Special team analysis of the first GOP primary debate 48:43

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Good evening and welcome to our special coverage of the first Republican presidential primary debate ahead of the 2024 election. I'm Rachel Maddow here at MSNBC with my colleagues Alex Wagner, Nicole Wallace, Joy Reid, Chris Hayes, Ari Malberg. Great to have everybody together at the Mothership. This debate is just now wrapping up after two hours of stuff on stage.

Eight Republican candidates faced off tonight in Milwaukee, which is the same city where Republicans will hold their national convention next summer. Wisconsin is also a state that Donald Trump lost in 2020 on his way to losing the White House. After Trump lost Wisconsin, you should also remember that that's one of the states where Republicans fought.

forged a slate of fake Trump electors. So that means that as this debate was happening in Wisconsin tonight, and as they look ahead to their national nominating convention happening in that same city next summer, 10 leading Wisconsin Republicans who were fake electors tonight are now enjoying the latest day of their daily anxiety of not knowing if they too will be charged with felonies like the fake electors were next door in Michigan and also in Georgia, because that's a part of Trump era Republican politics now.

Former President Trump is the leading candidate in this race by far, if the polls are to be believed. He declined to take part in tonight's debate. His plans for the week instead include presenting himself for booking an arrest on felony RICO charges tomorrow in Georgia. His plans for tonight included appearing in an interview that was apparently recorded a whole week ago with a former fired Fox News host on what we used to call Twitter.

His agenda is also obviously trying to keep his gonzo lead in the national polls safe from the candidates who all would like to catch him. That said, one point I think about the importance of tonight's event. Despite Trump's overall lead in the polls, the new NBC Des Moines Register polling this week from Iowa also shows that a healthy majority of Republicans think it's time to consider having somebody else lead the Republican Party, somebody other than Donald Trump.

That at least is very motivating for the eight Republican candidates who braved the competition in Milwaukee tonight. Whether you watch the debate yourself or if you're just joining us for the recap, we welcome you. When you have a presidential primary frontrunner who's currently facing 91 felony charges in four different jurisdictions, what happens between and among all of the other candidates in that primary could end up mattering way more than it might seem like on the surface.

So let's get to it. The number one moment in today's debate, most likely to make a considerable impact. This is our nomination. Former President Trump has been indicted in four different states on 91 counts. He will be processed tomorrow in Georgia at the Fulton County Jail for charges relating to the 2020 election loss. 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. Just hold on. So just be clear. Governor Christie, you were kind of late to the game there. No, I'm doing this. I think the American people deserve to know whether everyone on this stage.

agrees that I kept my oath to the Constitution that day. There's no more important duty. So answer the question. I've answered this before. Mike did his duty. I got no beef with him.

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 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. But I'm not running for president of MSNBC. I am running for president of the United States.

If you did have to run to be president of MSNBC, that probably wouldn't be the venue or the means by which you would do it. We appreciate the ad, though. That whole point of the debate, that whole part of the debate, rather, led to some additional criticism of former President Trump from Chris Christie and an unusual period in which the moderators had to turn their chairs around and admonish the crowd for their reaction to those kinds of comments. Someone's got to stop normalizing this conduct.

Okay? Now, 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.

It doesn't change the truth. Hold on, Governor Christie. Hold on. So listen, the more time we spend doing this, the less time they can talk about issues you want to talk about. So let's just get through this section.

That's technically it's a crowd goes wild moment, but it's a different kind of crowd going a different kind of wild for a different kind of reason than you would usually have to say that. Chris Hayes, I want to go to you on this first, because I know through personal communication that you thought that was the most important moment. And I just thought it summed up Brett Baer pitting around in an aggrieved, petulant tone.

being like, we have to do the Trump section. He wasn't petulant. He was agreed, but not petulant. Shut the hell up. We can get through the Trump section, okay? And it's like, right, that's the whole vibe of the whole thing because it was like, we're going to have 45 minutes where these people all debate each other to become the nominee. This guy's not there. And then it's like, well, we got to go check this box. Let's go check this box.

the box is there's a guy who's running 40 points ahead who tried to end the constitutional republic and who's braying mobs chanted for the murder of one of the guys on stage let's just get through that and then we can get backward in china

China, it's like, OK, like I get the resentment they all have around it. That was just encapsulated. And also the the weirdness of this debate of him not being there, but looming in that way. Like to me, the Brett Baer moment was kind of like if you need 10 seconds of like, what was this debate? We also got the bracketing and Mr. Baer's co-moderator, Miss McCallum, having to say, like, we're going to move on. We're going to move on. I swear they kept saying, OK,

Promise. Last one on that. We had to do this, you know. But the whole section on Trump, they confined it to just a couple minutes before the top of the hour, and it was over by 11 minutes past the hour. I mean, they put it in a 12-minute box, and other than that, pretended like it wasn't happening. Can I say just one more thing? I do think—

I think it's a defensible editorial choice to let them do other stuff beforehand, honestly, because like it is the case that they're, you know, they are running for president and he might not be the nominee for a million different reasons. And like, yeah, what do you think about a nationwide abortion ban? Like there was some good productive stuff there, substantive and important and interesting. It's just that like you just can't detach it from that reality. Yeah. Joy. It definitely felt like I don't I don't really understand.

why they did that tonight, because I'm not sure what any of them are running for, because they all felt like they could be cabinet members in a Trump administration. None of them struck me personally as somebody who could actually be president. Right. I mean, Burgum, I think his name is like a bored rich guy who said, you know what? I got nothing better to do. I got a lot of money. I paid to be here. I'm going to say some things.

