Meet the Press Special: First GOP Debate

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That's SunriseChallenge CA. If it's Wednesday, it is debate night in America and the field versus the front runner as eight Republican presidential candidates are faced with their biggest chest yet. I don't reckon with Donald Trump's grip on the race without a demon on the stage. This is a Meet the Press special.

Live from Washington, here's Chuck Todd and welcome to the Meet the Press debate night special. The first Republican presidential made is in the books. I'm Chuck Tod. We got a big hour of post debate coverage and analysis, so let's hurry up and dive in.

Major question going into this first debate was whether the eight candidates on stage could or would do something to change the basic pattern or trajectory of this race that's so far been dominated by the front runner, Donald Trump, who skipped tonight citing his commanding Lee. Well, the debate wrapped up. It appears for now that the status quo probably will remain located on stage, substantively change their stance on the former president. Trump's name was actually barely mentioned by anyone in the entire first hour of the debate.

And then this is how the second hour ticked off. You all signed a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee. If former President Trump is convicted in a court of law, would you still support him as your party's choice? Please raise your hand if you would.

First. Hold on. Yeah, you saw that it all sort of first handed pops up is Vivek. And then people start watching and then Desantis, then Pence and yeah, we're confused by Chris Christie ourselves, but Ron DeSantis Garner, currently closest to Trump and the polls largely pulled his punch up when given the chance to draw a contrast with Trump.

Here he is dodging a question tied to the event surrounding the January 6th insurrection when the vice President refused Trump's demands to interfere with the certification of the election. Do you believe that Mike Pence did the right thing on January 6th? Here's what we need to do. We need to end the weaponization of these federal agents.

I know, but here's the thing. This election is not about January 6th of 2021. It's about January 20th of 2025, when the next president is going to take office. I've answered this before, so yeah, why are we.

We did his duty. I got no beef with him. But here's the thing. Is this what we're going to be focusing on?

The rehashing of this, I'll tell you, would love that. So after Trump on stage, it was newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy, the trabacalite who was a popular target on night. In many ways, he was perhaps the surrogate that everybody else thought they could use as a Trump punching bag. On that stage, he took up Trump's defense, which the audience cheered as he started with Chris Christy and Trump's conduct.

Here's the bottom line. Someone's got to stop normalizing this conduct. Okay, now 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. And you know, this is the great thing about this country, booing is allowed, but it doesn't change the truth.

President Trump, I believe, was the best president of the 21st century. It's a fact. And Chris Whiskey, 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. And 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. In fact, Ramaswamy's presence and the attention and ire he seemed to draw from everybody else on that stage was easily one of the bigger stories of the night. As the most Trump black candidate, he seemed to suck up the oxygen on stage as he tried to capture the anti establishment and anti government screeds and grievances. The first capital Trump from the top of the Republican field back in 2015.

Here's some of the biggest hits of the field against ra. Let us be honest. As Republicans, I'm the only person on the stage who is bond paid for. I can say this.

The climate change and the reality is the anti carbon agenda is the wet blanket on our economy. And so the reality is more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate. Hold on, hold on. Enough.

I've had enough already tonight. Of a guy who sounds like chat GPT stand up here. And the last person in one of these debates, right, 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.

And I'm afraid we're dealing with the same type amateur. So keeping score at home, by the way, the top three candidates in the polls, 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. I want to let the Ukrainians fight and drive Britain and the Russians back out. The USSR does not exist anymore.

It fell back in 1990. He wants to reestablish the old Soviet sphere him by calling him a communist. He is a dictator and a murderer. And the United States of America needs to stand against authoritarianism.

And by the way, if you're keeping sort home the top three candidates in the national polls right now in the Republican presidential primary, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Victor are all publicly right now against currently getting more funding for Ukraine in the war against Russia. Keep that in mind. I said it nationally because we know Tim Scott's in third and Iowa and he is not on that. The top three national.

The other major takeaway from that, the Greatest Iron Stage, wasn't directed by President Biden. He went through the night relatively unscathed or even President Trump. But it was each other. Our NBC News team has every angle of the sword.

We got reporters in the spin room and we're talking to voters. My immig colleague, Hallie Jackson has been right here in studio. She's been fact checking the candidates. We're speaking to a top official, the Trump campaign as well, in a moment.

And I've got to turn this panel that I watched today with all night and to hear breakout down. So let's get everything started. Let's get to Milwaukee. We've got Garrett, Hank and Dasha Burns.

They're in the spin room for us tonight. Garrett, let me start with you. I can tell you this. I feel like there isn't a general consensus out there.

Everybody's finding their moment that they think is what helped them. What are you hearing in the spin room? Yeah, I think that's right, Jock. It won't surprise you.

