What to know
- Five candidates squared off tonight in the third Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle.
- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina discussed, among other things, their views on the Israel-Hamas war, abortion and social security.
- Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner, skipped tonight's debate, as he did for the first two. Instead, he hosted a rally in nearby Hialeah, Florida.
This was the least bad debate — but the bar is in hell
The candidates seemed more focused and on-point tonight than they were in the first two debates. Maybe it had to do with the fact that there were fewer of them. Even when they were clearly lying about the border or anti-Muslim hate in this country, they still sounded less jaw-droppingly asinine.
But a politician having a gentle tone is not a sign of seriousness. Having the ability to speak without screaming is proof that someone has achieved the skills of a kindergartner, not that they deserve to make choices that affect the lives of millions of Americans. Because the policy proposals we heard tonight were still across-the-board atrocious; if they weren’t likely unconstitutional in the abstract, they were likely unworkable in practice.
But, hey, none of these people is going to be the nominee next year, so it’s not like this being the least unwatchable debate is going to have any real impact on the race.
The truth matters — and Republicans ignored it on abortion
Before tonight’s debate ended, the candidates made their positions known when it comes to women’s ability to make decisions about their own bodies.
Scott touted a national abortion ban with the lie that women are just aborting babies willy-nilly before birth. (Women are not doing this by the way.) Haley said she will sign whatever she can get 60 votes for in the Senate. To me, that sounds a lot like, “Yes, I will sign a national abortion ban if you have the votes.” Then Ramaswamy was just nuts — calling abortion "murder" and suggesting we need sexual responsibility in the country.
The facts are important here. The truth matters. The truth is… women are not aborting babies just before birth because they feel like it. That is a painful decision for the roughly 1% of mothers who are forced to make it. Every candidate on the stage tonight including Christie and Desantis made comments that were untrue and unchecked.
Given last night’s election results, I do not think anyone staked out an answer that gets them beyond the Republican Party primary electorate.
DeSantis’ closing pitch: buzzword, buzzword, buzzword
DeSantis took a lot of extremist stances tonight — on abortion, immigration and the Israel-Hamas war, to name a few. But when it came time for him to really drive home his platform, he didn’t really say anything of substance.
In his closing pitch, DeSantis made vague allusions about leading the country forward and pitched himself as a warrior who will take the “hits,” “arrows” and “barbs.” He talked about fighting for you and your family and leading “this country’s revival.” But it was more a statement littered with buzzwords.
Oh, and he ended with an awkward tongue-smile that will probably be a meme by the morning.
New rules, unflappable moderators, less shouting
During the first two Republican debates, candidates were given the opportunity to respond to whichever other candidate had mentioned their name. Good in theory, perhaps, but the result was a maddening series of back-and-forth shouting matches where the candidates talked over each other.
At the beginning of tonight’s debate, the moderators explained that one wouldn’t automatically get to respond at the mention of one’s name. That appeared to make a world of difference. It seemed to rob the candidates of the incentive to say something instigatory to enter into the back-and-forth loop.
But beyond that, the moderators had the right demeanor and tone throughout and didn’t become a part of the story of the debate. Ramaswamy, who used the rules of the previous debate to provoke and insult, attempted to provoke and insult the moderators in his first response.
They didn’t respond. They simply moved on. And took all the wind in Ramaswamy’s sails with them.
The question I wish moderators asked the candidates
In hindsight, I wish moderator Kristen Welker took the bait on Ramaswamy’s attempt to slam NBC News. Ramaswamy essentially parroted Trump’s claims that the news outlet engaged in election interference with its coverage of the Trump-Russia scandal. And Trump, of course, has suggested this coverage amounted to “Country Threatening Treason.”
Reflecting on the moment now, it seems that could have been a great opportunity to press Ramaswamy — and get other Republicans on the record — about whether they agree with Trump that media should be investigated, and potentially prosecuted, for coverage Republicans dislike. It’s a valid question for presidential hopefuls who belong to a party that's growing increasingly averse to independent media.
Ramaswamy decries Ohio abortion vote he can't even explain
Ramaswamy bashed a referendum Ohio voters passed last night to create a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights in the state. He condemned the measure for allowing abortion through "birth."
But that's just not true; the amendment prevents restrictions on abortion access before fetal viability (around 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy).
We don't know for sure whether Ramaswamy is simply ignorant of the facts or if he chose his words intentionally to mislead.
The fewer the debaters, the more serious the debate
Despite Ramaswamy’s presence, this has been the most serious GOP primary debate we’ve had thus far. It obviously helps having fewer people on stage, but it was also refreshing to not have people talking over each other, with moderators who took control. The race may not have changed in a meaningful way, but voters at least got clearer pitches from the candidates. Here’s to hoping there are even fewer of them on stage next time.
