Stuff. Seven republicans swear it off tonight at the Ronald Reagan library in california. And of course, you know, just one a basic political level, two questions coming out of tonights debate, the obvious one, anything that happened in the second debate, will it have impacts on their standing in race. We had one debate already that first debate last month appear to have no major effect on the polls at all. There was only one candidate who got a significant polling bump, and that was the guy who did not attend. Donald trump got the largest bump of all the candidates out of the first debate. Again, he was not there. The stakes are higher this time around, candidates fundraising boost out of this debate to get their campaigns to keep going. And also to qualify for the next debate. They all have to get momentum out of this. Previous years, republican president ial primaries, by this time in the calendar highprofile candidates had already started dropping out. So, if past is prologue, its possible that we should see a painting of the herd in the wake of tonights debate. But who knows, nothing feels normal anymore. Anything happened tonight that will affect the overall stakes in this race . Of course, the second big question tonight is specific to our time. The second big question tonight is, so what . What does all of this mean, why are we here . When the candidates and i talked over and over and over again about Law And Order, crime, law on order, the rule of law. They were awkwardly not talking about the far and away leading republican candidate, former President Trump who is facing 91 Felony Counts in four separate criminal cases. Hes also now facing the dissolution of his Business Empire due to a devastating new ruling in the new York Attorney general Multibillion Dollar Fraud Suit against him. Donald trump is nevertheless leading the entire field of other republican candidates by roughly 40 points nationally, and by more than 30 points in each of the early voting states. Tonight, instead of debating those challengers, trump held an event in michigan that was designed to sort of look like he was maybe supporting autoworkers. But unlike President Biden, who yesterday actually walked the picket line with actual striking uaw workers, tonight, mr. Trump appeared at an invitation only event, at a nonunion Auto Parts Supplier where he was invited to speak by the management. Meanwhile, among his challengers, among his rivals this is what it sounded like for one republican president ial campaign nikki haley, to slam a car door on another candidate, when he told Vikram A Swami in response to a question about tiktok that every time she hears him speak, she feels a little dumber. Were only ever going to get to declaring independence from china, which i favor, if we actually win. All the democrats are running rampant, reaching the next generation 3 to 1, theres exactly one person in the Republican Party which talks of big game about reaching a people, and that is me. This is infuriating because tiktok is one of the most dangerous Social Media Apps that we could have. And what honestly, every time i hear you i feel a little bit dumber for what you say. Veteran political reporter mark caputo watching the debate, posted online this phrase. He said, find you someone to love you as much as nikki haley hates Vivek Ramaswamy. I dont know if that is good advice for finding love but it is advice based in the reality of tonights debate. You know what i did with my First Company . We opened the subsidiary in trying to, you know what i did that was different than any other company . We got the heck out of their. When i started my next company wait, wait, wait. The reality is just because putin is not putins an evil dictator, it does not mean that ukraine is good. This is a country that has banned an Oppositional Party a win for russia is a win for china i forgot, you like china. You will have your chance in just a moment. Hurling insults is not helping. Hurling of personal insults was the most dynamic experience that any of us watching this debate had, but that was arguably not a great tactic in terms of distinguishing oneself as a candidate. There was also an interesting dynamic tonight with the moderators. At least one of the moderators, she is the only one of tonights three moderators who has some experience moderating debates. Weve all had various roles, we know its difficult, not casting aspersions on any of our colleagues at the fox network, but it was miss calderon who in her questioning sort of distinguished herself by telling the Listening Audience tonight some things are not used to hearing on fox. She mentioned, for example, that when it comes to fentanyl, 90 of fentanyl is caught at the u. S. Border and most is brought by american citizens. That is something fox audiences may never have heard on their television before. She also confronted former Vice President mike pence with this question about the Lgbtq Community right now. It was a question, again that fox viewers are not used to hearing, and it elicited at first, a sort of General Platitude for mr. Pence and then a somewhat chilling threat towards that community. The department of Homeland Security warns that violence against lgbtq plus people is on the rise and intensifying. According to a recent study, members of that community are nine times more likely to be victims of violent hate crimes. As president , how would you protect this community from Violent Attacks and discrimination . As president of the United States i would stand up for the safety, and Civil Liberties of every