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      Today’s Top News: The Republican Debate Winners and Losers, and More

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      The New York Times Audio app is home to journalism and storytelling, and provides news, depth and serendipity. If you haven’t already, download it here — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes. Hosted by Annie Correal, the new morning show features three top stories from reporters across the newsroom and around the world, so you always have a sense of what’s happening, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.The eight Republican participants attempted to create a Trump-free zone — an alternative political universe where the party’s race turned on issues, ideology and biography.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesOn Today’s Episode:Republicans at the First Debate Couldn’t Avoid Trump, but Tussled Over the Issues, with Lisa LererPlane Linked to Wagner Chief Prigozhin PlummetsJapan Starts Releasing Radioactive Fukushima Water, with Motoko RichEli Cohen More

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      Republicans’ Debate Clashes Highlight Party’s Policy Splits

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      At the first presidential debate for the 2024 race, the rivals were divided over issues including Ukraine, abortion and the economy.The Republican presidential candidates clashed on Wednesday night over military support for Ukraine, government spending, abortion policy and the behavior of former President Donald J. Trump — who declined to participate — while uniting to assail the agenda of President Biden in the first primary debate of the 2024 election cycle.The debate, which grew contentious and fiery at times, underscored the rifts within the Republican Party and the sharp policy shifts that the United States could experience if Mr. Biden is defeated by one of his Republican challengers next year. The candidates generally painted a dark picture of a United States gripped by inflation and an influx of immigrants. But fault lines emerged over how forcefully to confront Russia, how far abortion restrictions should go, the causes of climate change and the fate of Mr. Trump, who was described by one moderator as the “elephant not in the room.”Although the candidates are still refining their policy platforms, the debate offered the first glimpse at how their agendas would differ from one another and from a second Trump administration.What to do about TrumpMost of the candidates responded cautiously when asked if they would support Mr. Trump if he is convicted of any crimes but wins the party’s nomination. But the most direct clash over the issue was between Vivek Ramaswamy, the upstart businessman, and Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey.Mr. Ramaswamy emerged as an ardent defender of Mr. Trump, calling him the best president of the 21st century and accusing Mr. Biden of sending a police force after him. Mr. Christie, who was met with boos from the audience, responded that Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results were beneath the office of the presidency and that he would always uphold the Constitution.The debate then shifted to the question of whether Mr. Trump should be pardoned of any crimes. Mr. Ramaswamy said unequivocally that if elected, he would pardon the former president, while Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s former vice president, suggested that he would consider it if Mr. Trump showed contrition for his actions.The line of questioning was especially tricky for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has tried to steer clear of commenting on Mr. Trump’s legal troubles. When pressed to answer whether Mr. Pence did the correct thing when he certified the 2020 election, Mr. DeSantis eventually acknowledged that the former vice president did his duty and then quickly tried to move on.The uncertain fate of Ukraine aidThe stakes of the presidential election are particularly high for Ukraine, which is heavily reliant on U.S. support to fend off Russia’s invasion. Without offering many specifics, Mr. Trump has suggested that he would broker a deal to quickly end the war, and on Wednesday his rivals were deeply divided over whether to continue providing Ukraine with military and economic aid.The argument over Ukraine highlighted how the views within the Republican Party over foreign policy have diverged between the more anti-interventionist, “American First” wing and the camp that wants to extend American influence around the world and promote democracy.Mr. DeSantis said that additional support for Ukraine should be contingent on Europe’s providing more aid. Mr. Ramaswamy said that he would not support an increase in funding, calling the situation “disastrous” and declaring that the money should be redirected to protect the U.S. southern border.However, Mr. Pence, Mr. Christie and Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration, offered forceful cases for defending Ukraine. Mr. Christie described the atrocities that he saw during a visit to Ukraine this month, and Mr. Pence said that the United States needed to stop President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia from spreading totalitarianism around the world.Ms. Haley called Mr. Putin a murderer and said that allowing Ukraine to fall would empower other American adversaries, such as China.Putting limits on abortionAbortion continues to be a fraught topic for Republicans. They have been generally supportive of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last year, which eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion, but they have differing opinions about whether anti-abortion measures should be left to the states and how far they should go.Republicans are under pressure from anti-abortion activists to endorse a 15-week federal ban; however, several Republicans oppose such bans.Mr. DeSantis demurred when asked about whether he would support a six-week federal ban and criticized Democrats for backing abortions later in pregnancy. Ms. Haley described the notion of a federal ban as unrealistic, suggesting that Republicans would never have sufficient votes to pass such legislation. She also called for lawmakers to stop “demonizing” people over the issue and work toward a consensus around adoption and contraception policies.Other candidates, such as Mr. Pence, took more ardent positions on abortion. Supporting a 15-week federal ban — which he has challenged his rivals to embrace — the former vice president called curbing abortions a “moral issue” that should not be left to the states. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina echoed that sentiment, saying that it would be “unethical” for a president to be supportive of states such as California and New York that allow abortions further along in pregnancy.Bashing ‘Bidenomics’The biggest area of agreement among the Republican candidates was on the economy, which they said was failing because of higher prices and interest rates that have made it harder to buy houses and cars.None of the candidates have released detailed economic plans, but all of them are broadly supportive of extending the 2017 tax cuts that are scheduled to expire in 2025 and rolling back regulations. Onstage, they also agreed that the national debt, which has topped $32 trillion, is a serious problem facing the economy.Republicans usually blame big-spending Democrats for the national debt, but on Wednesday night Ms. Haley pointed a finger at members of her own party. She called out Republicans for passing more than $2 trillion in pandemic spending in 2020 and said that Mr. Trump, Mr. Pence, Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Scott have all backed policies that have added to the national debt.Calling for spending cuts and an end to earmarks, Ms. Haley said it was disingenuous to point to Democrats as solely responsible for the nation’s debt burden.“The truth is that Biden did not do this to us,” Ms. Haley said. “Our Republicans did this to us, too.” More