Adoption is expensive. Let’s talk about it.
Across the board, the GOP candidates when confronted with abortion brought up increasing adoptions. But here’s the thing: Adoption is expensive, costing tens of thousands of dollars to do so through an agency or internationally. And, like abortion in this post-Roe world, different states have different rules and regulations on that front.
If these people were really serious, they’d talk about how they would want to bring down those costs. Let’s hear about how they want to pass a bill in Congress to have a uniform adoption process and subsidize those costs for would-be parents. Or let’s hear about how states like DeSantis’ own Florida covers almost all the costs of foster care adoptions and make that more appealing to potential parents, adopting the baby that needs a home, rather than shopping for the baby that looks the way they want.
Christie tones it down — but not necessarily in a bad way
Christie clearly decided going nuclear on Trump wasn’t exactly working for him in the Republican primary. He was a more sober, and maybe a little bit more boring version of himself onstage, but he also sounded more like a sane person who wasn’t solely doing poll tested, overly prepped lines (with a few exceptions).
Haley takes a (relatively) compassionate approach to abortion
Finally — a rational argument about abortion rights. Haley was the only one who took any sort of sympathetic stance on reproductive rights, arguing for a more comprehensive, even humane, approach that includes expanded access to contraception and not punishing people who have abortions.
“I don’t judge anyone for being pro-choice, and I don’t want them to judge me for being pro-life. Let’s find a consensus. Let’s agree on how we can ban late-term abortions,” Haley said.
“Let’s make sure we encourage adoptions … let’s make sure we make contraception accessible. Let’s make sure that none of these state laws put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty for getting an abortion. Let’s focus on how to save as many babies as we can and support as many moms as we can, and stop the judgment.”
A softening on abortion. But no clear answers.
Haley and DeSantis both made clear they’re pro-life, but we didn’t hear the strident tone on abortion you almost always hear from leading Republicans. Both candidates sounded like two people spooked by what happened in Ohio and Virginia last night.
But it’s also clear that no one really knows how to answer the question and explain precisely what they’re for. In other words, the party remains stuck on abortion.
Apparently, hardworking people don’t hold federal jobs
Politicians of all stripes like to talk about hardworking people. Politicians of all stripes decry high unemployment and the need for jobs. But Republicans seem to never want to acknowledge that we have a government, that the government needs to function, and that in order for it to function, we need hardworking people to help run it.
This comes up now because Ramaswamy, as he did in the second debate, argued tonight that he’d cut the federal workforce by 75%. Those folks, apparently, aren’t hardworking. Those folks, apparently, don’t deserve a president who wants them to be able to put food on their families’ tables, or save for a car or house, or fund their children’s education.
In Republican rhetoric, a federal job is tantamount to welfare, which Republicans can also be expected to attack.
Of course, a plan to cut the jobs of three of every four federal employees will never happen. It’s crazy talk, but it sends the right signal to the anti-government extremists that so many Republicans court for votes.
Ramaswamy scores one of the most ridiculous debate moments
Ramaswamy characterizing building a wall along the entirety of the United States' northern border with Canada as “skating to where the puck is going” was a top 10 ludicrous GOP debate moment this year.
Here’s the biggest problem with the GOP’s fentanyl plans
DeSantis once again promised to shoot people who traffic fentanyl across the southern border “stone-cold dead.” Aside from condoning extrajudicial killings, the problem with that policy is that as NPR has pointed out, the deadly drug isn’t being brought over the border by people sneaking across; it’s coming via legal border-crossers:
Prosecutors and defense lawyers say … the vast majority of illicit fentanyl — close to 90% — is seized at official border crossings. Immigration authorities say nearly all of that is smuggled by people who are legally authorized to cross the border, and more than half by U.S. citizens. ... Virtually none is seized from migrants seeking asylum.
Sometimes fentanyl and other drugs are concealed inside tractor-trailers carrying loads of legitimate cargo into the U.S. More often, authorities say, it’s hidden in passenger cars or on the bodies of pedestrians.
So is the plan to shoot these American citizens at the border?
Candidates fumble chance to jab Trump on fentanyl
DeSantis said “these elites in D.C. don’t care about fentanyl deaths.” But Trump was president for four years. He had a whole opioids task force and did ... nothing? The problem got worse!
Seems like this is good grounds for a substantive attack on the front-runner for the nomination who is not there to defend his record.
What stands out from the debate so far
Far too many of the candidates on the stage tonight sound extreme, crazy and ignorant on everything from foreign policy to college campuses and the economy.
I appreciated Christie’s continued clarity on Donald Trump. He came out of the gate consistent with his criticisms.
When it comes to foreign policy, I do not think bombing Iran and letting Israel do whatever they please is a solid foreign policy strategy, but that’s what Ramaswamy, DeSantis and Scott basically said was their plan.