american. From every background. And i want the American People to know that. We will stand up for the rights of parents and we will pass a federal ban on transgender clinical or surgical surgery, anywhere in the country. Mike pence making remarkable pivot right there. There is more to recap in terms of what happened at tonights debate. I dont exactly know what to pick as highlights, memorable moments. To my mind, i feel like nikki haley telling Vivek Ramaswamy please stop talking, you are ruining everything, and we dont have much, was sort of a memorable thing. But, honestly, i dont know what has to pull out to say this was important. You know, im thinking of the Compliment Sandwich you do when youre editing, you Say Something nice, critique, something nice. So i will say that some of the questions were good, and there were moments in the debate that were recognizably politicians talking about policy. Even if its bad like what they want to do on tax cuts. The entire thing was a complete waste. Thats the middle of the sandwich. The whole thing is like acting like donald trump doesnt exist. And thats the person theyre running against. Theyre not running against joe biden. They dont know, that is what is so interesting when he is not there, they know something has been broken in the Republican Party. But they dont know what the thing is after. Like, you hear them sometimes you feel like youre in a time warp, tim scott speaking about balance amendments, and im not a Republican Base member but i know your base doesnt care about that. I know that im an msnbc host, how do you not know that . You do this for a living . How about everyone shedding attorney honoring the fact that they are in a Ronald Reagan library while they know that there is not even any resemblance whatsoever of Ronald Reagan republicans that are currently in office. If there are, they are leaving at the side door. If i could just agree with nikki haley on something tonight, i do feel dumber. After experiencing that debate, because if any, what is it seven people . If they could have made donald trump appeared to have more stature as a politician, those are the seven people who could do it because of the dynamic between them . The quibbling stuff . It was very xiaojie. There were a lot of good to shade moments, you know tim scott Throwing Shade at ramaswamy, nikki haley Throwing Shade at ramaswamy, he took a lot of incoming. But it felt like a Student Council debate, more than any one that has any plausible opportunity to be president. Even if donald trump wasnt in the race, none of them came across as having the stature of an executive. They all seemed like fellow legislators bickering about the things theyve done. You know tim scott kept talking about the bills that he has gone into committee. Okay, well, congratulations, tim scott. Nikki haley bickering about things she did as governor, and fighting with tim scott about it. It felt very small. And i think if i were and again, i too, i cant relate to the Republican Base, but none of them made an argument that sounded like an argument to be president of the United States. The only person i think who was trying to do that, and was literally not allowed to get a word in was dug. He kept saying from the wings, hey, over here on the governor of an energy state, were talking about energy, were talking about what ive done on energy, and from the moderator, we got no that was a little dynamism there. Its a person who is the least viable candidate on a stage of a viable candidate was burgum, was actually trying to say whatever has been going on in washington i dont know, ive never worked their. Im a governor of an interesting state that has had some policy successes. But he was so marginal to the conversation both physically in terms of the way that he was treated, insulting the way he was treated, that the one person who couldve maybe distinguish himself along the lines really wasnt allowed to. Can i just add one more thing . Of course. The other thing, the giant helium balloon floating over their heads as this was happening is that the guy who wasnt there threatened to put to death the highest ranking general in the United States. And theyre talking about Law And Order, and crime, fentanyl, whos bringing the fentanyl, is it the people in mexico, we need to militarize the border, the guy you are running against that you purportedly believe shouldnt be president because youre there, youre there and you should think you should be president instead of him said he wanted to put to death general mark milley. This didnt even come up. It didnt come up, and a little later we will play the responds that general milley had to that claim which was absolutely bone chilling. But yes, they did not ask about that for all the Law And Order, the rule of law discussion tonight as they mentioned, not a single question about what is going on with the former president who therell running against, facing 91 Felony Counts. Rachel, if you were to believe what you heard tonight and took it at face value than you would have to believe that is the worst thing. Were talking about that, this is a democracy everyone make up your own mind including voters, but if you listen to republican primary voters, personally interview folks, or through polling, there are other things that people are worried about with donald trump. Whether it is the fraud that some people care about, the threats. Taking the party of course. Not having a core. You could find a bunch of things that relate to peoples lives and his record, on all they had was a kind of political complained