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      Who Won the Debate?

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      Commentators largely agreed that little seemed to alter the state of a race in which Donald J. Trump appears the runaway favorite.The first Republican debate on Wednesday night offered political pundits a bit of a thought experiment: If the clear front-runner doesn’t take part, can the debate have a clear winner?Even as commentators spent the debate and its aftermath arguing over which of the eight underdogs on the debate stage performed best, they largely agreed that little seemed to alter the state of a race in which Donald J. Trump appears the runaway favorite.Still, some pundits said that Mr. Trump’s absence did offer candidates the chance to differentiate themselves, an opportunity they may not have had if he had participated. And the battle to become Mr. Trump’s top challenger, some said, is more hazy. Here is a sampling of commentary on how the candidates fared.Ron DeSantisGov. Ron DeSantis of Florida in some ways entered Wednesday’s debate with the most to prove and the most to lose. While he has long been viewed as Mr. Trump’s strongest potential challenger, his campaign has stumbled in recent weeks amid fund-raising trouble and staffing changes.But while Mr. DeSantis may have seemed like the apparent leader among this group of hopefuls, political pundits noted that he largely evaded the serious criticism or attacks that rivals usually level at would-be front-runners.Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, said during the debate that he expected Mr. DeSantis to “deal with constant incoming” attacks. By the end, Mr. Lowry said that Mr. DeSantis had “helped himself” by sticking to his message — and took “no incoming fire.”Other observers noted Mr. DeSantis’s ability to stay in comfortable territory, trumpeting his conservative track record in Florida as proof that he could steer the Republican Party to success.Mary Katharine Ham, a journalist and conservative commentator, called Mr. DeSantis’s strategy “effective.”“Gimme a topic. Yeah, I did that thing. Let me tell you what I did. It happened in Florida. Results,” she said, summarizing his approach.Still, some wondered whether the lack of attacks against Mr. DeSantis heralded a new phase in the race.“Ron DeSantis was the leading candidate — still is the leading candidate — on that stage tonight,” Jen Psaki, a former press secretary for President Biden, said on MSNBC. “And they basically ignored him.”Vivek RamaswamyVivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur with no government experience, was the center of a number of contentious debate exchanges, seeming to enjoy being attacked as much as he appeared to relish going after experienced candidates over their records. But whether his scrappy, off-the-cuff sparring style helped him was a matter of disagreement.Ms. Psaki said that Mr. Ramaswamy might appeal to voters by coming off as among the most unscripted of the bunch. He has “a little life in him, he talks like a human being, he says what he thinks and he pushes back on other people,” she observed.David Urban, a Republican lobbyist who advised Mr. Trump in 2016, said on CNN that Mr. Ramaswamy’s visibility made him a “big winner.”But on the flip side, some suggested that voters might find his aggressiveness off-putting.“I think Vivek coming out and just taking on everyone on that stage, that is pretty gutsy,” Laura Ingraham, the Fox News host, said. “I mean, maybe some people were annoyed by it,” she added, “but I thought it was pretty gutsy.”Nikki HaleyMr. Ramaswamy’s approach also helped call attention to some of his more established rivals, particularly Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations under Mr. Trump.Though Ms. Haley’s campaign has so far struggled to gain traction, many political observers said that she stood out on the debate stage by presenting herself as a voice of reason, particularly when she battled with Mr. Ramaswamy over his views on foreign policy.“He wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, let China eat Taiwan, stopped funding Israel,” Ms. Haley said. “You don’t do that to friends.”Her comments drew notice. Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former communications director for Mr. Trump, said on CNN that Ms Haley “really took Vivek to the woodshed.”Others noted that Ms. Haley, the only woman on the debate stage, spoke with authority on abortion, when she accused other candidates of being impractical and ignoring the effect their rhetoric might have on women.“I think Nikki is going to get a second look from some people based on some stuff she said tonight on abortion,” Kellyanne Conway, a former adviser to Mr. Trump, said on Fox News. “I’m very pro-life, but I like what she said — that you don’t demonize or punish women. That’s important.”Donald TrumpThe largest question looming over Wednesday’s debate was whether Mr. Trump’s absence would be a misfire that might allow another candidate to claim the spotlight and generate more support.By and large, political experts, even those who don’t have favorable views of Mr. Trump, agreed that was not the case.Amy Walter, the publisher and editor in chief of The Cook Political Report, offered a stark assessment, saying that “Trump has to be pretty happy with this debate.” She suggested that none of the candidates “made their case” to voters open to other options.Speaking on CNN, David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, said that Mr. Trump “won big” after the debate, with “no one emerging as his principal opponent.”Brendan Buck, a G.O.P. political strategist critical of Mr. Trump, said that “perhaps the biggest failure here tonight is nothing was done to make Donald Trump feel like he needs to participate in the next debate.”For Rob Godfrey, a longtime Republican strategist based in South Carolina, Mr. Trump’s absence was a missed opportunity to dismiss his political rivals.“There is no reason to believe he couldn’t have pulled off the same standup comedy routine he used to dominate every primary debate eight years ago,” Mr. Godfrey said in an interview.Anjali Huynh More

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      Pence Clashes With Ramaswamy: ‘We Don’t Need to Bring in a Rookie’

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      Vivek Ramaswamy wants voters to know he’s young, vigorous — and did he mention young?“You’re a blank slate — you’re 38 years old,” Mr. Ramaswamy, the first Republican millennial presidential candidate, imagined a viewer as saying about him. And, he added, “Who the heck is this skinny guy with a funny last name?” — a reference to the former political wunderkind Barack Obama, which former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey quickly pointed out, adding, “I’m afraid we’re dealing with the same kind of amateur.”But Mr. Ramaswamy made it clear that he wasn’t going to be deferential to the more experienced candidates onstage. He addressed former vice president Mike Pence as “Mike,” familiarly, and didn’t back down when Mr. Pence declared, “We don’t need to bring in a rookie.” Instead, he made his newcomer status a combative rallying cry.“I’m the only person on the stage who isn’t bought and paid for, so I can say this,” Mr. Ramaswamy said in response to a question about climate change policy. Even more pointedly, he referred to his young children and suggested that voters needed to “hand it over to a new generation to actually fix the problem.”This all came after debate preparation that included releasing videos of himself playing tennis shirtless — he has said, in a pointed reminder of his young legs, that he likes to hit with college players around the country while on the trail — and doing burpees to T.I.’s “Bring ’Em Out,” a party hit from 2004, when Mr. Ramaswamy was just an Eminem-impersonating underclassman at Harvard.His emphasis on his youth recalls the candidacy of Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat who preceded him by one election cycle and a few years at Harvard.Mr. Ramaswamy’s views are largely out of step with his own generation and the one below him, which skew Democratic. But, said Charlotte Alter, the author of “The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For: How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform America”: “The only way the G.O.P. is attracting any young voters is on culture war issues like anti-woke posturing and contrarian hot takes. And that’s where Vivek has planted his flag.” More

