley said. “In Florida, you banned fracking, you banned offshore drilling.”
“That entirely wrong,” DeSantis shot back, interrupting Haley mid-sentence. “Let’s just get real here, my plan will get the job done.”
Both on a national level and in the early states, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Nikki Haley are the two strongest candidates following former President Donald Trump, who remains the dominant front-runner.
However, most of the stage has avoided targeting either Haley or DeSantis directly.
In this final half hour, however, Haley has shown she’s serious, finally targeting DeSantis for his attempts to limit fracking in Florida. Finally some fireworks between the second-tier front-runners.
Vivek Ramaswamy has no clue how to cut 75% of the federal bureaucracy or what he is talking about.
It is impossible, by current law, to do it. Legally, arithmetically … and, for that matter, in terms of actual, practical service to the country. The workforce must be cut. It cannot be cut by 75%, at least not within 25-30 years. It’s sheer and shameful demagoguery.
Vivek Ramaswamy comes out swinging against the Federal Reserve and the administrative state. While the unelected bureaucracy usually doesn’t headline prime time, Ramaswamy has been emphatic in his promise to radically overhaul our central banking policy of the dual mandate as well as gut federal employment by 75%.
Nobody on the stage seems to care, but on the campaign trail, voters are very keen on Ramaswamy’s war on the bureaucracy.
Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) segue from slavery to the Great Society was brave, and his point against the Great Society was both accurate and incredibly important.
He said that the government started giving more money to families if fathers left their homes and that the breakdown of the family has been terrible for black Americans. He is right about cause and effect and very wise.
It’s fine to debate to what extent, if any, the United States should be involved in the Ukrainian conflict.
But it is shockingly naive to defend the U.S.’s current position as sustainable or, worse, to claim that the aid we’re sending will some day be paid back, as Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) argued.
Nikki Haley hit out against Vivek Ramaswamy for his stance on TikTok and its ties to the Chinese Communist Party, calling his defense of the social media app “infuriating” and “dangerous.”
Ramaswamy defended his use of the social media platform said is crucial to reach the “next generation of young Americans,” which Haley criticized as being dangerous due to the fact TikTok is run by a Chinese company.
“This is infuriating, because TikTok is one of the most dangerous social media assets that we could have,” Haley said. “I honestly — every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.”
History may not repeat, but it does rhyme.
Channeling the spirit of veteran Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who bodied millennial mayor Pete Buttigieg during the Democratic presidential debates in 2019, Nikki Haley unloads on Vivek Ramaswamy, saying, “Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber.”
Vivek Ramaswamy keeps on trying to lampshade his personality quirks, claiming that everyone on the stage is a good person after claiming they’re all bought by the defense industry in the last debate. Now Ramaswamy has tried to reiterate that he’s a young guy without stealing a line from Barack Obama, but he does borrow one from Donald Trump! Ramaswamy promises he’ll hire “all the best people,” no matter how young they are.
Former President Donald Trump’s GOP rivals lined up during the second primary debate to attack him for increasing the national debt as president.
The last year of Trump’s time in office lined up with the coronavirus pandemic and massive federal spending packages, which were backed by Trump (and many other Republicans), caused the national debt to soar. From Trump’s first day in office to his last, the national debt increased by $7.8 trillion, according to the Treasury Department — from just under $20 trillion when he took office to nearly $28 trillion when he left.
The candidates painted Trump as fiscally irresponsible and worked to compare him to former President Joe Biden. They also noted the inflationary effects that large influxes of federal spending can have on the economy and attacked the former president to once again sitting out the debate.
Gutsy move by Vivek on calling transgender a mental health disorder. One of the most courageous responses thus far.
It was important for Ramaswamy to bring that up and bold for him to make the declaration.
Moreover, his response goes hand in hand with the relevance of parents rights. One of the best answers of the night so far from all of the candidates.
Good to see someone have the courage to stand up against the transgender lobby and declare the importance of protecting parents rights, especially after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) veto earlier this week.