Here in the spin room, every candidate was a winner, including the one who wasn't here, Donald Trump. I think the takeaway seems to be that Ramaswamy was kind of the conduit through which all these other candidates tried to do what they came here to do, including Ramaswamy, by the way. He was able to play the polarizing outsider Donald Trump 2016 role on that stage. And each candidate who really tried also to line up, to mix it up with him took the opportunity to mix it up with him on their preferred issue, whether it was Mike Pence on experience, Mikki Haley on foreign policy, Chris Christie on just about everything.

It was an opportunity to kind of exploit their own strengths and pick a fight with somebody who wasn't. Donald Trump in our poll showed that going after Donald Trump aggressively has been a loser for these candidates. Among Republican voters in Iowa, for example, this is a way to show your tough pick a fight, but do it with somebody else. And so I think that's kind of the overarching story for now.

You know, I think Ron DeSantis, you know, his people are pleased that he was not dog piled on talking to some of the folks in his orbit. Before this debate got started, there was this concern that maybe it was going to be everybody goes at Ron DeSantis and instead it was Ron Swami who got the dog pile and DeSantis was able to pick his moment. So whether any of that fundamentally changes the direction of this race, I doubt. But DeSantis kind of stops the believing at least a little bit and ran.

Usami becomes the new villain for these other candidates to play off of going forward. No, it's fascinating. I'm curious to see if Ramaswamy is one of those that plays better with the audience than maybe he plays with a professional class. We shall see.

Dasha Burns. I think it was notable how aggressive, I think, about some of the people you've been traveling with, that was a very aggressive Mike Pence, frankly. Surprisingly so. That's not the Mike Pence we've got to know.

He tried to, I think, find a moment. Whether he got one or not, we'll see later. And I agree with Garrett about what we saw with DeSantis. What you hearing there on the ground, particularly from Team Pence, I'm curious what they think about what he did tonight.

Yeah, Chuck, this was not necessarily the dynamic that we expected. Right. The preamble was the dog pile was gonna be on Ron DeSantis. Folks like Mike Pence and Tim Scott were going to try to sort of hold the line and be the bearers of standard conservatism.

That's certainly what I was told from the Penn scene was a plan beforehand. Although that's why it was surprising to see him come out so. So fiery and really take on Vivek Ramaswamy, who got the vast major attacks and also fired back and threw the vast majority of arrows. Desantis though, not really taking the brunt of the attacks that we expected and really sticking to the message.

A lot of what we talked about are things that we have heard on the campaign trail. But that's not necessarily a bad thing when you're talking to a national audience and a lot of voters who probably haven't really been tuning in until just now. And listen, I'll let you hear straight from the horse's mouth here. I've got with me David Polyanski, who is fresh to the campaign, actually coming over from the super PAC one week as deputy campaign manager.

I'll just give you a moment here. Your quick reaction to what he's talking. That's exactly what we hope for more Governor Santa step to the page the stage tonight and he delivered a bit a win. A win on the debate stage because he looked presidential, he acted presidential.

More importantly, he painted a vision for the country that he will drive home as our next president. And we couldn't be happier. The preamble was dog pylon Ron that he was waiting the target of a lot of attacks. Is it a good thing that he wasn't attacked or is there sort of that, you know, sometimes getting the majority of the attacks says hey, I'm the front runner and I'm here.

And I know he was prepared as we all talked about to take those on. Oh, look, this is a two person race. The Des Moines Register poll in Iowa evidence is that as well. And I think what you saw tonight was Governor Santis have clean air to drive his message for two hours, two hours of free time to deliver his message and explain not only his vision for the country, but tell people a little bit about him.

And many folks have had that chance. For instance, being the only veteran in the race having a proven conservative record unlike most of his peers on the stage. And just lastly, I'd say we saw tonight in a lot of the chirping back and forth was a really bad for third place, a distant third place, but a battle for third place nonetheless. We couldn't be happier.

He did not go after the former president when opportunities presented themselves like on the January 6th. Question is that a deliberate strategic decision tonight? Look, tonight was a debate with eight folks on the stage here in Milwaukee. And if the former president decides to show up on the debate stage, maybe the debates will have a little more engagement between them.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. There you have it. Not the dynamic.

A lot of folks respecting the DeSantis campaign pleased with with his performance and the opportunity that he got tonight. And the other thing I'll say is a lot of this kind of reminded me of one of the earlier Republican events without former President Trump, which was the Family Leadership Conference in Iowa where, you know, he wasn't there. People talked about him a little bit, ultimately wasn't as missed as folks expected. And I wonder if that might be a little bit of a takeaway that this was an opportunity for these candidates to showcase what a post Trump political landscape could look like.

And so far the reviews I'm getting from voters are pretty good, that they got to hear these candidates on the issues and not talking about the election, not talking about the former president's grievances. And that's a bit of a breath of fresh air for folks. Well, look, we're going to I think we'll be talking to some voters a little later in this hour. Actual voters.

Who wants the debate with us? And we'll go from there, Dasha. And for that care, thank you both. Let me break down what we saw tonight.

