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      Republican debate: Trump attacked for being absent as reports say he will skip third one too – as it happened

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      From 8h agoChris Christie turned a question about crime fighting into an attack on Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination who has snubbed this debate.“And I want to look at a camera right now to tell you, Donald, I know you’re watching. You can’t help yourself. I know you’re watching, OK,” the former New Jersey governor said.“And you’re not here tonight. Not because of polls, and not because of your indictments. You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on the stage and defending your record. You’re ducking these things. And let me tell you what’s going to happen. You keep doing that, no one up here is gonna call you Donald Trump any more. We’re gonna call you Donald Duck.”For two hours, the seven Republican candidates gathered in California duked it out over everything from energy to immigration, all in the absence of Donald Trump, the far-and-away frontrunner for the GOP’s presidential nomination. We’ll see if anything that was said on the debate stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library this evening changed the contours of the race, but one thing is now clear: none of these candidates will share the debate stage with Trump. He’s opted to skip the third debate set for Miami in November, and his campaign is calling for the Republican Party to cancel it altogether.Here are some highlights from tonight’s event:The reviews of the second Republican presidential debate are rolling in from political analysts and they are … not great.Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics:Fernand R. Amandi of public opinion research firm Bendixen & Amandi:GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who thought Nikki Haley and Tim Scott’s argument about curtains was a low point:But did think Chris Christie handled questions about abortion in a way other Republicans could learn from:Republican rivals hoping to face Donald Trump on the debate stage won’t get their chance. CBS News reports that the former president will skip the third and final debate of the primary process, set for November in Miami:In fact, the Trump campaign is out with a statement calling on the Republican National Committee to cancel the third debate entirely. Here’s the campaign’s senior advisor Chris LaCivita:
      Tonight’s GOP debate was as boring and inconsequential as the first debate, and nothing that was said will change the dynamics of the primary contest being dominated by President Trump. President Trump has a 40- or 50-point lead in the primary election and a 10-point lead over Joe Biden in the general election, and it’s clear that President Trump alone can defeat Biden.
      The RNC should immediately put an end to any further primary debates so we can train our fire on Crooked Joe Biden and quit wasting time and money that could be going to evicting Biden from the White House.
      Mike Pence claimed that during his and Donald Trump’s administration, they “reduced illegal immigration and asylum abuse by 90%.”That’s not really true.The number of Border Patrol apprehensions was higher during the Trump administration than during the last four years of Barack Obama’s administration. There was a change in how US Customs and Border Protection reports migrant encounters during the pandemic, complicating some of this data – pre-pandemic, the agency reported enforcement actions taken under immigration law, but after, it also began reporting actions taken under the Title 42 public health policy that authorized officers to immediately send most migrants at the border back to Mexico.Analysis by Politifact found that Pence’s 90% reduction figure could be approximated by comparing enforcement data from May 2019, the month that saw the highest number of apprehensions, with data from April 2020 – right as governments around the world moved to severe restrict travel due to the Covid-19 pandemic.“That’s a severely cherry-picked period,” the fact-checking group writes.It’s worth noting that the moderators’ attempts to spur even more conflict between the candidates was not particularly well received.None of them were willing to name another to be voted off the stage, or the island, as it were:The candidates are now leaving the stage after the moderators wrapped up the second Republican presidential debate with a question that, fittingly, invoked Donald Trump.In the debate’s final moments, the candidates were asked by the moderators to write down which other candidate they would – in the style of pioneering reality TV program Survivor – vote off the stage. Chris Christie chose Trump, the frontrunner for the nomination who did not attend.“This guy has not only divided our party, he divided families all over this country. He’s divided friends all over this country,” Christie said. “I’ve spoken to people and I know everyone else has, who have sat at Thanksgiving dinner or at a birthday party and can’t have a conversation anymore if they disagree with Donald Trump. He needs to be off the island and taken out of this process.Vivek Ramaswamy disagreed. “I think Trump was an excellent president. But the America first agenda does not belong to one man. It does not belong to Donald Trump. It doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to you, the people of this country. And the question is who’s going to unite this country and take the America first agenda to the next level?” he said.“We did not just hunger for a single man, we hungered for the unapologetic pursuit of excellence and yes, I will respect Donald Trump and his legacy because it’s the right thing to do.”And with that, the debate was over.Call it the Squabble in South Carolina.While the debate may be taking place in Simi Valley, California, the two candidates hailing from the Palmetto state – Senator Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, the state’s former governor – just got into it over gas taxes, curtains and several other things.“As the UN ambassador, you literally put $50,000 on curtains in a $15m subsidized location,” Scott said, while Haley defiantly interjected, “bring it, man.”“You got bad information,” Haley, who served as UN ambassador under Donald Trump, replied. “On the curtains, do your homework, Tim, because Obama bought those curtains.”