Christy, I thought, was going to come across as sort of a bigger figure. I thought he was going to be more of a presence. I thought he kind of disappeared except for that clip or when he did the chat GPT line at Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy just seemed like

sort of your annoying freshman roommate in college. And it's not clear why, what he was trying to do other than to be provocative at every moment that he could. And DeSantis was just yelling a lot. And I'm not sure why he was yelling and why he thinks that yelling made him seem that he had more stature than he did. But I mean, other than Nikki Haley, who I thought acquitted herself quite well, to be honest with you, and seemed like a reasonable Republican politician who kind of made sense.

None of them, to me, even attempted to sort of project the kind of stature a president would have, other than at times Mike Pence. I was going to say, I think Mike Pence exceeded expectations in terms of being a more nimble debater. You might have expected him to be more forceful and more punchy, I think, in terms of his fighting with Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy certainly, I think, was the dominant figure in the debate, for good or for ill. I'm not sure he did himself any favors in terms of people liking him, but he took up

the most airtime. It sort of felt like he was the snappy podcast host and it was his podcast and everybody else was his guest. I thought he was sort of running to be Jesse Waters fill in. Like he seemed much more like a Fox host who's used to commentator, like trying to get a word in on the five, you know, like he seemed more like a banter than a policymaker. Um,

I thought that maybe rivaling the most important moment was the need to defend Mike Pence, who was the target for political assassination on January 6th. And when Chris Christie said we shouldn't just begrudgingly say it was all right that he read the Constitution and abided by it. It's to be celebrated. And I think, you know, I think these and I took as many notes about the ads I watched over two hours as I did over the debate. The whole thing was riveting. And the idea that even

for that audience, they're not necessarily choosing from anyone on that stage to be the nominee of their party. It's something to keep in mind. Like even for them, this wasn't everything on the menu. Right? Because you go through this exercise of like, all right, let me see what they're choosing from. And like their number one choice by 30 to 40 points wasn't there tonight.

Because he's busy. Because he has to practice and probably fast for his photo tomorrow. But what I thought was interesting is if you talk to democracy folks, as we all do on our show, they are not...

any more pretending to be for the Constitution because all Mike Pence did, it really doesn't even warrant a statue or anything any time in the near future. All he did was he had a few people check the Constitution and he decided to abide by it on January 6th. But even that was like, well, yeah, I don't know.

have a beef with it. I thought DeSantis was ludicrous. I think intro Republican chat will all be about how this was his time to rise and disprove all the naysayers on the right. I don't think he rose. I mean, I think he said some silly things. I don't think he disqualified himself, but I don't think he, he was sort of the anointed Trump alternative that has not been the case. I don't think he conducted himself in any way that reestablishes him. And I think that- Can I

Can I just say, I think DeSantis was absolutely terrible. Okay, me too. I mean, okay, yeah. It's nicer than that. But yeah, I mean, but I think what's happening in a process of on the right is he's lost all the fancy donors who were like, oh, DeSantis is going to answer our, you know, Trump coup plotter problem. No, he's not. He didn't do anything tonight to change that. I just thought that he, I was surprised. And I'm not rooting for him or rooting against him, but I was surprised as a candidate who has...

and won a lot of elections and been in a lot of debates and has been running for president and has been the number two person under Trump in the polling for so long, I really thought that, like, he was performing, and forgive me, at kind of a Doug Burgum level. Totally. Less likable

Among those candidates, if you didn't know where their podiums were, you would put Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum and Ron DeSantis together as being similar performers. Totally. And that is not you can't do that if your podium actually is in the middle of the stage. If you want it to stay there. I was I was shocked by how bad Ron DeSantis is at playing politician. He's so bad at politics. Also, I think.

