Highlights from the first 2024 Republican presidential debate on Fox News

As Alex Wagner said on MSNBC’s special coverage of the debate moments ago:

I was struck in the second hour of the debate by the fact that even in a Trump-less debate, the shroud of anger and grievance colors everything.

When you talk about people's good moments, it's not because they're offering some brilliant vision or showing humor or humanity or charisma. It's like, "Nikki Haley got really mad at Vivek Ramaswamy and said he has no foreign policy experience and it shows."

There was a time in American politics when winning wasn't just about who was the angriest, who was the meanest, who landed the punch most directly. It is so clear to me that one of the myriad ways in which Trump has transformed the GOP is by making a party that is driven by rage and is powered by a sense of grievance and injustice. There is no offering of a vision of the country. There is the slamming of Democrats, the "liberal elites," and Joe Biden.

As Rachel Maddow said on MSNBC’s special coverage of the debate moments ago:

Ramaswamy certainly was the dominant figure in the debate — for good or for ill. I'm not sure he did himself any favors in terms of people liking him, but he took up the most airtime. It sort of felt like he was the snappy podcast host and everybody was his guests.

As Joy Reid said on MSNBC's special coverage of the debate moments ago:

I'm not sure what any of them are running for. They all felt like they could be Cabinet members in a Trump administration. None of them struck me personally as somebody who could actually be president.

Burgum, I think his name is, seemed like a bored rich guy who has nothing better to do. Christie I thought was going to come off as sort of a bigger figure. I thought he was going to be more of a presence.

Ramaswamy sort of seemed like your annoying freshman roommate in college. It's not clear what he was trying to do other than be provocative at every moment he could.

And DeSantis was just yelling a lot. I'm not sure why he was yelling a lot, and why he thinks yelling made him seem like he had more stature than he did.

Other than Nikki Haley, who seemed like a reasonable Republican politician who kind of made sense, none of them to me even attempted to project the kind of stature a president would have — other than, at times, Mike Pence.

Two hours of cross-talk and double talk did little to change the Republican race. The man leading the polls, who wasn’t on the stage tonight, will still be leading the polls tomorrow, and probably will lead them for the rest of the primary. Like George W. Bush in 2000 and Bob Dole in 1996, Trump won’t suffer for skipping tonight’s debate for a remarkably unremarkable sitdown with Tucker Carlson.

Of those who did show up, nobody did anything to change their campaign’s trajectory. That’s good news for those who came into tonight rising, like Ramaswamy, whose self-regard is inversely proportional to his qualifications. And it’s bad news for those who came in declining, like DeSantis. From getting shown up by host Bret Baier to stammering his way through canned speeches, the Florida governor did nothing to change the view that his moment has already passed.

Ramaswamy’s closing remarks spouting a list of right-wing talking points — “there are two genders,” “reverse racism is racism,” etc. — were pulled directly from a tweet he posted and a speech he’s given routinely as of late, about the "10 Commandments" of his campaign.

The man had weeks to prep for this moment and the best he could do was regurgitate a tweet. Just send us a link next time, Vivek, and spare us the hysterics.

I feel like there’s almost nothing we learned about any of the eight candidates that was truly new, except for those people who discovered that Doug Burgum exists. At most, we learned that Nikki Haley is willing to go after literally everyone else on stage, that everyone hates Vivek Ramaswamy, and that Chris Christie would level with the American people about aliens. What a great use of two hours.

At least twice tonight, DeSantis referred to deploying to Iraq alongside U.S. Navy SEALs. If you’re wondering whether that means DeSantis was a SEAL himself, the answer is no. DeSantis joined the Judge Advocate General’s Corps in 2004. Three years later, he was assigned to SEALs in Fallujah, Iraq, as a legal adviser. He also served at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. 

According to a confidential DeSantis campaign memo obtained by NBC News, “when voters hear about the Governor’s bio principally as a Dad and as a veteran — they like him and are open to hearing more about him.” Whether emphasizing his proximity to SEALs is part of that strategy, I’ll leave for others to decide.

