Republican rivals bash Trump and each other in party’s second 2024 presidential debate

Strate­gists may hope the Repub­li­can Par­ty speaks with one voice in 2024, but mul­ti­ple voic­es shout­ed over one anoth­er and gen­uine dis­likes emerged as sev­en Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls held their sec­ond debate tonight on par­ty-aligned FNC at the Rea­gan Pres­i­den­tial Library in Simi Val­ley, California.

Rea­gan orig­i­nat­ed the par­ty’s famous 11th Com­mand­ment: “Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill of any fel­low Repub­li­can.” It was dis­obeyed dozens of times tonight.

Ex-New Jer­sey Gov­er­nor Chris Christie said of fron­trun­ner Don­ald Trump, who delib­er­ate­ly skipped the debate: “He put $7 tril­lion on the nation­al debt and he should answer for that.” “Don­ald Duck,” as Christie called Trump, would rather “hide behind his golf clubs” that defend his days in office.

Gov­er­nor Ron DeSan­tis of Flori­da, who hoped to but has failed to attract Trump’s fol­low­ers, final­ly opened up on the ex-Pres­i­dent. Trump is “com­plete­ly miss­ing in action,” said DeSan­tis, and his eco­nom­ic poli­cies set the stage for today’s inflation.

After a strong Mil­wau­kee debate appear­ance, for­mer Unit­ed Nations Ambas­sador Nik­ki Haley came out like Mar­garet Thatch­er when Britain’s “Iron Lady” faced Ques­tions With­out Notice as Prime Min­is­ter in the House of Commons.

She went after entre­pre­neur Vivek Ramaswamy, a kind of Trump sub­sti­tute who drew atten­tion in the first debate.

Ramaswamy has embraced the Chi­nese-owned social media plat­form Tik­Tok, which he joined after call­ing it “dig­i­tal fen­tanyl” in ear­li­er appear­ances. Tik­Tok is banned from gov­ern­ment-issued devices, but Ramaswamy said it is a device for Repub­li­cans to chal­lenge Democ­rats’ hold on young voters.

“Every time I hear you, I feel a lit­tle dumb­er for what you say,” Haley shot back. She lat­er had Vivek twist­ing in knots try­ing to explain his past invest­ments in Chi­na, a coun­try he demo­nizes today. Ex-Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence chimed in: I’m glad Vivek pulled out of his busi­ness deal in Chi­na. That must have been about the same time you decid­ed to start vot­ing in pres­i­den­tial elections.”

Vivek made news in the first debate by describ­ing every­body else on the stage as cor­rupt. Tonight, he was evok­ing Reagan’s 11th Amend­ment and say­ing Repub­li­can hope­fuls should not start engag­ing in “per­son­al insults.”

Not like­ly, since the new­com­er is open­ly disliked.

Don­ald Trump prob­a­bly enjoyed hear­ing about the snip­ing in the debate.

He is far ahead in the polls and no clear rival emerged from the shout-fest. Christie even addressed him, say­ing of (and to) Trump: “He needs to be vot­ed off the island and he needs to be tak­en out of the process.”

Trump was speak­ing to sup­port­ers and strik­ing auto work­ers at a non-union busi­ness in Macomb Coun­ty, Michi­gan, one of the nation’s key swing areas.

With relent­less rep­e­ti­tion of the par­ty line, FNC has pro­duced a drilled, angry “dit­to­head” audi­ence. The debate saw devi­a­tions from the Fox com­fort zone.

Sen­a­tor Tim Scott of South Car­oli­na, the lone African-Amer­i­can Repub­li­can in the Sen­ate, ques­tioned DeSan­tis about changes to black his­to­ry in Florida’s school cur­ricu­lum, which crit­ics say has air­brushed the expe­ri­ence of slav­ery and Jim Crow racism in America.

“That’s a hoax that was per­pe­trat­ed by (Vice Pres­i­dent) Kamala Har­ris,” DeSan­tis shot back, say­ing African-Amer­i­can schol­ars craft­ed his much crit­i­cized les­son plans, and flub­bing the pro­nun­ci­a­tion of Har­ris’ name. DeSan­tis was bet­ter onstage than in Mil­wau­kee. The Flori­da gov­er­nor tried to stitch in rehearsed sto­ries of vot­er encoun­ters on the cam­paign trail, but awkwardly.

Oppo­si­tion to envi­ron­men­tal poli­cies of the Biden-Har­ris Admin­is­tra­tion has become Fox and Repub­li­can doc­trine. Even DeSan­tis has had to dis­count cli­mate dam­age as a fac­tor in inten­si­fy­ing hur­ri­canes that hit Flori­da. Pence said he would “unleash” the ener­gy indus­try and open fed­er­al lands to drilling. “Joe Biden’s Green New Deal agen­da is good for Bei­jing and bad for Detroit,” said the ex-veep. “We ought to repeal the Green New Deal.” DeSan­tis, a Horowitz on the sound bite key­board, promised an ener­gy pol­i­cy of “Mid­land over Moscow.”

The Green New Deal cham­pi­oned by pro­gres­sive lead­ers has nev­er been enact­ed and Biden has nev­er announced sup­port for it. Nev­er mind.

The aggres­sive Haley attacked DeSan­tis as a clos­et green. She upbraid­ed DeSan­tis for being “against frack­ing and against drilling,” stands he has tak­en as a state whose beach­es draw tourists from around the world.

Pol­i­cy did come into play. DeSan­tis took a dovish stand on Ukraine, say­ing: “It’s in our best inter­ests to end this war.” Ramaswamy demo­nized Ukraine’s Pres­i­dent Vladimir Zelen­sky in words that could have been broad­cast on Radio Moscow. Haley shot back that “a win for Rus­sia is a win for Chi­na,” allud­ing to China’s designs on Tai­wan. Christie spoke of “the naivete of some peo­ple on this stage,” adding: “If we give him (Putin) any of Ukraine, next will be Poland.”

There were out­right false­hoods, such as Scott charg­ing that as U.N. Ambas­sador Haley “lit­er­al­ly spent $50,000 on cur­tains.” His researchers got it wrong. It was $52,000, spent by the State Depart­ment dur­ing the Oba­ma administration.

The can­di­dates were togeth­er on cer­tain themes.

All of them demo­nized NEA and AFT (the two major unions rep­re­sent­ing edu­ca­tors), depict­ing Biden as a union stooge and one mar­ried to a teacher for thir­ty-two years. (Dr. Jill Biden teach­es com­mu­ni­ty col­lege students.)

But Pence, while endors­ing vouch­ers and char­ter schools, allowed that he has “been sleep­ing with a teacher for thir­ty-eight years.” (He calls her “Moth­er.”)

Fox faith­ful could take com­fort in denun­ci­a­tions of “rad­i­cal gen­der ide­ol­o­gy” and promis­es to ban gen­der tran­si­tion surgery for teenagers.

Like­wise, every­body agreed that crime should be punished.

DeSan­tis wants to send U.S. troops into Mex­i­co after drug traf­fick­ers. Pence is all for an expe­dit­ed death penal­ty for mass killers.

Nobody men­tioned gun safe­ty legislation.