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.


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Fact-checking Ramaswamy's claim that Ukraine banned 11 political parties

Ramaswamy differed with some of his opponents on the issue of Ukraine, arguing the United States should limit its support for the country in its fight against Russia.

“The reality is just because ... Putin's an evil dictator does not mean that Ukraine is good. This is a country that has banned 11 opposition parties,” Ramaswamy said.

That’s accurate. But it needs context.

Ukraine banned 11 pro-Russian parties — the largest of which occupied 44 out of 450 seats in parliament, according to Radio Free Europe. The leader of the party, Viktor Medvedchuk, is aligned with Putin. Putin is the godfather of Medvedchuk's daughter, Radio Free Europe reported.
-Analysis by Aaron Sharockman, PolitiFact


Burgum reminds us he’s here

Burgum gets a question for the first time in a while — on farmers — and turns it into a long foreign-policy answer. He’s trying to remain relevant but always seems to be late to the party on a topic that has already been talked out. According to The New York Times, he has spoken the least tonight: just five minutes and 49 seconds. By contrast, Ramaswamy has spoken the most: nine minutes, 25 seconds.

—Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of 538


Christie says Russia can't be coddled, continues to be the only candidate attacking Trump

Christie criticized the idea that the president could cozy up to Vladimir Putin, noting that all recent presidents have failed to engage Putin by not being tough enough. He then hit Trump for having said that Putin was "brilliant and a great leader." As the night has worn on, Christie continues to be really the only candidate who is bothering to attack the guy who is 40 or more points ahead of every other candidate in national GOP primary polls.

Analysis by Geoffrey Skelley of 538


Ilia Calderón is asking about sending U.S. troops to Mexico. In a late August/early September survey by Morning Consult, 41 percent of Republicans said they thought that sending U.S. troops to fight cartels in Mexico would be “very effective” at limiting the supply of illegal drugs in the United States. Other strategies had more support among Republicans, such as sending more resources to the U.S.-Mexico border (54 percent), empowering U.S. law enforcement to combat opioids (45 percent), and punishing drug violators in the United States (43 percent).
—Analysis by 538


Fact-checking Pence’s claim that Trump administration reduced ‘illegal immigration and asylum abuse by 90 percent’

This is False.

Pence has used this 90 percent drop statistic many times, but has never explained where it comes from.

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, immigration drastically dropped worldwide as governments enacted policies limiting people’s movement. In the U.S., Trump instituted Title 42, a public health policy that authorized the Border Patrol to immediately return most immigrants back to Mexico. The increased use of this policy decreased the use of other programs, including "Remain in Mexico."

U.S. Customs and Border Protection during the pandemic also adopted a new way of reporting migrant encounters. Before the pandemic, it only reported enforcement actions under immigration law; its data during the pandemic includes actions taken under both immigration law and the public health policy. Therefore, 2020 data isn’t entirely comparable to pre-pandemic numbers.

Accounting for challenges in data comparisons, our review found an increase of 300 percent in illegal immigration from Trump’s first full month in office, February 2017, to his last full month, December 2020.

One way to get close to Pence’s alleged 90 percent decrease in illegal immigration is by comparing data from May 2019, the month during the administration that had the highest apprehensions, to April 2020, the month with the lowest enforcement actions in calendar year 2020.

But that’s a severely cherry-picked time period.
-Analysis by Aaron Sharockman, PolitiFact