Republican debate highlights and analysis: Fiery faceoff on Trump, Ukraine and more

The 2024 hopefuls took the stage in Milwaukee on Wednesday night, without Trump.

The first Republican debate of the 2024 presidential primary was held in Milwaukee on Wednesday night.

Eight candidates qualified for a spot on the stage: North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former Vice President Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.

Missing from the event was the primary's early front-runner: former President Donald Trump, who declined to participate and instead released a pre-recorded interview with Tucker Carlson.

ABC News and FiveThirtyEight live-blogged every major moment and highlight from the debate, aired on Fox News, with FiveThirtyEight providing analysis and a closer look at the polling and data behind the politicians. PolitiFact made real-time fact checks of key statements.


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Burgum stands on the debate stage without crutches

As the debate got underway, Burgum was seen standing without his crutches on the presidential primary stage. Just one day ago, on Tuesday, the North Dakota governor tore his Achilles tendon and was seen just hours ago using crutches.

--ABC News' Kelsey Walsh


Christie just made an electability argument — that he was elected as a Republican in the blue state of New Jersey. (Specifically, he won the 2009 gubernatorial election by 4 percentage points a year after Obama won the state by 16.) The only problem is, only 25 percent of Republicans said the ability to beat Biden was one of the most important factors to their vote, according to a recent FiveThirtyEight/Washington Post/Ipsos poll.
-Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of FiveThirtyEight


Tim Scott was just asked about government spending. In a March poll by AP-NORC, 88 percent of Republicans said that the federal government is spending too much. However, in the same survey, a majority of Republicans thought the government was spending too little on some key areas, including border security (85 percent), law enforcement (67 percent), infrastructure (61 percent), Social Security (57 percent), military (57 percent) and education (52 percent).
-Analysis by FiveThirtyEight


Consumer prices and inflation

I wrote about this earlier, but high consumer prices are probably the biggest way that Americans understand the economy. Biden's trying to make the case that overall the economy is on the upswing, and he has some data points to back him up. And there's not a lot the president can do about inflation. But voters have been sour on the economy since Biden took office. Fifty-three percent of Republican voters said getting prices under control was a top issue in a FiveThirtyEight/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released today.

— Analysis by Monica Potts of FiveThirtyEight


Fact-checking Burgum’s 87,000 IRS agent stat

This is … what we call, a zombie stat. It’s Mostly False.

The Biden administration never proposed hiring 87,000 additional or new IRS agents.

This 87,000 figure comes from a May 2021 Treasury Department assessment of how it would use $80 billion to improve IRS operations. The report said the IRS would add 86,852 new full-time positions.

But even in the 2021 plan, not all of the hires would be auditors, or work in enforcement. The report said the money would go toward many things, including "hiring new specialized enforcement staff, modernizing antiquated information technology, and investing in meaningful taxpayer service."

Although the agency’s staff would increase, it’s key to note that over half of the IRS workforce is close to retirement. The plan was created with that exodus in mind and aims to hire thousands of people to simply maintain current levels. Today, the IRS has about 80,000 employees.

"The IRS will lose about 50,000 people over the next five or six years," said Natasha Sarin, Treasury’s counselor for tax policy and implementation. "A lot of this hiring is about replacing those people."
-Aaron Sharockman, PolitiFact