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      DeSantis’s Debate Mission: Prove He’s the Top Trump Alternative

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      The Florida governor was livid after his allies’ debate strategy memo was revealed online. He enters tonight’s debate looking to reclaim lost ground.Follow live updates on the first Republican presidential primary debate.Ron DeSantis was livid.The super PAC supporting him had posted a trove of sensitive material, including strategic advice and research on his rivals, only days before the first debate of the 2024 campaign. The advice was, at times, so basic that it could come off as condescending: reminding the Florida governor to talk about his family, for instance, and prescribing how many times he should attack President Biden and the news media.Mr. DeSantis erupted over the revelation, according to people told of his reaction, even though the posting of the documents online was meant to avoid running afoul of campaign finance rules. The advice memo, pilloried as “amateurish” within his extended orbit, was quickly taken down, along with the other documents, but the damage had been done. If he followed the advice laid out — including which rivals to hit — he would look like a puppet.Campaigning over the weekend, Mr. DeSantis distanced himself from the memo. “I didn’t do it,” he said. “I didn’t read it. It’s not going to influence what I do.”The episode was a self-inflicted wound by the broader DeSantis team that capped two months of difficulties for the Florida governor that have included dropping poll numbers, a new campaign manager and staff cutbacks. Now, Mr. DeSantis heads into Wednesday night’s event in Milwaukee looking to reclaim lost ground and avoid losing more, knowing that he is almost certain to be a major target for his rivals without Donald J. Trump on the stage.It’s been clear for weeks that the debate would be a critical juncture; to prepare, Mr. DeSantis brought on a top Republican debate coach, Brett O’Donnell. But in some ways, a number of Republicans said, Mr. DeSantis is less in need of a breakout moment than of a stabilizing performance. Allies believe his top priority is to reassure skittish donors and supporters that he has the mettle to square off against Mr. Trump.“This is a big moment for him, but he’s going to rise to it,” predicted Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, one of a few House Republicans backing Mr. DeSantis.Mr. DeSantis has displayed some resiliency. Polls show that after months of attacks from Mr. Trump and weeks of unflattering headlines about campaign upheaval, many Republican voters still like Mr. DeSantis. He had the highest favorability rating of any Republican in this week’s Des Moines Register/NBC News poll in Iowa, even as he trailed Mr. Trump by 42 percent to 19 percent.But his standing in the multicandidate race has slipped, with other candidates such as Vivek Ramaswamy and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey appearing to make inroads in the race for second place.“When he got in the race, he had the first license to be the alternative to Trump,” Brad Todd, a longtime Republican strategist, said of Mr. DeSantis. “But it was a license that had an expiration date, and I think that’s probably due.”“It’s really his title to keep,” Mr. Todd added, but “it’s not a foregone conclusion he keeps it.”Whether Mr. DeSantis can convert those favorable views into votes remains to be seen.Advisers say Mr. DeSantis is focused on winning the nomination on the ground in Iowa and the other early states, outworking Mr. Trump and leveraging his well-funded super PAC to out-organize his rivals. But if the national perception of his candidacy does not improve, that task becomes significantly harder.Publication of the debate-prep documents further sowed mistrust between Mr. DeSantis’s campaign and the super PAC, which he seeded with $82.5 million left over from his 2022 re-election. The