The Hill’s Morning Report — Debaters joust in Trump’s shadow  

by Alexis Simendinger - 08/24/23 6:50 AM ET

Morry Gash/Associated Press
Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence look toward former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during a Republican presidential primary debate hosted by FOX News Channel Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023, in Milwaukee.

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GOP rivals debating in Milwaukee on Wednesday had one mission: Say or do something to diminish the frontrunner status of former President Trump, who skipped the event.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, on stage with seven other contenders, repeated his campaign argument that as the Sunshine State goes, so should the nation — mentioning his leadership on education, parents’ rights and rewinding “Bidenomics,” which he said is worsening the “decline” of the country.

The Hill: Candidates hit President Biden on inflation, immigration.

The Florida governor was not, as his advisers had envisioned, rhetorically bloodied by the rest of the White House aspirants. One possible explanation: Polls show DeSantis’s campaign losing ground since its launch.

The night’s target turned out to be 38-year-old businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who has surged among Republicans, according to recent polls. During rapid-fire exchanges, he dismissed the former governors, a former vice president and a senator standing next to him as “super PAC puppets,” adding, “I’m the only one on the stage who isn’t bought and paid for.”

Fox News moderator Bret Baier interjected, “whoa, whoa, whoa.”

Former Vice President Pence returned fire: “Now is not the time for on-the-job training.” Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told Ramaswamy, “I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like Chat GPT.”

“You make me laugh,” Christie continued with sarcasm. “You’ve never done anything,” he later added.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who also served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, interjected after Ramaswamy opposed sending more U.S. aid to Ukraine, “You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.”

The Hill staff: GOP candidates trade insults during testy debate: Recap.
Fox News: Ramaswamy was attacked from all sides during the first Republican debate.

Baier and fellow moderator Martha MacCallum waded an hour into a two-hour debate before questioning the eight candidates about Trump, just as the former president’s pre-taped interview concluded with former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson — accessible online on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The Hill: Trump took on Fox News, former Attorney General William Barr and Christie during a free-wheeling conversation with Carlson. The former president will be in the spotlight today as he is expected to surrender to authorities in Georgia in response to his fourth criminal indictment.

Baier and MacCallum asked candidates if they would potentially support a convicted Republican nominee, if Trump lands in that situation.

Ramaswamy commended Trump as “the best president of the 21st century,” despite his efforts to defeat him as a newcomer to politics. His compliment attracted applause Wednesday from the debate audience in the hall, but not from the stage.

Christie said it is Trump’s unpresidential conduct that’s disqualifying, not the criminal charges alleged by the Justice Department and by a county prosecutor in Georgia. The issue, said the governor who helped advise Trump on his transition to the White House in 2016, is that the former president “disrespected the Constitution.” His oath of office, Christie added, was to “preserve, protect, defend. Not suspend.”

Pence drew kudos from other candidates for certifying the Electoral College tally on Jan. 6, 2021, including Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Haley. She said Trump in the 2024 general election would be a weak candidate, calling him “the most disliked politician in America.”

DeSantis said the larger consideration for Republicans is that Biden and Democrats are more likely to win in 2024 if the GOP continues to be drawn back to Jan. 6.

“Republicans, we have to look forward,” the Florida governor said.

The candidates locked horns over a proposed federal abortion ban, a potent political issue among voters, according to polls. They supported abortion restrictions, but diverged over where the votes exist in Congress for such legislation (The Hill).

The Hill: North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum participated in Milwaukee, despite a pickup basketball injury that put him on crutches on Tuesday. He came to the defense of teachers and school districts. With a veiled swipe at DeSantis, he said it was “just false” that all teachers are “indoctrinating” their students. As governor, he added, “I don’t sit and lecture” to school districts.

The Hill’s Niall Stanage, who was in Milwaukee for the event, unpacked the winners and losers.

© The Associated Press / Matt Rourke | Former President Trump, pictured in June, skipped the GOP presidential debate in Milwaukee on Wednesday as rivals challenged his conduct. 

👉 Morning Report’s Kristina Karisch is on leave. 

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: Former Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake said Wednesday she will decide by the end of the year whether she’ll be a candidate for a Senate seat in her state. She was interviewed on NewsNation’s “The Hill” program. NewsNation and The Hill are owned by Nexstar. 

