The fight between DeSantis and Christie on transitioning minors plays to both of their benefits — for DeSantis, who is courting social conservatives in Iowa, and to Christie, whose base of support in NH’s open primary is independents and Democrats.
Ramaswamy now cites Elizabeth Dole’s crusade for a national drinking age as a role model for transgender laws.
Christie gives a rhetorically strong answer on parental rights, but DeSantis brings down the house: “you do not have a right to abuse your kids.”
I agree with MBD. DeSantis’s answer on whether Trump is too old was perfectly clear and responsive. Christie diverted the debate pointlessly.
>Vivek Ramaswamy: accuses every other candidate onstage of licking Donald Trump’s boots.
>also Vivek Ramaswamy: proceeds to lick Donald Trump’s boots live, onstage.
Ramaswamy: These people, licking Trump’s boots, aren’t brave enough to say 9/11 was an inside job and the election was stolen and [moderators: please stop.]
Yes, MBD, sometimes I think Christie goes into his “I’m the only one up here who’s made the tough choices, I’m the only one who’s willing to give it to you straight, I’m the only one who’s brave enough to tell it like it is” routine on autopilot, completely ignoring what his opponent actually just said.
After Christie makes the moral case against Trump’s campaign of retribution, DeSantis sticks with his strategy of trying to to hit Trump from the right — on not firing Fauci, draining the swamp, building the border wall, etc. Christie is hitting DeSantis for not directly answering whether Trump is unfit, DeSantis keeps coming back to Trump pushing 80. He’s willing to say Trump is too old, but not whether he is unfit.
DeSantis is trying to avoid saying Trump is so old that you should vote for Biden, who is even older.
Christie is pretty rhetorically devastating — he is such a skilled interlocutor — but his confrontation with DeSantis over Trump’s fitness for office is all to no real end.
This, however, was the discussion we should have had starting from the 1st debate.