“Did you send them back?” the senator asked.“It’s the state department!” Haley shot back at Scott. “Did you send them back? You’re the one that works in Congress … You are scrapping right now!”“We do not intend to go ahead like this,” the moderator, Stuart Varney, said, before sending us all, mercifully, to a commercial break.Ron DeSantis was asked about curriculum in Florida that said, enslaved people “develop skills which in some instances, could be apply for their personal benefit”.DeSantis called this “a hoax that was perpetrated by Kamala Harris”, mispronouncing the vice-president’s name. In fact, the quoted bit is taken straight from Florida’s African American history standards.In an impassioned speech reacting to the standard, Harris said: “They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us and we will not stand for it.”Ron DeSantis just won himself some applause with a well-timed interjection to tout his accomplishments as Florida governor.Amid bickering over government spending between Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, DeSantis piped up.“I’m the only one up here who’s gotten in the big fights and has delivered big victories for the people of Florida. And that’s what it’s all about,” DeSantis said to cheers.“You can always talk but when when it gets hot in there, when they’re shooting arrows at you, are you going to stand up for parents rights, keep the state free? Are you going to be able to do all those things? And in the state of Florida because of our success, the Democratic party lies in ruins. We have won the big fights. We have turned our state into a Republican state.”Doug Burgum really wants to answer these questions, but the moderators aren’t having it.They asked Nikki Haley elaborate on her energy policies – but not Burgum. “As the only leader of an energy state, can I answer?” interjected Burgum, whose state has a sizable oil industry. But the answer the North Dakota governor got was no.He tried again after Ron DeSantis was asked the same question, but was rebuffed. “We can’t talk over each other. We must respect each other,” moderator Stuart Varney insisted.As candidates address trans rights on stage, here’s a bit of context.Vivek Ramaswamy said: “Transgenderism, especially in kids is a mental health disorder.”This is false. Major medical organizations, like the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association (APA), say being transgender is not a mental disorder. Gender dysphoria is recognized as a medical condition that doctors agree should be remedied by offering gender-affirming treatment.From Mike Pence: “The Linn-Marr community schools in Iowa had a policy where you could you had to have a permission slip from your parents to get a Tylenol but you could get a gender transition plan without notifying your parents.”This is misleading. Linn-Marr’s policy directed educators to use students’ chosen names, without consulting with parents. That’s a far reach from a “gender transition plan”. Children under 17 seeking gender affirming care such as hormone replacement therapy or gender affirming surgery.Vivek Ramaswamy was the most pilloried candidate at the previous debate, and will likely win that dubious distinction after this debate.He recently joined TikTok, the controversial social media app many GOP candidates want to ban over allegations that it’s tied to the Chinese Communist party. Asked why he was on the app, Ramamswamy cited its popularity with young people, and said: “The answer is, I have a radical idea for the Republican party. We need to win elections, and part of how we win elections is reaching the next generation of young Americans where they are.”Nikki Haley did not like that response. “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say,” she said, before going on to outline a number of privacy and national security concerns about the app.Mike Pence wants to “repeal the Green New Deal”. Too bad it’s never passed Congress or been signed into law…“Joe Biden’s Green New Deal agenda is good for Beijing and bad for Detroit. We ought to repeal the Green New Deal,” the former vice president said. “We ought to repeal the Green New Deal.”The Green New Deal is a climate legislation proposal that was never passed. Joe Biden did sign into law the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes key climate provisions is different.Although the IRA includes major investments in clean energy technologies – some of which have relied on critical minerals controlled by China. But the landmark climate investment is also considered a key step in reducing reliance on China for these minerals by increasing domestic supply. And while ramping up domestic extraction has raised new environmental concerns, Pence’s assertion is notably misleading.The IRA’s tax credits for electric vehicles, for example, come with the caveat that the materials used to manufacture the veible come from the US or countries with which the US has free trade agreements. The law also incentivizes domestic manufacturing.Doug Burgum did it again.The moderators didn’t call on him for a contentious question about social media app TikTok, so he just started talking, keeping the moderators from moving on to Ron DeSantis.“We will have to cut your mic and I don’t want to do that,” warned moderator Dana Perino. Burgum piped down.Raise your hand if you expected Mike Pence to discuss his sex life at this debate.Us neither. But discuss it he did. Chris Christie laid the groundwork while responding to a question about how he would close educational gaps with minorities, which he turned into an attack on teachers unions.“This public school system is no longer run by the public. It is run by the teachers unions in this country,” Christie said. “And when you have the president of the United States sleeping with a member of the teachers union, there is no chance that you could take the stranglehold away from the teachers unions.” That line was a reference to Jill Biden, who has taught at community colleges and is a union member.It got weird when the moderators, a few minutes later, called on Mike Pence. “By way of full disclosure, Chris, you’ve mentioned the president’s situation,” Pence said. “My wife isn’t a member of the teachers union, but I gotta admit I’ve been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years.” OK Mike. More

