Republicans feud over Trump, abortion and climate
in first 2024 primary debate
Eight candidates gather in Milwaukee in hopes of
catching up to former president in polls
Joan E Greve
@joanegreve
Thu 24 Aug 2023
00.36 EDT
Republican
presidential candidates clashed over Donald Trump’s legal woes during the first
primary debate of the 2024 campaign season, underscoring the former president’s
absence from the event and casting a spotlight on his potential vulnerabilities
in a general election rematch against Joe Biden.
Nearly an
hour into the debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Fox News hosts Martha
MacCallum and Bret Baier asked the eight candidates on the stage whether they
would still support Trump as the Republican presidential nominee if he were
convicted of the charges he faces. Six candidates – North Carolina’s Governor
Doug Burgum, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, the former UN Ambassador Nikki
Haley, the former vice-president Mike Pence, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy
and South Carolina’s Senator Tim Scott – indicated they would still support
Trump. Only two candidates – the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and
former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson – said they would not.
Christie, a
vocal critic of Trump, called on the fellow debate participants to “stop
normalizing this conduct”.
“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. When
his criticism was met with some boos from the debate crowd, Christie added:
“Booing is allowed, but it doesn’t change the truth.”
Ramaswamy
jumped on Christie’s comments, echoing Trump’s complaints about the alleged
politicization of federal law enforcement. “We have to end the weaponization of
justice in this country,” Ramaswamy said.
The debate
came one day before Trump was expected to surrender to authorities in Fulton
county, Georgia, where he has been charged on 13 felony counts related to his
efforts to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory in the state. The former president
faces 91 total felony counts across four criminal cases.
But a CBS
News/YouGov survey compiled last week found that Trump now holds his largest
polling lead to date, as he won the support of 62% of likely Republican primary
voters. The survey showed Trump beating his next closest competitor, DeSantis,
by 46 points, with every other candidate mired in the single digits.
Rather than
attending the debate, Trump chose to sit down for an interview with the former
Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which was available on X, formerly known as
Twitter, minutes before the debate began. Trump cited his standing in the polls
to justify skipping the debate, mocking his opponents’ struggles to gain
momentum in the race.
“You see
the polls that have come out, and I’m leading by 50 and 60 points and some of
them are at one and zero and two. And I’m saying, do I sit there for an hour or
two hours or whatever it’s going to be and get harassed by people who shouldn’t
even be running for president?” Trump told Carlson. “I just felt it would be
more appropriate not to do the debate.”
Although
Trump’s absence and his criminal charges shaped much of the debate, the
candidates also sparred over key policy issues like abortion and climate
change. Discussing federal abortion policy in the wake of the reversal of Roe v
Wade, Pence praised a 15-week abortion ban as “an idea whose time has come” and
DeSantis expressed pride over signing Florida’s six-week abortion ban into law.
But Haley
was more hesitant to embrace a potential federal ban, a proposal that is widely
unpopular with the American people. Describing herself as “unapologetically
pro-life”, Haley argued a federal ban would not pass Congress and called on
Democrats and Republicans to “find consensus” on abortion access.
Discussing
the climate crisis, Ramaswamy drew some boos from the debate crowd when he
denied the unequivocal truth of human-made climate change. “The climate change
agenda is a hoax,” Ramaswamy said.
Christie
retorted: “I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT.”
It was one
of several insults directed at Ramaswamy, who has climbed into a distant third
place in national polls. Mocking Ramaswamy’s inexperience, Pence said: “Now is
not the time for on-the-job training. We don’t need to bring in a rookie.”
Several
other presidential candidates – including the rightwing commentator Larry
Elder, the former Texas congressman Will Hurd and the mayor of Miami, Francis
Suarez – failed to meet the Republican National Committee’s qualifications for
the debate, leaving them out of the event and further diminishing their primary
prospects. Hurd elected to live-tweet his reactions to the debate, and he
criticized his opponents who said they would still support Trump in the event
of a conviction.
“Anyone who
raises their hand in support of Donald Trump as our party’s nominee even if
convicted in a court of law is unfit to serve as president,” Hurd said.
But Trump’s
criminal charges appear to have only fortified his position as the frontrunner
in the Republican presidential primary. According to the CBS poll, 73% of
Trump’s voters say they back the former president partly to “show support for
his legal troubles”.
With such
stalwart support for Trump among the Republican base, it remains unclear how
any of the participants in the Monday debate could capture the nomination. The
electoral threat of nominating a twice-impeached former president, who now
faces nearly 100 criminal charges, did not escape the attention of at least one
debate participant.
“We have to
face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America,” Haley
said. “We can’t win a general election that way.”
The
Guardian’s David Smith contributed reporting from Milwaukee
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