In the first debate between the candidates for the Republican primaries, Donald Trump preferred to speak with one of the most watched presenters and commentators on the far right, Tucker Carlson, who is now on his own platform after being fired from Fox News. This time he went to Michigan, where auto workers are on strike. The former president attacked the industry’s transformation and dragged Joe Biden along.
In California, far from Trump’s voting intentions, the seven candidates were involved in personal duels and some criticism of the absentee. Especially from former Governor Chris Christie, who in a pun accused the absentee of dodging (to dive), said that Donald is no longer Trump, but Donald Duck.
The man who leads the Republican field in the polls by an average margin of more than 40 percentage points also faced criticism from former Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence. The news was that he got a shout out from second place in the polls, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. In the same tirade, he accused the current and former president. ‘Where is Joe Biden? He is completely absent from leadership. And you know who else is missing? Donald Trump should be on this stage tonight. He has a duty to defend his record of increasing the debt by $7.8 billion. This paved the way for the inflation we have now,” DeSantis charged in the only time he criticized his rival for choosing to go to Michigan.
The day before, Joe Biden joined a picket line and said he was on the side of workers demanding wage increases: the three largest auto companies in the US, General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, have posted record profits – $250 billion in the last decade – but only administrators were rewarded.
Wage increases in manufacturing were lower than in other activities, but for Trump the problem is Biden and electric cars. “Hundreds of thousands of jobs, your jobs will be gone forever because corrupt Joe Biden is selling you out. I don’t think he really knows what he’s doing. But he is surrounded by radical left-wing Marxists and crazy, fascist, bad people. They sell you to China. They sell you to environmental extremists of the radical left,” he shot.
As for the debate, broadcast on Fox News, the summary was made by DeSantis at the end: “If I had been home, I would have changed the channel.” No question about the 91 crimes Trump is accused of or about the fraud trial in New York that starts on Monday. Amid the accusations, pointing fingers and shouting, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, both from South Carolina, stood out.
Haley managed to talk about important topics such as inflation or health, captivating different categories of the electorate and, in between, attacking the man who was the sensation of the previous debate, Trumpist Vivek Ramaswamy: ‘Honestly, when I hear you, I feel like I’m a little dumber because of what you say.”
Source: DN
