Tangle - SPECIAL EDITION: The final Republican debate.

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

The final Republican debate. On Wednesday night, four candidates gathered in Alabama for the fourth and final Republican debate: former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. For the fourth consecutive time, former President Donald Trump, who is leading the GOP primary by a wide margin, didn't participate.You can read today's podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠ and today’s “Have a nice day” story here. You can also check out our latest video, a look at what a potential second term for Donald Trump could look like, here.Today’s clickables: Announcements (0:43), Quick hits (1:57), Today’s story (4:27), Chris Christie (6:03), Vivek Ramaswamy (8:44), Nikki Haley (11:39), Ron DeSantis (14:12), Right’s take (17:15), Left’s take (20:13), Isaac’s take (23:02), Numbers (27:21), Have a nice day (28:23)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the poll. Who do you think won the fourth Republican debate? Let us know!Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly.

Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to

your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. Today is December 7th, a Thursday, and we've got a little bit of a special edition for you today. We're going to be talking about the fourth and final Republican debate that happened last night. Before we jump

in, a couple of quick notes. First, tomorrow, we are going to publish a piece right here on the podcast that is a paywalled Friday edition in the newsletter. This is a little bit of an experiment. We are going to publish a piece I'm writing titled 10 Thoughts About Israel. I'm going to record that Friday edition as a podcast and publish it here for free for now. And we're just going to see what the engagement's like, if people like it, if we hear from you, if it gets a bunch of listens. And that will inform us about how we want to do this going forward. As I mentioned before, one of our big priorities for the next year is to launch some more premium podcast stuff

that's maybe behind some kind of subscription, because I know some of you are just podcast listeners. So that's one. Also, I want to give a quick heads up that we have a new YouTube video up on our channel, Donald Trump 2.0, what's going to happen if he gets reelected, obviously relevant to today's topic. So be sure to go check that out if you are interested. All right, hitting an average of $3.22 per gallon, as oil prices dropped below $70 per barrel. Number two, three people were killed and at least one person was injured after a shooting on the University of Nevada Las Vegas campus yesterday. The suspect was killed in

a shootout with police. Separately, Texas police arrested a suspect in a day-long series of attacks in San Antonio and Austin that killed six people. Number three, three university presidents were grilled by members of Congress yesterday for their handling of pro-Palestine protests on campus. Number four, the United States charged four Russian soldiers with war crime charges for torturing a U.S. citizen in Ukraine, the first such charges brought in the war. Separately, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with leaders of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia

during his trip to the Middle East. And number five, the Senate failed to pass a $110 billion aid bill, including $61 billion for Ukraine, as Republicans push for immigration measures to be included in the bill. I look at my watch now. We're 17 minutes into this debate. And except for your little speech in the beginning, we've had these three acting as if the race is between the four of us. You seem to be saying Donald Trump is no longer mentally fit to be president. Is that what you think?

Look, he is showing father time is undefeated. The idea that we're going to put someone up there that's almost 80 and there's going to be no effects from that, we all know that that's not true. At the first debate, she said that only a woman can get this job done. That's what she said. After the third debate, when I criticized Ronna McDaniel after five failed years of leadership of this party and criticized Nikki for her corrupt foreign dealings as a military contractor, she said that I have a woman problem. Nikki, I don't have a woman problem. You have a corruption problem. And I think that that's what people need to know.

Nikki is corrupt. But look at where fentanyl came from. Let's go to the heart of the matter. It came from China. That's why we need to end all normal trade relations with China until they stop murdering Americans with fentanyl. But this is where Trump went wrong. Trump was good on trade, but that's all he was with China. On Wednesday night, four Republicans gathered in Alabama for

the fourth and final Republican debate. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. For the fourth consecutive time, former President Donald Trump, who is leading the GOP primary by a wide margin, did not participate. The debate was hosted by NewsNation and moderated by NewsNation's Elizabeth Vargas, former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, and the Washington Free Beacon's Eliana Johnson. For the first time, moderators brought up Trump in the opening minutes of the debate and pressed the four candidates on their views of him. Once again, however, most of the candidates