▪ CNN: The House Judiciary Committee, as early as today, is expected to launch an inquiry into whether the Fulton County, Ga., prosecutor coordinated with the Justice Department in the Trump case. 

▪ The Hill: In California and Virginia, transgender policies see school districts rebel.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ COURTS & SPARKS

Faced with a Friday deadline, Trump plans this evening to surrender at the Fulton County, Ga., jail and post a $200,000 bond — yet another unprecedented turn of events for a former president. He faces 13 counts stemming from his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and 91 total charges across four criminal cases. But unlike his previous three court appearances this year, the former president won’t be formally arraigned until next month. Trump has said publicly that he’s the victim of a biased political vendetta and previously pleaded not guilty. Here’s what to expect (The Hill). 

The New York Times: Here’s who has been charged in Georgia. 

Former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani took his turn on Wednesday. He surrendered at the Fulton County, Ga., jail under a $150,000 bond, charged under the state’s racketeering law with conspiring to help the former president remain in office after losing the 2020 election. 

The former New York City mayor and longtime Trump ally faces 13 charges for allegedly joining a criminal enterprise. Giuliani, once a tough-on-crime prosecutor who later competed in the 2008 GOP presidential primary, joins 18 other defendants in a sweeping case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D).

Speaking to reporters before turning himself in, Giuliani said, “I’m feeling very, very good about it because I feel like I am defending the rights of all Americans, as I did so many times as a [former] United States attorney” (CNN).

▪ The New York Times: Trump on Sept. 7 will host a $100,000 per-person fundraiser at his Bedminster, N.J., club to help Giuliani, who has hefty legal bills.

▪ The Washington Post: Defendants Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell also turned themselves in on Wednesday.

▪ ABC News: The fall of Giuliani: How “America’s mayor” tied his fate to Trump and got indicted.

▪ The Hill and The Washington Post: U.S. District Court Judge Steve Jones on Wednesday denied requests by Trump co-defendants Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, and Jeffrey Clark, a former acting assistant attorney general, to block arrest warrants if they do not voluntarily surrender in Fulton County by a Friday deadline. Both men sought temporary reprieves amid efforts to move their cases to federal court in Georgia.

In the Justice Department’s criminal prosecution involving Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, special counsel Jack Smith and his team advised a witness he would not face perjury charges after he amended his testimony, CBS reported. The IT employee, Yuscil Taveras, has implicated Trump and two of his aides. The government alleges that Taveras was pressured to delete video footage sought by prosecutors showing the movement of boxes that allegedly contained sensitive government records. The government does not assert that the security footage was erased and says that Taveras did not accede to the entreaties. The documents case against Trump has been set for trial in Florida beginning on May 20.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ ADMINISTRATION

© The Associated Press / Evan Vucci | President Biden, holding a fruit smoothie, spoke with reporters on Wednesday in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., following a Pilates and spin class. 

Biden on Tuesday will identify 10 prescription drugs to undergo the first-ever price negotiations under Medicare, Politico reports. Democrats’ goal to reduce pharmaceutical costs for consumers was a key provision of last year’s Inflation Reduction Act and required identifying a list of drugs for negotiations by Sept. 1.

Administration health officials are expected to disclose the initial list before the stock market opens Tuesday morning, recognizing that selected drugs could affect trading, according to Politico. 

■ Biden will meet at the White House Tuesday with Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves Robles, who took office in 2022 (The Hill). Migration is one of the big topics the two leaders will discuss.

■ As part of the government’s “cancer moonshot” effort, the president announced that a team at Emory University in Atlanta will work to adapt mRNA technologies, which proved successful in vaccines developed against the COVID-19 virus, as a weapon against cancer. The government is investing $24 million (Axios). “This is a bold endeavor that has the potential to transform the fight against cancer and other difficult diagnoses,” the president said in a Wednesday statement.

OPINION

■ Putin plans for a long struggle in Ukraine. The U.S. needs to do the same, by The Washington Post editorial board. 

