In this episode, I discuss the metrics used to grade the candidates in the first Republican primary debate, and how they performed on the merits of each of them. I also discuss the state of the race going into the debate and how the candidates stood on the morning of the debate compared to where they stood in the polls before the debate. And I explain why I believe there are four lanes in the Republican primary, and the question is, can you occupy multiple of those lanes and be the top person at multiple of them? And I break down where each candidate stood in each of the four lanes, and why they were the most likely to win or lose the debate, based on where they were standing in the latest polls and where they stand now in each lane. I also explain why Ron DeSantis is currently in second place in the national polls and why he's not Trump's number one pick for 2020. And then I give each candidate a grade based on how I think they performed against Trump and how I would grade them on the first primary debate. Finally, I compare each candidate to the rest of the field and compare them to the other candidates in terms of how they stood going into last night's debate. I don't give them an A or a D or an F. I give them a B or a C, and give them each a grade of A. I do this using a weighted average of their performance on the A to F scale, which is based on the size of each candidate's support from the conservative and liberal wing of the primary electorate. I then break down the candidates across the four different groups of voters. The Republican primary picture and compare it to the Democratic primary picture. of the 2016 primary picture, and I give the candidates' performance against each other's performance in the primary picture in the CNN polls from the latest CNN/ORC survey. I then rank each candidate on each candidate s performance on that chart and compare their overall performance against the other presidential candidates and give my thoughts on each other on how they ranked in the respective presidential candidates' overall presidential prospects and their overall presidential hopes for the future of the 2020 primary race. Tweet me what you think of the candidates and your thoughts on who you think the candidates got better or worst in the most important presidential candidate in 2020 and what you would give them the best chance of winning the 2020 Republican primary race in the next presidential primary. and your overall thoughts on the debate night.
00:00:00.000Whenever there's a big debate, the big question that people have is who won and who lost.
00:00:03.000But to understand who won and who lost, you first have to discuss what the metrics are for winning and losing.
00:00:08.000Because you can win a debate, and it can mean very little.
00:00:11.000Or, you can lose a debate, and it can end your campaign.
00:00:13.000So, the question for each of the candidates on the stage in last night's first Republican debate was, what is the goal?
00:00:19.000In order to understand what the goal was for each candidate, and then we can grade them in terms of how they achieved their goals, we can also grade them in terms of what we personally thought of them in terms of truth, honesty, policy.
00:00:29.000In order to grade them on that basis, we first have to kind of assess the state of the race going into the debate.
00:00:35.000And to understand where the race was going into the debate, you first have to understand that the Republican Party is not actually a cohesive thing.
00:00:41.000The conservative movement at this point is not a cohesive movement.
00:01:15.000And the question is, can you occupy multiple of those lanes and be the top person at multiple of those lanes?
00:01:21.000You're going to have to do that in order to challenge President Trump, who's running away with the primaries right now by 40 points nationally.
00:01:28.000He's winning in New Hampshire and every other state.
00:01:31.000So, in order to understand where the race stood and what people were trying to accomplish on the stage last night, we first have to look at where people stand in the race right now.
00:01:38.000So I put together this chart to sort of explain the various lanes and where the candidates stood before last night's debate.
00:01:44.000So, there are basically four lanes in this Republican primary.
00:01:48.000Lane number one are the people who absolutely love President Trump.
00:02:04.000People who believe in the three-legged stool of conservatism, social conservatism, fiscal conservatism, meaning small government, free trade, and foreign policy hawkishness.
00:02:21.000And then finally you have the Trump adjacent.
00:02:22.000These are people like 20% of the party who like Trump, Like, they like him, they liked his policies, they thought he was a good president, but they understand there are serious concerns about his presidential run.
00:02:33.000Whether it's the indictments, whether it's his bizarre habits on Truth Social, whether it's his commentary, whether it's the toxicity he has with Suburban, whatever it is.
00:02:41.000These are people who like a lot of what Trump did, who may even like him personally, but they also are not totally sold that Trump is the guy for 2024.
00:04:12.000He's got a D among the traditional GOP because he takes a lot of heterodox positions and seems to shift with the wind based on who's asking him questions, whether it is 9-11 conspiracies or whether it is Ukraine.
00:04:24.000You got the liberal wing, which hates Vivek.
00:04:26.000The never-Trump wing, he's got an F with them.
00:04:28.000And then among the Trump-adjacent, he's got an A right now.
00:04:31.000This is where momentum has been flowing from DeSantis to Vivek, is that in the Trump-adjacent wing, the people who like Trump, but they could see somebody else, Vivek has been doing well with those people.
00:04:40.000That means he's got an A with the Trumpers and the Trump-adjacent, and he's failing with the traditional GOP and the left wing of the party.
