Haley to her credit also came out swinging against fellow Republicans, including Trump, for contributing to record-high federal debt. Yes, you read that right! So kudos to Nikki when she stated:
"Biden didn’t do this to us. Our Republicans did this to us, too. Donald Trump added $8tn to our debt, and our kids are never going to forgive us.”
Indeed, she left out the fact that 'the Donald' - aka Traitor Don - racked up the greatest deficits in the nation's 220 year history. But we can overlook that given how many other shots she took including at the preening Vivek Ramaswamy who no more belonged on that stage than Elon Musk. A callow, entitled little blowhard who just liked the sound of his own voice.
Ramaswamy was repeatedly criticized as inexperienced and careless, especially when the punk stated he did not support further financially supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia. This brought a timely mocking from Haley who said about the smug imp:
"He will make America less safe. You have no foreign policy experience and it shows,”
Asked about the unequivocal truth of human-made climate change, Ramaswamy also sought provocation, yapping:
“The climate change agenda is a hoax.”
The comment prompted Chris Christie to remark to Ramaswamy:
“I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT.”
Pence, for his part, blasted the character who "reminds you of your smartass freshman roommate" (Joy Reid, from MSNBC in her analysis) saying:
“Now is not the time for on-the-job training” and “We don’t need to bring in a rookie.”
But the core and key to the whole affair transpired an hour into when Fox News hosts Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier asked the eight candidates on the stage whether they would still support Trump if he was convicted. The eight were asked to signal agreement by show of hands. Six held up their mitts, and two - Christie and Asa Hutchinson didn't. Christie then said matter -of- factly- people need to "stop normalizing his conduct", adding:
“Whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of the president of the United States."
This was then met by a chorus of boos from the Trumper yahoos in the crowd,
Whereupon Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum dramatically turned around to face the audience: “So listen,” Baier said, “the more time we spend doing this, the less time they can talk about issues you want to talk about.”
The restive yahoo boobirds finally shut up enough to continue. But it was clearly the gathered knuckled draggers wanted the 800-pound orange gorilla who didn't show up. Which ought to have signaled his contempt for them, but instead they just sucked it up taking out their ire on Christie.
As Chris Hayes observed in the aftermath analysis this whole scene showed all one needed to know about the state of the GOP right now: full of petty grievance, manufactured ire and an ongoing petulance - not to mention being down on the country as a whole.
For his part Christie added, “Booing is allowed, but it doesn’t change the truth.”
But the Trump faithful can't handle the truth, so what's a citizen to do? Well, maybe line the faithful up for a few ECT sessions, though Janice doesn't believe even that would work.
As for Desantis, whom everyone believed would then step up to the plate to don the mantle in Trump's absence, not so much. The guy is great at yelling but lacks the entertainment dynamic of Trump in channeling a crowd's emotions. So anyone placing bets would not bet the farm or house on him getting the nomination. No matter Trump is convicted or not.
As for Tim Scott, how about we call him "Timid" Scott. All he did is boringly parrot the usual GOP talking points while not breaking any new ground and certainly not showing he's worthy of leading the nation given he didn't even have the stones to take on Trump (which at least Haley did, if even for a brief few minutes.)
Nicole Wallace in her post-game MSNBC analysis was also correct in her assessment that all of these combatants basically "eliminated themselves" because of their stances on abortion - which goes against 70 percent of the country. So for all intents, the whole two hours amounted to a vapid exercise in televised self-destruction. For all of them- except perhaps Nikki Haley - who at least realized she had to demonstrate a measure of spunk in Trumptard's absence.
See Also:
The winners and losers from Wednesday night
And:
Excerpt:
Going into Wednesday night, there were some valiant efforts from the Beltway media to hype the first debate of the Republican presidential primary. More honest pundits, however, reflected the actual consensus feeling: It is pointless without Donald Trump.
The GOP frontrunner is facing 91 felony charges in four different jurisdictions. He's also leading his nearest 2024 opponent by 40 percentage points in the polls. The only question then, Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post wrote, "is which of the contenders will be most unctuous and self-abasing in defense of Donald Trump?" Mark Leibovich of The Atlantic pointed out that the point "of a political debate is to try to persuade voters to support your campaign instead of the other candidates," but that "presupposes a constituency of voters who can be persuaded." Trump's MAGA stalwarts, the biggest faction of the party, make a joke out of that idea.
And:
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