To start, though, with one of
the key moments
from tonight, candidates Vivek Ramaswamy,
who was vocal in the first debate,
continuing in that vein tonight,
including in this clash with former South
Carolina Governor Nikki Haley,
who was reacting to the answer he gave
when asked
why he joined TikTok,
despite it
being banned on government issued devices
because of its ties to China.
This is infuriating because Tik
Tok is one of the most dangerous
social media apps that we could have.
And what you've got.
Honestly, every time I hear you,
I feel a little bit dumber
for what you say
because I can't believe
they hear the tik tok situation.
What they're doing is these 150 million
people are on tik tok.
That means they can get your contacts,
they can get your financial information,
they can get your emails,
they can get just sex messages,
voting and all. This is one thing.
This is very important.
That's what this is very important.
I'm going to say, you've got a new power.
China don't make benefits in China,
not America.
Excuse me.
I want two
kids to go and get on the social media.
That's dangerous for all this.
You when you were in business
with the Chinese,
that gave Hunter Biden $5 million.
We can't trust you.
We don't. Let me see.
We say something tik tok and I think
you have 15 seconds.
I think. Excuse me.
Can talk to you for 15 seconds, Mr.
Ramotswe. Thank you.
I think we would be better
served as a Republican Party
if we're not sitting here
hurling personal insults
and actually have a legitimate debate.
I'm glad that policy.
So certainly a lot to talk about here
to do it,
CNN anchor and senior
political correspondent
Abby Phillip,
CNN senior political commentator
David Axelrod, CNN chief
national correspondent, John King,
also CNN political commentator.
So, so far, Griffin, David
Urban and Scott Jennings.
John King, would you make it all?
I was feisty.
The big question,
the fundamental question is
if Donald Trump is ahead by roughly
30 points
in Iowa and roughly 30 points
in New Hampshire,
did this change anything
you could see the
DeSantis Haley exchanges.
They're both in second place right now.
They had a little bit to go at it,
trying to be the primary
second place candidate
I think
if you like a candidate, everybody
maybe had a moment.
But the fundament
fundamentally change anything.
I would I my answer is no.
I'd be interested in
what the Republicans
who do this for a living
do, added,
there's another one in 40 days.
The third debate.
Then there's going to be
a lot of pressure to shrink this field.
Because if you have six
or seven candidates and Donald Trump
Donald Trump wins, period.
David Axelrod,
Nikki Haley was definitely trying
to kind of repeat the success
she had had the first time in taking on
the vacuum Swami or Ron DeSantis.
Well, and also she got into it
with Tim Scott and maybe at the end
in a way
that wasn't particularly helpful
to either of them.
But look, my fundamental view
in this in this debate
is that several people who didn't do well
last time
did better, including Ron
DeSantis, who I think probably was far
better served by this debate
than the last one.
But Tim Scott,
who was almost vacant from the last
debate, was much more aggressive here.
Even Governor Burgum
jumped in here with a few good answers.
And all of this,
it seems to me, helps Donald Trump,
because rather than creating clarity,
it creates more of a muddle for voters.
So and by the way, you know,
for all the random shots at Trump,
there were
you know,
they weren't right for the capillary,
not the jugular.
And he basically got away again
with any serious damage
without any serious damage.
I think this was a good night
for Donald Trump in the end.
Yeah.
I mean, it was like a fight
for second
or third
or fourth place among a bunch of people.
It it wasn't.
I mean, sure,
some people had some moments.
Nikki Haley had a lot of good,
strong moments
that really made her stand out.
But they're fighting
for the bottom of the race right now.
And that's really not what's called for
when the front runner
is leading by how much he's leading by.
I kind of had a different view
of the DeSantis of it all, frankly.
I thought he sort of was okay.
He kind of faded into the background,
especially the first half of the debate.
I was sort of like, where where is he?
I mean, he didn't speak
even for about the first 15 minutes
he was in the center of the debate stage.
I checked my clock
after about 40 minutes.
He'd only spoken about twice at the end,
and he got it.
Yeah, but it's,
it took him a while
to really find his footing,
and he is really the person
who ought to have
the most momentum right now.
And I don't think
this debate changed his trajectory,
which is actually
not going up in this race.
One other quick point on this.
Trump always let you know who he's mad at
They put out one camp, one
general statement from the campaign
saying the debate was boring
and it was horrible.
And they put out one statement attacking
Nikki Haley.
Let's see if more comments,
quite a detailed attack on this.
Yeah, let's let's see if more come.
But that tells you something
about what they think.
And that was not what I was going to say.
If there was a winner
on the stage tonight,
I think it was Nikki Haley.