■ Three mistakes the Republican candidates must avoid on abortion if they want to win, by Marjorie Dannenfelser, opinion contributor, The Hill.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will convene for a pro forma session on Friday at 2 p.m. Lawmakers return to Washington Sept. 11. House Democrats are scheduled to hold a virtual caucus meeting this afternoon.

The Senate is out until Sept. 5 and will hold a pro forma session at noon on Friday. 

The president is vacationing in Lake Tahoe, Nev. He has no public events on his schedule.

Vice President Harris is in Washington and has no public events.  

Economic indicator: The Labor Department at 8:30 a.m. will report on filings for unemployment claims in the week ending Aug. 19. 

ELSEWHERE

➤ CRASH, LANDING, ROCKET

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary group who staged a brief mutiny against Russia’s military leadership in June, is presumed dead after being listed as a passenger on a private plane that crashed about 100 miles outside of Moscow Wednesday, killing all 10 people aboard, according to Russian aviation authorities (The New York Times and The Associated Press).

“An investigation of the Embraer plane crash that happened in the Tver Region this evening was initiated,” the Federal Agency for Air Transport of Russia said in a statement, according to the state news agency Tass. “According to the passenger list, first and last name of Yevgeny Prigozhin was included in this list.”

U.S. intelligence officials on Wednesday were unable to confirm details of the plane crash, the Times reported. Biden, vacationing with his family in Nevada, told reporters after being briefed by aides that he did not know enough to say whether Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind the crash. “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind,” he added..

▪ BBC: What we know about the plane crash that reportedly killed Prigozhin.

▪ Reuters: A list of Putin foes who, like Prigozhin, have suffered mysterious fates.

🌘 India was exultant on Wednesday after successfully deploying a robotic lander called Vikram and a rover called Pragyan on the far side of the moon. Days after a Russian lunar landing failed, India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission is poised to explore an area of the moon that has yet to be visited and has water ice that could be a resource for future missions (The New York Times).

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated India’s space agency, now credited with making India the fourth nation to soft-land a spacecraft on the moon. “We’re glad to be your partner on this mission!” wrote the former astronaut and former Florida senator on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. NASA provided access to its Deep Space Network of radio antennas for communications with India’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft.

On Friday in Japan, the JAXA space agency will launch a moon mission called Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM. Japan’s exact lunar landing date has not been announced, according to the Times. 

On Thursday, North Korea launched what appeared to be a space rocket, alarming Japan and triggering a 20-minute emergency warning to residents of Okinawa to take cover indoors. North Korea previously said it would launch a satellite between Thursday and the last day of August. Pyongyang has said it needs a military reconnaissance satellite to boost monitoring of U.S. military activities (Reuters).

The White House, in a statement, condemned North Korea for “using ballistic missile technology” in its launch, calling it “a brazen violation” of United Nations resolutions that “risks destabilizing the security situation in the region and beyond.”

➤ COMEBACKS 

Americans love revivals and second chances in sports, and here’s one. Legendary gymnast Simone Biles, 26, who famously struggled with a loss of confidence known as the “twisties” and opted to bow out of some competition at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, has returned to her sport. She will compete in the U.S. Gymnastics Championships beginning today in San Jose, Calif.

▪ USA Today explains how to watch the competition.

▪ The Washington Post: In San Jose, Biles could win her eighth all-around national title.  

Biles, a seven-time Olympic medalist, qualified for U.S. nationals earlier this month, winning her first competitive event since Tokyo (CNN). When asked about competing at the Paris Olympics next year, Biles said only that things are “heading in the right direction.”

THE CLOSER

© The Associated Press / J. Scott Applewhite | The Capitol on Nov. 2, 2022, with fire truck protection.

Take Our Morning Report Quiz

And finally …  It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for this week’s Morning Report Quiz! On this day in 1814, the U.S. Capitol went up in flames, setting in motion a long history as a symbolic target for enemies foreign and domestic. With that in mind, here’s a challenge for puzzlers and history buffs: Faff around!

Be sure to email your responses to asimendinger@digital-stage.thehill.com (Kristina Karisch is off this week) and please add “Quiz” to your subject line. Winners who submit correct answers will enjoy some richly deserved newsletter fame on Friday.

What was the rationale behind the Capitol inferno?