On the question about social security, Haley, Ramaswamy and Christie must not want the senior vote! They want to raise the retirement age, but won’t say to what age.
Notably, Haley has been attacked the most thus far and Tim Scott … where is he? I guess the candidates are “concerned” about the former ambassador’s “momentum.” (She is still far behind Trump in recent polls.)
Ramaswamy's nonsensical proposal on Iraq and Afghanistan
Ramaswamy is taking the bold call to invent a time machine to go back in time and not have wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and their associated expenses on the national balance sheet.
Ramaswamy said one (1) smart thing tonight
Ramaswamy, in the middle of a typical bit of rambling, made a really solid point about housing costs in America. He said that to help out struggling Americans, we need to “increase the supply of housing. People don’t talk about this sort of thing in the Republican Party, the land-use restrictions that are constricting the supply of housing, that’s making housing more expensive for ordinary Americans across this country.”
By George, he’s right though. Zoning laws that limit land use to single-family homes to keep population density artificially low are a scourge in this country, especially in the Midwest. And in overcrowded cities, restrictions on new multifamily buildings for fear of the wrong types moving in, along with a refusal to build more affordable units, help keep property values artificially high as housing becomes a scarce resource.
Nobody’s having a worse debate than Tim Scott
Of all five candidates on the stage, nobody’s coming across as less prepared, less responsive or less entertaining than Scott.
One of the rules of the presidential debates is that few candidates, if any, answer the questions they’re asked. But when they don’t, they do tend to come with some well-crafted anecdote, some counterpunch, some zinger that they’ve prepared.
Scott, by contrast, isn’t answering the questions, but his rambling nonsequiturs — talking about pipelines when asked about high grocery bills, for example — aren’t meaningful or memorable.
He may seem like the nicest, most pleasant candidate on the stage, but that doesn’t win anybody anything.
TL;DR: He’s long-winded, off-topic and boring.
Scott: I’ll bring gas prices down with oil... and good vibes
Moderator Lester Holt asked Scott how he’d help bring down gas prices for Americans right away. Scott said that he’d unlock America’s energy production when, as I’ve said many times, domestic oil production has actually gone up under Biden, surpassing the previous peaks that we saw under Trump. Holt pointed out that oil production increases wouldn’t help people in the short-term, to which Scott countered that confidence in future energy production would bring down prices. While that is technically true about inflation — companies do factor in predictions for the future when setting prices — a few more American oil wells are unlikely to bring about a major shift in the global oil market, which would have the biggest impact on your price at the pump.
The sanity-preserving fact of Ramaswamy's neo-populist schtick
It continues to be very funny to me to watch Ramaswamy do this weird neo-populist, right-wing edge-lord shtick. But there's something slightly sanity-preserving about the fact that his choice to be so aggressively obnoxious has massively pushed up his unfavorability even among GOP primary voters.
Candidates engage in cringeworthy TikTok talk
When asked whether they’d ban TikTok as president, the candidates showed their ignorance. Christie and DeSantis both said they would, with DeSantis saying he’s worried about users’ data and Christie claiming that TikTok allows the Chinese government to spy on users.
The problem, of course, is that other social media companies popular in the United States have engaged in the exact same behavior.
Here’s a story on an former Twitter employee sentenced for giving user data to Saudi Arabia’s government. My NBC News colleague Brandy Zadrozny has written extensively about the proliferation of harmful misinformation on X. And whistleblowers have testified to Congress about the harmful impact that X and Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram have on the public discourse.
As I’ve written in the past, TikTok is a convenient boogeyman for lawmakers — an easy target that allows them to push nationalistic claims against the Chinese government. But the problems with social media platforms aren’t unique to TikTok. And anyone who suggests otherwise is either ignorant or being intentionally misleading.
Candidates ignore this key fact about Biden and fossil fuels
It is odd how much the fact that the U.S. is literally producing and exporting more fossil fuels than ever before is just absent from the political discussion. So you get lots of drill-by-drill sloganeering from Tim Scott et al — without any recognition of what’s happening.
Part of this is probably because Joe Biden doesn’t want to brag about it precisely because it represents such a dire threat to the planet and his climate agenda. Still maddening how detached it all is.
Haley understands this game
In the first hour, Haley has set the tone for this debate and seems like the only one with a strategy. She knows she looks great every time she’s in a fight with Ramaswamy. She also needs DeSantis gone, and has begun ramping up her attacks, going after him hard on issues like China and the environment.
'You're just scum': Haley and Ramaswamy feud takes over
It's no secret that Haley can't stand Ramaswamy. (She infamously said during the second debate that she "feels a little bit dumber" listening to him speak.)
