How Donald Trump won the debate he skipped
In the first Republican debate of the presidential season, on August 23rd, Fox News generously granted Americans 50 minutes of escapism, or maybe denial: a glimpse of Republican politics without Donald Trump dominating the stage, as speaker or even as subject. He chose to skip the debate, leaving it to eight other candidates to bicker over how to ban abortion and whether humans caused climate change. It turned nasty fast, but some of it was clarifying, and all of it was a relief.
And then reality hailed down in the form of a question about whether the candidates would support Mr Trump as the nominee even if he were convicted of a felony. Six of eight hands went up. Well, four hands went up, and Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, looking around and spotting them, quickly half-raised his own hand, followed by former Vice-President Mike Pence.
Mr Trump was at pains to smother the debate, which took place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He pre-taped an interview with Tucker Carlson, formerly of Fox, that was posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, just as the debate began. The two had a genial back-and-forth about matters such as whether Jeffrey Epstein really killed himself in jail or was murdered. Mr Trump acted like he had already won the nomination, largely ignoring his rivals and attacking President Joe Biden. (“He looks horrible at the beach.”)
2023-08-24 03:00:40
Original from www.economist.com
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