00:04:47.000Mike Pence has an F in two categories, the Trump and the Trump-adjacent.
00:04:51.000And among the traditional GOP, he's got a B because, again, the traditional GOP kind of likes Trump.
00:04:57.000And so if Trump rips on Pence, he's got a B. And among the never-Trumpers, they actually don't like Pence on policy, but they like that Trump hates him.
00:05:37.000No magnetism, no momentum, no nothing.
00:05:39.000Among Trumpers, he's a C or a D. Among traditional GOP, he's a C. Liberal wing, he's a C. Trump adjacent, he's a C. Like, basically, we all like Tim.
00:06:04.000Trump himself, As an A-plus with the Trumpers, he's got an A with the Trump adjacent, and he's got a B with the traditional GOP.
00:06:10.000It's only the never-Trumpers who hate him.
00:06:11.000Everybody else either loves the guy or likes the guy to varying degrees.
00:06:16.000In order for any candidate to defeat Donald Trump, in order for that to happen, The only way that that is going to happen is if they consolidate the other three non-Trump wings of the party.
00:06:29.000So let's say that you're a candidate and you want to beat Donald Trump.
00:06:31.000And Donald Trump, right now, has the Trumpers locked up.
00:06:48.000And then you'd need to win probably 80% of the traditional GOP.
00:06:52.000You need to get a lot of those people to believe that Donald Trump is not the guy, which means you need to win them over with sort of traditional GOP positions, record, all the rest.
00:07:02.000And then you would still have to win half of the Trump adjacent.
00:07:06.000You'd have to take all of the Never Trump wing, that's 20%.
00:07:09.000You have to take 20 of the 25% from the traditional GOP and you'd still have to win half of the Trump adjacent.
00:07:14.000Now the only candidate who is scoring at all among all three of those groups, the only candidates who are scoring at all among those three groups, the Trump adjacent, the liberal wing and the traditional GOP, are Haley and DeSantis.
00:07:26.000The others are doing well in, like, one of the categories.
00:07:31.000DeSantis' campaign initially seemed fairly well-positioned for this possible challenge, right?
00:07:35.000He seemed like he might be getting an A with the traditional GOP.
00:07:38.000Among NeverTrumpers, he was at, like, a B. And among the Trump-adjacent, he was at, like, an A. So there was a possibility he might have been able to consolidate the anti-Trump forces.
00:07:45.000That really has not happened, which is why he's been losing momentum.
00:07:49.000Because right now, he seems like he's the second choice for everybody.
00:07:53.000Among traditional GOP-ers, He is a B-Rater, as opposed to Nikki Haley, who's like an A. Among the Trump-adjacent, he's at a B, as opposed to Vivek, who's at an A. And among the never-Trump-ling, he ranks behind, right now, Christie and Haley and Pence, probably.
00:08:09.000So when you look at the initial GPAs of these candidates going into the race, what you see is Donald Trump way out in front with like a 3.3 when you give like a weighted average here.
00:08:17.000And when you look at Ron DeSantis, he's at, when you give a weighted aggregate rather, you get 3.3 for Trump.
00:08:23.000When you look at DeSantis, he's at 2.6.
00:09:02.000As we look at that chart, by the way, I'm going to explain in just a second what everybody's goal is going into the debate by looking at that chart.
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00:10:12.000Okay, so to go back to this chart, in order to understand what everybody's goals for debate number one are.
00:10:19.000If you look at this chart, what you see, again, DeSantis is in second place, but he's kind of stagnant with all of these groups, right?
00:10:27.000He's in second place in all of these groups.
00:10:30.000In three groups, he's got a B, and among the Never Trumpers, he's got a D. His original plan was he was going to score like a B with the Trumpers, and then he was going to score an A with pretty much everybody else.
00:10:43.000Right now, because DeSantis was in a slide, his goal for this debate, and because he's in second place, was just to avoid the spotlight, actually.
00:11:24.000His goal last night was to basically degrade DeSantis with the Trump adjacent by gaining momentum with those people.
00:11:30.000And he may have accomplished that goal last night.
00:11:32.000For Mike Pence, Pence really knows that he doesn't have a shot at the presidency, but he feels that he has to run because he has to preserve his legacy as a person who stood up to the predations of Donald Trump between November and January, and as a sort of traditional old-line Republican politician.
00:14:04.000Use my code Ben for 30 bucks off any box.
00:14:05.000OK, so as we jump into the actual debate.
00:14:09.000I'm gonna explain to you how I analyze this debate.
00:14:12.000So the way that I analyze this particular debate is going to be my own subjective belief, because every debate is like Rashomon, the old Kurosawa film.