It's like, wow, I guess not closing Florida schools is the reason anyone even considers you a serious contender, because that's basically what got him reelected in Florida, which is why he had the donor base, which is why he was seen as a Trump alternative. I mean, maybe that's the reason, because it's certainly not any talent for talking to people, retail politics or actually explaining why he's a viable candidate. I was struck in the second hour of the debate because I was occupied in the first debate.

by the fact that even in a Trump-less debate, the shroud of anger and grievance colors everything. I mean, when you talk about people's good moments,

It's not because they're offering some brilliant vision or showing humor or humanity or charisma. It's like Nikki Haley got really mad at Vivek Ramaswamy and said that he has no foreign policy experience and it shows. Or, you know, Chris Christie landed one on Vivek Ramaswamy, Vivek Ramaswamy being the whipping post of all of this. But even the crowd, the Brett Baier moment, the having to scold the crowd was

there was a time in American politics when winning wasn't just about who was the angriest, who was the meanest, who landed the punch most directly. And it is so clear to me that the, one of the myriad ways in which Trump has transformed the GOP is by making it a party that is driven by rage and is powered by a sense of grievance and injustice. And, and there is no

offering of a vision for the country, there is the slamming of Democrats and liberal elites and Joe Biden and American society writ large is poisoned. Exactly. But no mourning in America here. Yeah, and that was almost more on display with Trump's very noted absence. If this is a dysfunctional family, dad's not here tonight. Yeah.

dad's in a lot of trouble. Yeah. And you must prove that even if we all know and refer to the bad things dad did and continues to do, you're being tested by your ability. Most of them to toxically defend, not only everything dad got caught doing, but if dad gets even more trouble, you're tested by standing by him in the future. That is obviously, I think it is fair to say unhealthy to Nicole's point because

The reason Mike Pence followed the rules is because he didn't want a mugshot. - Right, yeah. - A lot of other people got mugshots, White House officials, lawyers who served for then president, other people. So all of that I thought was played out. It is interesting. The other thing we learned that we say, well, okay, we already know, but no, you gotta check. We'd like to see the facts.

The first debate of the 2016 campaign in the Republican Party, which was, you know, a year out ish. So it's in 2015 had a huge market for anti-Trump voices and something we might call right of center, hardcore, but not Looney Tunes conservatism. I think it's fair to say some of them. And where is that market now?

Even when dad is away. Yeah, it's very scary for most of those people. I think in fairness, with perhaps the possible exception of Chris Christie at times and perhaps Haley in foreign policy as being a type of she spoke about certain facts and talked about realities. But the bulk of the stage for the bulk of the night, even though he dissed them by not being there and dissed the host sponsor.

was all the market for Trump. So we're a long ways, obviously, from 2015. Yeah, go ahead. But just the other thing I'll say is that what's also interesting is that what Trump took advantage of was a huge disconnect between the professionals in the Republican Party and the base.

And he did it on a few things. He did it on immigration. He did it on trade. That really helped, right? Like, I'm not like these Chamber of Commerce people. Like, you guys hate NAFTA and you hate trade and you want to shut down the border. And he intuited that. And he was right on Social Security and Medicare, that the base didn't care about that. And he was right about the animus that was driving the Tea Party, which was Barack Obama's president there taking the country away and not, they spent too much in the omnibus in 2009. Like,

But that kind of conservatism, they spent too much on the omnibus. That was the first 10 minutes. It's like, guys, they don't care. They do not care about spending. They don't care that they're busting the budget. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Rupert Murdoch cares about that. You know, Mike Pence probably actually viscerally cares about it. But like, that's not your party, guys. And there is no theory of the case other than Vivek.

for what the party actually is. And by the way- Vivek has, Ramaswamy has an idea for what the party actually does and want and what like conservatism looks like. Everyone else is grasping at weird different iterations that just don't- But isn't his idea just the Trump idea? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yes, yeah, exactly. Yes, that's exactly what it is. Yes. And the other thing I think that what I saw, because they were mostly governors on the stage or former governors. Right. And so they exist in executive positions for the most part. But the kind of leadership that you need in government, it's very functional.

It's not very jazzy. It doesn't have the pizzazz. What Trump had in addition to the anger is that he's an entertainer. Showman. Yeah, absolutely. He's a showman. So Ramaswamy attempted to sort of do the showman piece of it. But he also was, I think, exposed as being paper thin.

He really does not seem as somebody that you would want to trust with the nuclear codes. But he has the entertainment value. Without Trump there, it definitely sucked the entertainment air out. And because Trump has injected that so deeply into the party, if you can't perform that, it's for the reason that I think DeSantis underwhelms. He's never been good at that. And I think what people don't understand, he was defeated soundly by Andrew Gillum in those debates. He was outplayed, outmatched.

Even, you know, Charlie Crist defeated him in the debates. But in Florida, that's not what you need to win. You just need to be a Republican. And all he needed to win re-election was 1.3 million people to not vote because they didn't bother. So he never has had political talent, but you don't need it. I do feel like, though, there is an issue about whether there is a vision. And as Alex, as you were saying, this issue about what happened.

with the anger and the grievance. The very first words of the debate were, our country is in decline. The very first thing that Ron DeSantis said. And then from Mr. Ramaswamy, we had, it's not morning in America. Oh, it's not morning in America. We live in a dark moment and we have to confront the fact

that it's an internal sort of cold cultural civil war. And if we've got soundbite 38, that led to this back and forth, again, an angry back and forth, but between Mr. Ramaswamy and Mr. Pence on that point about whether America is mostly good or bad. Go.