that its not fair that he is treating them and their debate tonight like it doesnt matter. I was the one thing that more than one of them, kristie, desantis and others criticize. Ari, it was a pivot party. We know how expensive political ads are. They dont have to pay a dime for this, they had an opportunity for an hour to look into the camera and say to the American People, heres the policies i want to put forward, right . Every single thing they were asked about the autoworkers strike, they pivoted. Pivot line, how about the borderline, come on out you want to go after joe biden, you want to talk about immigration we can do that over here. But it was stunning to me how many good questions were asked and how many few were actually answered. There were two things are really struck me, two things that in my career as a journalist covering this, republicans have often wanted to talk about. One is the Affordable Care act, which to their credit they asked about, i thought the questions were pretty good. They asked about the Affordable Care act, no one has any total word salad and lets move on. Same thing with the auto strike. What answer did we get . We got away with that. But how about an answer . The other thing that they have from my little curl to talk about was abortion. They like to talk about abortion. Republicans like to talk about abortion, theyve talked about abortion a lot as a political journalist. They got it up in Abortion Question, desantis spent 45 seconds attacking donald trump from the right on abortion and then it was like done with that. Chris christie pulled off the rare abortion to fentanyl to Treatment Double Pivot to get away from the issue as fast as possible, because all of a sudden this thing that they have spent decades talking about they do not want to talk about. On that point, ron desantis i thought had the biggest fail on the Abortion Question because hes the guy with the sixweek abortion ban. It is the most relevant to his political problems, right now, and his answer was to say well its not a problem because i want i want to landslide victory, years before i did the sixweek abortion ban. Its irrelevant that you are reelected, they reelected due not thinking you would do a six week abortion ban. That was a classic moment of political cavernous, right . Here you have everybody who is theyre saying republicans are losing elections they might otherwise win because people dont like them on abortion rights. It is just true, plain true. Everybody honestly will admit that. And for desantis to go up there and say i really think that prolife voters and the prolife cause is being unfairly blamed for our losses, look at me. I did something before my six week ban. I mean, its not just that he is lying in your face, and the pulling off the timeline switcheroo, its what he is saying is false. Its bad for his party that he is telling them the something that is hurting them is not hurting them. And he needs to workshop someone asked a workshop how you will defend your sixweek ban. Thats how youre gonna do it, among offend league group, Republican Voters you have to come up with a message about how you will defend your six week ban, they still dont, you know, Donald Trumps line in that interview he says once they get the number of weeks right, that is whats just a number of weeks. Theyre all gonna love. It its a deal. No one has come up with anything, the only person who has tried to do something, again nikki haley in the last debate, otherwise about this, i dont think she was amazing tonight, i still think if you gave me a magic wand and you could create a conditions under which was possible someone else gets a nomination, oneonone haley versus trump, at least would be something. It would at least be a place for the 30 to 40 of the party maybe that doesnt maybe want trump to be the nominee to consolidate around. Other than that she is the most skilled, effective candidate, among them. Among all these and viable candidates she as a non viable candidate has skills as a candidate. Which is wild because she was not a very good politician in South Carolina, shes improved over the course she got better. She sees and she has a bs detector that has appeal. How do you think donald trump feels tonight . Like this didnt matter. Aside from his concerns about wearing a Prison Jumpsuit his final years, which i think is front of mind i think he is focus on the fact that his apartment in trump tower could get seized. I dont think his mind is on this foolishness tonight, because it doesnt matter, and he knows it doesnt matter. Let me as a control room to pull up soundbite number six. Its twoparter, it has tim scott and Vivek Ramaswamy in it, just because one of the things trump was having to think about tonights his Counter Programming in debate, abou in the hes complaining Workersbecaus T Needle that trump thread trie. He didnt 2016. And here is how two of the candidates onstage tonight address this, this is right off the top at the debate, if anybody saw any of this debate before they started pounding themselves in that head because it felt better and turned it off, this is probably the part they saw. They want fourday french work weeks but more money, they want more benefits working fewer hours, that is simply not going to stand. I understand the hardship is not a choice, but victimhood is a choice. And we choose to be victorious in the United States of america. You know if i was giving advice to those workers i would say go picket in front of the white house in washington d. C. What . Dont pick it in front of your employer