00:14:21.000There's a thousand perspectives on what somebody says.
00:14:23.000So, Vivek might say something and I might think, man, he is being wildly dishonest.
00:14:28.000And then there might be people who's like, yeah, but he's punching somebody.
00:14:31.000So again, every debate is a matter of perspective.
00:14:35.000I'm going to critique debate participants Through a couple of different prisms that I think should still be important, even if they seem increasingly non-important in everyday political life.
00:14:44.000Okay, so I'm going to grade them based on like, is what they're saying true?
00:14:56.000I think if you're going to attack somebody, you should attack somebody based on what they have done.
00:15:02.000I don't think you should just launch specious attacks on people as a general rule.
00:15:05.000I understand that we live in a very aggressive time, and so a lot of people take aggression on stage, performative aggression, as, well, if he's doing it there, then he'll definitely do it to Joe Biden.
00:15:15.000Does that make you like a good person?
00:15:16.000I feel like you could actually, you know, launch well-timed and well-calibrated attacks on people and still take on Joe Biden.
00:15:22.000Maybe I'm just shooting in the dark here, but that's how I grade people.
00:15:26.000But again, I understand that my perspective is not the only perspective, which is why as we go on here, I'm going to explain how each lane is grading people in this actual debate.
00:15:37.000I'm also going to grade people based on their actual policy performance, which means inherent advantage to people who actually have governed a state or done a thing as opposed to just said a thing.
00:15:46.000Now, again, I'm not sure this matters in a Republican primary anymore.
00:15:49.000It certainly has not mattered since President Trump.
00:15:52.000I mean, when President Trump became the nominee, he literally had no governing record.
00:16:33.000Again, if I were going to place myself on this chart of like Trumpers, traditional GOP, liberal wing, Trump adjacent, I'm somewhere between Trump-adjacent and traditional GOP, probably.
00:16:45.000I'm certainly not in the never-Trump-Chris Christie liberal wing of the party.
00:16:48.000And I'm certainly not in the, I will vote for Trump, I walk over broken glass to vote for Trump.
00:16:53.000I'm like the people who think Trump did a pretty good job overall.
00:16:57.000I thought that the first three years of his presidency, we got some big policy wins, but I was also very, very uncomfortable, as you all know, with a lot of his rhetoric, many of the things that he said, his habit of tweeting that I think was counterproductive to his own presidency, his activities between November and January of 2021.
00:17:13.000All that, his behavior since, like, all that stuff makes me uncomfortable with many of the things Trump did, but also warm toward his performance in the first three years of his presidency.
00:17:22.000Again, I said the first three years, the last year, I think, was rather disastrous on all fronts.
00:17:47.000They backed off their position yesterday that they had expressed clearly to us that they were not going to allow shows like ours to actually cover the debate by playing more than three combined minutes of the debate.
00:17:56.000I was rather livid about it yesterday.
00:18:36.000Joe Biden back to his basement and reverse American decline.
00:18:43.000And it starts with understanding we must reverse Bidenomics so that middle class families have a chance to succeed again.
00:18:50.000We cannot succeed as a country if you are working hard and you can't afford groceries, a car, or a new home while Hunter Biden can make hundreds of thousands of dollars on lousy paintings.
00:19:43.000And Vivek basically has taken in political information over the course of the last 15 years, and he is now kind of rechurning it in Vivek form.
00:19:52.000And so what you get sometimes is lines that come out of Vivek that obviously are from somebody else.
00:20:28.000And I am genuinely worried that that American dream will not exist for our two sons and their generation unless we do something about it.
00:20:35.000And I do think Brett is going to take an outsider, because for a long time we have professional politicians in the Republican Party who have been running from something.
00:20:43.000Now is our moment to start running to something.
00:20:48.000Okay, so I look at this sort of stuff, and I think this is really platitudinous, but I also understand that it's very energetic.
00:20:53.000Right, Vivek was extremely energetic on the stage last night, and he's made for the internet.
00:20:57.000I mean, he knows how to speak internet.
00:20:59.000On the internet, the sort of emotive, big hand motions, excitement, He was all energy last night, which made him a lightning rod, as we will see.
00:21:09.000We'll get to more on this in just one second.
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00:22:37.000When they passed that $2.2 trillion COVID stimulus bill, they left us with 90 million people on Medicaid, 42 million people on food stamps.
00:24:45.000He also drew all the fire because all of the people on the stage who've actually spent their life doing politics are annoyed that a 38-year-old guy with no political record and a long history of comments that actually contravene his own comments today is showing up and calling them names.
00:25:00.000They weren't real fond of that last night.
00:25:02.000And Vivek played right into it, right?