We're not looking for a new national identity. The American people are the most faith-filled, freedom-loving, idealistic, hardworking people the world has ever known. We just need government as good as our people. Mike, I think the difference is you might have some others like you may have on this stage. It's morning in America speech. It is not morning in America. We live in a dark moment and we have to confront the fact that

that we're in an internal sort of cold cultural civil war. And we have to recognize that. You are equating the American people with the failed government in Washington, D.C. We just need government as good as our people again.

We're OK. We're OK. No, we're not OK. We're sick and terrible and in decline. I mean, that's I mean, is that the generational divide? Old people think things are OK and young people think it's not. And the Republican Party needs to answer to both. I think I'm right. It's actually inverted. I think that that on the on the right and that Fox audience and if you watched

I probably watched too much of it, but I'll admit that here in front of all of you. If you watch the primetime programming, it is, and it's a largely older audience, it is this bleakness, this darkness. I mean, Fox is all day the crime. I mean, the depiction of the cities was shocking if you don't watch any Fox News. But they do crime stats in cities. They do, it looks like Reno 911 sometimes during the day. I mean, their depiction of cities in America is what Vivek is sort of

playing back. And that's where I get the cable host. I mean, I think his whole feedback loop all exists sort of in conservative media. I don't think it exists. He talked about traveling to some places where Republicans don't campaign. And if that's true, that's a good idea. But his whole feedback loop is all about the

depiction of America in conservative media. And it doesn't go any deeper than that. The thing that I think might leave the biggest mark that happened tonight is that, you know, Christie made a nod to electability at the end, but they all eliminated themselves from contention by taking their positions on abortion. I mean, we have

tested that in red, red, red states since Dobbs' overturn. In Ohio, they tried to rig the electorate. In Kansas, abortion was on the ballot. It's a massive loser. And none of them even, I mean, Nikki Haley a little bit, but none of them even tried to shade

into any of their positions, any gray. No. And by the way, Tim Scott, who's been chasing, running away from that question throughout this entire election season, finally admitted tonight that a 15 week abortion ban at minimum, he said he wants to sign at minimum. And yeah, they all came out. Mike Pence very passionately argued that we need to have that. We can't allow California, New York and Illinois to have different abortion rules. They're very clear. They want a national abortion ban. And Pence kept

saying 70% of the country wants a 15 week abortion ban. I was like, well, let's test that. Let's see. I mean, there's a way to, there's a way to, I went into like statistics trying to come up with like, how could he possibly justify that kind of an assertion? It's just, it is a plain misreading of public opinion on this, which has been tested in all of

of these states, including conservative states, it's not a thing that is unknowable. And he's trying to tell people that his position is popular when it is just political malpractice to get that so wrong. My favorite part was when DeSantis answered the question by saying, he started by saying, well, I was reelected by 20 points. Dude, that's before you signed the abortion ban. In the middle of the night. In the middle of the night.

He said it was one of the proudest moments at midnight. That's why I did it in my pajamas. We've got lots more of our special post-debate coverage to come. This part of it is more fun than the part you just saw. Stay with us. I've had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT standing up here.

And 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, and I'm afraid we're dealing with the same type of amateur. There are some football feelings you can only get with BetMGM Sportsbook. That's right. Not just the highs, the ohs, or the no, no, nos. No!

It's the feeling that comes with being taken care of every down of the football season. The feeling that comes with getting MGM rewards benefits or earning bonus bets. So, whether you're drawing up a same-game parlay in your playbook or betting the over on your favorite team...

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Polls consistently show that young people's number one issue is climate change. How will you, as both president of the United States and leader of the Republican Party, calm their fears that the Republican Party doesn't care about climate change? So we want to start on this with a show of hands. Do you believe in human behavior is causing climate change? Raise your hand if you do. Look, we're not schoolchildren. Let's have the debate. I mean, I'm happy to take it to start. Alexander, so do you want to raise your hand or not?

I don't think that's the way to do it. I'm the only person on the stage who isn't bought and paid for, so I can say this. The climate change agenda is a hoax. The climate change agenda is a hoax. And we have to declare independence for it. 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 change.

What's going on in the crowd there with the screaming and upset and like, is it a ooh, ooh, you said they're all bought and paid for? Is it Beyond Burger? I know. What does that mean? You know, like, they can't. Yeah. They're all bought and paid for by big, big. Solar panels. Yeah.

I'll tell you, it was a weird moment. Well, I thought I will say I was I was musing the other day going into this. I was like, you know, it'd be great if there was a climate question. I know it's not going to happen. And obviously it's ridiculous. But like the single most important policy issue, you know, tied probably with preserving American democracy. I think they're probably linked is like, what do you think? I think climate change is happening. And how are we going to hit the Paris goals like something like that?

And to their credit, they asked it. And it was early on. And it's interesting to me. They understand that they're on the wrong side of the decision. They have awareness of it, which is the reason that Ron DeSantis realized he was in a corner. And the corner is there's the base and the fossil fuel interests who are enormous funders of the Republican Party who don't want you to say that climate change, of course, is real.