It’s hard to explain how offensive Scott’s attack on teachers unions just was. He said that those unions are “standing in the schoolhouse door” blocking our children.

What?!

Segregationist Gov. George Wallace famously stood in the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama in June 1963 to symbolically object to the admission of Black students Vivian Malone and James Hood to the University of Alabama.

It’s shameful for a candidate, and a Black candidate from the South at that, to allude to that awful American history and suggest with “schoolhouse door” language that teachers unions are as bad as one of history’s most virulent racists. He can’t be trying to attract Black voters with such an argument.

With 15 minutes to go, a question about UFOs made its way into the debate, and it was directed to just one candidate: Chris Christie, who essentially brushed it off as a non-issue.

Hard not to wonder whether a question about rising gun deaths among children or, say, the increasing threat of white supremacy in this country would have been more useful.

“We need education in this country, not indoctrination in this country,” DeSantis thundered. 

The irony of this mantra is that the Florida governor is spearheading one of the most radically right-wing indoctrination educational initiatives in the country — from restricting talk of sexual reorientation and gender in the classroom to downplaying the horrors of slavery to blocking students in the country from learning about reparations to blocking diversity and equity initiatives in higher education.

The sum effect of these efforts is not a rejection of ideology (which is impossible because it is impossible to escape ideology altogether) but rather a totalizing focus on the education system as a tool of right-wing propaganda.

Ramaswamy, when answering a question about lagging test scores on what’s called “The Nation’s Report Card,” said he would eliminate the Education Department, and he called the lack of a quality education “the civil rights issue of our time.”

It’s common for Republicans to call one thing or another “the civil rights issue of our time,” but the civil rights issue of our time is the same as the civil rights issue of my parents’ time and, no matter how old you are, the same as the civil rights issue of your parents’ time.

Burgum was asked about the fact that he signed a ban on trans kids in school sports despite there being no examples of it happening in North Dakota. He said he did so as a way to protect women’s sports. Haley has meanwhile called trans kids in school sports “the women’s issue of our times.”

I will bet all the money in my pockets against all the money in your pockets that almost none of these candidates could name who won the last Women’s World Cup. I’ll go double or nothing and bet that none of them could name who won the most recent WNBA championship.

(For the record: Spain and the Las Vegas Aces, respectively.)

We reached the portion of the evening where candidates are being asked about how harsh their immigration policies would be. One standout moment? Moderator Martha MacCallum asked DeSantis if he would sent U.S. troops into Mexico to “take out fentanyl labs” and “cartels,” and DeSantis said he would do so on “Day One.”

That followed a question in which MacCallum asked whether cartel members crossing the border into the U.S. constitute an “invasion.” Read my ReidOut Blog post on how Republicans are using allegations of a Mexican invasion to justify engaging in war-like tactics along the border. It’s essentially a pretext to engage in harsh — potentially violent — conduct toward migrants.

Republicans love to go after the fact that Democrats increased funding for the IRS to hire thousands of new agents. Those agents, though, are being hired to make up for pending retirements and to bring staffing levels back up to 1990s levels.

Meanwhile, let’s not forget that the increased staffing will be used to go after rich people dodging paying their taxes, so it’s actually a net positive for balancing the budget. (Also, the GOP-controlled House could only claw back a small amount of that funding as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling.)

Haley, a former U.N. ambassador, knows her way around a foreign policy discussion. So it's no surprise that she went hard at Ramaswamy over Russia, Ukraine and China. Drawing what felt like some of the biggest applause of the night, Haley lambasted the entrepreneur for his perceived inexperience. You don't have any expertise in this area, she said, "and it shows."

Christie followed through on his promise to criticize Trump in a big way.

“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,” Christie said, adding that Trump shouldn’t be president because he “disrespects the Constitution.”

Christie’s approach was an interesting one — he wanted to set aside the question of whether the indictments were politically motivated, which is what many Republicans believe, and instead focused on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He later called on the Republican Party to “thank” his rival Pence for refusing to cave to Trump’s pressure on trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Christie sent a stark warning to Republicans who are soft on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine. The former New Jersey governor skewered Ramaswamy's proposal to cut funding to Ukraine.