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      Trump, crime and bad jokes: key takeaways from the second Republican debate

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      The second Republican presidential debate – once again without frontrunner Donald Trump – took place on Wednesday evening at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.Amid the squabble of the seven candidates, all of whom trail Trump significantly, Americans were left to parse which direction the Republican party plans to take in 2024. Trump, meanwhile, gave a speech in Michigan, where autoworkers have been striking for better work conditions and pay.Here are the main takeaways from the two-hour debate that aired on Fox Business.The candidates finally called out Trump for his absence, and spoke out against him more oftenUnlike in the first debate, candidates Chris Christie and Ron DeSantis directly commented on Trump’s absence multiple times.“He should be in this room to answer those questions for the people you talked about who are suffering,” Christie said.Later, he added: “And you’re not here tonight. Not because of polls, and not because of your indictments. You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on the stage and defending your record. You’re ducking these things. And let me tell you what’s going to happen. You keep doing that, no one up here is gonna call you Donald Trump any more. We’re gonna call you Donald Duck.”DeSantis, once seen as Trump’s main rival, also took on his fellow Florida man. “He should be on this stage tonight,” DeSantis said. “He owes it to you to defend his record.”The jokes were worse than usualFrom Chris Christie’s highly practiced Donald Duck quip to ultra-conservative Mike Pence’s weird foray into his sex life, the audience was mostly left to uncomfortably chuckle.Republicans continue to politicize crime to avoid talking about solutions to issues like gun violence, immigration and drug overdosesThe party has tried to hold up crime rates – which have continued to decline after the pandemic spike – to criticize attempts at police reform or gun control.DeSantis touted his ousting of “progressive prosecutors” who he claimed were making Floridians unsafe when they investigated police misconduct, while Nikki Haley tried to connect issues at the southern border with seemingly unrelated looting in Philadelphia this week.When faced with a question about the prevalence of school shootings in the US, Mike Pence said the “expedited” death penalty for the shooters would prevent more shootings.Children were at the center of multiple questions about daycare, education and transgender rights, but it mostly devolved into culture warsBuilding on the heated discussions about “parents’ rights” and school choice that escalated during the pandemic, the candidates doubled down on their cultural agendas.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDeSantis refused to backtrack on the part of his state curriculum that says enslaved people benefited from enslavement and touted Florida’s education record. Meanwhile, students and parents in Florida are organizing against the ongoing book bans and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric that Republicans have brought to endless school meetings.Pence said he would enact a national ban on transgender care when asked about violence against the LGBTQ+ community. Vivek Ramaswamy said a return to faith would motivate the youth, and claimed “transgenderism, especially in kids, is a mental health disorder”. (Major health organizations disagree.)Haley addressed the issue directly. “We have to acknowledge the fact that 67% of our eighth-graders are not proficient in reading or math,” she said. “And recently they came out and said our 12- and 13-year-olds are scoring at the lowest levels they have been scoring in reading and math in decades.”Abortion was almost overlookedUnlike in the previous debate, abortion took a backseat, despite the fact that Republicans have lost several recent elections to this issue after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year.DeSantis denied that abortion played a large role in those elections and implied Trump was turning on pro-life voters. Christie, however, talked about the need for Republicans to talk about the issue in a way that didn’t downplay the health of women caught in difficult circumstances.The Trump campaign may have revealed in an email blast who they feel most threatened byWhile Trump, speaking in Michigan, joked about there being no one at the debate fit for even the vice-presidency, a campaign email suggested otherwise. The email, with the subject “The Real Nikki Haley”, outlined her past quotes and positions to make her look hypocritical and weak.A recent poll showed that if Haley were the Republican nominee, she might beat Biden next year. More

