GOP candidates fight to fill Trump’s absence

KCRW's Left, Right & Center

KCRW

352865, News

4.2 • 4.8K Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The first primary debate of the 2024 presidential election took place in Milwaukee this week. Eight Republicans took the stage. Who left their mark?

Donald Trump was invited but chose not to attend. His presence continues to linger over the participants and the identity of his party. Will the GOP’s traditional conservative ideals take hold, or will voters follow their hearts back to Trump and his acolytes?

The response to Maui’s raging wildfires left plenty of room for criticism of emergency and government officials, including Joe Biden. His genuine empathy and ability to connect used to be a strength, but has it fallen to the wayside during his presidency?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Everybody, welcome to left, right, and center.
0:03.6	I am David Green, your host, Sarah Isger is here.
0:06.7	Moa Lathie has decided to skip this debate because he has had such a commanding lead in
0:11.6	the polls, so Sarah, it's just you and me.
0:14.7	Mo, you're here.
0:16.5	I'm kidding.
0:17.5	I am here.
0:18.5	Yeah.
0:19.5	No, you could be so lucky.
0:20.5	Well, I am, of course, alluding to the first Republican presidential debate that happened.
0:26.4	On Wednesday of this week in Milwaukee and Donald Trump, the front-runner skipped it,
0:31.0	did not show up.
0:32.0	So this was a night for eight other candidates to make their pitch that they would be a better
0:37.2	nominee for the party than the former president who tried to keep the night focused on him
0:41.9	by dropping a recorded interview with Tucker Carlson just before the debate started.
0:46.3	But let's focus on what happened in Milwaukee.
0:48.2	One candidate on stage made no secret that this was his big chance to introduce himself,
0:53.6	Vivek Ramaswamy.
0:55.6	So first, let me just address a question that is on everybody's mind at home tonight.
1:00.0	Who the heck is this skinny guy with a funny last name and what the heck is he doing in
1:03.5	the middle of this debate stage?
1:05.3	Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie accused Ramaswamy of sounding like a robot.
	...

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