America's Talking - GOP Candidates Spar in First Presidential Debate

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

Eight Republican candidates trailing former President Donald Trump in the polls vied for second place Wednesday in the first primary debate. The candidates traded barbs and one-liners in a high-stakes contest at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Each of the candidates touched on some of the nation's hot-button issues, including crime, abortion and climate change. Interruptions were widespread. Many candidates talked over their peers, at times making it difficult to hear what was said. But the issues at the U.S.-Mexico border brought out some of the strongest rhetoric of the evening.  Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America and Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulip, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey, another busy week in Washington and across the country, we are recording this on Friday, August 25th. Casey, Republicans hoping to win their party's nomination for president ahead of the 2024 election, debated for the first time this week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Of course, the frontrunner by far, former President Donald Trump, skipped the debate and did his own thing with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Separately, Trump turned himself into authorities in Georgia the day after the debate to face

charges he tried to overturn the 2020 election in the Peach State. Had his mugshot taken, the whole works, but that's a whole other episode of America in Focus this week. So listeners should go check out that segment at America's Talking.com. For this segment, Casey, let's stick to the debate. You covered it. What were your biggest takeaways? Yeah, I mean, the debate was very fiery. It was a little crowded up there.

I mean, I'm sure for many Americans watching, they're saying, who is that guy on the end? A couple of candidates, I think, had almost no name recognition. And as our Center Square voters' voices poll shows, they have no support really, or at least less than 1%, you know, 0%. There's several candidates up there who have, you know, 0% or 1% or maybe 4%. whereas the poll shows, you know, Donald Trump is far out in head leading by, you know, dozens of points,

right? I mean, 30, over 30 points, I believe DeSantis is in second. And, uh, former,

excuse me, Florida, Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, a Republican there who's seen for a while is the only challenger to Trump. So that's definitely, that's confidence to start to erode.

And, you know, so the podium goes from the middle outward, middle being the highest, um, the middle podium, him has the highest support. So, you know, Ron DeSantis and then Vivek Ramoswamy is next to him. And he, uh, Ramoswami actually really stole a lot of the spotlight. DeSantis's team said going

into the debate that they expected to a dog pile on DeSantis that all the candidates would go after the second place, which is DeSantis and pile on him. But that's really not what happened. Many exchanges, DeSantis kind of faded to the background, wasn't even in the conversation. but Ramoswami rose to the top as a very combative candidate. Now, I think there's some pros and cons to that. I think at times Ramoswami came off as combative as a little bit maybe arrogant, a little bit cocky, but he also made a lot of good points. He landed a lot of good shots on, he absolutely, in my opinion, destroyed Chris Christie.

Earlier in the debate, former New Jersey governor, Chris Christie landed a pretty funny line on Ramoswamy saying he's like chat GPT. because of how he sounds. But then later on in the debate, Ramoswami just decked Christy, saying his entire campaign was based on vengeance against Trump. And the way it was said was really funny. And when they were going back and forth at one point, Chris Christie got so booed that he had to stop talking a couple of times. So, you know, I think for Ramoswamy's perspective, if he accomplished what he wanted to accomplish, which is name recognition and putting himself as equal to these lifelong politicians, people who've run states, he's just kind of a no-name businessman.

So I think he did that. He elevated himself to being one of their peers, one of their equals. He set himself apart. He talked a lot about how we need a younger candidate, someone to, you know, cast a new vision. It can't be an established politician. We need an outsider. So he did that. I think DeSantis maybe held the line. He didn't make any huge mistakes, although he has gone viral for how when the candidate, the moderator asked, would you start? support Trump, even if he were convicted of a crime, right? Would you still support him for president? And, you know, Ramos from me immediately rose his hand. Other candidates pretty quickly rose their hands. And this video, which has gone viral on Twitter and social media right now, it shows Ron DeSantis kind of

look to see the other candidates and then raise his hand. And he has like a one and a half second delay. Now, it could be he's zoned out. It could be he just was, you know, he just kind of missed a step. But in the video, it kind of looks like he looked to see what other people would say before making his own decision. So he's taking a lot of flag for that. But otherwise, things haven't moved too much. We can go one by one. But I'd be curious to hear what you thought or what you've heard is kind of key takeaways as well, then. Yeah, I think you pretty much nailed it.

I guess my biggest takeaway is that at this point, no one distanced themselves from the other candidates who are significantly trailing Trump. in polling and whatnot. So no one really distinguished themselves. It was an entertaining debate, I guess, if you like the back-and-forth arguments and the trying to talk over each other stuff. But after this first debate, Donald Trump still remains the frontrunner by far.

I guess it'll be interesting to see new polling after the date. I just don't see it moving the needle one way or the other for anybody. maybe Ramoswami just because he's so unknown to many voters and he finally got his chance to, you know, to get out there on national television. It was broadcast on Fox News. And maybe that'll help him a little bit. But in terms of how he did in his performance and how all the other candidates did, no one set themselves apart, I don't think. Right.

So, yeah, it is a very interesting primary. I mean, it's kind of unprecedented where we have all. the first place contender not there. And then everyone else fighting for second place, but second place is so distant from first, you wonder if it's even relevant. And I was thinking about this during the debate. What I kind of landed on was for someone like for Ramoswami, for instance, who he praised Trump multiple times.

So he's praising his biggest competition. He said that Trump was the greatest, you know, president of this century. He said he would pardon Trump immediately if he were elected. So I'm like, what is Ramoswami doing here? So one or two things. Either he's planning, he's just getting his name out there so that when he runs again in 2028, he'll be a pro-Trump, you know, Trump 2.0 alternative. So when Trump has kind of had his time, which I guess is not a bad long-term strategy.

But then I was thinking, okay, short term, what's he doing? Well, if he really is positioning himself as Trump 2.0, if Trump really does get arrested and put in prison, you know, and maybe he decides to bow out of the race because of some of his legal troubles, or maybe him going at prison is enough to have a lot of people say, man, Trump's literally in prison. Ramoswami is pretty good. He's basically a younger version of Trump. He's going to pardon Trump.

Maybe I just support Ramoswami. I get a different version. I get a Trump 2.0 and I get Trump pardoned. And, you know, maybe something like that could be enough to push Ramoswami over there. So those are kind of the two outs I saw for Ramoswami. Some of those other candidates, they're basically, I think, just hoping that. Trump goes to jail because otherwise, like, you know, they, they have no chance. The next debate, I think, is scheduled for next month. Is that correct?

I believe it's September 27th. Okay. So look forward to that. Don't expect Donald Trump to show up at that debate either, but with Trump and all of his legal problems, because, despite the fact that he is, he's outdistance the other candidates by far, you know, that those legal, you know, that those problems still are sort of a wild card in the GOP primary. So we'll see what happens. Thank you for your insight into this story. Casey. Listeners can keep up with it at thecentersquare.com. We are out of time for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McKeel. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.