anger is so palpable that one person who has advised the DeSantis campaign said the super PAC memo “almost seemed intentionally unhelpful.”One line in the memo seemed to sting most: the suggestion that Mr. DeSantis defend Mr. Trump and bludgeon Mr. Chris Christie by accusing him of angling to become an MSNBC host with his frequent broadsides against the former president.That is because Mr. DeSantis, who had been traveling to events in Iowa and New Hampshire organized by his super PAC and interacting with members of the group’s staff, had already been testing out a version of just such a line with various people in private, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.The dynamics of a Trump-less debate stage on Wednesday are hard to predict. But the DeSantis campaign expects the governor to be the “center of attacks,” according to a guidance that his new campaign manager, James Uthmeier, issued in a memo to donors and allies over the weekend.“We all know why our competitors have to go down this road: because this is a two-man race for the Republican nomination between Governor DeSantis and Donald Trump,” Mr. Uthmeier wrote.But the description of the G.O.P. contest as a “two-man race” seems outdated, as Mr. DeSantis’s rivals have drawn far closer to him in many polls than he is to Mr. Trump. The super PAC memo advised the governor to take a “sledgehammer” to one rival, Mr. Ramaswamy, who has been climbing in some surveys.Mr. Massie, who dismissed the memo as “not the smartest move,” said that Mr. Ramaswamy was more of a “curiosity” than a serious candidate.“There is no way in hell people are going to elect someone as president — or to either party’s nomination — who they only found out about six months ago,” Mr. Massie said.A spokeswoman for Mr. Ramaswamy, Tricia McLaughlin, responded by mocking Mr. DeSantis for urging Republican voters not to be “listless vessels” who blindly support Mr. Trump.“Counter to what some candidates onstage say, we believe the American people are more than just listless vessels,” she said.One Republican aligned with a rival to Mr. DeSantis described Mr. Ramaswamy, who has repeatedly come to Mr. Trump’s defense, as a wild card in the debate.Much will depend on the questions the moderators ask of the candidates, and whether they try to steer the conversation to a referendum on Mr. Trump in absentia, forcing the candidates to talk about him.Mr. Massie said that Mr. Trump’s absence would allow Mr. DeSantis to take unanswered “clean shots” at the former president’s record, and to assert his right to rebuttals when attacked by rivals, soaking up airtime.“He’s got to be careful, I think, not to criticize the man, Trump,” Mr. Massie said. “Policy is Ron’s path to victory.”Indeed, while Republican politics is rife with prognosticators saying that the way to beat Mr. Trump is to attack him, Mr. Christie has been doing just that for weeks, gaining in New Hampshire but not in national polls. Neither strategy to beat Mr. Trump — holding him close or a frontal assault — has proved surefire in the months before Labor Day, when the campaign season begins in earnest.The race is “wide open” for the eight candidates onstage, said Henry Barbour, a longtime Republican National Committee member. But, he added, “it has to be a one-on-one race.”If there’s more than one candidate not named Trump still in the race after the South Carolina primary, the fourth G.O.P. nominating contest, which is set for Feb. 24, 2024, Mr. Barbour said, “it’s almost a given that Donald Trump will have an insurmountable lead by the middle of March” in the all-important delegate chase.With Mr. Trump missing, Mr. Todd, the G.O.P. strategist, said the debate had the potential to feel like an undercard ahead of a later marquee matchup.“The debate in some ways will perform like a semifinal,” Mr. Todd said, with the goal being to advance to the next round. “Everyone knows Trump is in the finals. This is about who will be in the finals with him.” More

