Republican debate highlights and analysis: Candidates squabble in Simi Valley
2024 hopefuls argued over education, spending and border security.
The second Republican debate of the 2024 presidential primary, taking place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, has just come to an end.
The affair was more raucous than the first debate, which took place over a month ago. Candidates interrupted one another much more regularly and several — most notably former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — have directly criticized front-runner Donald Trump, who elected not to show up tonight. The two candidates from South Carolina, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott, went after one another for their records on spending, and seemingly everyone who had the chance to take a shot at entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy did so.
Read below for highlights, excerpts and key moments.
Latest headlines:
- South Carolina on South Carolina: Nikki Haley and Tim Scott spar several times on stage
- Brief debate answers on Ukraine reveal a rift among Republicans over the issue
- Survivor, GOP primary edition?
- Pence seems to be playing out the string
- Ramaswamy and Scott's debate over birthright citizenship devolves into chaotic exchange
Didn't expect such a pro-robot stance from Christie after he attacked Ramaswamy for sounding like ChatGPT last debate.
-Jacob Rubashkin, 538 contributor
Christie suggested that the government should refrain from regulating AI. Polling shows Republicans agree: when it comes to who should be responsible for providing solutions to AI-related issues, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to turn to companies and brands than to the government. In a July survey from Ipsos, Republicans preferred companies and brands over the government to be most responsible for creating or retaining local jobs by 29 percentage points, ensuring that AI doesn’t discriminate by 8 percentage points and ensuring AI provides accurate results by 14 percentage points. On protecting creators from unfair use of their work and preventing the spread of misinformation by AI, equal numbers of Republicans said that the government and companies should be most responsible.
—Analysis by 538
How things are going
Christie made an awkward joke about Biden sleeping with teacher’s unions (because he’s married to a teacher), and Pence decided it would be a good idea to remind everyone that he also is sleeping with a teacher (his wife). So, that just happened.
— Analysis by Leah Askarinam of 538
Pence has suggested a federal ban on gender transition-related healthcare for children. In a poll conducted by Marist College for NPR and PBS NewsHour in June, 52 percent of Republicans said only adults who are 18 and older should be able to receive gender transition-related healthcare. Nine percent said adults and children with the consent of their parents should be able to receive such care, and 37 percent said nobody, regardless of age, should be able to receive gender transition-related healthcare.
—Analysis by 538
Christie on crime
Christie gets the first question out of the break on how to handle crime, and he made the case that he's the only person on stage whose done it as a former prosecutor. But he turned the question into an attack on Trump, calling out Trump for skipping out on the debate, saying that soon he'll be called "Donald Duck" for avoiding it. The thing is, Christie has essentially a 0 percent chance of winning the GOP nomination, so it's not especially interesting to hear him go after Trump. Earlier in the debate, DeSantis did echo an attack Christie made by hitting Trump for not being on stage to defend the former president's record on spending. More of those kind of dings from anyone besides Christie would be a development in this debate.