focused their ire on each other, with the exception of Christie, who repeatedly attacked Trump as unfit and suggested he could be in prison by the time the election comes around. Haley, who has been enjoying momentum in the race, was the subject of most of the night's attacks. The moderator's questions focused on Trump, the war in Israel, the fentanyl crisis, gender transition surgery, and puberty blockers, the threat of China, cryptocurrency, and immigration policy. As we did with the first, second, and third debates today, we are going to get out of our normal format and highlight each candidate from least to most popular in the national polling average and briefly recap their highs and lows from the night. Then we'll share a couple views

from the left, a couple views from the right, and then my take. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. All right, first up, we're going to start with Chris Christie, who is polling 2.7% in the polls in the GOP primary. Christie, the 61-year-old former governor of New Jersey, had an impactful night given his limited speaking time. He gave direct answers to the questions posed by the moderators, chided Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis for being evasive, and demonstrably changed the tone of the event. He called out Ramaswamy directly for personal attacks and criticized every candidate for being afraid to offend Donald Trump. Christie drew boos and cheers at multiple points for saying

the former president was unfit for office and had most likely committed felonies. He touted his record as New Jersey District Attorney, praised the records of former Attorney General John Ashcroft and President Ronald Reagan, and sold himself as someone who would be objective on the law and tough on Iran, Russia, and China. Some notables for Christie, he has shown a general politeness that kind of borders on timidity throughout the debates, which reward people who interrupt him. Though he was again mostly respectful, he was far more confrontational, resulting in an unrestrained performance that often steered the conversations on stage. He received his first question of the night after 17 minutes of debate, which was about why voters would choose him to beat Biden when he has failed to beat Trump.

He answered the question by saying he's the only candidate who would tell the truth and criticized the other candidates for pretending like the race was between the four of them, avoiding the subject of Donald Trump because of aspirations to serve in his administration. administration. Christie defended Nikki Haley in response to a Vivek Ramaswamy attack, which he characterized as personal, and then attacked Ramaswamy, saying he has no standing to criticize Haley's experience and that his foreign policy would just appease Putin. At one point, Christie called Ramaswamy a, quote, obnoxious blowhard. When Ramaswamy continued to insist that Haley and Christie name three Russia-occupied provinces in Ukraine, Haley listed three, while Christy notably refused or was unable to. Christy drew boos from the audience for saying he would ban sex change operations for minors because he doesn't want the government involved in those decisions. He also said Megyn Kelly was wrong to say he enacted a policy in New Jersey that schools should not disclose a child's pronoun decisions to their parents, correctly saying it was enacted in 2018 after he left office.

On Donald Trump, Christie was consistently highly critical. He claimed that Trump will try to be a dictator if he is elected to a second term, would weaponize the DOJ against anyone who has disagreed with him, and is, quote, angry and bitter. Christie also criticized Trump's record on China as well as Ramaswamy's idea of arming Taiwan, even though they have a gun ban. All right, that is it for Christie, which brings us to Vivek Ramaswamy, who is polling 4.9% in the national polls. Ramaswamy, the 38-year-old entrepreneur, again played the role of provocateur, directing his ire at Nikki Haley while also sparring with Christy and, to a lesser extent, Ron DeSantis. At different points, he called Haley a fascist, a corrupt politician,

and inauthentic in her beliefs, while also telling Christy to do everybody a favor, just walk yourself off that stage and get the hell out of this race, end quote. On domestic and foreign policy issues, Ramaswamy staked out positions that were largely at odds with others on stage, but aligned with the sentiments of far-right voters. He gave impassioned responses to questions about issues like border security, the opioid epidemic, and the U.S. healthcare system, but also veered into conspiracy theories when discussing his concerns about a quote-unquote deep state. And some notables for

Ramaswami, he opened the night by attacking Haley and claiming that she sold out to corporate interests after her last role at the United Nations. This line of attack continued throughout the debate, with Ramaswami at one point holding up a handwritten sign that said, Nikki equals corrupt. Asked about his comments on the campaign trail that seemed to imply Haley converted to Christianity to appeal to conservative voters, Ramaswami said, quote, I don't question her faith, I question her authenticity, and suggested that she traffics in the same brand of identity politics as the left. He took hardline positions on immigration policy and gender, saying the U.S.

