Takeaways from the second Republican presidential debate
he second 2024 Republican presidential primary debate ended just as it began: with former President Donald Trump – who hasn’t yet appeared alongside his rivals onstage – as the party’s dominant front-runner.
The seven GOP contenders in Wednesday night’s showdown at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, provided a handful of memorable moments, including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley unloading what often seemed like the entire field’s pent-up frustration with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
“Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say,” she said to him at one point.
Two candidates criticized Trump’s absence, as well. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he was “missing in action.” Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called the former president “Donald Duck” and said he “hides behind his golf clubs” rather than defending his record on stage.
he second 2024 Republican presidential primary debate ended just as it began: with former President Donald Trump – who hasn’t yet appeared alongside his rivals onstage – as the party’s dominant front-runner.
The seven GOP contenders in Wednesday night’s showdown at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, provided a handful of memorable moments, including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley unloading what often seemed like the entire field’s pent-up frustration with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
“Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say,” she said to him at one point.
Two candidates criticized Trump’s absence, as well. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he was “missing in action.” Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called the former president “Donald Duck” and said he “hides behind his golf clubs” rather than defending his record on stage.
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00:00 His second 2024 Republican presidential primary debate ended just as it began, with former
00:06 President Donald Trump, who hasn't yet appeared alongside his rivals on stage, as the party's
00:12 dominant frontrunner.
00:15 The seven GOP contenders in Wednesday night's showdown at the Ronald Reagan Presidential
00:20 Library in Simi Valley, California, provided a handful of memorable moments, including
00:26 former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley unloading what often seemed like the entire
00:31 field's pent-up frustration with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
00:36 "Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say," she said
00:42 to him at one point.
00:44 Two candidates criticized Trump's absence, as well.
00:48 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he was "missing in action."
00:53 Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie called the former president "Donald Duck" and said
00:58 he hides behind his golf clubs rather than defending his record on stage.
01:04 The GOP field also took early shots at President Joe Biden.
01:09 South Carolina Senator Tim Scott said Biden, rather than joining the striking autoworkers
01:15 union on the picket line Tuesday in Michigan, should be on the southern border.
01:21 Former Vice President Mike Pence said Biden should be on the unemployment line.
01:26 North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum said Biden was interfering with free markets.
01:32 However, what played out in the debate, hosted by Fox Business Network and Univision, is
01:38 unlikely to change the trajectory of a GOP race in which Trump has remained dominant
01:43 in national and early state polling.
01:46 And the frequently messy, hard-to-track crosstalk could have led many viewers to tune out entirely.
01:53 Here are takeaways from the second GOP primary debate.
01:58 Trump's safe approach appears to pay off.
02:01 Trump might have played it safe by skipping the debates and taking a running-as-an-incumbent
02:06 approach to the 2024 GOP primary.
02:10 It's hard to see, though, how he would pay a significant price in the eyes of the party's
02:15 voters for missing Wednesday night's messy engagement to instead address current and
02:20 former union members outside Detroit.
02:23 Trump's rivals took a few shots at him.
02:27 DeSantis knocked him for deficit spending.
02:31 Christie mocked him during the night's early moments, calling him "Donald Duck" for
02:35 skipping the debate and then, in his final comments, said he would vote Trump off the
02:40 GOP island.
02:42 "This guy has not only divided our party, he's divided families all over this country.
02:48 He's divided friends all over this country," the former governor said.
02:53 "He needs to be voted off the island, and he needs to be taken out of this process."
02:58 However, Trump largely escaped serious scrutiny of his four years in the Oval Office from
03:05 a field of rivals courting voters who have largely positive views of his presidency.
03:11 Tonight's GOP debate was as boring and inconsequential as the first debate, and nothing that was
03:17 said will change the dynamics of the primary contest, Trump campaign senior adviser Chris
03:22 Lachiveta said in a statement.
03:25 A Messy Two Hours
03:28 The second GOP primary debate was beset by interruptions, crosstalk and protracted squabbles
03:34 between the candidates and moderators over speaking time.
03:38 That's tough for viewers trying to make sense of it all, but even worse for these
03:43 candidates as they attempted to stand out as viable alternatives to the absentee Trump.
03:49 Further complicating the matter, some of the highest-polling candidates after Trump, DeSantis
03:55 and Haley, were among those least willing to dive into the muck, especially during the
04:00 crucial first hour.
04:02 The moderators repeatedly tried to clear the road for the Florida governor, at least in
04:07 the beginning.
04:09 But he was all but absent from the proceedings for the first 15 minutes.
