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.
Read deeper:
Sen. Scott so far has stayed away from attacks and stuck to his stump speech
While many candidates onstage have sparred with each other -- including Haley and Ramaswamy swapping sharp words on foreign policy -- Scott has yet to engage with any of the other candidates.
Much of his remarks have almost word for word repeated elements from his campaign stump speech. When asked about China, which he has addressed in other appearances, he pivoted to speaking about the U.S. border.
-ABC News’ Gabriella Abdul-Hakim and Oren Oppenheim
DeSantis said he wouldn’t increase aid to Ukraine: "Europe needs to step up"
Asked to raise their hand if they would not increase aid to Ukraine, DeSantis did so, saying that "Europe needs to step up. They need to step up and do their job."
He argued: "I would have Europe pull their weight. ... Our support should be contingent on them doing it.
DeSantis -- who had received backlash from some other politicians for seemingly backtracking on support for Ukraine -- pivoted to say that he wasn’t going to send troops overseas but rather down to the Southern border.
-ABC News' Hannah Demissie and Will McDuffie
According to a Pew Research Center survey from August 2022, 72 percent of Republicans say that increasing security on the U.S.-Mexico border is a very important goal for immigration policy. However, Hispanic and non-Hispanic Republicans differ on this issue, with 55 percent of Hispanic Republicans saying border security is a very important goal, compared with 74 percent of non-Hispanic Republicans.
-Analysis by FiveThirtyEight
Moderators try to halt Pence interruptions
Baier and MacCallum have repeatedly sought to stop Pence from interrupting their questions or other candidates' answers -- an example of a debate in which the candidates were sometimes freewheeling in how they answered questions and handled the time limit rules the moderators had set out.
While asking Hutchinson about the border, Baier again had to again stop Pence, saying, "Vice President Pence, it really doesn't help."
-ABC News' Tal Axelrod
Trump, in Tucker Carlson interview, says other GOP candidates shouldn't be running
Trump wasted no time attacking other Republican candidates during his pre-taped interview with former Fox News host Carlson.
"I'm saying, do I sit there for an hour or two hours, whatever it's going to be and get harassed by people that shouldn't even be running for president?" Trump said.
The 46-minute interview -- released on Carlson's X account as the GOP debate got underway -- is being seen among the campaigns as an attempt to counter-program the first debate among 2024 Republican presidential candidates on Fox News.
Read more about the interview here.
-ABC News' Lalee Ibssa , Soo Rin Kim and Meredith Deliso