Well, sparks are flying once again tonight. After several GOP candidates criticized TikTok, Ramaswamy was asked by moderators about his own use of the social media platform. That's when Ramaswamy made things personal, turning the focus to Haley and her daughter's apparent use of TikTok.
“Leave my daughter out of your voice," Haley responded, adding: "You're just scum."
As infuriating as Haley may find Ramaswamy, these awkward quarrels have helped her stand out during these debates.
GOP candidates: More boats good
Moderator Hugh Hewitt asked several questions about the size of the U.S. Navy in comparison with the rise of the Chinese Navy. There’s a lot of tough talk and complaining that there aren’t nearly enough American boats. And yet none of the candidates think that it’s weird, though, that the defense budget is constantly growing and yet apparently everything the United States owns is outdated trash.
When will Ramaswamy learn to leave Haley alone?
Nobody has given Ramaswamy more condescending pats on the head over the course of the past three Republican debates than Nikki Haley.
During the first debate in California, after Ramaswamy shared his thoughts on Ukraine, Russia and China, Haley told him that he had no experience in anything — “and it shows.”
Tonight, after Ramaswamy called out Republican “hawks” and claimed that the U.S. was wrongly supporting Ukraine, Haley retorted: “I’m telling you that Putin and President Xi are salivating that someone like that could be president.”
So, why doesn't Ramaswamy wise up and stop attacking her? Because Haley doesn’t just give as good as she gets. She gives better.
DeSantis plays down anti-Muslim hate
DeSantis willfully dismissed a surge in anti-Muslim hate incidents in the U.S., criticizing the Biden administration for announcing a plan to combat Islamophobia and bragging about his ban on a pro-Palestinian student group in Florida colleges.
“We’re not going to use tax dollars to fund jihad," DeSantis said. "No way. And what is Biden doing? Not only is he not helping the Jewish students who were being persecuted, he is launching an initiative to combat so-called Islamophobia.”
Let’s not forget that Muslim and Arab Americans are reporting increasing instances of discrimination and that a Palestinian American boy was killed just a few weeks ago in what law enforcement officials said was an anti-Muslim hate crime.
Chris Christie is right about America’s promise to Ukraine
Moments ago, Christie said:
This country made a promise to Ukraine. We said if you return nuclear missiles that were part of the old Soviet Union, to Russia, and they invade you, we will protect you. An American promise that’s 31 years old is no different than American promises made tonight on this stage. We need to stand by it.
Christie was referring to the Budapest Memorandum, which was signed by the U.S., the United Kingdom and Russia, which did exactly what he said (but was actually in 1994, not 1992). Because Ukraine had one of the largest nuclear arsenals in the world at the time, it’s hard to imagine the current war being what it is if they hadn’t given up that deterrence.
(Note: This is not an endorsement of nuclear weapons, which are, in fact, bad.)
Scott throws it back to 2014 with his ‘sleeper cells’ warning
Scott warned that “we should go to our southern border and close our southern border with the resources necessary. I believe that we have sleeper terrorist cells in America. Thousands of people have come from Yemen, Iran, Syria and Iraq.”
It feels like I’ve time-warped back to the Obama era, when the GOP was busy warning about the supposed “Sharia takeover” threatening the American way of life. And here’s a reminder for you: The Trump State Department said as recently as 2019 that there was no evidence that any terrorist group had tried to send operatives across the southern border.
Candidates aren't interested in limiting Israeli military action
Even with the criticism of the Biden administration’s support for Israel and Netanyahu, the Republican candidates on the stage basically agreed that there should be no limitations on military action. They attempted to one-up each other on how hard Netanyahu should go. That’s the contrast.
Haley and DeSantis need to get real — with each other
Like with the earlier debates, some of these candidates are spending too much time agreeing with each other and not enough time highlighting their policy differences. That’s a recipe for maintain the status quo.
We’ve reached the point in this race where it needs to become Trump vs. a true alternative. One single alternative. And that’s going to require the only two viable contenders left — Haley and DeSantis — to take each other on and try to establish themselves as Trump’s top alternative.
Ramaswamy is one unlikeable guy
Am I the only one who finds it startling how unlikeable Vivek Ramaswamy is? It is a weird strategy to just be a jerk.
So far, DeSantis is trying to look bigger than he is. Haley is trying to look like the foreign policy leader. Scott is stressing faith, making a play for evangelicals. Christie is looking like the grown-up in the room. And Ramaswamy is looking, well, like a jerk.
Scott and DeSantis’ student visa idea makes no sense
DeSantis and Scott have both said that if they were elected president, any international student that engages in antisemitism or “supports terrorists” would have their visa canceled and would be deported.
