00:00 His second 2024 Republican presidential primary debate ended just as it began, with former
00:06 President Donald Trump, who hasn't yet appeared alongside his rivals on stage, as the party's
00:12 dominant frontrunner.
00:15 The seven GOP contenders in Wednesday night's showdown at the Ronald Reagan Presidential
00:20 Library in Simi Valley, California, provided a handful of memorable moments, including
00:26 former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley unloading what often seemed like the entire
00:31 field's pent-up frustration with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
00:36 "Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say," she said
00:42 to him at one point.
00:44 Two candidates criticized Trump's absence, as well.
00:48 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he was "missing in action."
00:53 Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie called the former president "Donald Duck" and said
00:58 he hides behind his golf clubs rather than defending his record on stage.
01:04 The GOP field also took early shots at President Joe Biden.
01:09 South Carolina Senator Tim Scott said Biden, rather than joining the striking autoworkers
01:15 union on the picket line Tuesday in Michigan, should be on the southern border.
01:21 Former Vice President Mike Pence said Biden should be on the unemployment line.
01:26 North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum said Biden was interfering with free markets.
01:32 However, what played out in the debate, hosted by Fox Business Network and Univision, is
01:38 unlikely to change the trajectory of a GOP race in which Trump has remained dominant
01:43 in national and early state polling.
01:46 And the frequently messy, hard-to-track crosstalk could have led many viewers to tune out entirely.
01:53 Here are takeaways from the second GOP primary debate.
01:58 Trump's safe approach appears to pay off.
02:01 Trump might have played it safe by skipping the debates and taking a running-as-an-incumbent
02:06 approach to the 2024 GOP primary.
02:10 It's hard to see, though, how he would pay a significant price in the eyes of the party's
02:15 voters for missing Wednesday night's messy engagement to instead address current and
02:20 former union members outside Detroit.
02:23 Trump's rivals took a few shots at him.
02:27 DeSantis knocked him for deficit spending.
02:31 Christie mocked him during the night's early moments, calling him "Donald Duck" for
02:35 skipping the debate and then, in his final comments, said he would vote Trump off the
02:40 GOP island.
02:42 "This guy has not only divided our party, he's divided families all over this country.
02:48 He's divided friends all over this country," the former governor said.
02:53 "He needs to be voted off the island, and he needs to be taken out of this process."
02:58 However, Trump largely escaped serious scrutiny of his four years in the Oval Office from
03:05 a field of rivals courting voters who have largely positive views of his presidency.
03:11 Tonight's GOP debate was as boring and inconsequential as the first debate, and nothing that was
03:17 said will change the dynamics of the primary contest, Trump campaign senior adviser Chris
03:22 Lachiveta said in a statement.
03:25 A Messy Two Hours
03:28 The second GOP primary debate was beset by interruptions, crosstalk and protracted squabbles
03:34 between the candidates and moderators over speaking time.
03:38 That's tough for viewers trying to make sense of it all, but even worse for these
03:43 candidates as they attempted to stand out as viable alternatives to the absentee Trump.
03:49 Further complicating the matter, some of the highest-polling candidates after Trump, DeSantis
03:55 and Haley, were among those least willing to dive into the muck, especially during the
04:00 crucial first hour.
04:02 The moderators repeatedly tried to clear the road for the Florida governor, at least in
04:07 the beginning.
04:09 But he was all but absent from the proceedings for the first 15 minutes.
04:14 Ramaswamy fared somewhat better, speaking louder and faster than most of his rivals.
04:21 But he was bogged down repeatedly when caught between his own talking points and cross-volleys
04:26 of criticisms from frustrated candidates like Scott.
04:30 The moderator group will likely get criticism for losing control of the room within the
04:35 first half hour, but even a messy debate tells voters something about the people taking part.
04:42 Palmetto Pummeling
04:44 All night, Scott seemed like he was looking for a fight with somebody, and he finally
04:49 got that when he set his sights on fellow South Carolinian Haley.
04:53 He began his line of attack, which Haley interjected with a bring it, by accusing her of spending
04:59 $50,000 on curtains in a $15 million subsidized location during her time as the U.S. ambassador
05:07 to the United Nations.