I got a great panel with the editor and publisher Report, lonnie Chat or McMurdo Advisor, Stanford University director, Domestic Policy Studies and Daniel Plucka, the senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and NBC News contributor. And when I have lying here, the single biggest Republican vote there in 2022 even more focused on the Santa. That is correct. And that is something that you always have.

And that's the case of yours. But I'm going to start with the guys. It's Sock 2. It's Nikki Haley because Nikki Haley is the first candidate that actually started debating other candidates.

Let's hear how it got started. No one is telling the American people the truth. 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, 40 people on food stamps. You have Ron DeSantis, you 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 going to forgive us for this. And you also, 14 minutes in the debate. To me, that's when the debate starts. Okay, we're taking, we're taking the plots off.

We can start name checking candidates. And that's when it began. So give me your general takeaway on what you think you saw. And I say thank you because we're all sort of know that what we think is not necessarily.

It's not important because what the voters think is important. I went back and I looked at all of the press coming after that August debate in 2015, everyone in the traditional media, Trump lost this. Oh, it's gonna be terrible. This is gonna play terrible with the voters, right?

Everybody gets Trump up, the voters. What I thought was really interesting about the Haley positioning tonight was it wasn't just that she was going after her, her Republican challengers in order to move herself up within the Republican ranks. It's like she was going after independent voters on everything from, well, right there, going directly the establishment, but also on her answers on abortion, on climate, on Ukraine were much more, much more aimed at getting that swing female voter than they were at trying to get at that sort of conservative Trump voter to back it up later. The big one, which is we face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America.

We can't win general election that way. It was interesting. We'll see. It helps too, with a donor base that is probably more Republican donor base.

It's more in line with her views. Will they start to put their money behind her? Well, look, we started with the daily, but let's be honest, the candidate that got the most attention and drew the most everything was Vivek Ramasan. In some ways, he wanted that.

That's exactly what he wanted. Danny. It reminds me of Trump 2015. It turns some people off, right, the way he does his thing.

But it may light some, it may light people up too. Okay, I don't know those people. Did you know, the Trump acolytes at the time either, maybe? I mean, I think people were much more people prior to January 2021 were much more open to the idea of Donald Trump.

And in 2016, people thought that he would, even though he was an incendiary candidate, that he would revert to that kind of normalcy in the White House that a lot of us expected. He didn't do that. But Vivek, no, I think it was too hot. I can't get past the fact that I just am not looking for another loud mouthed putz.

I feel exactly the way that every single other candidate on that stage felt about Vivek Romoscopy. Shut up. And yes, it felt like it was. You know, we talked about how during the first Democratic debate when Pete Buttigieg was just taking off, there was a lot of who the heck is this guy?

Andy Colby, Sharon. This was that. And then some like him or hate him. You had to listen to him.

And so I think he accomplished the goal probably that he came into tonight with which was to present himself as a credible candidate. His name idea was not that high. It was high among the super online and capable people, but it wasn't the way a DeSantis system are allowable. He hasn't hit that next level yet.

Maybe he died. I'm not sure there's a next level. That's the thing. I think that there is a ceiling for him and I think he probably hits that ceiling tonight.

Probably helps him get there. And so that ceiling is that he's a shum. I think that the, you know, I've been involved in preparing for I don't know, 20 or 30 primary debates in my life. And I think that you always come in with a set of goals, you always come in with a set of things you want to get accomplished.

And if you're Vikram as swami, you accomplished those things. I think Nikki Haley accomplished quite a bit tonight. I think she showed herself to be a great described as exactly what she wants, a credible general election candidate who donors can go to if for some reason their Jerry about Ron DeSantis. I think Ron DeSantis said good night too because he came out of unscathed.

And if he came after, nobody went after. I'm very surprised. Here's the thing. If you're any of these other candidates, you want to be in the position he's in.

And so I was struck by the fact that if, you know, Matthew Haley did her own thing, I thought, you know, Tim Scott was never going to go after DeSantis. That's not his Persona and I get that. But if any of these are candidates, you're competing for the space that Ron DeSantis sits in. So to me it was a little bit confusing.

I think DeSantis camp can claim victory because he came out of this essentially, I think as well positioned, if not better position than was going to do. I don't agree with you. I was waiting for Ron DeSantis to be the candidate that everybody wanted Ron DeSantis to be that guy who was going to get all those people who would otherwise have voted for Trump, plus would be getting all the people who are looking for somebody who's normal, who has a track record, who's a proven successful governor. I feel like everybody ignored him because he's the guy who ignoring the race.

He hasn't done well enough. He hasn't let. He hasn't lived up to our expectations. I mean, we'll find out how.

Look, I Do think there's a pretty important moment that took place this big. Let's go away with top 15 guys. Even though this is just Pence and Ramaswamy in Ukraine, it also allows us to talk about we get in the open as well. But Ron DeSantis was the first guy to jump up and say he wasn't going to support Ukraine Monday.

This is not an insignificant thing. If Trump, DeSantis and Radio Ronaldos on the top three are, none of them are going to do it. It puts Ukraine at the general election type of issue. I know we have a foreign policy, but it weirdly puts that in play.

And I don't know if that's a good idea for that. And going back to what you all were talking about with how well did misunderstand the suit, I don't know that I actually know his position on Ukraine. He was kind of. He went.

He kind of raised his hand, but he raised his hand. That's right. So, yes, we need to send more money. There was a lot of.

I'm going to take your question and I'm going to pit it. I'm going to take your question pivot, which is fine. That's what politicians do. But if you came into this debate thinking, I really want to know, like who is Ron DeSantis?

What is he going to do as president? I don't know that it came through one sign that you're not in first place or second place or third place when you go to the spin room in your shelf on a dynamic week. Former vice president is in the spinner. So take a listen.

And I was a leading champion of conservative values in Trump mentioned administration. I know how to fight. Anyway, I said that to be disparaging. It's just a fact.

I mean, candidates are going in the spin room that you're not in a good position. But on this one policy front, I mean, I have to say this, he walked back that weird line he gave Tucker when he called it a regional conflict of some sort or whatever. It does feel like he's read a polling memo on what the Republican electorate wants to hear on Ukraine and he's trying to somehow say what they want to hear without committing to everybody. I mean, this is what we were watching this and I said what I'm about to say again, which is I feel like ron DeSantis, Ron DeSantis, that I think I know who governed Florida actually, and who was a Navy seal, actually is pro Ukraine, is pro supporting Ukraine, but that he's positioning himself, that he's taking this position and it feels so insincere and obviously so freaking wrong.

The voters stiff out. I don't know. I will. I'm not sure Republican primary voters much care what they're honest with you.

Honestly, I just don't think this is Trump I care about. It's a high salience issue in this primary. Right? I mean you've heard the high salience issues.

It's the woke stuff. It's some stuff maybe around the economy. And it's Trump. I mean we haven't talked about him.

No, he wasn't there tonight. I'm not even showing up. He wasn't there tonight. He looks, he's smarter.

Happy. Let's take a break. A lot more get to including the view from inside Trump world. I think they feel pretty good about what we all just said now.

They've been listening in the fields four times and died in front runner was notably absent from the stage tonight but it didn't stop him from fighting for the spotlight. It's doctor One of Trump Stop campaign advisors next. You're watching special edition of Meet the Press Post. Today you have a reason to care.

You know someone you've lost someone, you've lived it. The darkest times are no match for what we can do together. Join us for the CAMH Sunrise Challenge. From May 25th to 29th, Canadians are waking up with the sun to raise funds for a future where everyone can access the mental health care they need.

The moment they need it. Get up with the sun, show up for CAMH and rise up for mental health health Register today at sunrisechallenge ca. That's sunrisechallenge ca. 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. Welcome back. That was Nikki Haley earlier tonight and perhaps the most direct attack on the former president during the debate tonight. Tonight's debate was a time surprisingly light on any focus on Trump, something his campaign perhaps it counted on.

The former president appeared in a pre recorded interview, part of a debate counter programming strategy by his campaign. Join me now. We have Vaughn Hilliard. He's in Atlanta where the former president will be surrendering to authorities at the Fulton county jail tomorrow.

And Vaughn, this was a choice the former president could have done this last week, could have done it Monday or Tuesday before the debate. Not an accident that this is being happening at the end of the week after the debate because I think what happens in Milwaukee they hope stays in Milwaukee. Right? This posted on X formerly known as Twitter.

Just five minutes before this GOP debate started, it was a 45 minute conversation between Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump. And he, right off top of the interview, was asked why he was not partaking in the FOX debate. And Donald Trump said, why would I do that when I'm up by 50, 60 percentage points? And why would I stand there on a stage for one or two hours only to be harassed by others, including Several who are at.0, 1 or 2% in polls?

And he openly suggested that the likes of Ace Hodgkinson, Chris Christie, they should drop out of the race completely. He suggested that four together. Roger Santis was gonzos in his own words. And he directly talked about the now foreign diamonds he has faced over the course of these last four months, calling them B.S.

of course he will be right where I'm standing here outside the Fulton County Jail come tomorrow evening. And for Donald Trump, I'll let you listen to part of the exchange he had with Carlson in which Carlson asked him multiple times about threats of violence in the country, a potential civil war, and what he thinks about the possibility of open conflict heading into 2024. Take a listen. So do you think it's possible that there's open conflict?

We seem to know. I don't know because I don't know what it. You know, I can say this. There's a level of passion that I've never seen, there's a level of hatred that I've never seen.

And there's probably a bad combination for the amount in which the Republican candidates on that stage in Milwaukee went after one another. Chuck. Tonight, Donald Trump's exchanges with Tucker Carlson very much felt like a whole different campaign or different race. If I may, It's a striking thing that there was no denouncement of any violence.

