Ramaswamy repeated that he would support Trump if he is the nominee regardless of whether he's convicted of a crime.

"President Trump, I believe, was the best president of the 21st century," Ramswamy said before knocking Christie for his attacks on the former president:

"Your claim that Donald Trump is motivated by vengeance and grievance would be a lot more credible. If your entire campaign were not based on vengeance and grievance" against Trump.

-ABC News' Tal Axelrod

A majority (56 percent) of Republicans in a recent TIPP Insights/Issues & Insights poll feel that the charges against former President Donald Trump in both the classified documents case and the investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol are political harassment by the Biden administration. And in an August poll from Morning Consult, 69 percent of Republicans felt the 2020 election indictment was primarily motivated by a desire to damage Trump’s political career, rather than by evidence that he committed a crime.
-Analysis by FiveThirtyEight

Six Republican candidates raised their hands when asked if they'd support Trump as the party's nominee if he were convicted and still went on to win. Two, Christie and Hutchinson, did not. Christie wagged his finger and criticized Trump, saying it was "unbecoming" to behave as Trump had. The crowd booed Christie extensively, to the point that Baier has to shush the crowd like a schoolteacher, telling them they need to "get through" this part. -Analysis by Geoffrey Skelley of FiveThirtyEight

Trump has largely been absent from this debate so far. In the first half, he was only mentioned five times by name, although Hutchinson did take a swipe at “a former president who is under indictment.” But now the moderators are asking about his legal troubles directly.
-Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of FiveThirtyEight

I’m monitoring Christie and Scott tonight. Even though the two candidates are polling similarly in the 3 to 4 percent range in FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average, they are a subject in contrasts. Although Pence has been more vocally critical of Trump recently, Christie is the most high-profile, full-on anti-Trump candidate on stage. Realistically, Christie has very little chance at the GOP nomination because he has negative net favorability ratings among Republicans. But that may mean he will focus almost entirely tonight on attacking Trump rather than making appeals to the party base. As a result, Christie could be a popular foil for the contenders on stage who have largely eschewed going after Trump, or have even defended him.

Meanwhile, Scott arguably has one of the highest ceilings of any candidate on stage. He’s not nearly as well-known to GOP voters as Trump or DeSantis, but Scott gets rave reviews from Republicans who are familiar with him. That means tonight is an opportunity for him to expand his reach and also potentially increase the share of GOP primary voters who would consider voting for him. I’ll be interested to see how much he leans into his “happy warrior” image as a means of differentiating himself from DeSantis and Ramaswamy, and whether he tries to rise above the fray to some extent if some of the other candidates — especially Christie — get into verbal fisticuffs.

–Analysis from Geoffrey Skelley