By Todd Lassa
Really, it didn’t seem to matter that much that Donald J. Trump skipped Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate in Milwaukee in favor of an X-Twitter romp with Tucker Carlson. The absence of the oldest candidate in the Republican field was made up for by the youngest candidate in the Republican field, Vivek Ramaswamy, age 38. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, polling a distant second to Trump for the GOP nomination, appeared largely ineffective from the Fiserv Forum stage Wednesday night. Those extensive, leaked debate talking points did not seem to matter.
Ramaswamy was resolute in his vow to pardon ex-President Trump for crimes yet to be tried, and he responded to a video question by a young conservative environmental activist saying, “climate change is a hoax … the anti-carbon agenda is the wet blanket on the economy…” and said the solution is to “drill, frack, burn coal and embrace nuclear.”
Former Veep Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley ganged up on Ramaswamy for taking the America-First Trumpian position he would pull military funding from Ukraine, and first work to fix problems at home.
This prompted Christie to recount the atrocities of Putin’s Russia against Ukraine.
“This is the Vladimir Putin who Donald Trump called brilliant and a genius,” Christie added. “If we don’t stand up to this autocratic killer, we will be next.”
The U.S. can solve problems at home and still back Ukraine, Pence said. “We achieve peace through strength.”
Haley noted that less than 3.5% of U.S. defense spending has gone to Ukraine; “You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows,” she told Ramaswamy.
The crowd at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum mostly seemed to back the pro-Ukraine candidates, even if the anti-Trump positions of Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson were coldly received at best, booed at worst.
Haley and Pence argued over the appropriate level of restrictions on abortion (Pence wants a strict ban on the federal level).
The rest of the debate was mostly about the Republican Party’s issues with an ineffective, weak President Biden and the ravages of inflation and business regulation under his administration.
"We need to send Joe Biden back to his basement and reverse America's decline," DeSantis said.
Moderators Brett Baier and Martha MacCallum started things off with a clip of the video for country singer Oliver Anthony’s Rich Men North of Richmond and asked the candidates for reactions to controversy over the song.
This debate among eight GOP presidential candidates may not amount to much news, especially as Trump makes his fourth perp walk in Atlanta Thursday, but the polling numbers for those who showed, particularly Christie, Haley, Pence and Ramaswamy could serve as an indication of whether the GOP is ready to edge away from the ledge of the former president for 2024.