If we don't stop Russia's "autocratic killing," Christie said, "we will be next."

OK, it’s great that so many people on stage agree that Pence did the right thing on Jan. 6 when he refused to flip the election for Trump. But let’s recall, as I’ve argued before, that Pence had plenty of opportunities to counter Trump’s lies after the 2020 election but instead let things build to a head when he had to take a stand.

Hutchinson is one of two people on the stage who didn’t pledge to support Trump if he's convicted. The former Arkansas governor said Trump is morally disqualified for his role in inciting the Jan. 6 attack and could be legally disqualified under the 14th Amendment. The latter argument has been building steam in recent weeks, but it’s really something to hear it brought up in a GOP debate.

DeSantis tried to pivot the conversation away from Trump’s conduct on Jan. 6, pushing his line about the election being about the next presidential inauguration in January 2025, not Jan. 6, 2021.

Moderator Bret Baier reminded DeSantis that he’s losing to Trump in the polls by a substantial amount, which thus might indicate that the former president is worthy of some discussion.

“Former President Trump is beating you by 30 points, 40 points, in some polls,” Baier said.

Scott pledged to end the “weaponized Department of Justice,” and said he would fire Garland if he became president. Garland, of course, will not be attorney general after Biden leaves office unless his successor asks him to stay. That’s only rarely happened, which is why candidates do not promise to fire the current president’s Cabinet. Because that is not a thing.

Republicans consistently run against the big cities and, in Jason Aldean style, put small-town life on pedestals. At the end of a discussion about rising crime in big cities, Burgum said people never talk about crime in small towns because people there care more about one another and take care of their own in ways they don’t in the big city.

This is false. We’ve seen several reports of how violent crime, including homicide, exploded in rural America during the Covid pandemic.  And just last week, Newsweek cited data that shows that Pine Bluff, Arkansas, with a population of about 40,000, is among the most dangerous places in the country.

The moderators asked the candidates to answer whether Pence did the right thing on Jan. 6, 2021, by refusing to go along with Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But DeSantis refused to answer; instead, he tried to talk about the so-called weaponization of the Justice Department.

When the moderators confronted him for not answering the question, he responded: "I know." Pence later called on the Florida governor to give a real response.

"Mike did his duty," DeSantis begrudgingly responded. "I've got no beef with that."

Pence reminded the audience of an underrated aspect of the 2024 election: Many parts of the “Trump-Pence” tax cuts from 2017 will expire in 2025. Of course, Pence would extend and add to these tax cuts. But the cuts didn’t pay for themselves, didn’t boost the economy and didn’t create jobs. And there’s no reason to think that more supply-side voodoo from Pence or any other Republican will change that.

Fox’s Brett Baier asked who on stage would still support Trump as the GOP nominee, even if he was convicted. After a beat, everyone except Hutchinson and Christie raised their hands. Some seemed more hesitant than others, but there you have it. 

“Hollowed-out cities are a sign of American decline,” DeSantis said while talking about the reason why crime rates are up in cities (but not nearly as much as conservatives claim). I felt myself nodding along, thinking about the way that lack of investment in cities, including inner-city schools and affordable housing, and white flight to the suburbs reducing tax revenue, can all stack together to make conditions worse.

But then he went and blamed it all on George Soros-funded prosecutors and bragged about suspending elected prosecutors, and the moment passed.

Given the massive amount of GOP attention paid to investigating and criticizing Hunter Biden this year, it’s somewhat surprising we’re just hearing Hunter’s name mentioned now. Christie grabbed the ring first, claiming that the president’s son is being given special treatment by the Justice Department. In a Christie administration, he said, there would be no “two-tiered” system of justice.

Moderator Martha MacCallum asked Pence if the Trump-Pence administration's covid policies contributed to homelessness in the country and what she called a dramatic increase in crime. 

Pence said no and blamed calls to "defund the police.”

Of course, defunding the police was not put into policy in any meaningful way. So how it led to an increase in crime is unknown. Somehow, in his response to the question about homelessness and crime, Pence vowed to get rid of the Department of Education.