should immediately deport anyone who is in the country illegally, and called for the use of a military force to secure the southern border. He also called transgenderism a, quote, mental health disorder. Ramaswamy carved out a unique position on the war in Israel, criticizing Republicans that say Hamas's attack was implicitly an attack on America too. He said Israel should be left to its own devices to fight Hamas and that the United States should turn its attention to addressing its own domestic problems. As to explain his comments about arming Taiwanese citizens as an act of deterrence against China, Ramaswamy explained that his proposal was part of a broader approach of signaling strength. He called for economic independence from China and a strengthening of relations with India. In the second half of the debate, Ramaswamy ran

down a list of notable events that he said were proof of the deep state influence on U.S. politics and trafficked in some conspiratorial thinking. He suggested the January 6 riots were a quote inside job, that the U.S. government lied about Saudi Arabia's involvement in 9-11, the 2020 election was stolen from Trump by big tech, and the great replacement theory is an explicit part of the left's agenda. In his closing remarks, Ramaswamy repeated his previous comments about the climate change agenda being a, quote, hoax, and he said climate change policy is shackling the country like a set of handcuffs and warned that government plans to address climate change could be more restrictive than their COVID policies. All right, that is it for Vivek Ramaswamy, which brings us to Nikki Haley,

who's now polling 10.6% of the polls. Haley, the 51-year-old former ambassador to the United Nations, was the main target of attacks from the other candidates on stage, a sign of her steadily increasing momentum in the race. Responding to accusations that she is beholden to her wealthy donors and out of touch with the GOP base, Haley asserted that any other candidate would accept the donations she's received and defended her conservative credentials and defended her recent comments about speech on social media. Once again, she took strong stances on U.S. foreign policy issues, like the war in Ukraine, for which she argued that unwavering U.S. support would be critical for fending off

other potential conflicts. While she mainly avoided criticizing Trump by name, Haley did draw a contrast between herself and the former president in her closing remarks, saying that he represents chaos while she embodies a no-drama approach to governance. Some notables, Haley was bombarded with attacks from both Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy throughout the night, with the former mainly challenging her policy positions in record as governor in South Carolina, and the latter accusing her of being a corrupt politician. Haley leaned into these back and forths for most of the night but eventually chose to stop responding to Ramaswamy. In response to criticism

about her recent comments on curtailing online anonymity, Haley said social media would be more civil if people had to use their names when posting, but stressed that the government can't require that to happen. She also took aim at pro-Hamas sentiment on social media, arguing that TikTok, which should be banned, is pushing dangerous propaganda about the war in Israel to young people. Haley said no and asked that the U.S. should preemptively bomb Iran, but suggested pursuing a more aggressive strategy than the one currently employed by President Biden. She called for strikes against Iranian infrastructure in response to attacks on U.S. soldiers. She also called Biden's immigration policy a quote-unquote disaster, but left the door open to a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized migrants who had been in the U.S. for many years and were working

and paying taxes. She also threw her support behind the ethos of Trump's Muslim ban, saying that the U.S. shouldn't single out anyone by religion but should halt immigration from countries with terrorist activity like Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, and others. In her closing remarks, Haley framed the state of the country as chaotic and said both Trump and Biden represent a continuation of that chaos if they are their respective party's nominees. She positioned herself as a cool-headed alternative who would fight for conservative values while ushering in greater economic prosperity. All right, that is it for Nikki Haley, which brings us to Ron DeSantis, now polling 12.7%

in the polls. DeSantis, the 45-year-old governor of Florida, drew some of the loudest cheers of the night while touting his tough stances on the border and foreign policy. In a debate that heavily featured foreign policy discussion and contained significant portions on gender, DeSantis was more consistent than usual in tying his responses to his experience serving in the military and as governor of Florida. He took very hard stances on gender, China, and immigration, and came after Nikki Haley on all three topics. Throughout the night, the Florida governor criticized Haley exclusively, with the exception of a brief shouting match with Chris Christie over whether Donald Trump is fit for office.

