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.


0

Is this a primary or general election debate?

While Ramaswamy clearly tried to differentiate himself from Scott on the question of unions, Pence glossed over his primary challengers and shifted directly to the general election, calling for repealing the Green New Deal and criticizing Biden.
— Analysis by Leah Askarinam of 538


According to a September poll by ABC News and The Washington Post, 74 percent of Republicans said they would blame Biden and the Democrats in Congress if the government were to shut down. Just 5 percent said they would blame Republicans in Congress, and 16 percent said they would blame both equally. Five percent didn’t have an opinion or wouldn’t blame either.
—Analysis by 538


Burgum interrupts to get a word in

The moderators just tried to move on, but Burgum interrupted to make sure he got a word in. He must have read my post at the beginning of the debate that he needs to get more words in edgewise!

—Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of 538


Americans Support Unions Generally

We're hearing a lot of anti-union talk from candidates on stage tonight, but that's not a position that a majority of Americans take. As Cooper mentioned, a majority of Americans support the current UAW strikes. More than that, support for American unions are at highs not seen in decades. When Biden visited striking workers in Michigan this week, he was visiting a state that was the first since 1965 to repeal the anti-union right-to-work laws.
-- Analysis by Monica Potts of 538


Fact-checking DeSantis’s claim that Florida proposal to teach that enslaved people benefited from slavery was a ‘hoax that was perpetrated by Kamala Harris’

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