A heated discussion on abortion policy marked one of the first major ideological clashes of the debate. Haley said she was pro-life but called for consensus-building on abortion policy, arguing both that it would be politically impossible to get a federal ban on abortion through the Senate and that it was insensitive to women’s experience to get too extreme on restrictions.

DeSantis declined to say whether he would support a six-week abortion ban federally (which he backed in his own state), and he seemed to imply that it should be left to states. 

Then Pence came in and lashed out at both of them as insufficiently committed to abortion activism, claiming that “consensus is the opposite of leadership.” Pence has supported a 15-week federal abortion ban. This is a realm where Pence could win evangelical voters — but alienate moderate Republicans.

I’m old enough to remember that one of the biggest conservative arguments in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade’s right to an abortion was that it would give the decision back to the states. That would allow both the bans that we’ve seen spring up and the strengthened protections in states like New Jersey and California.

Well, that’s way less cut and dry on the debate stage tonight. The candidates were split between those who want to keep the decision at the state level (Burgum and Haley) and those who would be in favor of a federal ban on abortion (Hutchinson, Pence and Scott).

Ramaswamy finally went too far. After claiming he was the only candidate on stage who hadn’t been “bought and paid for,” Christie finally swung back, saying he was sick of hearing from a candidate who sounds like “ChatGPT.” 

Amid fits of laughter, Christie then mocked Ramaswamy for likening himself to Obama at the beginning of the debate when he called himself a skinny guy with a funny last name, slamming both Obama and Ramaswamy as the “same type of amateur.” The exchange was a reminder of the risks of Ramaswamy’s bombastic style — he attracts both positive and negative attention to himself.

Pence made a pitch to voters on stage tonight: Embrace Trumpism and traditional, pre-Trump Republican values.

He boasted about the accomplishments of the “Trump-Pence administration” on building up the military and the economy, and appointing multiple Supreme Court Justices that set the stage for overturning Roe V. Wade. But he also claims to be the only candidate on stage prepared to talk about reforming Medicare and Social Security — a kind of focus on fiscal discipline and cutting social services that went out of vogue after Trump’s rise to power.

This hybrid pitch could make Pence appealing to more old-school conservative donors, but it’s unclear if the base will find it appealing.

Pence is coming in hot, with a few barbs and glancing blows at his opponents. Touting his conservatism, he addressed a message to his opponents onstage —and “even to one who’s looking on,” presumably a reference to Trump. 

Then he had a pretty fiery exchange with Ramaswamy over who has a better plan to carry the mantle of conservatism forward. When Ramaswamy said he didn’t understand Pence’s answer, the former VP said: “I’ll go slower this time.” 

And then Pence went on to take another shot at Ramaswamy, the political neophyte. “Now is not the time for on-the-job training,” Pence said.

This is what qualifies as “loose” in the Pence household!

Burgum tried to say that the money spent in the “Inflation Creation Act” is being sent to China to produce solar panels in factories that burn coal. Haley later added that half of the electric vehicle batteries are being made in China. In actuality, since the Inflation Reduction Act passed “nearly 80 major clean energy manufacturing facilities have been announced, an investment equal to the previous seven years combined, according to the American Clean Power Association.” 

Ron DeSantis took a big swing at favorite conservative punching bag Anthony Fauci tonight. The Florida governor decried Covid lockdowns, which he claimed have damaged the American economy. And without mentioning the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died because of the virus, or the potential lives saved, DeSantis singled out top immunologist Fauci, who advised both Trump and Biden during the pandemic. What Ron didn't talk about? His own record on Covid.

DeSantis, Scott and Haley all immediately linked inflation exclusively to government spending both before and (particularly) after Biden took office. It’s an easy applause line, but that doesn’t make it accurate. Rising inflation was a global problem throughout 2021 and 2022 — thanks to lingering supply chain issues and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And it has cooled in the U.S. while staying high elsewhere. Furthermore, a recent study from the Kansas City Federal Reserve found that corporate profit-seeking “could account for more than half of 2021 inflation.”

