| HAPPENING TODAY — “Donald Trump expected to surrender in Fulton County today,” by AJC’s Jeremy Redmon and Greg Bluestein: “The former commander-in-chief announced his intentions in a social media post, saying he would arrive in Atlanta in the afternoon to ‘proudly’ be arrested on the 41-count indictment. … Trump will be booked and photographed, making him the first U.S. president featured in a mug shot.” DEBATE BREAKDOWN … — VIVEK: Learn how to pronounce his name (it rhymes with “cake”), because he’s not going away. Unlike in a general election, debates in a primary make it uniquely difficult to stand out because the candidates generally agree on so many issues. Once upon a time, the main way to get attention was to pick a few spots and exaggerate policy differences with rivals. Nowadays, especially in a Republican Party ruled by Trump, you also need to be entertaining. VIVEK RAMASWAMY has learned both lessons well. He succeeded in turning himself into the main character of the debate, especially in the crucial early minutes when the ratings are the highest. He was at the center of key clashes over funding for Ukraine (no), sending military troops to the Mexican border (yes), and whether to pardon Trump (hell yes). Only one other candidate had more speaking time. He showed a knack for populist one-liners. RON DeSANTIS and other rivals are “super PAC puppets.” He finds “it offensive that we have professional politicians who will make a pilgrimage to Kyiv, to their pope, [VOLODYMYR] ZELENSKYY, without doing the same for the people in Maui or the south side of Chicago.” And, according to the NYT’s tracker, Ramaswamy was tied with DONALD TRUMP in terms of the number of attacks he received from his opponents, a clear sign of his rise. Two of the most memorable: 1. CHRIS CHRISTIE: “I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT standing up here.” 2. NIKKI HALEY: “He wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, he wants to let China eat Taiwan, he wants to go and stop funding Israel. … You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows.” — PLAYING FOR THE OBITS: MIKE PENCE spoke for more than 12 minutes — more than anyone else last night. The key monologue that put him over the top is instructive: At the end of a portion of the debate devoted to Jan. 6 and Trump’s multiple indictments, when the Fox hosts were moving on to a new subject, Pence interrupted and demanded that he be allowed to speak. He then delivered an impassioned defense of his actions on Jan. 6. Compare that to how DeSantis handled this part of the evening: by dodging questions on the matter and attacking the hosts as wasting time on an irrelevant issue. (This elicited a spanking from BRET BAIER: “We spent an hour talking about policy. Former President Trump is beating you by 30, 40 points in many polls. So it is a factor in the GOP primary.”) Pence, who repeatedly rolled over the moderators and pilloried his opponents, emerged last night fully as the conviction candidate that he has gradually become over the last year, after he initially flirted with some more politically convenient strategies. He embraced standing up to Trump on Jan. 6 as a heroic act to defend the Constitution. He refused to promise to pardon Trump. He forcefully defended the importance of arming Ukraine. And he staked out the most anti-abortion rights position at the debate (a national 15-week ban, which TIM SCOTT and ASA HUTCHINSON also support). These are not electoral winners. The first three positions are unpopular in the primary. The fourth is unpopular in a general election. But knowing Pence has chosen conviction over politics in these areas made his performance electric — which is not a word we would normally associate with the staid and starchy Hoosier. (Again, the contrast with DeSantis is instructive: the governor refused to say whether he would adopt a federal abortion ban similar to the one he signed in Florida.) — A BROADER DEBATE: Without Trump onstage, last night’s debate gave us a view of what a post-Trump Republican Party might look like: it is still influenced by him and the populist/isolationist energies he unleashed, but a much wider spectrum of opinion is able to flourish. The Trump-less event allowed minority views in the Republican Party — especially those about Jan. 6 and Trump’s criminal culpability — to get a lot more airtime than one generally sees at GOP forums these days. Hutchinson argued that the 14th Amendment may disqualify Trump from serving as president. Haley noted that Trump was the “most disliked” politician in America and an electoral liability. She also reminded the Fox News audience of something it doesn’t hear much: “Donald Trump added $8 trillion to our debt, and our kids are never going to forgive us.” Christie made a point of praising Pence’s actions on Jan. 6 and condemning Trump’s: “[Pence] deserves not grudging credit, he deserves our thanks as Americans for putting his oath of office and the Constitution of the United States before personal, political and unfair pressure. And the argument we need to have in this party before we can move onto the issues that Ron talked about is we have to dispense with the person who said we need to suspend the Constitution to put forward his political career.” — THE FADING HEIR APPARENT. Ron DeSantis might not need to worry much about Pence and Christie, who have basement-level favorability ratings that won’t shift overnight. But DeSantis is being eclipsed by Ramaswamy as the bright and shiny candidate in the race. Ramaswamy is proving more adept at trolling the libs, pressing populist contrarian views on issues such as Ukraine, and expressing his undying fealty to Trump. These were once the Florida governor’s bread and butter. But last night he was restrained. He wasn’t heard from for long stretches, and he allowed Ramaswamy, Pence, Christie and even Haley to steal all the attention. At one point, Ramaswamy quipped, “We’re just gonna have some fun tonight,” and he looked like he meant it. DeSantis did not appear to be having fun. The DeSantis campaign is spinning his performance as an above-the-fray victory that benefited from Ramaswamy attracting the bulk of the attacks that might have otherwise been directed at the governor. But given the trajectory of DeSantis’s campaign, being a non-factor at the first big-audience event of the primary season is not a great outcome. — THE VEEP PLAY? When we ask key Republicans which candidate is most likely to surprise in this primary, the name that comes up most often is Tim Scott. But there wasn’t much evidence for a Scott surge last night. He stuck to his stump speech lines, avoided criticizing his opponents, and wasn’t eager to insert himself into spicy exchanges over abortion and Jan. 6. Two things are true about attacking opponents: it works but it also turns off some voters. So perhaps Scott’s milquetoast performance was simply about playing the long game and protecting his very high favorability ratings, which are his most precious asset. And perhaps he’s playing the very long game and auditioning for a VP role. — THE EARNEST GOVERNORS. Before the debate, Hutchinson and DOUG BURGUM stood apart from the field because of their non-Trumpy views. But onstage, what separated them was their complete disregard for how candidates are taught to communicate in 2023. They have decades of real-world experience, but little of the charisma and TV chops that these GOP debates — now more than ever — reward. More coverage:
Good Thursday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line with your favorite debate moments: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.
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