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      Republican contenders gather for key debate with Trump again absent

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      Seven Republican presidential contenders gathered in California on Wednesday night for the second primary debate of the 2024 election season, but the absence of Donald Trump, the clear frontrunner in the race for the party’s nomination, again loomed large over the event.Seven candidates qualified for the second debate, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute in Simi Valley, California. Those candidates were Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, the former vice-president Mike Pence, the former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, and the North Dakota governor Doug Burgum.Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor who participated in the first primary debate, did not appear on Wednesday because he failed to meet the heightened polling requirements outlined by the Republican National Committee.Trump skipped the event – as he skipped last month’s debate – and instead delivered a speech in Michigan, where auto workers have gone on strike to demand pay increases. A day earlier, Joe Biden joined some of the striking workers on the picket line, and the back-to-back events provided an odd preview of the likely matchup in the 2024 general election.The second debate comes as Republican primary candidates have struggled to put a dent in Trump’s significant polling lead, even as the former president faces 91 felony charges across four criminal cases. One NBC News poll conducted this month showed Trump has the support of 59% of likely Republican primary voters, giving the former president a 43-point edge over DeSantis. Besides Trump and DeSantis, every Republican primary candidate remains mired in the single digits, the poll found.DeSantis in particular could benefit from a breakout moment to help dispel mounting doubts over his ability to challenge Trump for the nomination. The Florida governor has seen his polling numbers tumble in recent weeks, with one New Hampshire survey showing DeSantis dropping to fifth place in the second voting state.With less than four months left for the Iowa caucuses, the pressure is escalating for candidates to quickly prove their mettle in the primary. One Republican candidate, the Miami mayor Francis Suarez, has already dropped out of the race, and others may soon follow suit if they cannot gain momentum in the coming weeks.But some of the candidates, including Hutchinson, insist they will keep fighting for the nomination despite the significant headwinds against them. In a statement released on Monday, Hutchinson said he would move forward with events planned in early voting states even after he failed to qualify for the second debate.“I entered this race because it is critically important for a leader within the Republican party to stand up to Donald Trump and call him out on misleading his supporters and the American people,” Hutchinson said. “I intend to continue doing that.” More