00:25:05.000This is the part where, again, I think there's going to be a gap between some of the stuff that I think about what Vivek said and maybe what the crowd thinks about what Vivek said.
00:25:43.000We're just going to have some fun tonight.
00:25:45.000And the reality is, you have a bunch of people, professional politicians, super PAC puppets, following slogans handed over to them by their 400-page super PACs last week.
00:25:55.000The real choice we face in this primary is this.
00:25:57.000Do you want a super PAC puppet, or do you want a patriot who speaks the truth?
00:26:02.000Do you want incremental reform, which is what you're hearing about, or do you want revolution?
00:26:09.000Okay, so again, this is the part where my skin starts to, you know, rise a little bit because I don't know what he's talking about.
00:26:15.000I, honest to God, don't know what he's talking about.
00:26:17.000When he says, Super PAC puppet, I assume that what he's talking about is the fact that Ron DeSantis' Super PAC accidentally released some sort of debate plan.
00:26:48.000On a personal level, I don't like that line.
00:26:50.000Now, is it an effective line of attack?
00:26:51.000Sure, it can be an effective line of attack.
00:26:53.000But it seems to me that if you call somebody corrupt, if you suggest that their super PAC owns them, if you suggest that they are pre-produced while you, you're doing this all spontaneously, which is not true, okay?
00:29:07.000If you're gonna pick and, like, the rap on Republicans is that they're supposedly, this is what the left says, bought and paid for by, like, the Kochs to be pro-fracking.
00:29:14.000And they're being bought and paid for by the oil industry.
00:29:17.000Who buys and pays for Republicans on climate change?
00:29:21.000It is also worth noting here that, like, five months ago, Vivek was asked about climate change, and he said, uh, actually, actually, climate change is man-made.
00:29:31.000So the rest of the people, but again, this is him trolling.
00:29:34.000And I understand internet culture because I do it like every day.
00:29:37.000And this dude is an expert in internet culture.
00:29:40.000You can admire what he's doing on sort of a political level at the same time that you're looking at this and going like, I'm not sure it is moral to simply suggest without any evidence whatsoever that everyone who disagrees with you is some sort of corrupt tool of the shadowy establishment without defining corruption, tool, or establishment.
00:29:58.000But as you see, he got what he wanted, which is to be the lightning rod.
00:30:02.000So Chris Christie, who can't help himself, and if there is a pie to be thrown, Chris Christie will forego even eating it in order to throw it.
00:30:13.000And I will say that Chris Christie does have a particular set of skills.
00:30:16.000When it comes to wrecking people on stages, that dude eats pizzas and he wrecks people on stage, and he was out of pizza last night.
00:30:25.000And so his hit on Ramaswami here, Actually is pretty well, well based.
00:30:32.000I've had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like Chat GPT standing up here.
00:30:41.000And the last person in one of these debates, Brett, who stood in the middle of the stage and said, what's a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here was Barack Obama.
00:30:52.000And I'm afraid we're dealing with the same type of amateur standing stage tonight.
00:30:58.000Give me a hug just like you did to Obama.
00:31:13.000The thing I do like is Christie says something true about Ramaswamy.
00:31:16.000Like this kind of dissing I'm OK with.
00:31:17.000Here's where Christy says something true about Ramaswamy, which is basically, you sound as though you just took a bunch of slogans, you threw them into a chat GPT, and what came out was Vivek.
00:31:25.000And then Vivek comes back, and by the way, you are ripping people off, which is true.
00:31:29.000Okay, when Vivek says, what's a skinny guy with a weird last name doing up here, that is literally a quote from Barack Obama in 2004.
00:31:34.000That is literally a line from Barack Obama.
00:31:45.000But I will say Ramaswamy's response is just as correct.
00:31:48.000Right, which is, if you're going to invoke Barack Obama, it was you who was hugging him coming off the plane during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and you were helping him out in the national election.
00:31:57.000So this kind of made him up for it, actually.
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00:36:26.000♪♪ To get the rest of the story, you have to watch Convicting a Murderer coming to you early September.
00:36:32.000This 10-part series is exclusive to DailyWire+.
00:36:34.000Join now at dailywire.com slash subscribe to get 25% off your new annual membership so you can watch Convicting a Murderer when it premieres.
00:36:40.000Trust me, you're not going to want to miss it.
00:37:01.000There were some, honest to God, interesting debates about abortion.
00:37:05.000Doug Burgum, and that's going to be the only mention you hear of Doug Burgum all day today.
00:37:09.000Doug Burgum, who is the governor of North Dakota, I believe?
00:37:12.000Yes, North Dakota, Doug Burgum, famous for his eyebrows and being a man named Doug Burgum.
