A split screen primary. Five Republican candidates for the 2024 US presidential election faced off on Wednesday during a new tense televised debate where blows – sometimes very low blows – were fired. 20 km away, Donald Trump, who is skipping the debates given his lead in the polls, had a field day with a risk-free MAGA meeting, the day after local elections where the Democrats scored points and two months before the first Republican election in Iowa.
Almost sacred union against Trump to begin with
While they are between 45 and 50 points behind in the primary polls on Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott and Chris Christie first took shots at the absentee. “Donald Trump owes you an account,” began the governor of Florida, citing loosely “the wall for which Mexico did not pay, the debt, the swamp (Washington lobbyists) that Donald Trump did not empty “. “I’m tired of Republicans losing,” insisted DeSantis, after the conservatives’ defeats in the 2022 midterms and in several local elections this Tuesday, which he blames on the former president.
“Anyone who is going to spend the next year and a half trying to avoid prison and the courts cannot lead this party or this country,” said former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Even Vivek Ramaswamy, 38, who readily calls himself “Trump 2.0”, assured that the time had come for “the new generation” to take over.
Clashes and low blows
But the union did not last. Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, who had already clashed during previous debates, did it again. The young entrepreneur first described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “Nazi in cargo pants”. Then Nikki Haley, fervent supporter of Ukraine, of “Dick Cheney in 7 cm heels”, in reference to the former neoconservative vice-president. The response from the former American ambassador to the UN hit the mark: “Already they are 12 cm heels. It’s not for style, it’s weapons. »
Criticized by Haley in the previous debate for having joined TikTok, which she considers a Trojan horse from Beijing, Ramaswamy was ironic, assuring that his opponent’s daughter had “used the app for a long time”, forgetting one of the non-negotiable rules in politics: we don’t touch children. “Leave my daughter out of your voice!” » (Leave my daughter out of this), the ex-governor of South Carolina got angry, almost repeating Will Smith’s phrase about his wife at the Oscars. Before concluding with an insult: “You’re just scum” (halfway between “you’re just scum” and “a piece of shit”).
The debate was also marked by tense exchanges between Haley and DeSantis on fracking, with the former accusing the latter of having changed his position. “That’s not true,” DeSantis replied with a strained laugh.
Abortion weighs down Republicans
Since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Republicans are being punished by voters, including in conservative states. On Tuesday, Ohio chose to include the right to abortion in the State Constitution, for a sixth consecutive victory in such a referendum.
Not really comfortable on the issue, Ron DeSantis defended his “pro-life” positions, assuring that Republicans needed to “become better on these referendums.” Vivek Ramaswamy called for “more accountability for fathers”. It was Nikki Haley who was most warmly applauded by the audience, advocating a measured approach. “I am pro-life but I do not judge anyone for being pro-choice (favorable to abortion). The voters have the power.” She recalled that there would never be 60 senators out of 100 to ban abortion at the federal level and pleaded for a national compromise on a maximum duration, concluding: “We must stop dividing America on this issue”.
Donald Trump freewheeling
Less than 20 km away, Donald Trump took no risks with a political meeting almost at home, which he ended by dancing. “There are what left, six or seven candidates? I think they are at a debate tonight, but no one is watching,” he quipped. The former president gushed about his polls, mocking Nikki Haley “who swore she would never run against me before changing her mind three months later.”
He reserved the bulk of his attacks for Joe Biden, “who is not too old but too incompetent” to be president. Before launching into an imitation of Biden “finding his way at the end of a speech”. Next televised hostilities on December 6, normally always without Donald Trump.