That … is certainly an idea, but they’re making it sound like they will personally be sitting in the Oval Office stripping college students of their visas. I feel like the actual mechanism needed for the State Department to enforce this sort of broad policy would require a huge surge in funding and power to the Foreign Service’s consular department to process these claims and monitor students’ social media.
That doesn’t exactly feel like the kind of thing that the GOP will actually go for in practice.
DeSantis brags about banning pro-Palestinian student group
The Florida governor boasted about his directive to ban the Students for Justice in Palestine organization from state universities.
But as my colleague Jordan Rubin pointed out recently, the anti-"cancel culture" crusader's plan may run into a major issue: the First Amendment.
From Jordan:
The ban seems to run afoul of constitutional protections by which government actors like the DeSantis administration are bound, no matter how odious the speech in question.
Looking more closely at that state law, it defines “material support or resources” as: "any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel, or transportation. The term does not include medicine or religious materials."
It’s unclear from the memo, which doesn’t provide the above statutory language, that the group has reached that level of material support.
Read more from Jordan below:
Ramaswamy the troll returns
Ramaswamy still seems to be angling for the very online troll demographic. I imagine most voters were wondering who he was even talking about when he opened with an attack on RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel.
It’s an odd choice to waste time in your opening statement complaining about the debate arrangements and party officials. He then took shots at host Kristen Welker and made sexist jokes about rival Haley. Is he trying to see how high he can drive his unfavorable rating? It does a disservice to any voter forced to sit through his antics and distractions.
These candidates all apparently slept through the post-9/11 era
There’s a lot of chest-thumping tonight from the candidates when asked what advice they’d give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The only solution offered was to “wipe Hamas off the map.” Scott went further and pushed to solve the problem of Iran too, while Ramaswamy went so far as to say that he’d “smoke those terrorists on his southern border" and that he would be "smoking those terrorists on our southern border" if elected.
The issue here is that even Israel has no idea how to actually wipe Hamas off the map, especially when there’s no plan for what happens the next day and who would be in charge of the Gaza Strip. These are the kind of questions that didn’t get asked in the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003, and the idea that Netanyahu needs to hear this kind of terrible advice show that these people have learned nothing
Ramaswamy's scary lack of foreign policy understanding
Haley was always going to be the target, but wow Ramaswamy just wrapped up a whole dose of scary lack of understanding of foreign policy with sexism and violence. And we are only 20 minutes or so into the debate.
Trump isn’t Trump enough anymore, apparently
The first question for tonight’s candidates was from moderator Lester Holt on why Republicans should choose them instead of Trump.
DeSantis, in claiming that Trump didn’t make Mexico pay for the wall and didn’t get everything done he said he would, seemed to suggest that Trump isn’t Trump enough anymore.
Haley said something similar. Trump changed his position on Ukraine, she said, and left us with a level of debt that our children will never forgive us for.
Christie had the most pointed criticism, saying that nobody trying to stay out of courtrooms and prisons should be leading the party or the country.
Neither Ramaswamy nor Scott answered the question.
But the answers from DeSantis and Haley likely raised the most eyebrows, especially Haley’s. Trump leaving the country in debt is what he won’t be forgiven for?
Tim Scott thinks what this country really needs is more religion
Scott pointed to past presidents like Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln citing scripture to say he would be “the president [that] helps us restore faith in God, faith in each other, and faith in our future. Without that focus, none of the issues, none of the policies matter.” That’s certainly one way to look at the job of running the country.
Ramaswamy’s attack on RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel
Ramaswamy kicked off his remarks with a litany of personal attacks. One of his targets? RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. He attributed yesterday's election losses to her leadership. FYI: Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk floated Ramaswamy today as a potential replacement for McDaniel.
I’ve written previously on the mutiny forming against McDaniel, and the movement to replace her with an insurgent, far-right voice — in particular, Trump-loving lawyer Harmeet Dhillon.
Read more on that below:
Ramaswamy is Trump’s debate surrogate
I’m less surprised that Ramaswamy, in response to a question about why he should be president instead of Trump, chose to attack the media instead. Really, it makes sense that Trump doesn’t have to be here tonight when Vivek is going to be busy just repeating his talking points and praising the former president left and right.
Trump opens his rally with a DeSantis smear
Predictably, Trump opened his rally tonight with an attack ad painting DeSantis as ungrateful. The video included a clip from DeSantis’ 2018 Florida gubernatorial primary campaign, which was boosted by Trump’s endorsement.
The video asks, in an ominous tone, “Isn’t it time DeSantis remembers how he got to where he is?”
Trump will likely go hard on DeSantis at his rally in Hialeah tonight as he attempts to win support from the town’s large Cuban American community.
Ramaswamy wouldn't bash Trump, but he did admit one harsh truth
The billionaire businessman, unsurprisingly, didn't pounce on the opportunity to take a swipe at Trump.