05:09 What ensued was the two Republicans going back and forth about the curtains.
05:14 "Do your homework, Tim, because Obama bought those curtains," Haley said, while Scott repeated,
05:21 "Did you send them back?
05:23 Did you send them back?"
05:26 Haley then responded, "Did you send them back?
05:29 You're the one who works in Congress."
05:32 It wasn't the most acrimonious moment of the night, but it was up there.
05:37 The feuding between the two South Carolina natives seemed deep, but it's worth remembering
05:42 that about a decade ago, when Haley was governor, she appointed Scott to the Senate seat he
05:48 currently holds after Republican Jim DeMint stepped down.
05:53 That confidence in Scott seems to have dissolved in this presidential race.
05:58 An Uneven Performance for DeSantis
06:02 Confronted by his Republican competitors for the first time in earnest, DeSantis delivered
06:07 an uneven performance from the center of the stage, a spot that is considerably less secure
06:13 than it was heading into the first debate in Milwaukee.
06:17 Despite rules that allowed candidates to respond if they were invoked, DeSantis let Fox slip
06:22 to commercial break when Pence seemed to blame the governor for a jury decision to award
06:27 a life sentence, not the death penalty, to the mass murderer in the Parkland High School
06:33 shooting.
06:34 DeSantis opposed the decision and championed a law that made Florida the state with the
06:39 lowest threshold to put someone on death row going forward.
06:43 Nor did he respond when Pence accused DeSantis of inflating Florida's budget by 30 percent
06:49 during his tenure.
06:51 He later let Scott get the last word on Florida's black history curriculum standards and struggled
06:57 to defend himself when Haley, accurately, pointed out that he took steps to block fracking
07:03 in Florida on his second day in office.
07:06 Before the first debate in Milwaukee, a top strategist for a pro-DeSantis super PAC told
07:12 donors that "79 percent of the people tonight are going to watch the debate and turn it
07:17 off after 19 minutes."
07:20 By that measure, the Florida governor managed to first speak Wednesday night just in the
07:25 nick of time, 16 minutes into the debate.
07:29 And when he finally spoke, he continued the sharper attacks on the GOP frontrunner that
07:34 he has previewed in recent weeks.
07:37 DeSantis equated Trump's absence in California to Biden, who DeSantis said was "completely
07:43 missing in action for leadership on the economy," blaming him for inflation and the autoworkers
07:49 strike.
07:50 "And you know who else is missing in action?
07:54 Donald Trump is missing in action," DeSantis said.
07:57 "He should be on this stage tonight.
08:01 He owes it to you to defend his record."
08:04 But DeSantis then largely pulled back from further targeting Trump until a post-debate
08:09 Fox News appearance when he challenged the former president to a one-on-one face-off.
08:16 DeSantis ended the debate on a strong note.
08:19 He took charge by rejecting moderator Dana Perino's attempts to get the candidates to
08:24 vote one of their competitors off the island.
08:28 He ended his night forcefully dismissing a suggestion that Trump's lead in the polls
08:32 held meaning in September.
08:34 "Polls don't elect presidents, voters elect presidents," he said, before pointing a finger
08:41 at Trump for Republicans' electoral underperformance in the last three elections.
08:47 But as the Super PAC strategist previously pointed out, by then, who was watching?
08:53 Tough questions on immigration, Latino voters.
08:57 In the final minutes of the debate, co-host Iliot Calderon of Univision asked Pence how
09:03 he would reach out to those Latino voters who felt the Republican Party was hostile
09:07 or didn't care about them.
09:09 "I'm incredibly proud of the tax cut and tax reform bill," he said, referring to Republicans'
09:16 sweeping 2017 tax law.
09:19 He also cited low unemployment rates for Hispanic Americans recorded during the Trump-Pence
09:25 administration.
09:26 Scott, faced with the same question, said it was important to lead by example.
09:32 "My chief of staff is the only Hispanic female chief of staff in the Senate," he said.
09:38 "I hired her because she was the best, highest-qualified person we have."
09:44 Calderon focused much of her time on a series of policy questions that highlighted the candidates'
09:50 records on immigration and gun violence.
09:54 At times, some of them struggled to respond directly.