Haley tells the crowd that “nobody on stage is telling you the truth,” noting that spending under Trump was as high or higher than in previous Democratic administrations. “Donald Trump added $8 trillion to the national debt,” she declared, accurately.

She also went after the emergency Covid spending that was passed at the end of the Trump administration and the way that former members of Congress on stage had voted to raise the national debt.

“I think it’s time for an accountant in the White House,” she said, emphasizing her past life as CFO for her family’s business before getting into politics. The applause she got from her lines was definitely louder than I expected after slamming her fellow Republicans.

Pence first responded to a question about the Trump-Pence administration's historic spending with ... a boast about helping to get the landmark abortion rights ruling Roe v. Wade overturned.

He bragged about the Trump White House getting three conservative justices — Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — appointed to the Supreme Court. Remember: Abortion rights are popular. An NBC News poll from June found 61% of all registered voters disapprove of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe.

Smiling newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy, in introducing himself to a national audience, described himself as a “skinny guy with a funny last name.”

Do you remember the last presidential candidate who described himself that way?

One Barack Hussein Obama. To borrow another famous political phrase: Vivek, you’re no Barack Obama.

DeSantis has already trotted out the old GOP canard that Republicans can significantly bring down gas prices through more energy production aka drilling for more oil.

As I’ve pointed out many times by now, domestic oil production has gone up under Biden to pass the peaks that we saw under Trump. And, let’s not forget, gas prices have gone down tremendously since their peak last year.

A previously unknown musician from rural Virginia, Oliver Anthony, got a very high-profile shoutout at the beginning of the debate, with Fox News using a clip of his viral ode to (some members) of the working class to symbolize conservative talking points on inflation.

Before the candidates took the stage, they were welcomed by Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel. You may remember her from such recent hits as defending the RNC for calling the events of Jan. 6, 2021, “legitimate political discourse.”

She also testified last year to the House Jan. 6 committee. In that testimony, she revealed that Trump and lawyer John Eastman — last seen being booked in Fulton County, Georgia, this week — phoned her committee about the RNC helping Trump’s “fake elector” scheme. That phone call is now “Act 44” in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ indictment.

The audience clearly had some feelings about the candidates during the intros. You could hear boos for several candidates: quieter ones for DeSantis and Hutchinson, pretty loud ones for Christie.

The eight candidates have filed out onto the stage. DeSantis and Ramaswamy, the two frontrunners in the polls after Trump, are in the center. Pence and Haley are the next ones out, followed by Christie and Scott, and then Hutchinson and Burgum.

Burgum, who suffered an Achilles tear last night during a pick-up basketball game, hobbled to his podium without his crutches.

After being booked at the Fulton County Jail earlier today, Rudy Giuliani has taken a page from Trump’s playbook and gone live on Twitter. The former New York mayor, who was released on a $150,000 bond, has struggled to find local counsel, and he recently appealed to Trump to help pay his legal bills.

Also this evening: Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis responded to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ attempt to move his case to federal court. Meadows has argued that the acts he’s charged with in the racketeering indictment were undertaken as part of his role as chief of staff. Willis argues that Meadows’ actions could not have been under those official duties, because the Hatch Act (remember that?) “prohibits employees of the executive branch from engaging in political activity in the course of their work.” (And anyway, she argues, his alleged crimes do not “fall within the scope of a Chief of Staff’s official duties.”) 

Whether or not Meadows is successful in moving the case, though, he won’t be able to avoid a Fulton County booking photo. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones rejected his emergency request to extend the deadline for all defendants to turn themselves in. Like Giuliani and Trump and the other defendants, Meadows has until noon Friday to avoid an arrest warrant being issued.

You know how sometimes you walk into a store and there’s some kind of “Wall of Shame” by the door? The people pictured have typically been caught shoplifting or bounced a check or two. That’s what came to mind when NBC News’ Dasha Burns posted the flier she spotted on a security desk at the debate site.

We already knew that Fox News had limited the number of passes available for Trump staffers ahead of the debate, but surrogates could still get into the post-debate “spin room” if invited by a media outlet. It’s unclear why security was apparently prompted to be on the lookout for those three staffers in particular. (Also, did Vivek Ramaswamy’s team print out their own fake credentials? Also also, sorry to Larry Elder staffers!)