Right. There was no. We just put a clip there. But I'm just curious.

You didn't say what? I'm going to do everything I can to make sure to tamp down any violence, to tamp down this behavior. Was there any of that? No, that's.

No, that's right. And I think that we should be clear that we have heard this from the folks on the ground who have suggested that if Donald Trump were to be put into jail or lose the 2024 election, that they would see this going to a dangerous place. A woman just told me this week, earlier this week in Iowa, that she, in her own words, thought civil war was imminent here. I think we're at very difficult points for this country, and Donald Trump as you heard, did not explicitly say that civil war is not imminent.

And for the being a GOP contender here on the Republican side, you know, it's hard not to see who 2024 had no idea why. Yeah. Did Tucker introduce this idea? Did Tucker Carlson introduced this idea?

So he's kind of cheering on. I'm confused by him. I know he's a propagandist, so what was he trying to do here? Right.

And it was actually Donald Trump, within the first few minutes of the interview, was asked, of course, about two minutes about what he thought about the death of Jeffrey Epstein, which the government has deemed that he died by suicide. And after about two months, two minutes of Tucker asking Trump about this, and Trump seemingly confused and even saying himself that he thought it was in fact a suicide. Tucker tried to correlate that by saying, well, could potentially be they be trying to kill you. Kill you next.

What's his inference there? And I know I'd be interested in the words of your next guest here, because for Donald Trump, it was, you know, it was, it was quite the correlation that Tucker Carlson seemed to be making. And I don't think Tucker Carlson Wilson is wrong is to be talking about the prospect of a potential civil war and open conflict, because we hear that from folks on the ground. At the same time, it's one that clearly the former president is having some difficulty wrestling with and is somebody who just had a fundraiser last night for January 6th defendants.

I think it's an important question for the former president to continue to face the prospect of violence in the country. All right, Bon Hilliard on the ground for lan. Thank you. Well, join me now is the senior advisor to the Trump campaign, Jason Miller.

Jason, will ask you about the debate, but I want to ask you about this questioning from Tucker Carlson. I guess sort of talking up the idea of a violent, some sort of violent conflict over this campaign. Is that something that the former president is embracing? That answer?

There was an odd answer, and I just didn't know if you had a better understanding. No, Chuck, I think you're framing it incorrectly. President Trump had a very good answer. Let's talk about the debate for a moment.

Is he going to tamp down violence, Jason? No, no, no. Is he going to not. I mean, he's going to convince his.

Respectfully, that's a idiotic question to even go in. President Trump is campaigning on making America great again. We saw the greatest economy that we've had in a century, possibly ever, when President Trump was in office. He makes it very clear he has more policy videos on his website.

He gives speeches, he gives detailed interviews. He takes on the tough battles with tough reporters. He's actually doing it. So President Trump, you saw tonight, his policies blew large over everybody on that stage.

He dominated every answer, whether it's about him politically or policy wise. And I quite frankly agree with comments earlier. President Trump looked like a genius by skipping the pit piles night and instead to an interview with Tucker Carlson, which by the way, chuck, just hit 87. 10 million views, so probably 10, a little more than 10 fold.

You watch the rest of the folks have their cat fight tonight. But here's another thing that's a really important point. I heard someone earlier on the panel say they thought that sanctimonious did okay, that's not right. We saw the Death of Ron DeSantis campaign tonight as Vivid Ramaswamy leapfrog him into second place.

DeSantis did didn't do good enough for him to tread water. He had to have a breakout moment. And Ramaswamy completely outshone him. I knew President Trump wasn't going to be there tonight.

I didn't know Ron DeSantis was going to skip the debate as well. Is Donald Trump playing on being in any debates or only if the polls get closer? Good question. He said untrue social.

He's not planning on being in the debates, plural. And I would take him at that until possibly he decides to change his mind. Maybe has something to do with the poll numbers. Maybe it's because he wants to get in there mixed up.

Maybe it's because he saw debates like this evening where none of the other candidates had breakout moments or really seem to have these strong policy ideas. And President Trump's the one that has everything whether bringing down inflation, stopping the killing in Ukraine. His presence really blew larger everyone tonight. I am curious, let me ask you about the Ukraine question.

Is Donald Trump, what is his stance on more funding, more aid for Ukraine? Does he want more aid? Because there's an assumption that he doesn't want more aid to Ukraine. But I don't want to put words in his mouth.

Where is he on this? Well, and President Trump has been very clear on that. He said that his goal on this is going to stop the killing. He has messages that he can deliver to Zelensky.

He has messages that he can deliver to Putin. He's not going to go and have a debate on this over, say, cable news. That would be silly. He's going to go and have some relationships with both of these leaders to get it to stop these relationships that candidates have because they haven't done it on this level.