00:37:18.000He made the bizarre statement that when it comes to abortion law, the 10th Amendment prevails.
00:37:22.000And a lot of people kind of knocked him around for that.
00:37:25.000There's an interesting debate, however, between Nikki Haley and Mike Pence, particularly on abortion.
00:37:30.000Here's Nikki Haley pointing out quite rationally, and I think with an eye toward the general election, that when it comes to national abortion law, you actually have to pass things before you sign them.
00:37:41.000Let's be honest with the American people and say it will take 60 Senate votes.
00:39:00.000What's interesting is then we got into the section of the debate where everybody sort of tried to lock down their positions.
00:39:05.000So now the first hour of the debate is about establishing your position.
00:39:07.000The position established by the various candidates in the first hour of the debate was, as we suggest, in their lanes and basically in orientation toward particular goals.
00:39:17.000For DeSantis, it was maintain your presence, don't lose ground, stay where you are.
00:39:22.000For Vivek, it was become a lightning rod and own that Trump-adjacent lane that we talked about.
00:39:26.000For Nikki Haley, it was own the traditional GOP lane.
00:39:29.000And that was the dynamic that sort of permeated the rest of the debate.
00:39:33.000So, for example, Ron DeSantis on crime, his entire campaign, and this is why I give DeSantis additional credit, I don't give people for just saying things, because I live in Florida, I've watched him do it.
00:39:42.000DeSantis' entire campaign is, you want a thing done, I did it in Florida, maybe I should do it nationally.
00:39:48.000It may not be enough, because we live in a period where a lot of people don't seem to care what people actually do in terms of governing, when, I mean, people could say, they could just say things, and that would be amazing.
00:39:56.000Here was Ron DeSantis talking about crime.
00:39:59.000There's one guy in this entire country that's ever done anything about that.
00:40:05.000When we had two of these district attorneys in Florida elected with Soros funding who said they wouldn't do their job, I removed them from their posts.
00:40:18.000And as president, As president, we are going to go after all of these people because they are hurting the quality of life and they are victimizing innocent people in every corner of this country and it will stop when I get into office.
00:40:34.000So again, his entire campaign last night was, I'm the best governor in America, I'll do it nationally.
00:41:03.000I mean, this is sort of Vivek's personality also, because he's a super smart guy.
00:41:06.000But Vivek's entire personality is basically the kid in Model UN that you might not want to hang out with, but you know that he's a smart guy.
00:41:11.000So here is Vivek, who like jumps out of his seat, basically runs around the room with his hand up, screaming.
00:41:17.000Everybody else a little bit slower on the gun here.
00:41:58.000And frankly, I'm kind of shocked that some of the candidates hadn't thought about this question being asked beforehand, because we all know they're going to support Trump if he's the nominee, obviously.
00:42:06.000Except for Asa Hutchinson, who no one cares about.
00:42:08.000But if you look at the order the hands go up in, so Vivek, as I say, is like super fast off the gun.
00:42:14.000Dude is like Wyatt Earp on the trigger here.
00:42:17.000The next couple of hands that go up are Haley and Scott and Burgum.
00:42:20.000DeSantis sort of reluctantly raises his hand, so does Pence.
00:42:24.000And then, and then Christie is kind of shaking his head.
00:42:38.000Now, and now whether or not Whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of President of the United States.
00:42:54.000And, you know, this is the great thing about this country.
00:43:05.000Booing is allowed, but it doesn't change the truth.
00:43:13.000that never Trump lane right again there are the four lanes there the Trumpers
00:43:15.000traditional GOP Trump adjacent never Trumpers that is that is Christie
00:43:19.000locking down you never Trump lane here's a vague trying to lock down the Trump
00:43:22.000adjacent lane by being slavishly sycophantic to President Trump right
00:43:26.000here let's just speak the truth okay President Trump I believe was the best
00:43:31.000president of the 21st century It's a fact.
00:43:36.000And Chris Christie, honest to God, 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 one man.
00:43:49.000And if people at home want to see a bunch of people blindly bashing Donald Trump without an iota of vision for this country, they could just change the channel to MSNBC right now.
00:44:00.000But I'm not running for president of MSNBC.
00:44:03.000I am running for president of the United States.
00:44:07.000Okay, so there's, again, he's locking down that Trump adjacent lane, but he's not running for president, because here's the thing.
00:44:13.000If you believe that Donald Trump is, like, the greatest president in human history, first of all, I will say, again, Vivek, super smart guy, when he says greatest presidents of the 21st century, that's a real short list, guys.
00:44:23.000There have only been three of them, okay?
00:45:00.000He could easily lock down that Trump adjacent lane.
00:45:04.000And, um, you know, he continued to do this.
