The Vivek and Nikki Show

The orange elephant not in the room

(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Donald Trump’s fourth perp walk, Rudy’s mugshot, and another assassination by Vladimir Putin.

But let’s talk about last night, shall we?

The Fox News hosts began the presidential debate by asking candidates to react to a country song, ended with a question about UFOs, and struggled mightily to avoid mentioning the orange elephant not in the room.

Along the way, millions of Republicans were introduced to the Tracy Flick of post-Trump right wing politics.

Vivek Ramaswamy, who seems to have won the Elon Musk primary, was the night’s break-out star. “Ramaswamy Seizes Spotlight,” The New York Times declared, describing the first GOP debate as “The Ramaswamy show.”

My colleague Mona Charen spoke for many of us when she said last night that “I guess if I react with visceral disgust to Vivek, it’s probably a sign that the base loves him.”

Well, exactly.

Vivek is a facile, clownish, shallow, shameless, pandering demagogue, but he is exactly what GOP voters crave these days. So, he will likely get a bump in the polls, at least in the short-run.

Last night, Vivek was Trumpier than Trump. He touched all the erogenous zones of the MAGAverse with a fluency and zeal unmatched by anyone on the stage, from his anti-Ukraine memes to his fawning praise of the absent God King.

Trump himself loved it, posting a video clip of Vivek declaring him “the BEST president of the 21st century, and thanking him: “This answer gave Vivek Ramaswamy a big WIN in the debate because of a thing called TRUTH. Thank you Vivek!”

For most of the night, Vivek seemed to dominate the debate.

Until he was utterly and thoroughly gutted by Nikki Haley.

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Nikki

Last year, I wrote about “The Unbearable Lightness of Nikki,” but last night, the former South Carolina governor impressively overperformed. On issue after issue — spending, abortion, Ukraine, and Trump’s electability — she was serious, sober, and substantive. If Vivek won the MAGA primary debate; Haley, arguably, won the Normie/Donor debate — and she’s likely to get a serious second look.

On spending:

“The truth is that Biden didn’t do this to us. Our Republicans did this to us too. When they passed that $2.2 trillion Covid stimulus bill, they left us with 90 million people on Medicaid, 42 million people on food stamps,” argued Haley. “You have Ron DeSantis, you’ve got Tim Scott, you’ve got Mike Pence, they all voted to raise the debt and Donald Trump added 8 trillion to our debt and our kids are never gonna forgive us for this.”

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On Trump:

“It is time for a new generational conservative leader. We have to look at the fact that three-quarters of Americans don't want a rematch between Trump and Biden. And we have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America. We can't win a general election that way.”

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Vivisecting Vivek

The highlight of her performance was her merciless critique of Vivek’s global surrender tour. "He wants to stop funding for Israel. He wants to stop funding for Ukraine," Haley said. "You are choosing a murderer.”

“Ukraine is the first line of defense for us. And the problem that Vivek doesn’t understand is he wants to hand Ukraine to Russia,” Haley declared. “He wants to let China eat Taiwan. He wants to go and stop funding Israel. You don’t do that to friends. What you do instead is you have the backs of your friends.”

“You have no foreign policy experience and it shows!”

Until that moment, Vivek owned the hall in Milwaukee. But as Nikki turned on him, the change in mood was palpable. My colleague Sonny Bunch:

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DeSantis

This wasn’t a disaster for DeSantis, but it was not the debate he wanted or needed.

The nervous, and perpetually awkward Florida Man started off shouty and then basically disappeared from center stage. For much of the night, he was an afterthought, when he wasn’t dodging one question after another. Will Saletan in this morning’s Bulwark:

POLITICIANS OFTEN DODGE difficult questions. But even when measured against the typical political coward, Ron DeSantis’s performance in the Republican presidential debate on Wednesday was outstanding. In just ten minutes of total speaking time, the Florida governor spectacularly contorted himself to evade four of the debate’s biggest, clearest questions.

The only bigger loser was Tim Scott, who seemed to fade into the background. Over two hours, he spoke for only 8 forgettable minutes.

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Pence

Like Haley, Pence also overperformed. He was solid on Ukraine and his role on January 6.

“I made it clear and hoped that the issues surrounding the 2020 election and the controversies around Jan. 6 would not come to this, come to criminal proceedings,” Pence said. “The American people deserve to know that the president asked me in his request that I reject or return votes. He asked me to put him over the Constitution and I chose the Constitution.”

But he raised his hand when he was asked if he would support Trump for re-election even if he was convicted of a crime. (See below.)

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Christie

Chris Christie was loudly booed, but then you knew he would be.

“Here’s the bottom line. Someone’s got to stop normalizing this conduct, OK? … 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,” Christie said, leading to boos.

“This is the great thing about this country. Booing is allowed, but it doesn’t change the truth,” Christie followed up.

His best moment? While other candidates dodged the question (DeSantis) or changed the subject (Scott), Christie gave a full-throated defense of Mike Pence’s refusal to steal the 2020 election.