And then there's the fact that it's not actually that politically popular to be like, no, it's made up. It's a hoax. And so he doesn't raise his hand. He says, what were you? He sort of knocks, throws the table over. Right. He did that a few times where it's like, you're not going to put me in the box because I'm not going to answer your first question, which to me, at least.

that he understands. And I think they all do that. Like, it's not happening. You guys are, it's all a fiction is just a harder and harder line to sustain. You know what they, from an old school politics, you know, cause I look right over at Unicole. I thought they missed such a sort of easy, um,

over-the-plate opportunity that George W. Bush would have seized on. Because the question was asked with Maui as the premise. Not one of the supposed evangelical Christians, even Pence, who's sort of an old-school politician, took the opportunity to even say anything about

the people who've died in Maui. Like, they didn't even try to pretend that there's any compassion left in the compassionate because, like, that's obviously gone. It was just a lot of yelling about how we need to drill, but... And they just ignored the question altogether. But I don't...

I guess they understand that for younger voters, this has placed them, this and abortion, placed them so far beyond the pale for any voter. Totally right. And I think, listen, I mean, I worked for the last Republican candidate who lost on the drill, baby drill message. So it is a loser. What was so interesting, first of all, that young man who asked the question won the debate for me. It was so respectful.

And it's like he's not going to, none of them are going to answer a climate question from any of us. But to treat him so disrespectfully. Now, the evangelical vote in America is,

to the degree that it goes Republican, it started caring a whole lot about climate in about 2002. So it's been, and I don't know if Trump just blew him away with all of his lack of morals or, you know, they forgot about it, but this is a real rupture inside the evangelical vote. They care a whole lot about the planet. And this young man asked the question in good faith and

None of them swung at it. I'm as fixated as you are, though, on the structural things, on climate, on abortion and on Trump and the big lie. I mean, in Pennsylvania, in Michigan, where they've had to vote on people like Doug Mastriano and people who are big lie advocates. They've been giant electoral losers. So they did themselves no electoral favors tonight.

by not distancing themselves from any of those big things that put off voters, their own voters, abortion, climate, and the big lie are losers. I want to ask Control Room live on the air, which you're not supposed to do. If you guys could pull, bring up, um, sat number 16 and sat number 18, I'd like to talk a little bit about Nikki Haley and Joy, you mentioned Nikki Haley is having, um, done herself, um, done, done herself some favors tonight. I mean, Nikki,

Haley, if you remember, announced very early on. She announced in February. The only other candidate who was announced when she announced was Donald Trump. Donald Trump then came out weirdly and like kind of unctuously congratulated her on joining the field. And it was like, what's going on here? But she's been campaigning her heart out to zero effect.

She has been campaigning super, super hard, running tons of ads, running a textbook campaign, doing all of it. Iowa and New Hampshire cannot blip, cannot get anywhere in the polls. But there she was tonight. Do we have those two soundbites? Here she was tonight, both being...

combative and sort of seeming genuinely combative and sort of feeling it back and forth with Mr. Ramaswamy in particular, but also, I think, making probably the most effective presentation. I mean, Mike Pence tried it as well on the issue of Ukraine. But let's see a little bit from Nikki Haley tonight.

When it comes to whether President Trump should serve or not, I trust the American people. Let them vote. Let them decide. But what they will tell you is that it is time for a new generational conservative leader. We have to look at the fact that orders 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.

Look at what Putin did today. He killed Pergozan. When I was at the U.N., the Russian ambassador suddenly died. This guy is a murderer, and you are choosing a murderer over a pro-American country.

The you in that case, Vivek Ramaswamy, who she was criticizing very aggressively on the issue of Israel, on the issue of Ukraine at one point, telling him you have no foreign policy experience and it shows. Joining us now is former RNC chairman Michael Steele, our friend Michael Steele, who once ran the esteemed National Republican Party. How far we've all come from those days. Michael, what was your what was your take watching this tonight?

Well, you know, let's start with, you know, how far we have fallen is, I think, a good place to start. So, Rachel, for me, what was interesting, a lot of folks—and Nicole knows this very well, and actually my friend Joy knows this, too, given her space in politics, working in politics and knowing about it. An event like this is not about who won or who lost.

It is about who was able to achieve the goal that the training, the conversations, the preparation, all of that in the debate process leads up to is, do you look presidential at the end of the night? Do you look like someone that the country at the end of the day could say, I can see him in the Oval Office?