He did, however, declare to his fellow Republicans: “We’ve become a party of losers," referencing last night's big wins for Democrats and the total lack of a "red wave" during the 2022 midterm elections.
Candidates asked to dunk on Trump. Amazingly, they did.
The first question from moderator Lester Holt asked the candidates why voters should support them instead of Trump. And I was sure based on the start of DeSantis’ answer that they were going to dodge. But then he pivoted to say that Trump is a “lot different guy” than he was in 2016. He hit Trump for skipping the debate, but that “he owes it” to voters to explain things like “why Mexico didn’t pay for the wall.”
Haley then said that he was the “right president at the right time” but that she doesn’t “think he’s the right president now.” Consider me shocked.
The candidates are at their podiums, with DeSantis in the middle
The five candidates participating in tonight's debate have taken the stage and are standing at their respective podiums.
DeSantis, a very distant second behind Trump in the polls, is at the center podium, with Haley and Ramaswamy next to him and Christie and Scott at the ends.
These are the rules for tonight’s debate
Among the ground rules for tonight’s debate is a prohibition on candidates interacting with their campaign staff — even during commercial breaks.
If a candidate interrupts too much, it can lead the moderators — NBC News’ Lester Holt and Kristen Welker, along with Hugh Hewitt of the Salem Radio Network — to limit future questions. Notes cannot be brought onto the stage, but they can be taken and used during the event.
And, perhaps most notably, one candidate talking about another candidate does not give that second candidate the right to respond.
A ‘Dark Brandon’ cameo outside the debate venue
Biden will, of course, be a big target for candidates on the debate stage tonight. But it appears his campaign wants his presence felt outside of the venue as well.
His campaign said it put up 1,000 signs of the “Dark Brandon” meme near the site of the debate in Mami, reported NBC News. The campaign took a similar approach to the first debate, plastering “Dark Brandon” signs around Milwaukee and on Fox News’ website.
Will his effort to troll Republicans effectively woo voters? It’s an interesting strategy given multiple recent polls show him losing in a matchup against Trump in several battleground states, as his campaign grapples with concerns about his age and backlash to his administration’s response to the Israel-Hamas war.
Ramaswamy’s pre-emptive ‘No to Neocons’ pledge
It seems like Ramaswamy may have been trying to pre-empt further debate night attacks with the release of what he’s calling a “No to Neocons” pledge.
In the first two debates, several candidates landed attacks on Ramaswamy over his lack of foreign policy experience, among other things. Perhaps with that in mind, he debuted his new pledge Tuesday — effectively, a set of vows he can use to portray his foreign policy views as dovish in comparison with the other candidates.
The pledge, in classic Ramaswamy fashion, is light on specifics:
Trump and the MAGA movement have embraced what I call “convenient isolationism,” opposing U.S. intervention abroad when the intervention stands to affect illiberal leaders who are popular on the right — such as Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ramaswamy is a MAGA movement disciple, and his “No to Neocons” pledge is arguably a way for him to portray the movement’s convenient isolationism as humane, rather than ignorant or insidious.
Miami's mayor (and former presidential hopeful) asks the hard questions
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez must be feeling some type of way tonight as the third debate happens in his city. For one brief shining moment, Suarez counted himself among the candidates running for the GOP 2024 presidential nomination. Then he quickly flamed out, unable to make the cut for the first debate in August.
He won't be on the stage tonight, but he used an op-ed published on Fox News’ website to ask some hard-hitting questions of his former rivals: “Regardless of who you support, every candidate needs to answer: where do you stand on the future of technology?”
You heard it here first, folks: technology. It’s gonna be big.
Watch for Trump to use his rally speech to target DeSantis
Trump will probably dedicate a good chunk of his speech tonight to attacking DeSantis. The former president has again opted out of the debate and is instead holding a rally in nearby Hialeah, in a bid to court Latino voters in Florida.
Florida’s Latino population is a crucial voting bloc that has, in recent elections, leaned Republican. With a big Cuban American community, Hialeah is 96% Latino/Hispanic, according to 2022 U.S. census figures. DeSantis’ re-election win last year included a victory in traditionally blue Miami-Dade County, which includes Hialeah. All that no doubt factored into Trump’s decision to hold his competing event in Hialeah, as he hopes to chip away at DeSantis’ support.
Trump will most certainly relish getting a stage all to himself tonight, and DeSantis, with his dwindling poll numbers, will be an easy — and strategic — target.
How to watch tonight’s debate, 60 minutes away
Abortion is the name of the game tonight
I'm looking to see how candidates respond to what was a very clear rejection of abortion bans in last night’s elections. Obviously what the Republican Party apparatus has been doing since the Dobbs decision in June 2022 is not working. So I have questions!