DeSantis closed by praising President Calvin Coolidge and saying he would fight for Americans while president and win like he has done in Florida. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada,

which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

In response to his first questions of the night over how he could win while Trump is dominating and Haley is surging, DeSantis eschewed polls and touted his record against the teachers union, Fauci, and a liberal district attorney in Florida. He then attacked Haley for not doing enough to oppose quote-unquote gender mutilation of minors. DeSantis also touted pulling $2 billion of Florida assets from BlackRock in response to their ESG initiatives, saying that Haley would not confront liberal economics and Wall Street interests because of her recent large donors. He also went after Haley for supporting a proposal that people use their real names on social media accounts, characterizing her position as wanting the government to be able to link everyone's identities to their online political positions.

On Israel, DeSantis pledged full support, saying they are fighting against Hamas's goal of a Jewish genocide. He said the United States has to get out of Israel's way and attacked President Biden for quote-unquote kneecapping Israel's response and for not protecting American troops on bases in Syria from Iran-backed attacks. When moderators asked if he would really use the military to shoot anyone crossing the border with a backpack that might have fentanyl in it, DeSantis compared the situation to the war in Iraq. He refrained from describing his stance as supporting extrajudicial killing, instead saying that we should declare war on the cartels and use military tactics like intelligence gathering to determine who is a real threat. On immigration, DeSantis was very critical

of Biden and progressive Democrats. He said he would finish building the wall and get Mexico to pay for it through remittances, and said immigrants from Islamic countries and refugees from Gaza could import anti-American culture. DeSantis said that we need a person younger than Trump to serve, but would not outright say that Trump is unfit when he was pressed by both the moderators and Chris Christie.

In his closing statement, DeSantis said that we need a president willing to fight against the progressive agenda and prevent the next generation from being the first one in history to be less free and prosperous than the one before it. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. All right, that is it for our summaries of each candidate's night. We're going to briefly share a couple views from the right and the left. First, the right is subdued in their

reaction to the debate and predicts it will have little effect on the Republican primary. Some question Haley's conservative credentials, while others say Trump was once again the winner, as no candidate managed to land a meaningful blow with him absent from the stage. In National Review, Noah Rothman wrote, A desperate debate ends in a draw. Voters were presented with a Rorschach test. Each candidate hit their notes and met expectations, so voters who watched the debate probably saw exactly what they wanted to see, whatever that meant to them. Voters who like Ron DeSantis saw him at his best. For the first time in this cycle, DeSantis ran like he was behind in the polls, a prudent calculation because he very much is, Rothman said. If you like Nikki Haley, you were probably satisfied with her performance. She drew an inordinate amount of fire from her

fellow candidates on the debate stage, which only confirmed her status as the new frontrunner in the race for second place. For the handful of Republican primary voters who backed Chris Christie, they saw the unvarnished wrecking ball they have come to depend on to be the skunk at the garden party, Rothman added. Vivek Ramaswamy fans were probably delighted by his willingness to tap dance across live wires. He leaned into the noxious boar persona he has cultivated in this race, accusing everyone in his general vicinity of corruption. Ultimately, it was a choose-your-own-adventure debate. There were no clear victors and no obvious losers.

For the most part, everyone stayed in their lanes. The rest of the story will be left to the voters to tell. In town hall, Matt Vespa said the debate could be summed up in three words. Everyone hates Nikki. The debate was another entertaining spectacle, despite all four candidates having no chance of beating Donald Trump in the GOP primaries. It is what it is, folks. Donald Trump will be the 2024 Republican nominee, whether we like it or not. Still, that doesn't mean these four didn't mail it in regarding this

melee. To the contrary, it got downright nasty, Vesper wrote. The most obvious reasons for everyone hurling mud at Ms. Haley is simple. She's been surging in the polls. Okay, it's not a tsunami, but it has garnered more than a few stories in the press. Second, her past political positions pretty much make her a carbon copy of Hillary Clinton. Ramaswamy did go overboard at some points, but this is irrelevant to the larger picture. None of the candidates on stage will be the 2024 Republican nominee or the next president of the United States. Ron DeSantis did what he needed to, attack Haley when necessary, be calm and collected, and defend himself against any counterattacks, which he did. Christie portrayed himself as the adult in the room