“Mike Pence stood for the Constitution, and he deserves not grudging credit; he deserves our thanks as Americans for putting his oath of office and the Constitution of the United States before personal, political and unfair pressure,” Christie said.

“The argument we need to have in this party before we can move on to the issues that Ron talked about, is we have to dispense with the person who said we need to suspend the Constitution to put forward his political career,” Christie continued. “Mike Pence said no, and he deserves credit.”

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Asa

Pure class, with a principled defense of the rule of law. Which means he has no shot.

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Burgum

A reminder of what a normal Republican looks like. So, he’s also a no-hoper.

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The most pathetic moment

“Six of the eight debaters on Wednesday raised their hands when asked whether they would support Trump as the nominee even if he had been convicted of a crime - North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, DeSantis, Haley, Pence, Ramaswamy and U.S. Senator Tim Scott.”

This was especially awkward:

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, once seen as the most formidable challenger to Mr. Trump, looked to his left, looked to his right and then raised his hand — after the four others had done so. Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s vice president, then lifted his, clearly reluctantly.

So much for the party of law and order.

(Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

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Trump

Later today, he will be arrested, fingerprinted, and have his mugshot taken. And he will still lead the field by 40 points.

Nothing that happened last night is likely to change that.

And, no, he won’t be at the next debate either.

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Hot takes:

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Semafor:

Everyone hates Vivek. No one disguised their irritation at Vivek Ramaswamy, who laughed out loud when attacked and patronized his rivals as “bought off” and “career politicians.” He took more incoming fire than any other contender, by far. There was a strategy there — Ramaswamy had been rising in the polls, but is only starting to get scrutiny over his changing positions, like his stance on Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021. But it also seemed personal: Christie, Pence, Haley, and everyone else with governing experience looked fed up with a swaggering 38-year-old who assumed the presidency would be easy. After Ramaswamy accused the field of using “memorized prepared slogans,” a bemused Pence responded: “Is that one of yours?”

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Quick Hits

1. Prigozhin’s Ultimate Fall from Grace

Cathy Young in the Bulwark:

Prigozhin reportedly died with several other top Wagner men when his private jet crashed on Wednesday evening near the city of Tver on a flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg, most likely due to being shot down by Russian anti-aircraft fire. If the Wagner boss is indeed dead, this ends a very colorful if utterly reprehensible career. But at least for now, the mystification of which the (allegedly) dead man was so fond continues to surround the story of his demise.

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2. Big Issues. Little Candidates

Nicholas Grossman in this morning’s Bulwark:

Ramaswamy got one of the night’s biggest cheers by opposing aid outright, and declaring that “we should use those same military resources to prevent . . . the invasion of our own southern border.” That’s a false choice: America can easily spend more on the border and send older equipment worth a fraction of one year’s U.S. military budget to Ukraine. Cutting one wouldn’t increase funding to the other. It’s ridiculous (and pretty racist) to equate migrants seeking a better life with foreign military assaults that kill thousands. Moreover, things like rocket artillery systems and demining vehicles wouldn’t help border security.

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3. Who Are They? Why Are They Here?

Christian Vanderbrouk in the Bulwark:

Remember Admiral James Stockdale? 

“Who am I? Why am I here?” the Vietnam war hero and Ross Perot running mate asked self-deprecatingly during his introduction at the 1992 vice presidential debate.

Wednesday night’s Republican debate could have used some of that existential angst. Why did eight candidates, whose chances of winning the GOP nomination range from slim to infinitesimal, go to Milwaukee on a late summer evening to pretend otherwise?

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4. Climate Change Question Gets Short Shrift

Bill Lueders in this morning’s Bulwark:

MacCallum took it to the group: “Do you believe [that] human behavior is causing climate change?” It was a simple question with an even simpler answer: yes. She asked the candidates for a show of hands. Instead, they shoved the question down her throat.

“We’re not schoolchildren!” bellowed Florida Governer Ron DeSantis, who, had he been so inclined, could have noted that he has taken historic action to protect the Everglades and vetoed a bill that would have kneecapped the state’s solar industry. Instead, he launched into a rant about “the way the corporate media treats Republicans versus Democrats.” 

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5. A Bizarro, Boring Debate

Gabriel Schoenfeld in the Bulwark:

With Trump absent—his counterprogrammed prerecorded chat with Tucker Carlson has, as of this writing, supposedly had 55 million views—what was most remarkable about the debate was the seeming normalcy of the discussion. Issues, actual issues, were debated: debt, inflation, abortion, the environment, crime, homelessness, drug policy, gun control, education. Some of it was extreme, as when Vivek Ramaswamy declared that the “climate change agenda is a hoax.” Or when Chris Christie called for a ten-year prison sentence for Hunter Biden’s minor gun possession violation. But with Donald Trump out of the picture, it was, for the most part, refreshingly . . . boring.