Eight Republican candidates for the 2024 US presidential election entered their first head-to-head confrontation Wednesday night in their battle for their party’s nomination for the White House. The absence of the frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, gave others, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the chance to stand out in front of a national audience.
In particular, Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur, jumped into that hole with an animated performance that drew cheers and applause from spectators in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The young, eloquent candidate, who has been rising in Republican polls in recent weeks, came out with a deluge of sharply worded, hard-line stances such as “the climate change agenda is fake” and “an open border is no border.” He thus profiled himself as an unashamedly conservative candidate, in the style of Trump.
Read also: Republicans debate in the shadow of leader Trump
Trump, who has had a big lead in polls of Republican voters for months, did not participate in the debate. Instead, he appeared in an interview on X, formerly Twitter, with Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News host, the network that hosted the debate. The former president, who has been indicted four times in recent months for crimes he allegedly committed before, during and after his presidency, reports to the Fulton County Jail in Georgia on Thursday, where he was charged last week with attempted murder. to overturn that state’s election results.
Main contender
Ramaswamy hopes to surpass Florida governor Ron DeSantis as Trump’s main contender if the nomination unexpectedly eludes the former president. For DeSantis, who has been the front-runner among other Republican candidates for months despite trailing Trump in polls by several dozen percentage points, the debate was an opportunity to restart his campaign after a string of missteps.
While the shadow of the former president and his legal troubles hung over the debate, his absence also allowed for heated debate on topics from abortion and the economy to migration and the war in Ukraine. In addition to DeSantis and Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, former Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, former Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, and Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota participate in the debate.
Yet Trump delivered one of the undisputed highlights. Asked if they would support Trump as a 2024 Republican presidential candidate if he was convicted of a crime, six of the eight candidates raised their hands, Ramaswamy being the first. “President Trump was the best president of the twenty-first century,” he said vehemently. “We must end the use of justice as a political weapon,” he continued, referring to the assumption of many Republicans that Trump is being prosecuted for political reasons at the instigation of his Democratic opponents, in order to prevent his re-election.
Loud boos
Others also stated that they would support Trump in that case, including Pence. On January 6, 2021, the former vice president did not participate in a plan by Trump and some supporters not to do so, as chairman of the joint meeting of both houses of Congress that had to ratify the election victory of Trump opponent Joe Biden. Pence’s refusal drew fierce criticism from Trump supporters, who stormed the Capitol that day. The former vice president again said in the debate that he “has put the constitution first”, to the most moderate enthusiasm of the public.
Only Christie and Hutchinson said they would not support Trump if convicted. “Someone has to stop the normalization of misconduct,” said Christie, who has emerged as the leading anti-Trump candidate in the race, to loud boos in the room. “Whether you believe the criminal charges are good or bad, the conduct is beneath the office of the President of the United States.”