and someone who would answer questions directly, Vespa said. No one gained anything tonight. It was Fight Club on stage and Donald Trump was the only person left sitting atop the mountain. Still, Haley got grilled a lot. All right, that is it for what the right is saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. The left disparages the Republican candidates for their unwillingness to attack Trump directly through four debates, and some say Trump has been vindicated for choosing not to participate, while others note the increased attention paid to Nikki Haley, but suggest she is still firmly in the race for second place. In the New York Times, Frank Bruni criticized the

moral surrender and magical thinking at another pointless GOP debate. If the candidates trying to rest their party's presidential nomination from Donald Trump began the Republican debates over three months ago in a spirit of hope, they have plunged since then into a panicked state, a desperate one. That's the ugly, nasty place where they spent the fourth and possibly last of those debates on Wednesday night, Bruni said. Not one of the four people on stage in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has made meaningful progress in peeling Republican voters away from Trump and closing the enormous gap between his frontrunner status and their also-ran positions. And their answer to that? Except for Christie, they devoted more time and energy to sniping at

one another than to taking sustained and forceful aim at the actual agent of their political frustration, the real source of their electoral woe, the great orange obstacle between them and the White House. And that's why they're unlikely to get there. These aspirants to the presidency have now spent four debates quarreling with one another, and they have now spent four debates pussyfooting around the absent leader of the pack and letting him off easy. What a timid game. What a perversely submissive strategy. In The Atlantic, Russell Berman called it the Nikki Haley debate. Anyone watching the fourth Republican primary debate would be forgiven for thinking that Nikki Haley was the favorite to win

the GOP presidential nomination next year. Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy sure were acting like it. Neither man had finished answering his first question before he began attacking the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador, Berman said. The broadsides continued through the two-hour debate in Tuscaloosa. DeSantis and Ramaswamy used every opportunity to go after Haley, even when they were prodded to criticize the Republican who was actually dominating the primary race, Donald Trump. The reluctance of Trump's rivals, aside from Christie, to attack the former president has frustrated Republicans who are rooting against his renomination. But on some level, it makes sense. Haley, DeSantis, and Ramaswamy aren't actually

running against Trump, at least not yet. The best way to think of these Trump-less debates is as a primary within a primary. The four Republicans on stage tonight were battling merely for the right to face off against Trump, Berman wrote. The all-important question is whether one of these four can break away from the others in time to wage a fair fight against Trump. The window for doing so is closing fast, but it is not shut completely. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So by the time the fourth debate comes around, it's hard to find anything novel to say about these spectacles, but I'll give some rapid-fire thoughts about what we witnessed last night. First, the moderators did a great job. They asked the most probing questions of any debate so far, actually rooting them in the policies or history of the candidates on stage.

Even though they let the candidates fight it out a little too long at times, I thought this was the most informative of all four debates, and I said that about the third debate too, but this one was better. Vivek Ramaswamy is probably the most annoying politician I've ever watched, not because I don't agree with him on things. I actually strongly agree with him on some things, though I disagree so strongly with him on others. Yet, even on the issues where I agree with him, he makes his case in such an obnoxious way, I find myself wanting to disagree with him. One minute he is speaking truthfully about our sick care health system, the need for a national identity, and the corporate overlords in politics. Amen. The next minute he's claiming January 6th was an inside job and the 2020 election was

stolen. Face palm. I wish he could find a way to deliver his messages without engaging our ugliest base desires for suspicion and insults. He is definitively not a unifying candidate, despite what he says, and his candidacy went from interesting and intriguing to incredibly disappointing. Ron DeSantis is proof that politics is about far more than just delivering on policy. If it were, the Republican base would love him, and he'd be mopping the floor with Donald