09:58 She asked Pence if he would work with Congress to find a permanent solution for people who
10:03 were brought to the country illegally as children.
10:07 The Trump-Pence administration ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which
10:12 gave those young people protected status.
10:16 She repeated the question after Pence focused his answer on his work securing the border.
10:22 He then talked about his time in Congress.
10:25 "Let me tell you, I served in Congress for 12 years, although it seemed longer," he said.
10:32 "But you know, something I've done different than everybody on this stage is I've actually
10:37 secured reform in Congress."
10:40 The candidates, and moderators, shy away from abortion talk.
10:45 It took more than a 100 minutes on Wednesday night for the first question on abortion to
10:50 be asked.
10:52 About five minutes later, the conversation had moved on.
10:57 What is potentially the most potent driver, or flipper, of votes in the coming election
11:02 was afforded less time than TikTok.
11:05 Tellingly, no one on stage seemed to mind.
11:09 Perino introduced the subject by asking DeSantis whether some Republicans were right to worry
11:15 that the electoral backlash to abortion bans, or the prospect of their passage, would handicap
11:21 the eventual GOP nominee.
11:24 DeSantis, who signed a six-week ban in April, dismissed those concerns, pointing to his
11:30 success in traditionally liberal parts of Florida on his way to winning a second term
11:35 in 2022.
11:37 Then he swiped at Trump for calling the new laws "a terrible thing" and "a terrible mistake."
11:43 Christie took a similar path, arguing that his two terms as governor of New Jersey, a
11:49 traditionally blue state, showed it was possible for anti-abortion leaders to win in an environment
11:55 supportive of abortion rights.
11:58 And with that, the abortion debate in Simi Valley ended abruptly.
12:03 No more questions and no attempts by the rest of the candidates to interject or otherwise
12:08 join the chat.
12:10 Candidates pile on Ramaswamy Some of the candidates on stage didn't want
12:15 to have a repeat of the first debate, in which Ramaswamy managed to stand out as a formidable
12:21 debater and showman.
12:23 Early in Wednesday's debate, Scott went after the tech entrepreneur, saying his business
12:29 record included ties to the Chinese Communist Party and money going to Hunter Biden.
12:35 The visibly annoyed Ramaswamy shifted gears from praising all the other candidates on
12:40 stage to defending his business record.
12:44 But Scott and Ramaswamy ended up talking over each other.
12:48 A little later on, Pence began an answer with a knock on Ramaswamy, saying, "I'm glad Vivek
12:54 pulled out of his business deal in China."
12:58 At another point, after Ramaswamy had responded to a question about his use of TikTok, Haley
13:04 jumped in, saying, "Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber from what you say
13:10 and then going on to say, 'We can't trust you.'
13:13 We can't trust you."
13:16 As Ramaswamy tried to re-adopt his unity tone, Scott could be heard trying to interrupt him.
13:22 DeSantis, Pence duck health care questions while Haley pounces.
13:28 Despite the efforts of moderators to pin them down, DeSantis and Pence struggled to respond
13:33 when challenged on their respective records on health care.
13:38 Asked about the Trump administration's failure to end the Affordable Care Act as promised,
13:43 Pence opted instead to answer a previous question about mass gun violence.
13:49 When Perino pushed Pence one more time to explain why Obamacare remains not just intact
13:54 but popular, the former vice president once again demurred.
13:58 Fox's Stuart Varney similarly pressed DeSantis to explain why 2.5 million Floridians don't
14:05 have health insurance.
14:08 DeSantis found a familiar foil for Republicans in California — inflation.
14:13 Varney, though, said it didn't explain why Florida has one of the highest uninsurance
14:19 rates in the country, to which DeSantis had little response.
14:23 "Our state's a dynamic state," DeSantis said, before pointing to Florida's population boom
14:29 and the low level of welfare benefits offered there.
14:33 Haley, though, appeared ready to debate health care, arguing for transparency in prices to
14:39 lessen the power of insurance companies and providers and overhauling lawsuit rules to
14:44 make it harder to sue doctors.
14:46 "How can we be the best country in the world and have the most expensive health care in
14:52 the world?"
14:53 Haley said.
14:54 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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