DeSantis is trying a bit there to be the adult in the room, which was effective for him last debate when he derailed a question about climate change, but isn't as effective this time around.

-Jacob Rubashkin, 538 Contributor

Ramaswamy brings up one of his key stump speech issues, ending "birthright" citizenship for people who are born on American soil. It's one of the ideas Trump championed in his campaign and earlier presidency — a bit of showing his hand here as he tacks to be the default Trump replacement in the case that he ends up dropping out of the race.

— Analysis by G. Elliott Morris of 538

Republican primary voters are further to the right on many immigration issues than the general electorate. They support building a border wall, increasing border patrols, and defunding sanctuary cities. In 2020, the last presidential election year, 62 percent opposed a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrations. Ending birthright citizenship, as Ramaswamy says he wants to do, is even more extreme. Candidates tonight are trying to woo those voters tonight with their stances on immigration, but they risk boxing themselves into unpopular opinions should they make it to the general election.
— Analysis by Monica Potts of 538

DeSantis gets a question on China and says he wants a totally new approach to that country. He says that he wants to ban the Chinese Communist Party from buying land anywhere in America, and also says he doesn't want them in our universities. It wasn't clear if he was talking about all Chinese students, or just the Confucius Institutes he mentioned right after.

—Jacob Rubashkin, 538 contributor

DeSantis is dodging the facts.

The Florida Board of Education set new social studies standards for middle schoolers July 19.

In a section about the duties and trades performed by enslaved people, the state adopted a clarification that said "instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit."

Experts on Black history said that such language is factually misleading and offensive.

Marvin Dunn, a psychology professor emeritus at Florida International University, has authored several books on the history of African Americans.

"Most enslaved people had no special skills at all that benefited them following their enslavement," Dunn said. "For almost all their skill was picking cotton. An enslaved man who was made to be a blacksmith might have been a king had he not been captured and taken from his country. Is he supposed to be grateful? Enslavement prevented people from becoming who and what they might have been and that was slavery's greatest injury to humankind."

Bruce Levine, an emeritus professor of history at the University of Illinois and author of "Half Slave & Half Free: The Roots of Civil War," was one of several scholars of the period who told PolitiFact that they rejected the value of spotlighting "skills" learned while enslaved.

"Very simply, can you imagine saying this about ‘skills’ developed in Nazi forced-labor camps?"
-Analysis by Aaron Sharockman, PolitiFact