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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Haley finally gets a question on foreign policy, a strong suit for the former U.N. Ambassador. She defends American support for Ukraine and ties it to the fight against China. But while the moderators teed her up to attack DeSantis, she instead pivots to Ramaswamy. She's pretty fiery in her back-and-forth with him, saying he has no foreign policy experience "and it shows."
-Analysis from Jacob Rubashkin, Inside Elections
Christie says US needs to stand up to 'autocratic killing'
On Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Christie referenced his recent trip to the war-torn country and said that he "wanted to see for myself what [Russian President] Vladimir Putin's army was doing to the free Ukrainian people."
"They have gouged out people's eyes, cut off their ears and shot people in the back of the head," Christie said of the brutality he saw.
"This is the Vladimir Putin who Donald Trump called 'brilliant' and a 'genius,'" he continued. "If we don't stand up against this type of autocratic killing, we will be next."
-ABC News' Meredith Deliso
Born in 1985 and only 38, Ramaswamy may be the only candidate on stage who was too young to remember the Cold War. The USSR dissolved when he was 6.
-Analysis by Monica Potts of FiveThirtyEight
The debate over Ukraine is a window into the intraparty battle between its previously more dominant neoconservative wing that lost credibility during and after the George W. Bush years and the comparably isolationist wing that's gained ground with Trump's time in office. Ramaswamy, as an avatar for the New Right, specifically name-checked the Iraq War, saying the Ukraine conflict could lead to American intervention. By comparison, Pence and Haley, more traditional conservatives who have foreign policy experience from their time as vice president and U.N. ambassador, respectively, were especially vocal in defending U.S. support for Ukraine.-Analysis by Geoffrey Skelley of FiveThirtyEight
FiveThirtyEight takeaways: Christie fights, Scott struggles to break through
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pugnacious Christie repeatedly mixed it up with other candidates tonight. He was critical of Trump, calling the front-runner's behavior "unbecoming" and making him unfit to be president. Christie has a track record of strong debates, having shown in 2016 how he can throw a verbal punch, including his famous takedown of Marco Rubio just ahead of the New Hampshire primary that year. But Christie's criticism of Trump and his high unfavorable ratings among Republicans make his performance unlikely to cause a Christie boomlet in this race.
For Scott, tonight was an opportunity to capitalize on his potential as a candidate who is well-liked by Republicans familiar with him but who is not that well-known. And he largely tried to stay above the fray on most issues, which in theory made sense if he wanted to look like a consensus-style candidate who most Republicans could like. However, that also led to him getting less airtime, as the candidates who engaged each other and freely interrupted were more likely to be on camera. This debate doesn't hurt Scott, but I'm skeptical it helped him much.
-Analysis by Geoffrey Skelley of FiveThirtyEight