00:45:06.000He made a commitment on the stage that day one he would pardon Donald Trump.
00:45:10.000Then we got to, I think, what was one of the most fascinating exchanges of the debate.
00:45:15.000And that was the exchange over Ukraine, because this goes to sort of the future of the Republican Party more broadly and where these various lanes stand on foreign policy.
00:45:22.000And this is a complete Rorschach test, because if you are in the sort of more isolationist wing of the Republican Party, The sort of Tucker Carlson wing on foreign policy.
00:45:32.000If you're in the more traditional wing of the Republican Party, you think Vivek got his ass handed to him.
00:45:35.000So again, every element here is based on which lane are you a part of.
00:45:40.000Okay, then we get to the foreign policy debate.
00:45:42.000And here, once again, this is Vivek locking down the Trump adjacent vote.
00:45:46.000People who love Trump on policy but, you know, have some problems maybe with Trump personality-wise.
00:45:51.000The way he does this is by Being the only person on stage who basically says right away that he would withdraw all military aid to Ukraine.
00:46:01.000And this turns into a pretty fiery debate.
00:46:04.000This is why you watch the debates, so you can actually watch spirited conversations about issues.
00:46:07.000So I actually enjoyed this part of the debate the best.
00:46:10.000And I think that this is disastrous that we are protecting against an invasion across somebody else's border when we should use those same military resources to prevent across the invasion of our own southern border here in the United States of America.
00:46:24.000We are driving Russia further into China's hands.
00:46:28.000The Russia-China alliance is the single greatest threat we face, and I find it offensive That we have professional politicians on the stage that will make a pilgrimage to Kiev to their Pope, Zelensky, without doing the same thing for people in Maui or the south side of Chicago.
00:46:43.000And so, although I will say that I don't think that, you know, the sort of anti-Catholic slap there like Pope Zelensky is particularly helpful to Vivek, he's the only one on the stage who's drawing a contrast with regard to Ukraine.
00:46:57.000And he was forcibly Smacked around by both Mike Pence and Nikki Haley.
00:47:03.000So here is Mike Pence going after Vivek and Vivek actually striking back with, once again, a quote from Obama.
00:47:08.000This is why I say that because Vivek is so studied and because he understands what successful politicians have done in the past, sometimes he just ends up cribbing off of them.
00:47:17.000Vivek, if we do the giveaway that you want to give to Putin to give him his land, it's not going to be too long before he rolls across a NATO border and frankly our men and women of our armed forces are going to have to go and fight him.
00:47:30.000I want to let the Ukrainians fight and drive Putin and the Russians back out into Russia.
00:47:59.000Then Vivek gets into it with Nikki Haley.
00:48:01.000And this was Nikki's best moment of the debate, because she made a pretty cogent case as to why the United States ought to be involved in the war in Ukraine.
00:48:09.000Again, this is a very split question inside the Republican Party, so this is kind of a fascinating part of the debate.
00:48:16.000The reality is that today, today, Ukraine is not a priority for the United States of America.
00:48:24.000And I think that the same people who took us into the Iraq War, the same people who took us into the Vietnam War, you cannot end it, you cannot start another no-win war.
00:48:32.000And I do not want to get to the point where we're sending our military resources abroad when we could be better using them here at home to protect our own borders, protect the homeland.
00:48:41.000That will be my top priority in foreign policy.
00:48:46.000So I do want to get to some other people because everybody, we respect everybody's time here.
00:48:51.000So, Governor Haley, you did not raise your hand, meaning that you would support more funding for the Ukraine war.
00:48:59.000You have said of Governor DeSantis that you didn't appreciate it when he initially called it a territorial dispute.
00:49:08.000First of all, the American president needs to have moral clarity.
00:49:12.000They need to know the difference between right and wrong.
00:49:14.000They need to know the difference between good and evil.
00:49:18.000When you look at the situation with Russia and Ukraine, here you have a pro-American country that was invaded by a thug.
00:49:24.000So when you want to talk about what has been given to Ukraine, less than three and a half percent of our defense budget has been given to Ukraine.
00:49:33.000If you look at the percentages per GDP, 11 of the European countries have given more than the U.S.
00:49:40.000But what's really important is go back to when China and Russia held hands, shook hands before the Olympics, and named themselves unlimited partners.
00:51:23.000Okay, the reason is his comeback right there, right?
00:51:25.000Which is, I wish you well on your future career on the boards of Lockheed and Raytheon.
00:51:28.000Again, that appeals to that Trump-adjacent crowd who believes that all American foreign policy is run by the military-industrial complex, perhaps.
00:51:38.000And again, I go back to, if you're going to hit somebody, hit somebody for what they're worth.