Trump spokesperson Jason Miller responded in a statement to Burns calling Fox News “tacky and petty” and prompting viewers to watch Trump’s counterprogramming interview with Carlson instead. (Miller also claimed that he’d sent that statement to Burns from inside the debate hall.)

The overwhelming majority of the 13 declared candidates running for the GOP presidential nomination have mostly chosen to embrace right-wing nationalist principles while declining to lock horns with Trump. 

Which begs the question: Why are they running? 

If Trump is already in a dominant position in the race, and his rival candidates largely find Trump agreeable, then what are they in this for? Some of them, such as DeSantis, might counter that they simply want to improve upon the project Trump began. But many Republican voters already perceive Trump as an effective executive. Tonight is an opportunity for candidates to instigate meaningful debates over policy and principles within the party. But it’s unclear so far if many of them even care about those things.   

Sure, you're probably pretty familiar with some of the frontrunners like DeSantis, Pence and Ramaswamy. But what about the others, including Hutchinson and Burgum? We've got you covered on all fronts.

Check out the profile series below for a deep dive into each of the candidates debating in Milwaukee tonight.

Trump, who’s skipping tonight’s debate, is expected to turn himself in at the Fulton County jail Thursday. While some Georgia Republicans have called on their state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, to call a special session to start the process of changing the state’s pardon law (to allow Kemp to pardon Trump), Kemp’s pre-debate remarks suggest that he’s still not inclined to do Trump any favors.

As reported on X by Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kemp excoriated Trump — who says he has a big lead and doesn’t need to show up — on the podcast “Ruthless” for not appearing in Milwaukee. As reported by Bluestein, Kemp said: “I think the Trump campaign is making a big mistake by not being here. I feel like they’re in the situation the Falcons were in when it was 28-3.”

One of the most important questions of the night is whether DeSantis will dare to criticize Trump (who will not be attending but will almost certainly be a major topic of discussion). 

There’s reason to be skeptical. Reporters uncovered a memo online detailing the DeSantis political operation’s proposed debate strategy, and it advised DeSantis to defend Trump from criticism from Christie. The debate memo also suggested that DeSantis should praise Trump and critique his candidacy in the gentlest possible terms, by framing the former president as distracted by the indictments.

Soon we’ll see whether DeSantis wants to remain submissive or if he wants to take a more pugnacious approach. 

Something I’ll be watching tonight: whether and how the candidates navigate — or circumnavigate — the issue of abortion. 

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, we’ve seen successful ballot measures shoring up abortion rights in several states, including red ones, which suggests the issue has become something of an albatross for Republicans. But there’s pressure on the GOP candidates to adopt extreme stances in the primary. 

In an op-ed today, Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, urged the candidates in tonight’s debate to “go on offense” with abortion, despite the fact it appears to be a losing issue for the party. 

Just shows the vise that Republican politicians are in.

Steve Kornacki, an NBC News national political correspondent, called on viewers earlier today to recall a previous debate in which Trump didn't participate but loomed heavy nonetheless.

"It's the big story tonight. Trump won't be there. But it's worth remembering: We've been here before. So this was January 2016, days before the Iowa caucuses, Trump was leading in the polls, it was a Fox debate, he was miffed at Fox and he said, 'You know what? I'm not showing up.' And just like tonight, he wasn't there, but his presence loomed over the debate."

Watch the what happened at the Trump-less debate in 2016:

The Republican presidential debate held on Aug. 6, 2015, was, at that point, the highest-rated broadcast in Fox News history and, with nearly 24 million viewers, “among the most-viewed events in cable TV history," according to The New York Times.

Those nearly 24 million viewers represented about 7.5 times as many viewers who watched the first GOP debate of the 2011 election cycle. Not surprisingly, Trump, who many people assumed had no prayer of winning at the time, drove the higher viewership.

The same candidate will likely be the reason for lower viewership tonight. Not only is he declining to participate in tonight’s Republican battle royale, but he’s also determined to upstage the event with his pre-taped interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Tonight is a pivotal moment for Ramaswamy, whose rise to third place in a number of national polls is probably the most surprising political success story of the GOP presidential primaries so far.

Despite having no political experience and brandishing an unabashedly elitist identity on the campaign trail, the entrepreneur has been able to win a respectable following through his smooth rhetorical delivery and his ease of debating ideological opponents.

If there’s anywhere Ramaswamy can take his name recognition to the next level, it’s a debate. And with Fox News seeming to embrace him more and more by the day, he’s got the wind at his back tonight.

If this debate were held a year ago, it’s likely at least half of the debate — or more — would have been spent discussing rising prices. In June 2022, year-over-year inflation peaked at 9.1%, and the GOP was eagerly blaming Biden. (Never mind that other countries with different policies suffered inflation as well, or that more evidence pointed toward Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and corporate greed.) Republicans anticipated riding a price wave all the way to resounding victories in the fall midterms.

As we now know, that didn’t happen. Inflation began declining in the fall, and now sits just above 3%. Work remains to be done, which is reflected in the fact Biden hasn’t benefited politically as much as he would hope. (As financial commentator Kyla Scanlon and others have noted, the millions of Americans left out by our persistent, onerous inequality are also the ones who most disproportionately feel rising interest rates.)

But while price rises will make an appearance tonight, and Republicans will offer the same mix of laissez-faire and tax cuts that’s failed time and again, inflation won’t be the cudgel the GOP hoped for.

Elise Jordan, an MSNBC political analyst and former policy adviser to Sen. Rand Paul's 2016 presidential campaign, shares her thoughts ahead of tonight's debate.

If Republican candidates promise tonight that they know how to grow the economy and add jobs, know that a resounding rebuttal to that fiction exists approximately 30 miles due south from the Milwaukee stage. There lies the town of Mount Pleasant, where in 2018 Trump, then-Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and leaders of the Taiwanese company Foxconn broke ground on a new manufacturing campus. For a whopping $3 billion in tax credits, Foxconn promised 13,000 new jobs.

Five years later, roughly 1,000 workers are employed at the site, far shy of the job initially promised, reports The Washington Post. Its signature glass globe sits largely empty. Within a year of the groundbreaking, Foxconn was already backtracking on building a factory. Fortunately, Walker’s Democratic successor, Tony Evers, was able to reduce the tax credits after Trump left the White House to “merely” $80 million for 1,500 jobs. Unfortunately, by then state and local governments were already in the midst of spending some $500 million to acquire and develop the land. 

As The American Prospect’s David Dayen notes, “This is what the last 40 years of what passed in America for government-directed economic development looked like.” Even many Democrats adopted this “business knows best” strategy, though that’s finally changed under President Joe Biden and the Inflation Reduction Act. But both establishment Republicans like Walker and faux-populists like Trump still cheer giving away loads of money to businesses with no strings attached. (Walker is now president of Young America’s Foundation, a co-sponsor of tonight’s debate.) And on the debate stage tonight, we’ll likely hear Republicans espouse this failed doctrine again.

YAF has been around since the late 1960s, operating as a conservative bulwark on college campuses against academia’s supposed liberal bias. The group merged with the even more conservative Young Americans for Freedom, confusingly also called YAF, in 2011 and now uses the latter’s former chapters as their on-campus presence. 

That thinking is reflected in the statement the group released in July announcing their role in tonight’s debate: “The percentage of people who say patriotism, religion, community involvement, having children, and hard work are very important values is at an all-time low. Sadly, 18- to 29-year-olds are driving this decline by significant margins. We must counter years of radical indoctrination on campus, in school, on social media, and throughout the culture.”

As part of that goal, tonight’s debate will include pre-recorded questions from YAF members which, I’m sure, will be serious questions about policy and not absolutely bonkers questions about the latest front in the supposed “war on woke.”

Here’s a terrible idea: What if you made it so eight people who all think they should be president of the United States could talk at the same time?

That’s apparently what’s going to happen at tonight’s debate. According to ABC News: “Mics will be attached to all candidate podiums and will be turned on at all times.” 

That’s a less dangerous prospect than if Trump were actually on stage, given the greater levels of self-control on display from most of them. But the idea that all of them will diligently follow the rules and only speak during their allotted time seems … fanciful.

DeSantis recently said something reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” remark in 2016, telling The Florida Standard:

After MAGA blowback commenced, Team DeSantis said “listless vessels” had been a reference to Trump’s supporters in Congress, not his supporters in general. 

But as Ja’han Jones wrote for The ReidOut Blog yesterday, DeSantis missed his chance to drive straight to the basket — and say he meant what he said.

“I think DeSantis would have done well to double down, in much the same way I think Clinton should have,” Ja’han wrote. “Because I think he was quite accurate in his reading of the GOP if Republican voters — not just members of Congress — give in to Trump’s demands. The 2020 and 2022 elections provide ample evidence.”

Read more below.

There are going to be a lot of people on stage and only two hours to get through all of the questions from moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. (I know, I know, “only” two hours.)

In order to try to keep some semblance of order, there are usually rules in place to keep things flowing and tonight is no exception.

“The candidates will not give opening statements and will have one minute to answer questions. They will have 30 seconds to respond to follow-ups and 45 seconds for closing statements, according to details Fox News shared with candidates ahead of the debate,” ABC News reported.

We’ll see how long it takes for those rules to become guidelines and then be thrown out the window altogether at the debate at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who's straggling far behind the current GOP presidential frontrunners, will debate tonight after injuring himself while playing a game of pick-up basketball on Tuesday.

Burgum suffered a high-grade tear of his Achilles tendon, but posted a photo of him on crutches hours before the debate is set the begin, with the caption: "I'm in."

A recent NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll found 2% of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers support Burgum as their first choice in the race. He trails behind the other GOP candidates debating tonight (besides former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson), according to the poll. Trump, who was hit with his fourth criminal indictment last week, leads the poll at 42%.

I want you to keep your ears tuned for one single word: woke. You’ve heard it before, and I’m betting you’ll hear it a lot more tonight. Or at least enough to rankle your nerves. Or maybe mine.

See, before it was co-opted by right-wing conservatives, before it became a charged, political, catch-all phrase meaning everything and nothing at once, before it was considered a pejorative, and long before many of you probably ever heard the word, “woke” was part of the Black American lexicon, rooted in the fight for equality and justice.

But America’s political theater has erased and overshadowed this necessary context. “Woke” in the mouths of some conservative Republicans, the MAGA set and their acolytes, has become a battering ram and a battle cry against liberal policies like bodily autonomy, affirmative action and the teaching of America’s true and unvarnished history in classrooms. 

Read more below.

As former Ohio Gov. John Kasich said on "Andrea Mitchell Reports" on Tuesday:

First of all, you have to practice. I did a lot of practicing, but also I, of course, familiarized myself with the issues. As the debates went on, there was one other thing I needed to do. I needed to realize where the cameras were so when I said something I was actually looking at the camera and not looking somewhere else.

You also need to be able to finish a sentence. You don’t want to step on your own line, so you’ve got to have that clipped structure so you don’t leave people saying, "OK, what did that mean?"

What it gets down to is, what’s your vision? How do you excite people? How do you stand out? You can’t manufacture it. You have to look for that moment and when that moment comes, try to knock it out of the ballpark. And then stop saying what you’re saying and let people digest it. Say what you have to say and shut up.

Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum are moderating tonight's debate. They may need some inspiration — and I’m happy to oblige.

It’s safe to assume there will be few curveballs or tough challenges from either of these Rupert Murdoch employees. So here are the questions I'd ask.

For all of the GOP candidates:

All of you had to sign a pledge saying you’ll back the GOP nominee in order to participate in this debate tonight. If Trump is convicted and sentenced to prison ahead of November 2024, but is still the official GOP nominee, will you still support him? Even if he runs from a prison cell?

For all of the GOP candidates except Mike Pence:

If you had been the vice president on Jan. 6, 2021, would you have done what Pence did or what Trump wanted Mike Pence to do?

Read my other questions below.