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      Who Are Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, the Debate Moderators?

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      The role of debate moderator carries prestige, but it also brings exacting demands and inherent risks: personal attacks by candidates, grievances about perceived biases and, for the two moderators of Wednesday’s Republican primary debate, a tempestuous cable news network’s reputation.Enter Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, the Fox News Channel mainstays who drew that assignment and will pose questions to the eight G.O.P. presidential candidates squaring off for the first time, absent former President Donald J. Trump.The party’s front-runner, Mr. Trump will bypass the debate in favor of an online interview with Tucker Carlson, who was fired from Fox News in April.But that doesn’t mean the debate’s moderators will be under any less of a microscope.Here’s a closer look at who they are:Bret BaierHe is the chief political anchor for Fox News and the host of “Special Report With Bret Baier” at 6 p.m. on weeknights. Mr. Baier, 53, joined the network in 1998, two years after the network debuted, according to his biography.Mr. Baier, like Ms. MacCallum, is no stranger to the debate spotlight.In 2016, he moderated three G.O.P. primary debates for Fox, alongside Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace, who have since left the network. He was present when Ms. Kelly grilled Mr. Trump about his treatment of women during a 2015 debate, an exchange that drew Mr. Trump’s ire and led him to boycott the network’s next debate nearly six months later.During the 2012 presidential race, Mr. Baier moderated five Republican primary debates.At a network dominated by conservative commentators like Sean Hannity and the departed Mr. Carlson and Bill O’Reilly, Mr. Baier has generally avoided controversy — but not entirely.After Fox News called Arizona for Joseph R. Biden Jr. on election night in 2020, becoming the first major news network to do so and enraging Mr. Trump and his supporters, Mr. Baier suggested in an email to network executives the next morning that the outlet should reverse its projection.“It’s hurting us,” he wrote in the email, which was obtained by The New York Times.Mr. Baier was also part of a witness list in the defamation lawsuit that Dominion Voting Systems brought against Fox News over the network’s role in spreading disinformation about the company’s voting equipment. Fox settled the case for $787.5 million before it went to trial.Martha MacCallumShe is the anchor and executive editor of “The Story With Martha MacCallum” at 3 p.m. on weekdays. Ms. MacCallum, 59, joined the network in 2004, according to her biography.During the 2016 election, Ms. MacCallum moderated a Fox News forum for the bottom seven Republican presidential contenders who had not qualified for the party’s first debate in August 2015. She reprised that role in January 2016, just days before the Iowa caucuses.She and Mr. Baier also moderated a series of town halls with individual Democratic candidates during the 2020 election, including one that featured Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.Before joining Fox, she worked for NBC and CNBC.When Fox projected Mr. Biden’s victory over Mr. Trump in Arizona, effectively indicating that Mr. Biden had clinched the presidency, Ms. MacCallum was similarly drawn into the maelstrom at the network.During a Zoom meeting with network executives and Mr. Baier, she suggested it was not enough to call states based on numerical calculations — the standard by which networks have made such determinations for generations — but that viewers’ reactions should be considered.“In a Trump environment,” Ms. MacCallum said, according to a review of the phone call by The Times, “the game is just very, very different.” More

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      Preparing to Fact-Check the GOP Debate: A Look at Possible Lines

