Republican contenders squabble over Trump in chaotic second debate – live | Republicans

From a foray into Mike Pence’s sex life and extreme yet vague proposals on gun control, candidates competed for an edge during the second Republican presidential debate on Wednesday evening.

Amid the squabble of the seven candidates, all of whom trail Donald Trump significantly, Americans were left to parse which direction the Republican party plans to take in 2024.

Here are the main takeaways from the two-hour debate that aired on Fox Business.

Lois Beckett

The reviews were mixed.

New York Times political correspondent Maggie Haberman wrote early in the debate, “This is unwatchable.”

But Fox News’ Laura Ingraham argued after the debate that Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy were the most promising candidates in two flavors – Ramaswamy as the populist, Haley as the more traditional conservative supported by GOP donors.

Ramaswamy seemed at one point to flaunt his youth and inexperience, acknowledging that as the “new guy”, he expected that voters would see him as “a young man who’s in a bit of a hurry, maybe a little ambitious, bit of a know-it-all”.

I’m here to tell you, no, I don’t know it all. I will listen. I will have the best people, the best and brightest in this country, whatever age they are, advising me.

Tim Scott earned applause from the audience and praise from Sean Hannity for saying that, while he had experienced discrimination as a Black man, “America is not a racist country.”

At the end of the debate, moderator Dana Perino of Fox News asked the candidates: “Which one of you onstage tonight should be voted off the island?” Almost everyone refused to reply. When Christie did, he attacked the one person who wasn’t on that particular island.

Donald Trump.

Lois Beckett

Donald Trump’s rivals also tried, and largely failed, to produce memorable attack lines against each other during last night’s Republican primary debate.

South Carolina senator Tim Scott tried to criticize former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for a set of $50,000 curtains at her residence as UN ambassador. “Do your homework, Tim, because Obama bought those curtains,” Haley responded.

Haley, in turn, savaged 38-year-old entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy for doing business in China and for joining the social media app TikTok, which Ramaswamy defended as a logical thing to do to help the party attract younger voters, even as he said that people under 16 should not be “using addictive social media”.

“TikTok is one of the most dangerous social media apps that we could have,” Haley said.

Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.

“We can’t trust you,” she said. “We can’t trust you.”

Crosstalk and weak zingers hand win to absent Trump at Republican debate

Lois Beckett

It’s hard to pick the low point of a debate that dissolved frequently into incoherent crosstalk and included former vice-president Mike Pence, a Christian conservative who has famously said he would never dine alone with a woman other than his wife, attempting to make a joke about his sex life. (“My wife isn’t a member of the teachers union, but I gotta admit I’ve been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years,” he said.)

Whether echoing Donald Trump’s rhetoric, or attempting to criticize him – Chris Christie dubbed him “Donald Duck” for choosing not to participate – none of the presidential hopefuls succeeded in upending the expectations of the race. Once again, Trump won the GOP debate without even having to show up.

On substantive issues, the Republican candidates endorsed virulent transphobia, with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy arguing that “transgenderism” is “a mental health disorder”. He said he wanted to end birthright citizenship, so that children born in the US to undocumented parents would not be given citizenship.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis suggested he would address the fentanyl overdose crisis by using the US military against drug dealers in Mexico, and treat them like “foreign terrorist organizations”. He also did not believe Republican losses in the 2022 midterm elections should be blamed on the party’s embrace of extreme anti-abortion policies.

Pence said his plan for preventing future mass shootings was not new gun control laws, but instituting “a federal expedited death penalty for anyone involved in a mass shooting”. (Research shows that many mass shooters are suicidal.)

But some of the brutal Trumpian rhetoric seemed to have lost its punch. “Yes, we’ll build the wall,” DeSantis said, sounding almost bored.

On Fox News after the debate, former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway argued that “nobody made the case” that they had something different from Trump to offer voters. “They want to build a wall, they want to secure the border, they sound a lot like him,” she said.

Good morning, US politics blog readers. Chaos reigned Wednesday night on the stage of the Reagan library in southern California, where seven Republican presidential candidates shouted and sniped at each other for two hours without producing a single standout moment and, once again, without the appearance of the clear frontrunner, Donald Trump.

Amid the squabble of the seven candidates – Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, former vice president Mike Pence, South Carolina senator Tim Scott, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and North Dakota governor Doug Burgum – all of whom trail Trump significantly, Americans were left to parse which direction the Republican party plans to take in 2024.

While commentators were divided over who had the strongest performance, most agreed that last night’s debate will have done little to change the contours of the GOP primary or make a dent in Trump’s 40-point poll lead. As his rivals sparred onstage, the former president was in battleground Michigan working to woo blue-collar voters by lambasting Joe Biden, electric vehicles and Barack Obama while pushing culture war issues in a speech that fell far short of supporting the core issues that have many car workers currently on strike.

Here’s what else we’re watching today:

• 10am eastern time: The House oversight committee will kick off its impeachment hearing against Joe Biden. Three witnesses are scheduled to appear.

• 10am: The Senate will meet to take up the continuing resolution to keep the government open, with a vote on the motion to proceed at 11.45am.

• 11am: House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries will hold his weekly press conference.

• 11am: Senator Ben Cardin will hold pen and pad on assuming chairmanship of the Senate foreign relations committee.

• 1.45pm: Biden will speak about the late Senator John McCain’s legacy in Tempe, Arizona.

• 3.45pm: Biden will participate in a fundraiser in Phoenix.

• Embattled senator Bob Menendez will address the Senate Democratic caucus today amid growing calls for his resign following his indictment on corruption charges.