Aug. 25, 2023 - Epoch Times
09:11
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| As I'm sure you're well aware, last night, Americans across the country had the opportunity to hear from all of the major Republican candidates currently running for president. | |
| Over on Fox News, you had the official Republican debate featuring eight different candidates while President Trump skipped the official debate and instead aired a pre-recorded interview that he did with Tucker Carlson over on Twitter. | |
| And to be frank, it was a little bit odd watching this particular Republican debate without President Trump being there. | |
| Because as you're likely well aware, President Trump is leading in the polls by somewhere between 40 to 60 points. | |
| And so whereas normally you're watching a presidential debate with the understanding that one of these candidates is actually going to be the nominee, in this case, well, it was like watching eight people compete for a participation trophy. | |
| And so in that sense, it was a little bit odd. | |
| And also, the questions that Fox News chose not to ask also raise a bit of a question mark, such as the fact that there was not a single question about the topic of election integrity, although they did have time to ask about UFOs. | |
| Regardless, let's dive into the actual highlights from the debate that came from the question and answers, starting with a few interesting side notes about what was happening behind the scenes. | |
| For instance... | |
| If you looked at the debate stage last night, you might have naturally asked yourself, how did a man like Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas who has minimal name recognition outside of the state, how did he get the necessary 40,000 donors in order to qualify? | |
| Well, the answer to that appears to be surprisingly simple. | |
| He literally paid people to donate to his campaign. | |
| Specifically, the Asa Hutchinson campaign was paying people $20 for every $1 donation that they were able to solicit. | |
| Here is the National Pulse explaining the whole scheme. | |
| Asa Hutchinson hid the 40,000 donors required to make the GOP debate stage by paying people $20 for every $1 donation they could solicit. | |
| The so-called texting-for-pay scheme was the brainchild of Austin Barber, who heads Hutchinson's America's Strong and Free Action Super PAC. Barbara's own 18-year-old son somehow quote-unquote found 100 donors which should have netted him a cool $2,000. | |
| That is very cool indeed. | |
| Then, at the actual debate itself, you had this situation playing out backstage wherein the event organizers were specifically keeping out certain individuals who were affiliated with the non-establishment campaigns. | |
| For instance, as reported by NBC News, this piece of paper right here was left on the security table near the metal detectors. | |
| And at the very top, as you can see below the words, see something, say something, you have pictures of people who were not allowed in the venue, which included Jason Miller, Justin Caporelli, and Danny Tiso, all of whom are Trump staff members, and they were all specifically barred from the debate. | |
| Also on that list, you had anyone with the Vivek campaign credentials being barred, as well as the entirety of the Larry Elder campaign. | |
| Furthermore, it appeared that besides the names on this particular list, no one from the Trump team was allowed inside. | |
| For instance, here is a short clip, a video clip, showing Fox News security blocking Donald Trump Jr. | |
| from being able to enter the debate spin room. | |
| Right now, trying to ban people from actually having discourse about politics. | |
| Uh... | |
| How un-American. | |
| Probably shouldn't surprise any of us, but that's what it is. | |
| I've been told by others that I would be able to go in. | |
| So they said we were able to go in, then they said they were in now that we're here. | |
| And the candidate that... | |
| Who said you can't go in the spin room? | |
| They're telling me right now, Fox won't let me into the spin room. | |
| That's what the American people should know. | |
| They're telling him, he works for security here, but they're telling him that I'm not allowed to go in there. | |
| Also, just as another small tidbit, I personally found it hilarious that while there were many different beverages for sale at the venue, which seated about 4,000 people, Bud Light was specifically not being sold in the arena. | |
| And so, that was all of the exciting action happening backstage. | |
| Then, on the stage itself, you pretty much had the typical modern-day political debate, which consists of politicians saying many words, while at the same time, amazingly, saying nothing at all. | |
| However, there are a few things worth pointing out. | |
| At the start of the debate, Mr. | |
| Vivek Ramaswamy drew some fire from the other candidates with the following comment. | |
| Let us be honest as Republicans. | |
| 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. | |
| That comment of his, probably combined with the fact that he has rising poll numbers, then led the majority of the attacks to be aimed at him. | |
| Take a listen. | |
| America, Lessa, you have no foreign policy experience and it shows. | |
| And you know what? | |
| Now is not the time for on the job training. | |
| We don't need to bring in a rookie. | |
| We don't need to bring in people without experience. | |
| 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 standing on stage tonight. | |
| But interestingly, the fact that he was the most attacked person by the other candidates was likely a tacit acknowledgement by them of Vivek's dominance on the stage. | |
| In fact, every post-debate poll that I've seen, whether it was from Breitbart, the Drudge Report, CNN, the Daily Mail, or even the fact that Vivek was trending on Twitter after the debate, all of these different data points indicate that, very likely, he was the winner of the debate. | |
| And indeed, on many issues, he stood against almost all of the other candidates in stark opposition. | |
| For instance, take the issue of Ukraine. | |
| Based on that plan, is there anyone on stage who would not support the increase of more funding to Ukraine? | |
| We would not support it. | |
| Europe needs to step up. | |
| I mean, I would have Europe step up and do their job. | |
| Mr. | |
| Ramaswamy, Mr. | |
| Ramaswamy, you would not support an increase of funding to Ukraine. | |
| I would not. | |
| And I think that this is disastrous that we are protected against an invasion across somebody else's border when we should use those same military resources to prevent across the invasion of our own southern border here in the United States. | |
| We are driving Russia further into China's hands. | |
| The Russia-China alliance is the single greatest threat we face. | |
| And I find it offensive that we have professional politicians on the stage that will make a pilgrimage to Kyiv, to their Pope, Zelensky, without doing the same thing for people in Maui or the South Side of Chicago or Kensington. | |
| I think that we have to put the interests of Americans first. | |
| Secure our own border instead of somebody else's. | |
| He was referring. | |
| And the reality is, this is also how we project strength by making America strong at home. | |
| Furthermore, while the other candidates took a stance of either antipathy towards President Trump or just being outright against him, well, here is the stance of Vivek. | |
| And notice the crowd's reaction when he says it. | |
| President Trump, I believe, was the best president of the 21st century. | |
| It's a fact. | |
| And so, judging from that, while Vivek might have won the debate, based on the polls at least, doesn't really matter, since at the end of the day, President Trump is leading in the polls by a wide margin. | |
| And at that point, the absolute most fascinating moment in that particular debate, at least in my opinion, was when the moderators asked all the candidates to raise their hand. | |
| 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. | |
| That was painful to watch. | |
| And so there you have it, the Republican debates. | |
| Vivek appeared to come out on top, but that's still far behind the frontrunner for nomination, President Trump, who, just for reference, is getting arrested right now, right now as we are premiering this episode. | |
| If you'd like to watch either the full RNC debate or if you'd like to watch President Trump's interview with Tucker, I'll throw both of those links down into the description box below this video for your convenience. | |
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| And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. | |
| Stay informed. |
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