Abortion, immigration, and the 2024 presidential race were all hot topics in the second Republican presidential debate.
Seven Republican candidates took the stage for the second GOP presidential debate on Wednesday night, and it was a lively affair. The candidates clashed on a range of issues, including abortion, immigration, and the 2024 presidential race.
One of the most memorable moments of the debate came when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie both attacked former President Donald Trump for skipping the event.
“You know who else is missing in action? Donald Trump is missing in action,” DeSantis said. “He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record where they added $7.8 trillion to the debt. That set the stage for the inflation that we have now.”
Christie went even further, accusing Trump of ducking the debate out of fear.
“You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on the stage and defending your record,” Christie said. “You’re ducking these things. And let me tell you what’s going to happen. You keep doing that. No one up here is going to call you Donald Trump anymore. We’re going to call you Donald Duck.”
The candidates also had a heated debate on the issue of abortion.
“I reject this idea that pro-lifers are to blame for mid-term defeats,” DeSantis said, responding to Trump’s recent comments that anti-abortion politicians often lose elections because they “do not know how to discuss this topic.”
“If you’re pro-life, you’ve gotta be pro-life for the entire life,” Christie added, pivoting to a discussion of the fentanyl overdose epidemic.
The candidates also discussed the rising amount of violence aimed at LGBTQ Americans.
“I am sick of these mass shootings,” Pence said, when asked about the scourge of mass shootings in America.
Pence said, if elected, he would push for a federal expedited death penalty for mass shooters. He said this would ensure they would “meet their fate in months, not years.”
Ramaswamy also had a controversial moment during the debate, when he called for ending the practice of granting citizenship to anyone born in the United States, in cases where the parents were in the country illegally at the time of the birth.
“Democrats would howl at this idea and complain that it violates the U.S. Constitution,” Ramaswamy said. “He argued that there is precedent for denying citizenship to some people born on U.S. soil, given that children of diplomats are not given citizenship.”
Ramaswamy also faced criticism from several candidates for his business ties in China.
“We’re competing with the job candidates. They’re all running for a job,” Trump said, referring to the Republican candidates. “They’re all job candidates. They’ll do anything, Secretary of something. They even say VP. Has anybody seen a VP anywhere?”
The second Republican presidential debate was a lively and informative event, and it gave voters a chance to see where the candidates stand on a range of important issues.