What is the alternative? Is there a position anyone on the stage can take that will appeal to a wide swath of voters and not just the primary electorate? Will Desantis “lean in” on a six-week abortion ban?
It’s not lost on me that this is the first debate not sponsored by Fox, so this is a new environment with a winnowed field. Multiple candidates are looking for a moment. For better or worse, questions about reproductive rights might give them one.
Ramaswamy’s strategy tonight: Be even more annoying
That’s not me being rude. That’s according to Ramaswamy’s communications director, Tricia McLaughlin, speaking to NBC News’ Garrett Haake:
That also tracks with what the candidate told ABC News, namely that his plan for the debate is to “be unhinged.” Yes, that is a direct quote.
The last few debates have seen moderators hesitant to cut off the candidates’ mics, even as chaos overtook the stage. But it sounds like NBC News’ moderators intend to run a tighter ship, with no automatic responses for candidates mentioned by their opponents, something that Ramaswamy clearly intends to take advantage of tonight.
DeSantis needs to bring his A-game tonight
DeSantis may be fighting for his life tonight. His poll numbers are now consistently lagging behind Trump, and the Florida governor has failed to live up to the initial hype surrounding his campaign. Making matters worse, he’s become something of a laughingstock recently as jokes about his shoes crowd out headlines about his policies.
If there is to be any hope at all for him to clinch the GOP presidential nomination, he likely needs an exceptional performance tonight that can propel his campaign forward. But it may even be too late.
Trump’s trials hover over tonight’s debate
Trump will once again be skipping tonight’s debate. And once again, the candidates onstage will have to decide whether to mention that the front-runner in the polls is currently facing numerous legal threats. This time around, the little matter of the ongoing civil fraud suit in New York against Trump and his company looms over the proceedings.
You’d think it would behoove one of the people trying to replace Trump on the top of the ticket next year to point out that the judge in question has already determined fraud occurred. That your opponent has been ruled to be a liar and a cheat in his businesses multiple times sure seems like something worth mentioning. But it feels all the more likely that several of them (I’m looking at Ramaswamy and DeSantis especially) accuse the entire justice system of being broken, following Trump’s lead rather than taking advantage of his weakness.
Will Scott trot out his absurd ‘Great Society’ line?
In the last debate, Scott trotted out a line to attack liberal anti-racism efforts, with his absurd suggestion that President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” programs — which focused on eliminating poverty and racial prejudice — posed a greater barrier to Black people than slavery:
Black families survived slavery. We survived poll taxes and literacy tests. We survived discrimination being woven into the laws of our country.
What was hard to survive was Johnson’s ‘Great Society,’ where they decided to put money — where they decided to take the Black father out of the household to get a check in the mail. And you can now measure that in unemployment, in crime, and devastation.
FYI: It’s a common (and rather ignorant) refrain for Black conservatives to suggest that social programs meant to help Black people breed a culture of laziness and dependency among Black people.
The line earned applause in a largely white room of GOPers. And it earned Scott praise from conservatives online.
On the other hand, It wasn’t received nearly as well when Scott tried it out on Black residents of Chicago a few weeks back, according to NBC News. But I fully expect to hear it again tonight, given that a) it’s one of the few memorable things Scott has said in these debates so far; and b) tonight’s audience, unlike the one in Chicago, is likely to lap it up.
The candidates are in lockstep on Israel — with one exception
The GOP candidates are nearly unified on the topic of the Israel-Hamas war, calling for the elimination of Hamas and affirming their support for Israel.
Ramaswamy, however, has questioned the need for U.S. financial and military support for Israel. He has also defended college students’ right to express their support for Palestinian people and their struggle for liberation, setting himself apart from his rivals, who have called for students to be punished — or in DeSantis’ case, enacting punishments — for protesting Israel’s ruthless bombardment of Gaza.
Ramaswamy is likely to be on the defensive on the issue tonight. The candidates on the debate stage may also criticize Trump for calling Hezbollah’s tactics “smart” and for accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of not being “prepared” for Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack.
These candidates won't beat Trump by ignoring him
The door is closing. Iowa is just around the corner. You cannot beat someone by ignoring them. When will these candidates realize that pretending that Trump is not way ahead of them is just not working?
Christie is the only one who has confronted Trump, even the former New Jersey governor has hesitated from time to time. If Trump's name is not mentioned by the others tonight, book it — Trump is the nominee.
Watch what the candidates say about abortion
Tuesday’s election results are seen as a bellwether for the 2024 race, and one issue looms large. Ohio voters just enshrined abortion access into their state constitution, while Democrats swept the Virginia General Assembly after centering their campaigns on abortion rights, showing once again that the issue is a winning one for Democrats.
That should worry this Republican field. The candidates on tonight’s stage have either rejected the idea of a federal abortion ban or sidestepped questions about it, but they have all vociferously staked out anti-abortion positions, which is practically a requirement as a Republican politician at this point.