And tonight, the only person who struck that chord for me was Nikki Haley. She was the only one who took risks that none of the others would take, whether it was on the economy, whether it was on climate change, and even on abortion. She understood and read the room, but more importantly, has read the country's position on this issue in a way that allowed her to—while some may not appreciate it as much as some others—

carve out a better, wider lane for herself, which will be interesting to see if she can capitalize on between now and the next debate. But for me tonight, she stepped up in a way that the others did not. And they actually look smaller in her presence, in my view, particularly when you look at her exchange with Vivek and how she kind of

with poise, showed the fellas how to do this. Michael, given that take and the way that you're explaining what was impressive to you about

Mrs. Haley tonight. Let me ask what you thought of Mike Pence, because the same kind of grounds on which you are saying you were impressed by Haley's performance as a relative matter tonight, I sort of felt the same way about both her and Pence on those grounds. Maybe I just wasn't expecting a lot from either of them and they just performed to par and I should have had higher expectations. But I felt like both Pence and Haley showed their experience, showed themselves to be sort of unintimidated and

relatively commanding in their command of the facts and their willingness to push back smaller figures on the stage that were taking up too much space. They both did. And with respect to Prince, Prince, Pence, is where he gets

The brownie points, they get also taken away when he comes off a little bit more sanctimonious or holier-than-thou. The country—look, we are a Judeo-Christian tradition. We all get that. But we're also a melting pot of philosophies, ideologies, religious experiences and expectations. So, if you want to be president, you have to account for that, too.

And I think a lot of times when Pence starts talking, that vibe comes across that I'm just a little bit better than you. And so I'm looking at this from not just the perspective of how the base is going to respond,

But the presidential race is not just about your base. It's about how you add to that base and how you expand that base. And I think where he got the brownie points and made some really good, hey, I'm presidential timber points, he kind of chopped at his own legs when he sort of came off a little bit, for me, a little bit more—

holier than thou on some of the answers. And it wasn't just on the cultural issues like abortion. And I think that's something where, again, Nikki threaded that needle a little bit better, in my view, in a more presidential way that sort of accounted for everybody who's watching who may not necessarily agree with her.

Former RNC chairman Michael Steele, very smart. Thank you very much for having us, for being with us tonight on that. Mike, Chris, you were nodding along with that. I agree that when I looked at the candidates tonight, like who would seem the most formidable as a Republican nominee? Nikki Haley came across to me as most likely. Tim Scott? I thought Tim Scott was really not good. He disappeared tonight. Well, I also think, I think he's, look, there's two things.

I have no expertise in almost anything except talking on television. And the fact of the matter is you can tell when someone's comfortable when they're not. I don't know. You wrote a couple books. That's true. Being comfortable is the thing you can't really train and you can't really tell. And like, Ramaswami, say whatever you will. The guy was comfortable. He was happy to be there. He was having a good time. I would definitely vote for his podcast. But Scott was not.

Isn't that the exact entertainment complex part of it is that this is what the party is dealing with, is that when you have Vivek and Haley go back and forth, you have a personified fight between government experience.

And a tweet storm. And I know the tweet storm can be popular based on the past reality show president, but yes, the fact that we're talking this much about him as a content creator speaks to how he comes off. I'm just going to say this party is avowedly anti-immigrant. I would argue somewhat misogynist, anti-globalist. And we're talking about a person who is the child of immigrants, a former U.S. U.N. ambassador, someone who removed the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State House. And

you know, has a lot of international experience and is otherwise a moderate. She is a formidable candidate for a general election. Yes. But man, good luck getting out of the primary. I mean, in nineteen, like ninety. She would have been a great candidate like twenty years ago. Here's the other problem. And Tim Miller pointed this out earlier. So I'm just cribbing his his point. One of the problems is when you look at the part of the electorate and Republican Party that is like open to someone that's not Trump, right, the not diehards.

They're incredibly cross pressured on all these really important divisive issues from abortion in Ukraine and all that stuff It's not like they're coherent ideological group to go grab So that's part of the problem is the like man, maybe we should move on past Trump They're down the line cleaved on things like Ukraine crane They're cleaved on things like national abortion bans like those are genuinely divisive issues But you have to get all those people into the same circle to have any chance against Ukraine

Trump. And that's that's why you need some if somebody is going to claim that. And again, 57 percent of Iowa likely Republican caucus open to are said they would prefer somebody other than Trump leading the party. But it's going to take a very nimble politician to be able to pull those people together. And less than eight. I mean, other problem is that you're talking about a tiny swath of the party and there were eight of them. Yeah, that's right. Much more of our recap of tonight's Republican debate ahead.

Speaking of comfortable with the camera, we're going to go to break with this, but we'll be right back. I'm from a town of 300 people. It's a big deal to make it on this stage with all these folks. But there are some football feelings you can only get with BetMGM Sportsbook. That's right. Not just the highs, the O's or the no, no, no. It's the feeling that comes with being taken care of every down of the football season.

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I speak on this issue. I was kind of involved. You didn't. You answered on this issue. You did say something. Yeah. We thought you were done, but you pleased. No, I wasn't done. Well, Mike, why don't you say this? Join me in making a commitment that on day one, you would pardon Donald Trump. I'm the only candidate on the stage who had the courage to actually say it. That is how we move our nation forward. I don't know.

