Washington
Under pressure from Donald Trump’s increasingly insurmountable lead in voting intention polls, the six Republican primary candidates for the party’s seat in next year’s elections launched an attack against the former president in the second primary debate held this Wednesday (27).
While in the first confrontation last month, former governors Chris Christie (New Jersey) and Asa Hutchinson (Arkansas) took over this position practically alone and even received boos, now it is the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, and the former US ambassador At the United Nations, Nikki Haley also attacked the businessman and this time they received applause.
However, the four open criminal cases against Trump were not mentioned once.
DeSantis, who was in second place in the polls, had avoided directly attacking the former president because he is currently aiming to win over part of his electorate. However, this Wednesday he began to change his strategy.
“Where is Joe Biden? He’s completely absent when it comes to leadership, and you know who else is absent? the debt by $7.8 trillion [pública americana] and lay the foundation for the inflation we have now,” he said.
With a lead of 40 percentage points over the runnerup, the entrepreneur once again ignored the party’s debate. Instead, he held a rally in Michigan, a key presidential election state where steel workers are on strike. The day before, Biden took part in a picket.
Florida’s governor repeated the criticism while commenting on a recent speech by Trump in which the former president said the state’s ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy was “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”
Christie also criticized Trump for once again not participating in the debate, saying the businessman was hiding behind the walls of his golf courses. Then the former governor of New Jersey, alluding to the alleged cowardice of the competitor, said that he should be called “Donald Duck” the noun “duck” in English means “duck”, and as a verb it can be translated as “dodge”.
When Christie was asked at the end of the evening which competitor they would exclude from the primaries, he was the only one who agreed with an answer: Trump.
On a stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, the size of government was a recurring theme, a subsidy for attacks on Biden and Trump, who were accused of fiscal irresponsibility.
Biden’s economic policies, dubbed Bidenomics, again supported the first question, which is related to an investigation into the president’s unprecedented visit to a picket line last Tuesday. Immigration and energy were the other issues on which the Democrat was most attacked.
But the most aggressive battle of the night was between the Republican candidates for the seat. The moderators two from the conservative channel Fox Business and one from the Spanishlanguage channel Univision temporarily lost control of the argument. There were more direct confrontations, but also more aggressive ones, where it was impossible for the viewer to understand who was saying what.
Like last month, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy has been involved in many discussions, but now he is in a defensive position rather than an attacking position. A highlight of the first debate was that his voting intentions grew in recent weeks, but also his opposition, which was attributed to his aggressive stance.
The change didn’t go unnoticed by competitors either. “We thought about Vivek speaking [hoje] that we are all good people, and I appreciate that because in the last debate he said we were all bought and paid for,” said South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.
However, by attempting a more sympathetic approach, Ramaswamy failed to achieve the same level of prominence as in the first debate and found it difficult to respond to criticism.
In what was arguably the most viral segment of the night, amid attacks on the businessman for joining the Chinese app TikTok, Haley told him: “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little more stupid about it what you’re saying.”
A commercial break followed with a TikTok ad.
The former South Carolina governor had another good performance tonight. In addition to the businessman, she also managed to take DeSantis to task over his veto of fracking (a method of extracting shale gas from the ground) in Florida and to answer Scott, who questioned her about allegedly spending a fortune on curtains at the time had ambassador to the United Nations.
Former Vice President Mike Pence was another who questioned Ramaswamy about his ties to China and criticized him for doing business with the country as CEO of biotechnology company Roivant. Ramaswamy defended himself and said he left the country in 2018.
“I am glad that Vivek exited his China business in 2018. “That would have been around the same time you decided to vote in the presidential election,” Pence responded.
The businessman was the only one on stage who specifically praised Trump. Once again, he was the one who most embodied the former president in his radical positions, such as classifying gender transition as a mental disorder and advocating that USborn children of illegal immigrants should not be recognized as citizens of the country.
He also stated that “Ukraine is not good” as he explained why he advocates for the U.S. to end its aid to the country, which is at war with Russia.
DeSantis, for his part, took a clearer stance on the issue this time, acknowledging that the clash was important to U.S. geopolitical strategy, but with the caveat that he would not give the allied country a “blank check.”
On immigration policy, Republicans were more united, repeating their promise to “close the border to the south of the country,” increase the number of patrol officers and include military personnel, and send troops to Mexico to fight drug cartels.
Today’s debate is likely to be the last in which North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum will be allowed to participate. Once he was aware of this, he interrupted the other candidates and broke the rules several times, but none of this was to be enough to meet the criteria for participation in the next meeting in November.
According to the latest data from poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, Trump has 54% of voting intentions in the Republican primary, followed by DeSantis (13.8%), Haley and Ramaswamy (both at 6.3%), Pence (4.6%), Christie (2.9%), Scott (2.7%) and Burgum (0.9%).
See who attended this Wednesday’s debate (27)
Ron DeSantis
The governor of Florida, who ranks second in favor of Republican voters, is Trump’s main opponent in the dispute. He was the target of attacks from the former president and saw his candidacy decline as his supporters rallied support for his rival and a series of gaffes in the campaign. DeSantis is escalating Trump’s radicalism in the socalled “culture wars,” such as his attack on what he calls “woke ideology” by signing laws against the teaching of sexual diversity and racial issues, or lowering the legal limit on access to abortion to six weeks of pregnancy. He is seen as a kind of younger Trump, without the pending legal questions and the resistance from the political body but also without the same charisma.
Vivek Ramaswamy
With no political experience, the investor and former CEO of a biotech company gained notoriety for criticizing the company’s diversity measures and ESG policies, which guide companies based on environmental and social principles. It was the culmination of the first debate, in which Trump was personified by radical stance and media appeal.
Nikki Haley
A former governor of South Carolina (20112017), she served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (20172018) during the Trump administration. As a wife and daughter of Indians, she represents diversity in the party. He tried to go against DeSantis by declaring that South Carolina would be open to receiving Disney parks after Florida’s governor repealed the tax exemptions and favorable regulations the company has in the state.
Mike Pence
He served as vice president during Donald Trump’s term and was called a traitor by supporters of the former American leader for not supporting an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results won by Joe Biden. Nevertheless, she enjoys a certain amount of support among the more religiousconservative base. Pence was a congressman for Indiana from 2001 to 2013 and governor of the same state from 2013 to 2017.
Tim Scott
Senator from South Carolina since 2013, he is considered a rising star within the Republican Party and therefore enjoys the support of important party colleagues. As a black man, he took a stand against Donald Trump on issues of racism and more than once accused the former president of trivializing white supremacist movements.
Chris Christie
The former governor of New Jersey (20102018) is trying to win the nomination of the Republican Party for the second time the first time, in the 2016 elections, he did not receive enough support, abandoned his candidacy and supported Trump. Christie, who was already being considered by the party for the 2012 presidential election, went from being an early supporter of the businessman to a former ally.
Doug Burgum
The governor of North Dakota, first elected in 2016 and reelected in 2020, had a career as a businessman in the IT sector. He effectively “bought” his participation in the debates by offering a gift certificate in return for donations to reach the minimum number required by the party.