00:51:41.000So when he hits Christie and he says you were hugging Obama, true.
00:51:44.000If he's gonna hit somebody else on the stage for doing a thing they did, okay.
00:51:48.000But insulting all of your opponents as tools of the military-industrial complex, that any evidence to that effect is really, really absurd.
00:51:56.000And Nikki Haley, I think, handled herself really well right there.
00:52:00.000All right, so the rest of the debate was effectively more of the same.
00:52:03.000And so this brings us to sort of my personal grades, and then we'll see how people actually did.
00:52:08.000So let's start with who got the most speaking time.
00:52:10.000The problem is too many candidates on the stage.
00:52:13.000Definitely should not have been this many candidates on the stage.
00:52:15.000So, Burgum and Hutchinson took up 15 minutes of time.
00:52:18.000They shouldn't have been on the stage.
00:52:20.000Tim Scott was on stage for eight minutes, but really was absent.
00:52:26.000So now you're talking about like 23, 24 minutes of time that really was distributed poorly.
00:52:31.000The real people who should have been on the stage are the top five people in terms of time.
00:52:38.000Everybody else in the stage is basically an also-ran at this point.
00:52:43.000Now, we're ignoring the elephant outside the room, which of course is Trump, which may mean that all these people are also rams, but in terms of who got the most time, Pence got the most time, which makes some sense in that he is the person who has done presidential debates before, like the most of any of these people.
00:52:57.000Vivek, because he was a lightning rod, got the second most time, followed by Christie.
00:53:02.000Christie also wanted to do some lightning rod stuff.
00:53:04.000DeSantis got the fourth amount of time.
00:53:06.000Haley actually only got 8 minutes and 41 seconds, but she made him count.
00:53:10.000So, how does that stack up in terms of my personal grades?
00:54:39.000Or if you're basing it on his policy, I think he's wrong on some of his policy prescriptions.
00:54:43.000I think some of the stuff he says about foreign policy in particular is just not True or within the realm of reality when he says I'll start withdrawing aid from Israel because I'm going to create peace in the Middle East between like Qatar and Oman and Israel like Qatar and Oman are pro-Iran like that that just betrays not a lot of knowledge about the Middle East.
00:55:03.000But, but, if you are talking about like the internet culture, if you're talking about the meme culture, if you're talking about who had energy on the stage, if you're talking about the guy who was saying the things nobody else will say, which is one way that we have now learned to gauge politics, is will he say the thing no one else will?
00:55:15.000Now, I'm of the view, and I've always said this, there's a difference between being politically incorrect and saying the thing that must be said that no one else will say, and just saying the thing no one else will say.
00:55:25.000But that distinction has been completely obliterated over the course of the last 10 years, where if you just say a thing that is verboten, Then this means that you are brave.
00:55:55.000So, I graded people based on whether they had, like, strong upward momentum in each lane, some upward momentum, same downward momentum, or, like, really downward momentum.
00:56:07.000So, if you take a look at this chart, let's look at each of these candidates.
00:56:12.000So, Ron DeSantis, again, his goal here was survive, right?
00:56:15.000Which, as we, how this debate affects DeSantis is going to be really up to what DeSantis does next.
00:56:21.000I don't think he lost ground, I don't think he gained ground with any group.
00:56:25.000He was basically the same with every group going in as he was coming out.
00:56:29.000Does he have any momentum inside any lane?
00:56:31.000So one of the, there are two ways that you can gain momentum.
00:56:33.000There are two ways that you can gain momentum in a presidential race.
00:56:35.000One is you gain overall momentum, like national momentum, big national momentum,
00:56:39.000because you're doing great in like multiple groups.
00:56:41.000And then there is the, do you have momentum inside one lane?
00:57:28.000Among the traditional GOP, I would say that Vivek was kind of the same as before.
00:57:33.000The traditional GOP, not super fond of it.
00:57:35.000Maybe he has some negative momentum from it, but certainly he's not picking up ground among sort of the traditional GOP three-legged stool crowd.
00:57:42.000With the never-Trump wing of the party, he had serious negative momentum, but again, he was never going to win those people anyway.
00:57:48.000He was aiming for one lane and one lane only, that is that 15% who are Trump-adjacent.
00:57:52.000He has strong momentum among those people.
00:57:54.000So that means that his upward boundary, Vivek's upward boundary in this Republican primary is probably about 15%.
00:58:00.000He's chiseling that away from DeSantis, right?
00:58:03.000So he achieved his goal, which was strong upward momentum inside that one lane, which credit to him, he achieved that goal and he made himself more of a national name, which was his goal in this race in the first place, because once again, he is not running for president against Donald Trump.