But honestly, the conversation
we keep having,
you know, Governor Chris
Sununu says this all the time,
that the Republican Party
has to winnow the field.
We have to start having some folks
drop out and consolidate
if they want to defeat Donald Trump.
Well, what I just saw
was a bunch of people
who are ready to attack each other over
every single policy issue.
Perhaps the only uniting force on
that stage
is how much everyone seems
to loads of Ramaswamy.
But honestly,
it did not come off
like there were
some substantive policy issues.
But there's nothing
that is going to break through
from this debate
in a way that is going to push down
Donald Trump's favorability
in any major way.
And I'm not sure
I would expect to see a major bump
for any candidate.
David. No.
And yeah,
like as John alluded to earlier. Right.
And also Abby
everyone's still
in market share from each other. Right?
They're not taking any market
share away from Donald Trump here.
It's, you know, tomorrow,
you know, Governor Sanders,
who had a strong close,
I think I think Governor Christie
had a last 5 minutes
to debate where the best part
of the whole debate. Right.
Is a bunch of muddling.
And then
the end people got a little clarity.
So, you know, they'll be
somebody will go up a little bit.
Somebody will go down a little bit.
But the field's not going to be winnowed
tomorrow where I wake up
and someone's going to drop out.
And so that's that's the problem.
And, John,
so there's going to be a lot of pressure
in next 40 days
to kick somebody off the island.
All right.
And I know that Chris
Christie said he'd kick
it, kick Donald Trump off.
But Donald Trump,
he stayed on the island. He's the middle.
He's the survivor at the end of the game.
So Donald Trump is the island.
You're on the island.
But the valuation of
the one piece of real estate he can have.
I thought this was unwatchable.
I mean, we're all sitting there
watching this.
The lighting was bad.
The set was bad.
The questions were weird.
The crosstalk was just maddening.
The graphics the fighting,
you know, the constant vitriol
with each other.
I thought the last of it was was better.
I mean,
I think that the next one,
DeSantis and Haley, will be at the center
of the stage again.
Some of these people
likely won't make it.
But the real question to me
is, has the Republicans, white
guys just moved on
from even the possible pity
that we wouldn't nominate Donald Trump?
Because right now,
what do Republicans believe?
They believe Trump is the most electable.
Four months, we thought.
Who can make an argument
about electability?
Well, Trump's already won that question.
And at the same time,
Biden is having a high speed come apart.
If you look at these national polls
right now.
So Republicans are like
Trump's beaten this guy.
We can't lose this guy.
And we're finally going
to get vindication.
I don't need someone more electable
because Trump's going to beat him.
Well,
and I don't know that a debate or a TV ad
or anything else is going to change that.
I mean,
it feels to me like one of the reasons
that Nikki Haley is having a moment
is because a lot of the polls show
that she does
very well
against President Biden,
not outlier polls,
but a lot of polls are showing that
that she unlike a lot of the other
candidates on that stage,
she clears the margin of error
in some of these polls and so on.
The electability question,
it feels to me
that she's making the best case for now.
But the only
polls that she didn't have,
she didn't make the case at all
and that she
she didn't mention
that she was leading in the polls
she obviously didn't think
that was
a compelling argument
for the reason that Scott
said the electability argument
has sort of faded because of that.
But on the question of DeSantis,
and I'd like to ask you guys this,
it seems to me there were moments
there, like when he went counter
to a number of people on Ukraine.
I was on the other side.
I'm on the other side
of this issue personally,
but I suspect there are a lot of voters
in these Republican primaries.
If you follow polls
who don't want to give more money
to Ukraine,
he took a very strong position on that.
Those kinds of things are memorable
to people, particularly in the states
that you've been hanging out in, in Iowa.
And New Hampshire.
I suspect a few of those things
may register with those voter.
Listen, he unequivocally,
Governor DeSantis unequivocally
did better this debate
than the prior debate.
I was actually noticing
you could kind of hear that consultants
got in the heads
of some of these candidates.
He mentioned a story about his wife.
He tried to show some heart
about visiting Reagan's gravesite.
He did give the answer in Ukraine,
which is a differentiating point.
The background is for me trying to play
nice guy this time,
because the biggest critique
last time was
he came off
so off putting it and like
it was interesting
in one of his first answers
when he was talking
about unions and striking.
He expressed sympathy for four workers.
And I actually thought
that was one of his strongest moments
If there is one question
that put on display
how different today's Republican Party
is than the one of ten years ago.
It was the answer around the strikes
going on this, you know, Okay.
Well, now hearing that
some of these people
are taking a much more pro-worker stance,
it has less to do with,
you know,
what you're giving to shareholders
or the free market.
It's much more about workers.
It's much more
Pat Buchanan's party than it is,
you know,
Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney's party.