I don't know why you assume that Donald Trump will be convicted of these crimes. You should be able to make a commitment, the same justice system that was this corrupt. The difference between you and me. I'm not a professional politician. That's the difference. Who can answer a question? I've actually given pardons when I was governor of the state of Indiana. It usually follows a finding of guilt and contrition by the individual that's been convicted.

Joining us now is our colleague and friend Jen Psaki, who, of course, served as White House press secretary under President Biden. She's now the host of Inside with Jen Psaki. Jen, I have to ask you if you think we are a bunch of pikers up here when we are saying that while Vivek Ramaswamy took up most of the oxygen in the room, he did not necessarily make people like him angry.

And in fact, the palpable disdain and maybe even loathing of all his fellow debate participants might have sort of, I don't know, stained the water a little bit in terms of how people are going to think about him coming out of this. Well, first of all, no one on that table is a piker. So let me just start there. But I...

I will say, look, it depends on who you're talking about when you say people. Because Republican primary voters, I would guess, watched that and thought, one, that guy's got a little life in him. He talks like a human being. He says what he thinks and he pushes back on other people. Now,

At the same time, a number of the things he said, climate change is a hoax, things he said about Ukraine will be taken and wrapped up by the Democrats and used should he have any real chance in this race, which I don't think tonight is an indication of. But what was so telling to me watching this debate was

Vivek Ramaswamy was the target of these candidates. He was the target of Vice President Pence. He was the target of Ron DeSantis. He was the target of Nikki Haley. Ron DeSantis is the leading, was the leading candidate, still is the leading candidate who was on that stage tonight. And they basically ignored him.

What did you think about how Mr. DeSantis, Governor DeSantis, performed on his own terms? Obviously, you're totally right. Nobody paid any attention to him on stage. Nobody really bothered to attack him on anything because he didn't seem like enough of a threat that you needed to attack him, which is a little crazy given his polling. But I felt, and I feel a little bit guilty saying this, it feels slightly ad hominem, but I felt like just as a

performer on the debate stage. He was probably the worst of all eight candidates, including the couple of them whose names are hard to remember, even as I say. Yeah, Doug Burgum. We see you, Doug Burgum. You know, I think, Rachel, what is a challenge anytime you go into these debates and I've worked for candidates who have been lower down in the tiers in these debates, Nicole has as well. You want to have a memorable moment.

You want a moment that goes out on social media. You want a moment that your donors remember that you can fundraise off of. I don't remember a single thing Ron DeSantis said. I'm obviously not a Target donor, but he was not memorable. So not only did people ignore him, but he didn't have a moment that rose in the debate. And both of those are problems for him. But did he do himself whatever the opposite of a favor is just by being bad at talking? No.

Well, there was that story in the Washington Post, I think, about awkward Americans relating to him because he's awkward. So maybe he appealed to that caucus, perhaps. But...

I don't think he did himself any favors tonight because he wasn't memorable. I do think Mike Pence had a good night. Now, his position on abortion is out of whack with the country. But for the electorate and evangelical voters, that's what they want to hear. He also showed he had some life in him, too. That's good for him. You all have been talking about Nikki Haley. She showed herself to be probably the best general election candidate. Probably can't get through the primary at this point.

but that was strong too. And it was a good night for Vivek because everybody focused on him. So those were my three. - Jen Psaki, thank you very much for your time tonight. Invaluable to have you here. Can we talk about Tim Scott for a second? - Sure. - Yeah. - I feel like we talked about- - I'm sorry. - Exactly, okay. So I feel like Tim Scott is an accomplished politician. He's been in politics for a long time. I feel like he does know how to speak on camera, but I felt like whenever he talked, he wasn't saying any words that made any impact at all.

I'm not sure that's a bad way to come out of this debate. Somebody who kind of looks the part, has an appealing countenance and said something that and said nothing that stuck. I don't think he I don't I certainly don't think he hurt himself tonight. And I agree that there's there are reasons that if I were a Republican donor looking for a Trump alternative, I would be looking very strongly at Tim Scott. Yeah. Just based on all the things you said.

I do think that, like, again, there's a certain degree of charisma and showmanship that is just necessary in politics even before Trump that he doesn't seem to have. And I don't think DeSantis has it either. Your point, like, it was pretty striking that no one attacked DeSantis tonight. No one had. People all had their pre-canned vests.

Vivek Ramaswamy lines and no one had a pre canned Ron DeSantis line. I mean, to Jen's smart point, they all plan to attack Vivek, not DeSantis. And I thought that, I mean, she mentioned Pence and Nikki, but even Christie, you

who sort of his high watermark as a Republican primary candidate in 2016 was ending Rubio's candidacy. Even he targeted Ramaswamy and not DeSantis. But they're not. Oh, go ahead. Well, I was going to say they're not all running for president. We know some are running to be a potential running mate with the person who wasn't there, who is still the former president on the way. And so the anti-Trump people, if you want to say that's Christie and Hutchison, OK, put them to the side.