That's why so much really thought tonight really seemed kind of an audition for President Trump's cabinet in many senses. But he's the only one who's actually done this. And that's why I think you're going to see him having big boost in the polls coming out of this. I do think Ronald swam is going to have a nice the stance is finished.

Are you guys, you did a fundraiser for January 6th, folks. Do you view January 6th as an asset for the general election? I think that's not gonna be the primary determinant issue in this election. I think it's me about the economy, things about inflation, Biden's terrible record.

Check your student politics. You saw where Biden, the Democrats just went up with a $25 million ad buy in a whole bunch of states. They're supposedly safe blue states because Biden's freaking out. He sees his numbers plummeting with African American voters, with Hispanic American voters because they're mad at the inflation.

All the Biden uses say, wait a minute, inflation is starting to come down, guys. Everything is still getting more expensive. Maybe it's getting more expensive a little bit slower, folks. Wages aren't keeping up.

That's why the Biden White House is in a panic. You don't believe it's a negative for Donald Trump? I don't think that it's going to be the determinative issue in this election. I think it's about the economy, Biden's failed record versus President Trump's successful record, particularly on the economy, crime, immigration.

We talk about the border. It again, stopping the killing Ukraine. Jason Miller at the debate spin room. I guess Fox finally let you in.

Did you get your credential or are you there somewhere else? Hey, Chuck, you can't stop the Trump training, okay? Fox Trident couldn't keep you out. Jason Miller in the spin that Trump people weren't supposed to get credentials for.

Thank you. Coming up, the battle for battleground Wisconsin. One of the brown talking group of voters in Wisconsin where their reaction to the Republican fields for the big performance Special edition meeting difference. Welcome back.

We've been talking all hour about how we all think each of the Republican primary candidates for performing tonight's debate. But it is in our opinion or the opinions of other pundits that matter here, it's the voters that will be voting on caucus night or primary night in their state. So let's hear from them. In this case, it's Wisconsin voters.

Our own Shaquille Brewster is live with self described conservative voters at Watch party in Waukesha, Wisconsin. They always care about one of the wild counties around our favorite swimming voting area in swing state America. And I'll tell you guys, one of the lessons from 2016, Shaq is what the pundit said and what the voter said were two different things. So tell us, the voters said it could be two very different things, Jock.

And let me just set this up because we're doing something a little bit different. We're in the living room of a family here in Waukesha, you know, Waukesha, a Republican stronghold. These are self described conservative voters and I want to introduce you to them. We have some food, we have some drinks, acceptable mountain.

But I want to introduce them to you. And let's just start with these are all folks who voted for former President Trump twice. So they're coming into this having voted for the former president. I want to start out with questions.

Just a quick show of hands for any of you. Did this debate change your support, make you more interested? Raise your hand if it makes you more interested in another candidate. No one.

Who surprised you? Who impressed you tonight? Bob Scott. Tim Scott.

What about Tim Scott? Surprise you was sound like he was talking without a program. He had his, he felt natural to me and he was giving me the answers and talking about things that I think we need to talk about. You told me earlier he's now one of your top candidates.

Yes. Yes. How does he compare to former President Trump? He'd be a good running mate.

You see him as a running mate after that performance? Yes. Daughter, I feel the same way. Tim Scott is your cop.

Sure he would be a good ticket with President Trump. Who didn't you know about before that you like tonight? That, that young man, Vivek. Yes.

He's very, he speaks very well and he's, he tells the people what they really want to say. I just think he's really good, but he's awfully young and inexperienced. You feel like he's inexperienced? Probably, yes.

He hasn't had it. He hasn't been around very long, has he? Because I haven't really heard of him. So, Ms.

Stacy, you mentioned that you started out in the beginning liking Nikki Haley. I saw you clapping at one point, but that shifted for you. What changed? She came off in the middle sort of angry.

And she also was very much. Her foreign policy is not something I agree with at all. So that changed my mind right then and there. Why was Ukraine so animating that's something everyone stepped in on.

I think that Ukraine is just as bad as Russia. I don't think that. I don't think that Zelensky is a saint at all. And I think that we are paying the debt of the Biden crime family to Ukraine, and that's what we're doing.

And I don't believe that I would take any of those people over what we have right now in the White House. I think any of them could do a better job. But if I had to say the winners of tonight, I would say Desantis. I would say Bergen Vivek and Tim Scott.

And you didn't know Bergen before? I did not know him, but he came off very articulate. He came off very calm. I was very impressed with him and he interested me.

Mike, you told me you never or I don't know. Never. But you usually don't watch debates. Never.

But you did this time. What did you think? Who impressed you? Vic, of course.

He says what the Americans are basically thinking as well. But you said that you also are coming and supporting from 100% regardless. Has that changed at all? It has not changed.

Why not? His experience. Four years, former president. I just think that we need him back as a country.

When you. You invited us all here, any of those candidates, you mentioned you not liking some of them. You heard them for the first time and you backed away. Who and why?