After receding into irrelevance during the first debate, Tim Scott rediscovered the balance of sanguinity and passion that made him a star. Never is the South Carolina GOP senator stronger than when he uses the very real story of black resilience to put to bed the lie that America is a fundamentally racist country.
GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie hit out against President Joe Biden over his education policies and school choice, accusing him of favoring teachers unions because of his wife’s professorship.
Christie pointed to his experience as governor of New Jersey, noting he was able to take one of “the worst school districts in America” and was able to increase proficiency by nearly 40% — citing school choice as the reason why.
“This public school system is no longer run by the public. It is run by the teachers unions in this country,” he said. “And when you have the president of the United States sleeping with a member of the teachers union, there is no chance that you can take the stranglehold away from the teachers union every day. They have an advocate inside the White House every day for the worst of their teachers, not for our students to be the best.”
If anyone has a leg to stand on regarding education, it’s Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). He has a proven record of expanding school choice, restricting woke curricula, and holding districts accountable when they try to override parents as the primary caretaker and educator of their children.
Despite his legendary suicide bombing of Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) 2016 presidential campaign, Chris Christie is shockingly weak for a second debate in a row.
At least during the first debate, the former New Jersey governor landed one solid (if not hackneyed) applause line with his “ChatGPT” barb against Vivek. This debate, Christie sounds as tired as he looks.
Former President Donald Trump was called out by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for skipping the second Republican debate.
“Donald Trump, he hides behind the walls of his golf clubs and won’t show up here to answer questions like all the rest of us are up here to answer,” Christie said first. “He put $7 trillion on the debt. He should be in this room to answer those questions for the people you talk about who are suffering.”
DeSantis piled on that criticism, throwing attacks toward both President Joe Biden and Trump.
“Where’s Joe Biden? He’s completely missing in action from leadership,” DeSantis said. “And you know who else is missing an action? Donald Trump is missing in action. He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record, where they added $7.8 trillion to the debt. That set the stage for the inflation that we have now.”
“How can we be the best country in the world and have the most expensive health care in the world?” Nikki Haley nails three vital targets to solve this crisis.
First, she targets existing tort law, which leaves providers vulnerable to malpractice suits if they fail to overcompensate with often unnecessary testing.
She also echoed the Trump administration in further calls for price transparency rules, and finally lambasted certificates of need, which restrict the creation of new healthcare facilities.
Mike Pence’s solution to deter mass shootings is a federal expedited death penalty?
About half of shooters kill themselves or are killed by law enforcement on site. Gun control is the Left’s answer, but the death penalty is certainly not the Right’s best rejoinder. How about mental health care and community building?
So far the winner of the debate is Dana Perino. Great response to Mike Pence’s nonanswer on Obamacare.
Vivek is hitting on an important issue: Many of our cultural battles and societal woes stem from the fact that too many Americans have become separated from the grounding institutions that give us meaning and purpose.
We’re less religious than ever before, more disconnected from our neighbors, and generally distrustful of those around us. The next president of the United States must speak to this crisis if he or she hopes to make any lasting change.
Terrible answer from Vivek on fentanyl. Drugs are getting through because Biden has tasked every Border Patrol agent with processing migrants into the country as quickly as possible.
If you want to stop fentanyl you must stop catch and release and let Border Patrol get back to catching drug smugglers instead of processing migrants.
The non-Trump candidates are all running for a spot in the Trump administration, at least according to former President Donald Trump.
Speaking in Michigan rather than at the second GOP primary debate, Trump teased his 2024 Republican rivals as “job candidates” hoping to be in the Cabinet rather than the White House.
“We’re competing with the job candidates,” Trump said. “They’re all running for a job. They’re all job candidates. … They’ll do anything. Secretary of something, they even say VP. I don’t know. Does anybody see a VP in the group? I don’t think so.”
GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie issued his latest attack against Donald Trump on the debate stage Wednesday night, criticizing the former president for failing to participate.
In response to a question on addressing rising crime, Christie emphasized that the government must enforce the law and “bring law and order” back to the country, accusing Trump of failing to do so during his administration.
“Donald Trump should be here to answer for that, but he’s not.”
Christie then directly addressed Trump, who is notably absent from the debate stage:
“Donald, I know you’re watching — you can’t help yourself. I know you’re watching,” he said. “You’re not here tonight not because of polls and not because of your indictments. You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on the stage and defending your record.”
After Nikki Haley’s rise in the polls and recent NBC News poll showing her defeating President Joe Biden, a half hour into the debate and she has mostly been a ghost. It is a stark contrast from the last debate.
When Mike Pence talks about the border, every word the former vice president says is backed by a strong record.
In 2006 he supported a hard-nosed version of the most creative border plan there was, known as the Krieble plan. It was a guest-worker program that only allowed people in if a company vouched that there was a specific job for the guest worker to do and with time limits on the work — and with much stricter enforcement for those who came illegally.
And then, under Trump, he negotiated “Remain in Mexico,” which worked.
He deserves credit.
Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) running ads during commercial breaks is the real race for Trump’s vice president … and she is the front-runner.
While Nikki Haley scored laughs for wanting to secure our northern border, she is actually highlighting a very real and growing problem that those candidates frequenting New Hampshire should be familiar with. Border Patrol has reported a tenfold increase from last year in crossings from Canada into portions of our northern border, with predominantly Mexican immigrants taking advantage of Canada’s lack of a visa requirement.
For a group of Republicans vying for the 2024 presidential nomination, I came away unimpressed with nearly everyone’s answers on immigration. They all appeared to avoid answering on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and no one really said anything of substance.
Mike Pence struggles with charisma but has managed to portray himself as the serious, experienced candidate. Whether that translates to support for the former vice president in the polls is a separate issue.
Mike Pence is dodging a good question on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Does he support amnesty or not? He should answer the question.
The historic UAW strike took center stage on Wednesday at the start of the second Republican presidential primary debate.
The first question of the debate, which was hosted by Fox Business, centered around the United Auto Workers strike, which has featured work stoppages at dozens of auto plants across the country. Throughout the start of the debate several candidates referenced the situation in the Rust Belt.
The moderators began by asking Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) about his recent remarks about the strike in which he endorsed former President Ronald Reagan’s famous decision to fire thousands of federal workers in 1981 who did not return to work when ordered to.
A whole minute just passed in the debate and I couldn’t hear anything but shouting. The moderators are doing an awful job. Charlie Brown’s mother is easier to understand than the politicians in this debate.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) finally getting aggressive to attack … Vivek is a choice. Scott and Vivek are not competing for the same voters. Scott needs to pick a better target.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) noted that Florida has crucially banned Chinese investment in his state’s real estate and invasion into university campuses through Confucius Institutes. However, the governor is wrong that China’s economic dominance is a foregone conclusion. Thanks to the extraordinary success of China’s totalitarian one-child and COVID policies, China’s economy may never actually eclipse ours, per the latest research from Capital Economics.
Tim Scott saw all the analysis that he disappeared last debate. He’s shown more emotion in his answers and now wants to drag Ramaswamy into the mud.
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy expressed his support for ending birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants who come to the United States illegally, criticizing Democrats for “howling” over the 14th Amendment in a way that he says is interpreted incorrectly
“The difference between me and them is I’ve actually read the 14th Amendment,” he said.
Good question from Dana. Bad answer from Nikki Haley. Foreign aid does not stop illegal immigration. The wealthier nations become, the more their immigrants can afford to come to the United States.
Chris Christie missed an opportunity on the immigration crisis. It was good he mentioned immigrating legally, and stating there would be consequences if immigrants came here illegally. He should have added as to whether he thinks illegal immigrants should adhere to the country’s customs and culture.
For a second time in a row, billionaire Doug Burgum succeeded in buying his way onto the debate stage, though if he doesn’t stop interrupting both the actual viable candidates on the stage and the moderators, he might actually get kicked out.