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      The winners and losers of the first GOP debate – podcast

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      Republican presidential candidates took to the stage this week to try to convince voters they should be the one to take on Joe Biden in 2024. There was one notable exception – but Donald Trump was still inescapable for his opponents.
      Joan E Greve speaks to the former GOP communications director Tara Setmayer about everyone’s performance on the night, and whether these debates even matter when the missing frontrunner is so far ahead in the polls

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      The Guardian view on the US Republican debate: stumped by Trump | Editorial

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      Donald Trump stayed away from Wednesday’s Republican candidates’ debate in Milwaukee. Yet he remained the evening’s dominant presence. The former president’s poll lead among Republican supporters for the 2024 US presidential contest is so strong that he could afford to do this. His absence deliberately belittled both the televised event, as he simultaneously gave an imperiously misleading social media interview to Tucker Carlson, and his eight challengers, who were left vying to impress in a fantasy “What if?” contest over the choice for a party not in fact dominated by Mr Trump.Absence also allowed Mr Trump, on the eve of his latest court appearance in Atlanta and now facing 91 felony counts in four separate criminal cases, to avoid offering himself as a target to his eight rivals. Not that he need have worried about that. Most of them went out of their way all evening to pay him repeated homage. No one did this more shamelessly than the Ohio entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who told the audience both that Mr Trump was the best Republican president of the 21st century and that, if elected, Mr Ramaswamy would instantly pardon him for whatever he may have been convicted of in the meantime.By identifying deliberately with Mr Trump’s outsider status, Mr Ramaswamy did two things. He made a bid to be Mr Trump’s running-mate next year and he also separated himself from the platform’s professional politicians. These seven all see themselves, with varying degrees of credibility, as the alternative candidate to Mr Trump. Their shared problem is that the party shows little sign of being interested in such a person. Certainly not in the former vice-president Mike Pence, whose certification of Joe Biden’s victory in January 2021 was supported by most of his fellow candidates but remains heretical to Trump supporters. And probably not in the Florida governor Ron DeSantis either, who entered the debate as the nominal chief rival to Mr Trump but who once again did relatively little to cement that claim.There were, nevertheless, clashes and revealing evasions. Mostly, however, they were over the degree of ferocity that the candidates would bring to promoting the party’s priorities rather than over whether the priorities were desirable in themselves. One bidding war of this kind focused on militarising the US’s southern border. Another on rolling back the Biden administration’s climate crisis agenda. A third came over entrenching an abortion ban at federal level, a pledge from which the sole woman in the debate, Nikki Haley, demurred. One striking divergence came on Ukraine, whose defence, for Republicans like Mr Ramaswamy, runs counter to the isolationism that Mr Trump has made integral to America First rhetoric, but which for older politicians like Chris Christie and Mr Pence remains a geopolitical commitment that must be honoured.In the past, candidates’ debates have sometimes had dynamic political consequences. Not this time. The Republican party is too far gone for that. It is too dominated by Mr Trump. It is too obsessed with talking to its own echo chamber. It is too fanatical about its agenda. It is too dependent on electoral dark arts. The net result is that it has won the popular vote in US presidential contests only once since 1988. This week’s debate was a mealy-mouthed and discreditable event that changes nothing. The Republican party needs the courage to call out Mr Trump and his lies and take a new path. But there was no inkling of that in Milwaukee. More

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      Republican candidates grapple with post-Roe positioning on abortion