04:14 Ramaswamy fared somewhat better, speaking louder and faster than most of his rivals.
04:21 But he was bogged down repeatedly when caught between his own talking points and cross-volleys
04:26 of criticisms from frustrated candidates like Scott.
04:30 The moderator group will likely get criticism for losing control of the room within the
04:35 first half hour, but even a messy debate tells voters something about the people taking part.
04:42 Palmetto Pummeling
04:44 All night, Scott seemed like he was looking for a fight with somebody, and he finally
04:49 got that when he set his sights on fellow South Carolinian Haley.
04:53 He began his line of attack, which Haley interjected with a bring it, by accusing her of spending
04:59 $50,000 on curtains in a $15 million subsidized location during her time as the U.S. ambassador
05:07 to the United Nations.
05:09 What ensued was the two Republicans going back and forth about the curtains.
05:14 "Do your homework, Tim, because Obama bought those curtains," Haley said, while Scott repeated,
05:21 "Did you send them back?
05:23 Did you send them back?"
05:26 Haley then responded, "Did you send them back?
05:29 You're the one who works in Congress."
05:32 It wasn't the most acrimonious moment of the night, but it was up there.
05:37 The feuding between the two South Carolina natives seemed deep, but it's worth remembering
05:42 that about a decade ago, when Haley was governor, she appointed Scott to the Senate seat he
05:48 currently holds after Republican Jim DeMint stepped down.
05:53 That confidence in Scott seems to have dissolved in this presidential race.
05:58 An Uneven Performance for DeSantis
06:02 Confronted by his Republican competitors for the first time in earnest, DeSantis delivered
06:07 an uneven performance from the center of the stage, a spot that is considerably less secure
06:13 than it was heading into the first debate in Milwaukee.
06:17 Despite rules that allowed candidates to respond if they were invoked, DeSantis let Fox slip
06:22 to commercial break when Pence seemed to blame the governor for a jury decision to award
06:27 a life sentence, not the death penalty, to the mass murderer in the Parkland High School
06:33 shooting.
06:34 DeSantis opposed the decision and championed a law that made Florida the state with the
06:39 lowest threshold to put someone on death row going forward.
06:43 Nor did he respond when Pence accused DeSantis of inflating Florida's budget by 30 percent
06:49 during his tenure.
06:51 He later let Scott get the last word on Florida's black history curriculum standards and struggled
06:57 to defend himself when Haley, accurately, pointed out that he took steps to block fracking
07:03 in Florida on his second day in office.
07:06 Before the first debate in Milwaukee, a top strategist for a pro-DeSantis super PAC told
07:12 donors that "79 percent of the people tonight are going to watch the debate and turn it
07:17 off after 19 minutes."
07:20 By that measure, the Florida governor managed to first speak Wednesday night just in the
07:25 nick of time, 16 minutes into the debate.
07:29 And when he finally spoke, he continued the sharper attacks on the GOP frontrunner that
07:34 he has previewed in recent weeks.
07:37 DeSantis equated Trump's absence in California to Biden, who DeSantis said was "completely
07:43 missing in action for leadership on the economy," blaming him for inflation and the autoworkers
07:49 strike.
07:50 "And you know who else is missing in action?
07:54 Donald Trump is missing in action," DeSantis said.
07:57 "He should be on this stage tonight.
08:01 He owes it to you to defend his record."
08:04 But DeSantis then largely pulled back from further targeting Trump until a post-debate
08:09 Fox News appearance when he challenged the former president to a one-on-one face-off.
08:16 DeSantis ended the debate on a strong note.
08:19 He took charge by rejecting moderator Dana Perino's attempts to get the candidates to
08:24 vote one of their competitors off the island.
08:28 He ended his night forcefully dismissing a suggestion that Trump's lead in the polls
08:32 held meaning in September.
08:34 "Polls don't elect presidents, voters elect presidents," he said, before pointing a finger
08:41 at Trump for Republicans' electoral underperformance in the last three elections.
08:47 But as the Super PAC strategist previously pointed out, by then, who was watching?
08:53 Tough questions on immigration, Latino voters.
08:57 In the final minutes of the debate, co-host Iliot Calderon of Univision asked Pence how
09:03 he would reach out to those Latino voters who felt the Republican Party was hostile
09:07 or didn't care about them.
09:09 "I'm incredibly proud of the tax cut and tax reform bill," he said, referring to Republicans'
09:16 sweeping 2017 tax law.
09:19 He also cited low unemployment rates for Hispanic Americans recorded during the Trump-Pence
09:25 administration.
09:26 Scott, faced with the same question, said it was important to lead by example.
09:32 "My chief of staff is the only Hispanic female chief of staff in the Senate," he said.
09:38 "I hired her because she was the best, highest-qualified person we have."
09:44 Calderon focused much of her time on a series of policy questions that highlighted the candidates'
09:50 records on immigration and gun violence.
09:54 At times, some of them struggled to respond directly.
09:58 She asked Pence if he would work with Congress to find a permanent solution for people who
10:03 were brought to the country illegally as children.
10:07 The Trump-Pence administration ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which
10:12 gave those young people protected status.
10:16 She repeated the question after Pence focused his answer on his work securing the border.
10:22 He then talked about his time in Congress.
10:25 "Let me tell you, I served in Congress for 12 years, although it seemed longer," he said.
10:32 "But you know, something I've done different than everybody on this stage is I've actually
10:37 secured reform in Congress."
10:40 The candidates, and moderators, shy away from abortion talk.
10:45 It took more than a 100 minutes on Wednesday night for the first question on abortion to
10:50 be asked.
10:52 About five minutes later, the conversation had moved on.
10:57 What is potentially the most potent driver, or flipper, of votes in the coming election
11:02 was afforded less time than TikTok.
11:05 Tellingly, no one on stage seemed to mind.
11:09 Perino introduced the subject by asking DeSantis whether some Republicans were right to worry
11:15 that the electoral backlash to abortion bans, or the prospect of their passage, would handicap
11:21 the eventual GOP nominee.
11:24 DeSantis, who signed a six-week ban in April, dismissed those concerns, pointing to his
11:30 success in traditionally liberal parts of Florida on his way to winning a second term
11:35 in 2022.
11:37 Then he swiped at Trump for calling the new laws "a terrible thing" and "a terrible mistake."
11:43 Christie took a similar path, arguing that his two terms as governor of New Jersey, a
11:49 traditionally blue state, showed it was possible for anti-abortion leaders to win in an environment
11:55 supportive of abortion rights.
11:58 And with that, the abortion debate in Simi Valley ended abruptly.
12:03 No more questions and no attempts by the rest of the candidates to interject or otherwise
12:08 join the chat.
12:10 Candidates pile on Ramaswamy Some of the candidates on stage didn't want
12:15 to have a repeat of the first debate, in which Ramaswamy managed to stand out as a formidable
12:21 debater and showman.
12:23 Early in Wednesday's debate, Scott went after the tech entrepreneur, saying his business
12:29 record included ties to the Chinese Communist Party and money going to Hunter Biden.
12:35 The visibly annoyed Ramaswamy shifted gears from praising all the other candidates on
12:40 stage to defending his business record.
12:44 But Scott and Ramaswamy ended up talking over each other.
12:48 A little later on, Pence began an answer with a knock on Ramaswamy, saying, "I'm glad Vivek
12:54 pulled out of his business deal in China."
12:58 At another point, after Ramaswamy had responded to a question about his use of TikTok, Haley
13:04 jumped in, saying, "Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber from what you say
13:10 and then going on to say, 'We can't trust you.'
13:13 We can't trust you."
13:16 As Ramaswamy tried to re-adopt his unity tone, Scott could be heard trying to interrupt him.
13:22 DeSantis, Pence duck health care questions while Haley pounces.
13:28 Despite the efforts of moderators to pin them down, DeSantis and Pence struggled to respond
13:33 when challenged on their respective records on health care.
13:38 Asked about the Trump administration's failure to end the Affordable Care Act as promised,
13:43 Pence opted instead to answer a previous question about mass gun violence.
13:49 When Perino pushed Pence one more time to explain why Obamacare remains not just intact
13:54 but popular, the former vice president once again demurred.
13:58 Fox's Stuart Varney similarly pressed DeSantis to explain why 2.5 million Floridians don't
14:05 have health insurance.
14:08 DeSantis found a familiar foil for Republicans in California — inflation.
14:13 Varney, though, said it didn't explain why Florida has one of the highest uninsurance
14:19 rates in the country, to which DeSantis had little response.
14:23 "Our state's a dynamic state," DeSantis said, before pointing to Florida's population boom
14:29 and the low level of welfare benefits offered there.
14:33 Haley, though, appeared ready to debate health care, arguing for transparency in prices to
14:39 lessen the power of insurance companies and providers and overhauling lawsuit rules to
14:44 make it harder to sue doctors.
14:46 "How can we be the best country in the world and have the most expensive health care in
14:52 the world?"
14:53 Haley said.
14:54 [BLANK_AUDIO]