Trump right now. But as we wrote in response to yesterday's reader question, a lot of politics is personality. It's appearance, delivery, and the feeling of leadership. DeSantis is wooden, scripted, and uncomfortable to watch. I don't think I've ever seen a larger disparity between an effective policymaker, i.e. he gets done what he intends to, and a bad political persona. I also found myself enjoying Chris Christie last night more than ever before. I wrote early on in this cycle that he should drop out of the race because there is no appetite in the Republican Party for what he's delivering, and because he's less running a campaign than waging a personal vendetta against Trump. But last night, he showed why his presence is additive. He was right that the four candidates aren't running against Biden, they are running against Trump, and that they all refuse to address his shortcomings honestly. He's also right that if they are too cowardly to take positions on Trump, they shouldn't be trusted to sit across from Xi or Putin. Chrissy was speaking

plainly and answering questions directly, and he did a great job last night calling out his fellow Republicans when they refused to. It was refreshing and authentic, and it made me think what would have happened if the historically flip-flopping establishment Republican had leaned into this side of himself a little bit earlier. The group finally found some soft spots on Haley, and I thought they delivered their attacks with precision. That she received support from wealthy Democratic donors and jumped from politics to a wealthy board seat on Boeing is one of her biggest weaknesses in this race. This is an era of populism in the Republican Party, and Haley is probably the least populist candidate on stage. I thought she did a decent job defending herself. She left Boeing after they

requested government assistance. She was proud to work for a company that builds great airplanes and creates tons of jobs, etc. But if you want to understand why she is never going to beat Trump, that's a good place to start. Speaking of Trump, it really is incredible that he has refused to show up for a debate, and it has done nothing to damage him politically, really. I wish Republican voters had more of a spine here. I wish there was even some semblance of a pressure campaign to get him on stage to defend his record, but there hasn't been and there still isn't. People just don't care. He is going to win and his absence doesn't matter, despite his running from the fight being antithetical to everything he says about being proud of his record, willing to stand up for anyone, etc. So now what? Well, take a look at the polls. The Iowa caucuses

are 39 days away. As I've said, since August, Trump is running away with the nomination and barring a major development in his legal case, an absolute blockbuster story that totally undermines his candidacy, or some serious health issues, which are all possible, granted, he is going to be the Republican nominee in 2024. All right, our podcast is getting long, so we're going to jump right ahead to our numbers section for today. 22 minutes and 36 seconds was Vivek Ramaswamy's speaking time during the debate, the most of any candidate. Chris Christie's speaking time was 16 minutes and 52 seconds, the least of any candidate. The number of days till the Iowa caucuses is now 39,

and the number of days till the New Hampshire primaries is now 47. The number of days Vivek Ramaswamy has spent campaigning is 145, according to analysis from the New York Times. The number of days Donald Trump has spent campaigning is 55, and the number of days Ramaswamy has spent campaigning in Iowa, the most of any GOP candidate, is 59. Ramaswamy's polling average in Iowa as of December 6th is just 4.8%. The number of days Ron DeSantis has spent campaigning in Iowa, the second most of any GOP candidate, is 33, and DeSantis' polling average in Iowa is 19.7% as of December 6, 2023. All right, and last but not least, our Have a Nice Day section. Professor Renaud Moreau, a history faculty member from Cambridge University's Pembroke College,

recently became the first person to read over a hundred letters sent to or from French sailors that the British Navy intercepted during the Seven Years' War. The letters were sent to her from fiancées, wives, siblings, and parents over 250 years ago, but were never received and never read, until now. I could spend the night writing to you. I am your forever faithful wife. Good night, my dear friend. It is midnight. I think it is time for me to rest, wrote Marie Dubos to her husband, a lieutenant in the French Navy in 1758. Moreau, who stumbled upon the letters by accident, painstakingly transcribed them for the French journal Annales Histoire Sciences Sociales. That's French and I mispronounced it, but whatever. These letters are about universal human experiences.

They're not unique to France or the 18th century, Moreau said. Science Direct has the story and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support our work, please go to readtangle.com forward slash membership. You can go check out our YouTube channel with a brand new Trump video. And remember, we'll be back here tomorrow with a special podcast Friday edition to get some feedback about that. We hope to see you then. And if not, we'll catch you after the weekend.

Have a good one. Peace. Peace. also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. If you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. We'll be right back. web is family's buried history and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older,

and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca.