From our correspondent in the United States,
It was, as the moderator quipped, “the missing elephant in the room”. On Wednesday, the first televised debate in the Republican primary therefore took place without Donald Trump, who judged that he had nothing to gain by crossing swords with his opponents when he was more than 40 points ahead. in the polls. The former president preferred to give an interview on X / Twitter to former Fox host Tucker Carlson while eight candidates tried to attack him more or less frontally without alienating the Republican base.
Chance of the calendar, this first debate, in Milwaukee, where the Republican convention will be held in August 2024, took place 24 hours before Donald Trump was formally placed under arrest in Georgia justice on Thursday.
Timid supports and some scuds
Who among the candidates on stage pledges to support Donald Trump if he wins the nomination but is convicted in one of the four trials expected next year, on the 2020 presidential election, the classified documents Or the Stormy Daniels case? The young biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, surprising 3rd in the current polls, with 7.2% of the intention to vote, immediately raises his hand very high, even promising to pardon the former president. Five others follow hesitantly, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis – long seen as Donald Trump’s most dangerous opponent, but whose campaign is failing to take off – and even, more surprisingly, Mike Pence.
A few minutes later, the former vice-president, however, attacks his former boss, who threw him out to his supporters during the assault on the Capitol. “No one is above the law. Americans should know that he asked me to overrule their vote and put it ahead of the Constitution,” Pence thunders.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie – who was close to Trump in 2016 – refuses to raise his hand. “Someone has to stop normalizing this behavior (…) which is not worthy of the presidency of the United States”, insists the former prosecutor, wiping in the process a few boos from the room. Just like the ex-governor of Arkansas Asa Hutchinson, who repeats that Donald Trump is not “morally qualified” to be president again.
Ron DeSantis concedes that Mike Pence “did his constitutional duty” by validating the result of the election, but refuses to “rehash” January 6, 2021, preferring to look “ahead towards January 6, 2025”.
Counter-programming Trump before his arrest
This evening ultimately took place in split screen. Because five minutes before the debate, the face of Donald Trump appeared on X (ex-Twitter). History of trolling his opponents and especially Fox News, the former president gave an interview – recorded several days ago – to Tucker Carlson, the former star host of the channel sacked in the spring.
“I considered it more appropriate not to participate in the debate,” Trump said at the start. “Do I stand there for an hour or two (…), being harassed by people who should not even be presidential candidates? In his sights, Chris Christie, “a savage” and a “maniac”, and Asa Hutchinson, “weak and pathetic”.
The former tenant of the White House has, unsurprisingly, denounced “the judicial harassment” of which he claims to be a victim, with four “bullshit” charges. Thursday, he will also be briefly placed under arrest in Georgia, where he was charged with trying to interfere with the verdict of the polls in 2020. This time, he should be photographed, (the famous “mugshot” ) and could use the photo to raise funds from his supporters.
Does America, more divided than ever, risk sinking into civil war with trials that promise to be explosive? “I don’t know,” replies the person concerned. “There is a level of fervor that I have never seen. There’s a level of hate that I’ve never seen, and it’s probably a bad combination. »