00:58:15.000The way I know that is because Donald Trump knows he's not running for president against Donald Trump, which is why Donald Trump has not attacked him.
00:58:21.000Everyone who goes after Trump, who is perceived as a threat to Trump is attacked.
00:58:24.000There's only one candidate in this race who is a serious candidate, or proceeds as a serious candidate, who has not been attacked by Donald Trump, and that's Vivek.
00:58:33.000Okay, Mike Pence, he comes away with negative momentum from the Trumpers because, again, Trump doesn't like him.
00:58:39.000Among the traditional GOP, he came away with a little bit of upward momentum.
00:58:44.000He came away with some Liberal wing momentum, like some Never Trump momentum a little bit.
00:58:49.000But does he have like overall lane momentum?
00:59:14.000She is basically where she was beforehand with Trumpers.
00:59:17.000In the traditional GOP lane, she has strong momentum.
00:59:20.000That debate was very good for Nikki Haley among the traditional GOP lane, and she could start locking up some donors.
00:59:24.000She could be seen as an alternative to Tim Scott.
00:59:26.000You could see a lot of people turning away from Scott and moving their money over to Nikki Haley, for example, or turning away from Mike Pence and moving over to Nikki Haley.
00:59:32.000I would not be surprised if Nikki Haley's campaign starts to move from 2% nationally toward that 7% or 8% nationally.
00:59:40.000If you look at Tim Scott again, I think he ended up basically where he was beforehand.
00:59:44.000Everybody kind of likes the guy, but nobody knows why he's here.
00:59:46.000And as for Chris Christie, he has some lane momentum with the Never Trump wing, which is strong in New Hampshire.
00:59:52.000So did everybody sort of achieve their goal?
01:00:00.000Because when you look at the overall The overall sort of takeaway from the race, Trump still has all the momentum with the people who love Trump.
01:00:10.000And the Trump adjacent wing, nobody is taking it away from him.
01:00:13.000In the Trump adjacent wing, if you wished, in order to beat Trump, assume he has 30% locked up, absolutely locked up.
01:00:19.000And assume there's another 40% that is playable.
01:00:24.000And right now that's splitting 20% Trump, 20% everybody else.
01:00:27.000And then there's another Trump wing that's like 20%.
01:00:30.000So this means that if you're going to stack up how to beat Trump right now, you have to assume Trump has 35% of the vote locked up.
01:00:38.000Then you have the traditional GOP wing, which is splitting like half with the rest of the party, which means that he's already at 47%.
01:00:46.000And that's leaving aside the 20% who are Trump-adjacent.
01:00:49.000So in order to beat Trump, you basically have to win all the never-Trump wing, you have to win all of the Trump-adjacent wing, And you have to split the Trump GOP vote.
01:00:58.000Or you have to take all of the traditional Trump GOP vote, and you have to take like 5% of the Trump-adjacent wing.
01:01:24.000There's not a single candidate who has a foot in three of these lanes, except for DeSantis, which is why DeSantis is still the person who has the best shot of beating Trump in a primary, but he's going to have to show some momentum coming out of this debate.
01:01:36.000Because the math just doesn't work all that well for anybody who is not named Trump.
01:01:40.000Meanwhile, Donald Trump assessed this debate in his own way.
01:01:43.000As you would predict, he's a big fan of Ramaswamy, which demonstrates once again that he is not running against Ramaswamy, nor is Vivek running against him.
01:01:49.000He at one point tweeted out, this answer gave Vivek a big win in the debate
01:02:37.000Probably shouldn't surprise any of us, but that's what it is.
01:02:40.000I've been told by others that I would be able to go in, so they said we were able to go in, then they said they were in now that we're here, and the candidate that... Who said you can't go in the spin room?
01:02:48.000They're telling me right now, Fox won't let me into the spin room.
01:02:51.000And that's what the American people should know, this is the kind of network they are.
01:02:53.000They're telling him, he works for security here, but they're telling him that I'm not allowed to go in there.
01:02:58.000Well, I mean, if your dad turned up to the debate, you could go.
01:03:17.000If your candidate doesn't show up to the debate, you don't get to put your person in this bedroom.
01:03:22.000I mean, that seems like fairly fair on every level.
01:03:24.000Especially because Trump was getting plenty of attention of his own.
01:03:26.000He did an interview with Tucker Carlson on Twitter.
01:03:29.000X. Apparently, it has some 200 million views.
01:03:32.000Now, Worth explaining here that every time you scrolled past the video on Twitter and spent longer than two seconds on it, that counts as a view.
01:03:39.000So is that equivalent to actually watching a national televised debate?
01:03:43.000Those views are not in any way equivalent, but those are a big number nonetheless.