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      Through stump speeches and statements on the campaign trail, the Republican presidential contenders have hinted at what they might say on the debate stage. Here’s a look at their possible lines.The top contenders in the Republican presidential primary — minus the most important one — will face off Wednesday night in the first debate of the 2024 race. The debate will provide the candidates, many who are relatively unknown to voters, an opportunity to refine their message and to test their attacks on rivals, hoping to deliver a zinger to stand out in a crowded field.Those statements may include exaggerations or outright misinformation about a host of subjects, like inflation, immigration, foreign policy and cultural issues. The candidates’ stump speeches and previous statements offer a glimpse of what the debate audience might hear.Here is a sampler of the kind of exaggerations, misleading statements and half-truths that could come up.Chris Christie“We should discuss why he promised to build a wall across the entire border and completed 52 miles of new wall in four years. At that pace, he’d need 110 more years as president to finish the wall.”This is partially true.Mr. Christie has made targeting former President Donald J. Trump — the front-runner for the Republican nomination, who is not attending this debate — central to his campaign and specifically criticized him for supposedly not fulfilling his campaign promises while in office.It is true that Mr. Trump said throughout the 2016 cycle that he would build a wall along the border and make Mexico pay for it. Mexico has not paid for any wall construction.However, Mr. Trump said he would build a 1,000-mile wall, not along the entire border as Mr. Christie has claimed. And while Mr. Christie’s 52-mile figure refers to one category of wall construction, the Trump administration built around 453 total miles of border wall starting in 2017, though most of the new barriers reinforced or replaced existing structures.Ron DeSantis“In Florida, our crime rate is at a 50-year low. You look at the top 25 cities for crime in America, Florida does not rank amongst the top 25.”This is partially true.Mr. DeSantis has played up his record as Florida’s governor and what he sees as legislative successes there throughout his presidential campaign.While Florida’s crime rate fell to a 50-year low in 2021, crime reporting was incomplete and provisional after a switch in how law enforcement agencies reported data. The crime rate that year included data from just 59 percent of agencies in Florida, leaving crime data for more than 40 percent of the state’s population unaccounted for, according to The Tampa Bay Times.Nikki Haley“Why was it last year that a third of our teenage girls seriously contemplated suicide? This is serious. We need to look at that. So let’s snap out of it. Boys go into boys bathrooms, girls go to girls bathrooms and if there’s something in between, go into a private bathroom.”This lacks evidence.Ms. Haley, the only woman in the Republican primary, has, like many candidates, leaned into issues involving gender identity and sexuality on the trail. Criticizing transgender athletes who compete in women’s sports has become one of her most reliable applause lines.There is no scientifically proven link between suicidal ideation and trans people competing in sports. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this year that teenage girls are facing elevated suicide rates. Medical experts have said that while there are many potential causes, no evidence points to increased awareness of L.G.B.T.Q. issues as a causal or contributing factor.Mike Pence“The fact is, today abortion law in the United States is more aligned with China and North Korea than with Western nations in Europe.”This is misleading.Mr. Pence, the staunchest abortion opponent in the race, has frequently expressed support for a national abortion ban and called on other candidates to back a 15-week ban.The majority of European countries have legalized abortion up to 10 to 15 weeks of pregnancy and allow for abortions past the gestational limit if the parent’s life is in danger. Many laws in those countries are more permissive than they appear on paper and allow for exemptions upon request.China, in contrast, allows for elective abortions without specific gestational limits, but in recent years has said that it aims to reduce the number of “medically unnecessary” abortions. And it is unclear what North Korea’s laws are, given that the World Health Organization reported no documentation after 2015 on the procedure’s legality.Vivek Ramaswamy“There’s very little evidence of people being arrested for being armed (Jan. 6). Most of the people who were armed, I assume the federal officers who were out there were armed.”This is false.Mr. Ramaswamy has remained one of Mr. Trump’s most ardent defenders through his four indictments and said throughout his campaign that “systematic and pervasive censorship,” not Mr. Trump, was to blame for the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.The Justice Department reported that 112 individuals were charged with using a “deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer” and 104 were charged with entering a restricted area with a dangerous or deadly weapon as of Aug. 4. There is no way to know how many of the thousands there were armed, but Secret Service officials confiscated several hundred weapons that included knives or blades, pepper spray canisters, brass knuckles and tasers.And Mr. Ramaswamy himself condemned Mr. Trump on X, formerly known as Twitter, after the attack: “What Trump did last week was wrong. Downright abhorrent. Plain and simple.”Tim Scott“There have been more illegal encounters under Biden than the previous two administrations combined.”This is false.Mr. Scott, who has campaigned as a “happy warrior” with an optimistic message, has largely directed his criticism toward the Biden administration, particularly its handling of illegal border crossings.Reporting of immigration data changed in March 2020 from tracking “apprehensions” to “encounters,” a broader range of expulsions enabled by the Title 42 border policy that allowed for quicker removals during the Covid-19 pandemic, making comparisons across administrations inconsistent.But available data from U.S. Border Patrol showed that illegal immigration levels nationwide were still lower under Mr. Biden than under the Trump and Obama administrations combined. And PolitiFact reported that the Scott campaign used inconsistent metrics to back its claim. More

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      The Trump-Free Debate That’s All About Trump

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      Donald Trump may not be on the stage for tonight’s Republican primary debate, but at least eight other candidates will still have to contend with his presence — and his lead in the polls.The Opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg argues that tonight is an opportunity for Trump’s opponents to convince Republican voters that they can be as dominant as the former president, but without the legal baggage. The question remains, though: Will the Republican base buy it?Illustration by The New York Times; Photographs by Joe Buglewicz for The New York Times; Scott Morgan, Jim Young, Dan Koeck, Cheney Orr/Reuters; Ben Gray, Alex Brandon/Associated Press; Megan Varner/Getty ImagesThe Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.This Opinion Short was produced by Sophia Alvarez Boyd. It was edited by Stephanie Joyce and Kaari Pitkin. Mixing by Carole Sabouraud. Original music by Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Special thanks to Shannon Busta, Kristina Samulewski and Annie-Rose Strasser. More