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      Eight Republican presidential hopefuls clashed over the future of abortion access on Wednesday night in the first debate of the 2024 election cycle.Without the specter of Roe v Wade looming overhead, the candidates faced a new litmus test on abortion: whether or not they support a nationwide ban on the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.The former vice-president Mike Pence, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott all pledged to support a federal 15-week ban.The question from the moderator Martha MacCallum had noted that abortion had consistently been a losing issue for Republicans in state ballots since the Dobbs decision.Nevertheless just one candidate, the North Dakota governor, Doug Burgum, decisively rejected the idea that Congress ought to regulate abortion access.Burgum, who signed North Dakota’s six-week abortion ban in April, said the conservative mission to overturn Roe was predicated on the belief that states should be allowed to set their own rules on the procedure.“What is going to work in New York will never work in North Dakota and vice versa,” Burgum said.For decades, Roe v Wade offered Republican candidates a convenient boogeyman. The supreme court ruling was not just about abortion – swing state conservatives like Burgum could point to Roe as an example of federal overreach.But Wednesday’s debate signaled a schism in the GOP’s position on abortion.In a post-Roe landscape, one year after Senator Lindsey Graham first introduced a federal 15-week ban bill in Congress, Republicans were forced to choose between their purported support for states’ rights and their opposition to abortion access.Burgum was the lone voice that chose states’ rights.Pence and Scott, both evangelical Christians, said they support a 15-week ban because abortion is a “moral” question that necessitates federal intervention.Scott said states like “California, New York and Illinois” should not be allowed to offer broad access to the procedure.Pence said abortion was “not a states only issue, it’s a moral issue”.The former vice-president, who has centered abortion in his bid to court socially conservative voters, condemned his opponents for refusing to back a federal ban.“I’m not new to this cause,” Pence said on Wednesday night. “Can’t we have a minimum standard in every state in the nation?”In his opening remarks, Pence lauded the work of the Trump administration, which placed three conservative justices on the US supreme court and “gave the people a new beginning for the right to life”.Pence also criticized the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who suggested that it would be difficult to gain the requisite congressional support to pass a federal abortion ban.Haley, the only woman on Wednesday’s debate stage, said Republicans should instead pursue pragmatic legislative goals that could garner bipartisan support in Congress.“Let’s find consensus, can’t we all agree that we should ban late-term abortions? Can’t we all agree that we should encourage adoptions?” she said.In his response, Pence directly addressed Haley: “Consensus is the opposite of leadership.”Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, a powerful anti-abortion lobbying group, praised Pence, Hutchinson and Scott for offering “a clear, bold case for national protections for the unborn at least by 15 weeks”.“The position taken by candidates like Doug Burgum, that life is solely a matter for the states, is unacceptable for a nation founded on unalienable rights and for a presidential contender,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group’s president, in a statement on Wednesday night.Last month, Dannenfelser issued a similar condemnation of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, for his reluctance to back a federal ban.DeSantis has supported bills restricting access to abortion – including a six-week ban in his own state of Florida, but has stopped short of saying he would support a federal ban.Dannenfelser said the Republican presidential candidate should “work to gather the votes necessary in Congress” to pass a national ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, adding that DeSantis’s failure to support the ban was “unacceptable”.“There are many pressing legislative issues for which Congress does not have the votes at the moment, but that is not a reason for a strong leader to back away from the fight,” she said in a statement last month.On Wednesday night, Fox News moderators twice asked DeSantis to clarify his position on federal abortion restrictions, but the Florida governor refused to provide a direct answer.“I’m going to stand on the side of life,” DeSantis said. “I understand Wisconsin is going to do it different than Texas, I understand Iowa and New Hampshire are going to be different, but I will support the cause of life as governor and as president.”Notably, Donald Trump – the presumed GOP frontrunner – skipped Wednesday night’s debate.Earlier this year, Trump criticized DeSantis’s position on abortion, calling Florida’s six-week ban “too harsh”.But the former president appears to share DeSantis’s hesitations about the federal 15-week ban, dodging questions about the proposed restrictions since launching his re-election campaign in March.The Guardian reported in April that Trump considers a federal abortion ban a losing proposition for Republicans, though his exact vision for the future of US abortion access remains unclear. More

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      Republican hopefuls shrug when asked about climate crisis during debate

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      Unlike in recent election cycles, most Republican presidential hopefuls this time around didn’t flat out deny that the climate crisis is real. But on the Fox News debate stage, they made clear that they’re not interested in dwelling on the issues – or doing much about it.On Tuesday night, the eight candidates were asked to raise their hands if they believed in the reality of human-caused global heating. They all punted.The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, immediately derailed efforts to elicit a clear yes or no response. “Let’s have this debate,” he said, before proceeding not to have it at all, instead criticising Joe Biden’s response to the fires in Maui.Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur, was notably the only candidate to full-throatedly deny climate science, making the unsubstantiated claim that “more people are dying due to bad climate change policies than they are due to actual climate change”.There’s no discernible trend of deaths linked to policies encouraging renewable energy. However, extreme heat – fueled by the climate crisis – killed about 1,500 people last year, according to Centers for Disease Control records. Researchers estimate that the true figure is closer to 10,000 people every year.Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, on the other hand, said “climate change is real” but then pushed off all responsibility to take care of it on India and China. Both those countries have lower per-capita carbon emissions than the US. And as of the latest figures, from 2021, no country had emitted more carbon dioxide since 1850 than the US.The South Carolina senator Tim Scott didn’t offer much in terms of solutions earlier, pointing a finger at the continent of Africa, as well as India and China. Africa accounts for one-fifth of the world’s population and produces about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Energy Association, while disproportionately experiencing the consequences of climate chaos. The US is responsible for about 14% of global emissions.Nobody meaningfully addressed the question posed by Alexander Diaz of the Young America’s Foundation, a conservative youth organisation: “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?”In a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll, 35% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they think climate change is a major factor in the extreme heat that the US has experienced recently, compared with 85% of those who lean Democratic. Overall, nearly two-thirds of Americans who experienced extremely hot days said climate change was a major factor.Young Republican voters, however, seem increasingly concerned about the climate crisis. A 2022 Pew poll found that 73% of Republicans aged 18-39 thought climate change was an extremely/very or somewhat serious issue.Meanwhile, the rightwing groups have been working to boost the fossil fuel industry while undermining the energy transition. Project 2025, a $22m endeavor by the climate-denying thinktank the Heritage Foundation, has developed a presidential proposal that lays out how a Republican president could dismantle US climate policy within their first 180 days in office.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe GOP candidates who have held public office have already given voters a glimpse of how they might approach the climate crisis. Governor DeSantis has supported projects to build seawalls and improve drainage systems as Florida faces increasingly powerful hurricanes and storm surges, as well as threats from sea level rise. But he has refused to acknowledge the role of global heating on these disasters, scoffing at the “politicization of the weather” and pushing bills banning Florida cities from adopting 100% clean energy goals. He also barred the state’s pension fund from considering the climate crisis when making investment decisions.Donald Trump, who did not attend the debate, has done even more to impede climate action. As president, he rolled back nearly 100 climate regulations, according a New York Times tally.Among the candidates who do support doing anything about the climate crisis, most think that thing should be carbon capture. Haley, who as US ambassador to the United Nations helped orchestrate the US withdrawal from the Paris agreement, has presented carbon capture technologies and tree planting as a way to keep burning fossil fuels while slowing the climate crisis.The consensus among climate scientists is that while such technologies could be a tool in fighting global heating, an overreliance on them could cause the world to surpass climate tipping points. More

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      Spectre of Trump haunts debate as candidates jostle for spotlight

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      During the first Republican debate on Wednesday, eight candidates attempted to cast themselves as viable alternatives to Donald Trump while, for the most part, studiously ignoring the shadow of the doggedly popular former president who declined to appear on stage.The Republicans alternatively railed on government excesses – promising, for example, to slash funding for federal programs – while debating the merits of a federal abortion ban and calling for an increasingly militarized southern border.The debate was somewhat calmer without belligerent Trump, with the exception of outsider tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who clashed repeatedly with former vice-president Mike Pence, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina. Other than his increasingly aggressive approach to immigration, Ron DeSantis – meant to be Trump’s most likely challenger – remained relatively passive.The debate opened with a focus on the economy, as Fox News moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum played a clip of the viral conservative folk hit Rich Men North of Richmond, in which country artist Oliver Anthony describes his economic struggles while lamenting poor people “milkin’ welfare”. The candidates launched into a brief discussion of the economy – the first and last point on which they appeared to entirely agree.On the war in Ukraine, the Republicans diverged sharply in their view of the ideal role of US funding for the Ukrainian military. Ramaswamy, who accused supporters of Ukraine of neglecting “people in Maui or the south side of Chicago”, drew sharp rebuke from Christie, who said that “if we don’t stand up to this kind of autocratic killing, we will be next”, describing in vivid detail Russia’s bloody occupation of Ukraine. Pence echoed Christie’s position, calling Vladimir Putin a “dictator”.“I do not want to get to the point where we’re sending our military resources abroad where we could be better using them here at home to protect our own borders,” replied Ramaswamy.The Republicans also used the discussion of the war in Ukraine to pivot to the topic of immigration, articulating a vision of a militarized southern US border. DeSantis, whose floundering campaign has suffered repeated false steps and who largely hung back during the debate, jumped into the fold on that topic.“I’m not gonna send troops to Ukraine, but I am gonna send them to our southern border,” said the Florida governor, adding that he would deploy “lethal force” to slow immigration and proposed sending troops across the border “on day one”.When moderator MacCallum introduced the thorny question of abortion, which has energized Democratic voters since Roe v Wade was overturned, the candidates raced to claim their anti-abortion bona fides while splitting over the question of a federal ban.DeSantis defended his hardline position on abortion in Florida while invoking an odd story about a woman named Penny, who, he said, “survived multiple abortion attempts” and “was left discarded in a pan”. Haley, meanwhile, shied away from endorsing a federal ban, arguing that it would be challenging to find “consensus” on the issue.Pence and the South Carolina senator Tim Scott endorsed a federal ban. “We cannot let states like California, New York and Illinois have abortion on demand,” said Scott.As predicted, the spectre of Trump haunted the GOP debate, even as the frontrunner sat the debate out, opting instead for a prerecorded interview with Tucker Carlson on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. When Fox News moderators asked which candidates would still support Trump if he is convicted in a court of law, Ramaswamy and Christie immediately clashed, with Ramaswamy accusing the government of using “police force to indict its political opponents”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The more time we spend on this the less time they talk about issues you wanna talk about,” Baier admonished the crowd, which erupted in jeers when Christie accused Trump of engaging in “conduct … beneath the office of president of the United States”.In response to the question of whether Pence was justified in certifying the 2020 election, every candidate expressed support for the former vice-president – except DeSantis, who skirted the question, saying: “It’s not about January 6 of 2021, it’s about January 20, of 2025, when the next president is going to take office.” Pressed on the question, DeSantis said he had “no beef” with Pence but declined to directly affirm Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.For his part, Pence put a finer point on the subject: “The American people deserve to know that Trump … asked me to put him over the constitution,” he said.Outside the debate hall, a sweltering day gave way to a muggy night in Milwaukee, a Democratic stronghold, where voter turnout efforts by grassroots groups like Bloc – Black Leaders Organizing Communities – can determine who wins statewide elections. The critical state has emerged as one of the last true swing states in the country, delivering a narrow win to Biden in 2020 only after Trump won the state by a similarly thin margin in 2016. Underscoring the importance of the state, the Republican National Committee will return to Milwaukee in July 2024.After the debate wrapped, a spirited Donald Trump Jr wandered through a small crowd of reporters, complaining that Fox News had not granted him access to the “spin room”, where candidates gather after the debate, and talking up his father. “I don’t think Trump’s going down after this. I think he’s gonna go up.”Trump is set to reclaim the spotlight on Thursday when he says he will voluntarily surrender himself at the Fulton county jail in Georgia. More