My pence just needs to go away. I'm. I'm tired of seeing Trump pen. Trump Pence signs.

I drive on the road. I just want to see Trump and anybody else besides my pens. Chris Christie, actually, you know, he gets a bad rap. I thought he did a pretty good job tonight, to be honest.

And you told me no. You said Chris Christy. You mentioned him when you walked in. You said anyone but Chris Christie.

I did. What changed about Chris Christy for you? That's someone who loves formality. He's a Trump basher.

He's always been a Trump basher. And I just thought he spoke well and had good message. You. I want to go back to Ms.

Donna. Okay. You said when we were talking earlier, not only was it Ukraine that stuck out for you, but it was just a foreign policy. That was something that was a message that you was animating for you.

Why was that? I just think that we shouldn't be giving all that money to Ukraine when our southern border needs it. The whole United States needs that money. Why not help our country first?

That's it. Thank you very much. Thank you all for talking with me and letting us in your house. It's been a pleasure.

One question for you. I'm going to repeat it for you. Yeah. Jordan Love.

How do we feel about Jordan Love? All right. Very important question. Most important question of the night.

How do we feel about Jordan Love? Ah, really well I watched I think one series and I, I think he has potential to do well. There you go. It's the most important P of the night.

That's what I wanted to hear. That's the one thing we forget the red, white and blue. It's green and gold in that house I hope right. He said forget the red, white and blue.

It's green and gold. Absolutely. Thanks John. Thanks guys.

Shaq, great stuff. Just terrific. Thanks very much. Shaquille Brewster and Walkerstein as we mentioned was opportunity some of the top Republican nobles to introduce themselves to the American public while they're making their pitch of the nomination.

Some of what they may say may have been a bit misleading or over exaggerated. Zack. Sports. Not going to talk about sports.

She's of course host Hallie Jackson now my favorite person to hand the baton to outfit I've ever handed the baton to how, how over exaggerating was this debate? It's a debate I expected a lot. That's right. I mean listen people have their messages, they have their takes that they want to get out there on some issues.

Listen, our really important voters are going to be really important beyond you know this election. Things like foreign policy, things like the economy, you know that has a huge driving force for people. Let me play some that things talk about as it relates to and it's probably see from conservatives against President Biden for the next year and a half of our lives. Watch.

What we also need to understand is that Joe Biden's Biden nomins has led to the loss of $10,000 of spending power for the average family. When you see 16% inflation, your gas is up 40%, your food is up 20%, your electricity is up 20%. We can stop that by turning the spigot off in Washington, sending the money back to the states and allowing the decisions to be made at their own houses. Pulses.

All right so let's talk to where the facts, where the numbers, where the figures are here. Right. Inflation matters people we know that's a big driver. It hit a 40 year high last summer about 9%.

It is down now 3.2%. It's lower than it was. It's still higher than what the Fed wants to see which is why they kept raising interest rates it does mean that the mortgage rate, which you heard about is up to seven and a half percent. That's the highest it's been in 20 years.

Overall national debt, $33 trillion. You heard me. Haley talked about the economy from the Trump perspective, pointing out that Donald Trump under his administration added H debt. That's true.

It was 7.8 trillion. By the way, both Scott and Haley were basically accurate. Well, the Scott numbers are a little bit tweaked, but generally right. Like inflation is now down more than it was a year ago and Donald Trump is still higher than it was.

But Donald Trump did that. He showed that there's also for policy. This was interesting. First of all, I just love it because it actually created a debate on substance.

You know, there was. There was differently, different things. But what if on the fact check part in those voters in the room, one of them saying, hey, I think he's kind of inexperienced. I like him, but he's young and he'll announce him on this issue as it relates to foreign policy.

Let me play that. 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. 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. Ukraine at the front line of defense.

So what would Vivek Ramaswami want to actually do? What he said before, let's take a piece by piece on Israel. He had said that he would negotiate new detail and new deals rather than release to make it so that US aid would not be needed for Israel after 2020. And he said that he's on the record with it.

You saw him in the debate stage. He's been very consistent on that. He has said that the US has no national interest in Ukraine war. And now Taiwan is interesting.

He said that he believes that we should rethink our military commitment to defend Taiwan once the US Gets semiconductor independence, which he says will happen in his first term. Yeah, I think he said, if we're not ready, then yes, we'll military defend Taiwan, but if we have a superconductor industry, we'll walk away one corner of understandance. COVID lockdowns. We talked about that.

I won't put this down here because leading the way out of lockdowns, you know this, you know Ford well, Chuck, there was a lockdown in Florida. It was fully lifted five months later. Florida ended up having 202118 highest effort in the country for schools as he talked about too reopen. It was one of the first 10 states to have mandated the option for in person full time learning.

All right, be honest. When you heard our little focus group, isn't it fascinating? I just, it's good to remind ourselves that hey, different people take different things away from the day. And that's what we have from that segment too.