After Tuesday’s elections, the GOP presidential hopefuls may strike a more cautious tone on the issue than they have in the past — or maybe evade it completely.
Haley has done well on the debate stage to date
Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and former U.N. ambassador, has performed well in both of the GOP debates so far.
The only woman in the packed field of Republican presidential candidates, Haley has had strong performances on the debate stage and seen her poll numbers go up.
Haley is marketing herself as a candidate with actual experience, particularly when it comes to her credentials as a businesswoman and diplomat. But she has oscillated on where she falls in the conservative spectrum, as well as in her willingness to criticize Trump.
Her most memorable line of the second debate, and perhaps her campaign, was undoubtedly when she told Ramaswamy: “Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber.”
Why Nov. 8 is such an important date in presidential history
The next presidential election — on Nov. 5, 2024 — is now less than a year away. But several notable elections have occurred on today’s date, Nov. 8:
- In 1864, Nov. 8 marked President Abraham Lincoln’s re-election victory over George B. McClellan.
- In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated the incumbent, Herbert Hoover, on Nov. 8 — winning the first of his unprecedented four terms as president.
- In 1960, Nov. 8 was when John F. Kennedy defeated Vice President Richard Nixon, after a race that included the first presidential debate to be nationally televised.
- In 1988, Vice President George H.W. Bush won the presidency over Michael Dukakis on Nov. 8, with more than 400 electoral votes.
- And in 2016, Nov. 8 was when Donald Trump prevailed over Hillary Clinton.
Seven years later to the day, Trump is once again running for president, while skipping the debate stage entirely.
Why Pence's campaign couldn't cut it
The third Republican presidential debate will have the smallest lineup of candidates yet. With five candidates participating, viewers may (or may not) notice the absence of Pence and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, both of whom participated in the second debate.
Pence announced the suspension of his campaign last month, after struggling to find broad support. His early resignation is in some ways surprising juxtaposed given his prior role as vice president. But his proximity to Trump may also explain his failure to capture the 2024 Republican base.
As MaddowBlog’s Steve Benen wrote following Pence’s campaign suspension:
As we’ve discussed, on paper, Pence had the appearance of a top-tier contender. He was a member of the House Republican leadership during his 12-year tenure on Capitol Hill; his voting record put him on the far-right fringe; he was twice elected governor in a reliably red state; and he was a vice president who was largely untarnished by multiple White House scandals. ...
But for Republican voters, none of this mattered. Rather, the part of Pence’s record that obscured everything else was his willingness to participate in the certification of the 2020 presidential election after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
No amount of debate prep has helped the candidates land a joke
Tonight, as we saw in the last two debates, we can expect the candidates will try to crack some awkward jokes. Whether they get the audience to laugh remains to be seen.
Behold these notable (attempted) zingers from the second GOP debate:
Chris Christie's Disney-themed dud
Christie got a few laughs (and groans) when he called Trump "Donald Duck," a shot at the front-runner's notable absence in both GOP debates this year.
His other attempts at comedy were even less successful. While attacking a teachers' union, Christie made a crude comment about President Joe Biden’s sex life, saying education issues will not be solved while the president is “sleeping with a member of the teachers' union.” Yikes.
Pence's sex joke
Rather than calling out Christie over that tacky line, former Vice President Mike Pence joked that he’s “been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years," referring to his wife, Karen Pence.
This cringe-inducing quip followed an overly rehearsed one-liner about the president's support for the autoworkers' strike in September: “Joe Biden doesn’t belong on a picket line — he belongs on the unemployment line.”
Pence dropped out of the race last month, so we should be spared from any unwelcome references to his intimate relations tonight.
Haley skewers Ramaswamy
The former U.N. ambassador may have landed the biggest laugh of the debate season so far when she told Ramaswamy she “feels a little dumber” every time she hears him speak. Ouch.
What political analysts said about the 1st and 2nd GOP debates
5 questions about the third GOP debate, answered
MSNBC's Clarissa-Jan Lim answered key questions about the upcoming debate in a piece published this morning. Here's one of them:
What should I watch out for?
Expect ugly rhetoric from the candidates on the Israel-Hamas war. The second debate took place roughly a week before Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel and Israel’s relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip in response, and most of the candidates will likely be vying to position themselves as the most pro-Israel of the bunch.
Haley had standout moments in both the first and second debates and will likely be seeking to replicate that performance.
DeSantis, on the other hand, has struggled to make a mark for himself in the debates so far, which he desperately needs to do as he continues to struggle in the polls. His awkward mannerisms on the debate stage and the campaign trail have also been scrutinized and mocked, which likely does not help his case.
Read more from Clarissa-Jan below: