2023-08-24 07:37:27
He United States Republican Party keep being him donald trump party. The former president, who faces 91 charges in four indictments, according to polls remains the overwhelming favorite to achieve the presidential nomination of his formation for 2024. From that vantage, he decided not participate in the first debate between eight other applicants which Fox News hosted this Wednesday night in Milwaukee, counter-scheduling it with a prerecorded interview last week with Tucker Carlson. And it was, as one of the debate moderators said, “the elephant not in the room”, absent and at the same time present, but his decision not to attend left some oxygen for the candidates who are fighting to win support for him to defend their candidacies before the voters.
The one who possibly got the most out of the opportunity was Vivek Ramaswamy, the 38-year-old entrepreneur. An investor in biotechnology, the son of immigrants from India and a Harvard graduate, Ramaswamy is like a version 2.0 And Trump Millennial, and has been lately rising in the polls. And that rise was noted in the debate, with several of the applicants putting it as target of attacksmuch more than Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida who for months was seen as the main alternative to Trump but whose candidacy has begun to waver in the last weeks.
He exvicepresidente Mike Pence, For example, called Ramaswamy a “rookie” in the first minutes of the debate. C.hris Christiea former governor of New Jersey and one of Trump’s biggest goers for the jugular, called him “amateur” and said that “sounds like ChatGPT”. And Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and Trump’s ambassador to the UN, made ugly positions that she has defended, such as abandoning support for Ukraine or also ending economic support for Israel in the future.
“You have no experience in foreign policy and noticeable“, He snapped Haley which throughout the debate and on several of the issues addressed, such as abortion or climate change, showed itself to be a voice of moderation who has lost integers in the Republican Party but who could represent more challenges in a presidential election for the Democrats and Joe Biden.
Ramaswamy, in true Trump style, grew up in the attacks, and also hit frequently. He opened his speech by describing his rivals as “professional politicians”, “bought and paid”, and “puppets” of the super political action committees. And at the end of the two hours of discussionenergetically presented his proposal of “revolution”. “God is real. There are two genders. Fossil fuels are necessary for humanity’s prosperity, Reverse racism is racism, An open border is no border, Parents determine their children’s education, The nuclear family is the largest known form of government, The Capitalism takes us out of poverty,” he said in a final speech in which he thanked “for letting me introduce myself tonight.”
I endorse Trump
Ramaswamy was also the first to raise his hand when the moderators, after almost an hour of the debate, asked the eight candidates if they would support Trump as a candidate even if he is convicted in the tribunals. But so did five others little by little: DeSantis (after looking at what gesture the other candidates were making), Pence, Haley, the black senator Tim Scott and the governor of North Dakota Doug Burgum.
Only Asa Hutchinson refusedformer governor of Arkansas, and with nuances Christiewho recalled that Trump’s position “was below the office of president” and accused the former president of “having disrespected the Constitution.”
Was a combative debate. Pence was more aggressive than usual. DeSantis, who despite faltering and at a great distance from Trump, is still second in the polls, did not have stellar moments and basically repeated the speech he makes during the campaign. Nor did Scott get much of it, who also relied on his speech and message of optimism.
Yes he could do it Haley, which was exposed as a voice of reason, even willing to criticize the Republican Party itself for having increased the federal deficit. Although the Only Woman candidate in the conservative camp, like the other seven candidates, did not raise her hand when asked if they believed that climate change was real, in her words she did assume the problem. And when it comes to addressing the issue of abortionand on the possibility that imposing a federal veto, asked Republicans to be “honest”: “Don’t make women think that they have to decide on this issue when they know that we don’t have 60 votes in the senate”.
Trump and violence
In any case, it was a strategic opportunity for everyone to seek relevance in a campaign that continues to be dominated by Trump and also by his legal problems, which will be exposed again this Thursday, when he turns himself in in Fulton County to face the latest indictment for try to reverse the election results in Georgia.
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The former president only occupied, openly, ten minutes of the two-hour debate. But he got his own space thanks to his interview with Carlson, 46 minutes aired on X, the network formerly known as Twitter. There Trump returned toshake the ghosts of political violence. He reiterated that January 6, 2021, the day of the assault on the Capitol, was a day of “love and unity.” And when asked by the former Fox News host whether the US is headed for a civil war, to an open confrontation, he replied: “I don’t know. There’s a passion level that I have never seen, there is a hate level that I’ve never seen, and that’s probably a Bad match”.
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