Welcome, it is verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you as well, and we are going to

obviously talk about the most famous mugshot, I think, in political history of Donald Trump

coming out of Georgia, what this means to the campaign. We're going to do that for you in a second,

but we're also going to talk about the presidential debate. Now, here's the cool part.

We're going to talk about what it's like to be in a presidential debate, how you prep for a

presidential debate, and what it's like to walk out there for the first time, because for many

of these people, they had never been in this position before. Senator, you watch the debate.

Give us your overall review of this debate, this first debate with Donald Trump not showing up? Was that smart of him not to show up? And how did you think people did on that stage?

Well, look, I thought everyone did a good job on Wednesday night. That being said, I think there were clear winners that came out of the night.

And to my view, there were four winners that came out of the debate.

Number one was Vivek Ramoswamy. He had a very strong performance that night.

Many Americans had never heard of him, didn't know him.

And I think he impressed a lot of people.

His stock went up. He's going to raise a lot of money off of that. He's going to go up in the polls,

particularly in the early primary states. I think secondly, Nikki Haley did well on Wednesday night.

She was crisp. She was strong. Now. She was aiming for a different slice of the

electorate. She was not going for the MAGA America First slice. She was not particularly going for

conservatives. She was aiming much more for the establishment lane. But she was aggressive, smart, well-prepared, and I think she strengthened herself.

She had been out of the news for a while, and I think she enhanced her standing Wednesday night.

The third person who I think advanced himself somewhat is Mike Pence.

Now, look, Mike is a friend. Actually, all these

guys, I know everyone on the stage well, but Mike is a good man. Mike had been having a tough

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