Thank you. Thank you, Alex. We have more on the stage than RA. I think the difference is you might have as much as you might have on stage.

It's more in America speech is not morning America. We live in a dark moment and we have to confront the fact that we're in an internal sort of cold cultural civil war. Look, the violence, the idea that we might be in violence with the Donald Trump he's talking about a cult civil war war. I'll tell you what grabbed me from the focus group though, Lonnie, because it fed into something you and I were talking about during the debate.

And it was like when two of those folks said, you know, Vivek says what I wanted to hear. People want some form of that. And I'm like going by exactly what police said about Donald Trump in 16. Yeah.

I mean look, he, he came in tonight, he wanted to appear as though he belong there and he said what he need to say and people are not along. And I call it like chicken tenders and Mac and cheese. Right. You never go wrong.

A 12 year old children are always going to say or a best cook or a 45 year old. There is a downside to Mac and cheese chicken. Look, he is going to have a moment. Now the question is, is it a Herman King moment or is it something more sustainable?

Well, I don't get who he's talking to. People who don't want Donald Trump aren't going to want a more tan, younger, shinier teeth Donald Trump. And people who want Donald Trump have Donald Trump who exactly as he speaking to. For me, he feels like when I mistakenly turn on TV late at night and there's somebody selling me something I really don't want really fast.

He's speaking to Donald Trump. That's what he's speaking to. And what's Donald Trump doing? Make him vice president.

Look, I'm not trying to poo poo this what you guys are saying, but there was a lot of dismissiveness of Donald Trump at this point in time after the first debate. Absolutely. I think the most telling thing from that family room in Wisconsin was did any of this debate. Did this make you change your mind about Donald Trump?

Absolutely not. Oh, this person's interesting. It's a little bit going to the menu. It's a little bit like saying, these look interesting.

But I'm always going to go back to the chicken tenders. Like, maybe I would order that one time, but at the end of the day, I'm going to go back to what this is, and nobody was talking about. And more important, no one's talking about Ron DeSantis. And tomorrow gets indicted, it just steps on everything else.

But no, I think. I think the point is that everybody has already absorbed that information. They've written people who love him have written it off. It's illegitimate.

The weaponization of the Department of Justice. And everybody else is kind of looking at it and going, how do I stand out? So don't, you know, let me play. Because the moment that we may see a lot down the road, right, in a general election is, did Mike Pence do the right thing?

Here was the interesting little mash that we put together. Do you believe that Mike Pence did the right thing? Senator Scott, do you believe he did the right thing? Absolutely.

Mike did his duty. I got no beef with him. But here's the thing. Is this what we're going to be focusing on?

Mike Pence stood for the Constitution. I do think that Vice President Pence did the right thing, and I do think that we need to give him credit for that. The answer to the question, Mike Pence did the right thing on January 6th. Okay.

Does that matter? How's that even a question? I mean, it just tells you where we're at. I mean, it's where we're at.

Right. But I mean, I think that it's just a remarkable statement about the 2024 election. And again, the subtext of all of this is Donald Trump. I mean, Donald Trump wasn't there, but is it interesting that Ron DeSantis said something that I think really is resonant for a lot of people, even people who like Donald Trump, which is, let's stop talking about the past, let's talk about the future.

And yet even that didn't separate him out. It didn't elevate him. It was oddly his best moment, but it also showcased his nad best foot forward. Sometimes he's like, oh, like the annoyed guy, I don't know, versus the optimistic.

Like that happened. Let's put it in the river. I'm looking up for you and you and you. That's what I'm going to do in the focus group that they identify Tim Scott as somebody.

A couple of the builders identify Tim Scott. And I do think that there is something about him. You know, he's going to hang around the hoop. He's going to be the sports magic.

Yeah. And he'll be there, too. He'll be there. He'll be there until.

Until someone's not right. And that's not a horrible strategy, organization thing. And let's. This is the first time he has ever debated.

That's it. If you didn't know that, you wouldn't have known that. Tonight he came across also as Novi came across as not canned, which I think was nice. He spoke, you know, in the beginning he sort of wondered whether he was going to be smooth enough that he really was on his.

But afterwards he actually came across as much more genuine than the other guys, even people who I agreed with. So the next debate is going to include everybody up there but Asa Hutchinson and we don't know on Burgo because everybody else is qualified. Right. The next debate.

What changes? If that's the same basic lineup, what changes? In a second debate here, I'm not going to wear blue ties. They were all.

It was Pence, Desantis and Ramaswamy all went with the red and the white shirt and the American flag. I had a tough time seeing another debate where Ron DeSantis is not. Is not the focus of the polls. Remain where they are.

I don't think that Ron DeSantis is going to get another night like he had tonight. I turned to the other candidates of time on the election. Yeah, well, but he was in the center stage. So I understand that about the other candidates, I don't know whether like you don't get that time back.