A win: Former New Jersey Gov. and current chief Trump antagonist Chris Christie took his three fellow debaters to task Wednesday night with a succinct retort that cut through the bluster. "If you're afraid to offend Donald Trump," he said, "then what are you going to do when you're sitting across from President Xi?"
Christie seems to be the only person who recognizes the true stakes of the 2024 election. We know he's not afraid of confronting the one true Republican front-runner. But he's also shown a clear understanding of what another Trump presidency would mean, literally and figuratively. That honesty may not have made Christie popular in Tuscaloosa, Alabama — let's face it, the boos prove it did not — but at least he will be remembered as a candidate who went down fighting and willing to acknowledge basic reality. That should count for something.
A loss: For reasons that I cannot even begin to explain, Vivek Ramaswamy showed up at this debate determined to go after rival Nikki Haley's foreign policy credentials. His alleged "gotcha" moment centered on the failure of Haley, a well-respected former ambassador to the United Nations, to immediately name three provinces in eastern Ukraine. (For the record, they are Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv.) As if that attack line is going to win over the Republican primary base or, frankly, anyone.
Being able to Google the names of a bunch of Ukrainian provinces before a debate doesn't make you seem smart, Vivek. It makes you seem weird, smug and out of touch. Which, in Ramaswamy's defense, is very on brand. But that incredible lack of self-awareness is far, far more revealing than any short-term memory party trick.
A lie: Vivek Ramaswamy: "Why am I the only person on this stage, at least, who can say that Jan. 6 now does look like it was an inside job?"
Give that staggeringly false quote a few seconds to sink in.
It's worth noting that over 1,000 Trump supporters have been charged with participating in the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. A number of those charged have outright blamed former President Donald Trump for helping to incite the Capitol riot. Not the "deep state." Not the Democrats. Not Joe Biden. Not the FBI. They blamed the guy who tweeted, "Be there, will be wild!" and who stood on a stage and said, "If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."
I understand that Republicans like Ramaswamy are desperate to find ways to ingratiate themselves with Trump's MAGA faithful. But the facts of the insurrection, and the people who participated in it, are not in dispute. There is zero evidence of a conspiracy, or whatever an "inside job" would mean in this instance. Republicans claim to be the Party of Personal Responsibility; now might be a good time to consider actually taking some.
Brian Tyler Cohen joined Jen Psaki to break down the Republican debate live on YouTube. Watch here.