Pence is the one person with experience on the job who cannot be the running mate again for all the reasons we know. So he actually is also out. And so I do think that someone like Senator Scott and DeSantis are on this relatively short list when you actually think about it of relevant people who could position and end this thing in a decent place and potentially be running mates. Anybody who doesn't feel the ASA freight train running out of the station right now, I'm telling you, you're insensate. Was he the only one?

that didn't raise his hand, though, about whether he'd vote for Trump? Well, Christie raised his hand but went like this. So he was saying, I'm absolutely not raising my hand. So that was a little weird. Was anybody else surprised that with all the attacks on Ramaswami, the most obvious one never happened? I kept waiting for the Soros attack.

Oh, that he was Soros funded. That he was Soros funded. And so I kept waiting for the Soros fellowship to come up. It never came up. So yes, people focused on him, but I don't think very effectively. And to your point about Tim Scott, the only thing I think he accomplished was proving that he would be about the same kind of vice president Mike Pence would be. Yes, exactly. And if that's what he's going for, if that's what Trump wants, the non-entity maybe that he needs is Tim Scott. Playing the role of Mike Pence tonight. Senator Tim Scott.

Much more of our special coverage to come here tonight. Stay with us. A little out of this world, and this is for you, Governor Christie. Do you believe that the recent spike in UFO encounters... I get the UFO question? Yeah, you do. Come on, man. No, but... But, okay, we've been hearing a lot of...

We've been hearing a lot of testimony in Congress and people are taking this a lot more seriously. And we're hearing that, you know, there are things going on that people aren't aware of. So if you were president, Governor Christie, would you level with the American people about what the government knows about these possible? And especially coming from a woman from New Jersey. I.

I think it's horrible that just because I'm from New Jersey, you asked me about unidentified flying objects and Martians. We're different, but we're not that different. Now that everybody's gotten their memorized, pre-prepared slogans out of the way, we can actually have a real discussion now. The reality and the fact of the matter is... Was that one of yours? Not really, Mike.

My tense came to play. That other guy is podcast. I'm telling you, it's like zooming up the charts. Joy, before we wrap up this hour of our special coverage, Jen Psaki is going to take over in just a moment. You were making a point earlier about Ron DeSantis and his overall performance tonight. Obviously, he kind of had the most to lose tonight. He's the he's been running second to Trump. He's far ahead of all the other single digit candidates. What happens to him after time?

You know, there is a relatively famous saying in the state of Florida among politicos, and it is that there are two kinds of people. There are people who believe Ron DeSantis can be president of the United States. And there are people who have met. And I think tonight a lot of people met Ron DeSantis and they're going to conclude that he's had a good run terms as governor.

God bless him. Bless his heart. But politics ain't his bag. You know, it was bad. I think we should have known it was bad when he adopted us his slogan, where woke goes to die. Listen, I thought, you know what? You're the governor of Florida. Do not make your slogan about where anything goes to die. Hello. You know what I'm saying? Everybody there is 87 years old and older. Think it through. Think it through.

Our coverage of the first Republican primary debate continues now with our good friend Jen Psaki. Hello, Jen. Hi, Rachel. We have so much to get into in the next hour. Lots in this debate. Before I let you go, though, I know you want to tuck yourself in. But I wanted to ask you, how are you thinking about how tonight is going to flow into tomorrow? Because tomorrow is a big, big news history day as well.

Well, you know, there had been speculation heading into tonight, Jen, that that Donald Trump might schedule his surrender to authorities in Georgia to coincide with the debate. He did not do that, but he's still doing sort of counterprogramming tomorrow. Any candidate who is going to get a bounce, a bump out of this debate is going to have it immediately squashed by the spectacle of Trump surrendering tomorrow. We know, I

think that we think he's going to try to do it in primetime, which is such a kick in the teeth. You know what I mean? I want to make sure I milk the most out of my arrest on RICO charges. But that will, I think, limit any positive or negative impact of this debate for those other candidates. That's probably good for Ron DeSantis, who I think

didn't do himself any favors tonight. It's probably bad for Vivek Ramaswamy, who a lot of people are Googling for the first time tonight. So we'll see. I've learned not to predict things more than two or three seconds in advance in this era of our national politics. Fair enough. But what you're telling Vivek Ramaswamy is get your social media fundraising texts out now because you have a short window. Between now and 2 p.m. Eastern, that's your time. That's it.

That's it. It's it. Well, thank you all. Let you all go tuck yourselves in. We have a lot to cover in the next next hour from the first Republican debate. There are some football feelings you can only get with BetMGM Sportsbook. That's right. Not just the highs, the O's or the no, no, no. It's the feeling that comes with being taken care of every down of the football season. The feeling that comes with getting MGM rewards benefits or earning bonus bets.

So, whether you're drawing up a same-game parlay in your playbook or betting the over on your favorite team, the BetMGM app is the best place to bet on football. You only get that feeling at BetMGM, the sportsbook born in Vegas, now live across the DMV. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. See BetMGM.com for terms. 21 plus only, DC only, subject to eligibility requirements. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.