Second Republican Presidential Primary Debate Transcript

High on the hills of California’s Simi Valley stands a monument to one of the most beloved leaders in our nation’s history. Ronald Reagan, the Gipper, the great communicator. America’s 40th commander in chief. He railed against big government.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

And sought peace through strength.

Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall.

40 years after Reagan’s landslide reelection, the Republican Party faces critical questions. What does it mean to be a conservative?

We fight for the truth.

We are not going to worry about what the left and the media say about us.

What is the key to a thriving economy?

It’s innovation, not regulation.

America could do for anyone what she’s done for me.

We will stop the spending. We will stop the borrowing. We will stop the earmarks.

What is America’s role in the world?

We need to build a military fitted to the widening challenges in an evermore dangerous world.

Sometimes you avoid war by showing the tough.

And the country faces even more challenges. Would Reagan even recognize the country in which we now live. Tonight, candidates seeking the Republican nomination converge in California to chart a new path for the Grand Old Party. Now is the time for choosing.

Welcome to the second Republican debate at the [inaudible 00:01:52] in California. We’re inside the spectacular Air Force One pavilion where the stage is set for a showdown. I’m Stuart Varney, at Fox business, and I am thrilled to be sitting alongside my co-moderators, Fox News Channel Dana Perino and Ilia Calderón [inaudible 00:02:14] division. Good evening.

Good evening. Thank you. Thank you Stuart. President Reagan famously described America as a shining city on a hill and tonight seven candidates will make the case they should be the one to lead that city into a brighter tomorrow, but first they have to convince you, the voter. Please allow me to welcome our Spanish-speaking audience, [Spanish 00:02:42] Ronald Reagan [Spanish 00:02:45].

And good evening. So let’s meet the candidates who have qualified and chosen to be on this stage tonight. They are positioned by the order they rank in the polls with the highest polling candidate in the middle. Standing center stage, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

[inaudible 00:03:08] the governor, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

Next is South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

On the wings tonight, former Vice President Mike Pence and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.

We have questions on a wide variety of issues important to primary voters. Candidates get one minute to answer and 30 seconds to respond if singled out. When their time runs out, we’ll all hear this. We have a lot of ground to cover, so please keep it civilized.

Let’s get going. We are in this spacious, sunny place tonight, designed to reflect the very nature and character of Ronald Reagan. It’s a place that makes you proud to be an American, yet today our nation is drowning in division and incivility.

Voters say they dread the 2024 election and find politics exhausting. Two in three Americans think the country is on the wrong track and three in four say the economy is not in good shape.

Prices are up 18% since 2020. More than half of the US population has little access to childcare. 85% of Americans say their personal finances are a source of stress.

Americans want to believe a leader who says, “You can follow me, I’ve got you. Don’t worry.” President Biden is trying to do that with Bidenomics.

And yesterday he joined the picket lines where auto workers are demanding more wages and job security. Senator Scott, you recently reacted by praising Ronald Reagan for firing air traffic controllers in the 1980s, saying, “You strike, you’re fired.” Would you fire thousands of striking auto workers today Senator?

Obviously the President of the United States cannot fire anybody in the private sector. However, we should look back at the first bill in Congress under Joe Biden. The first bill had $86 billion for the union pensions because they continue to over-promise yet under-deliver. One of the challenges that we have in the current negotiations is that they want four day French work weeks, but more money. They want more benefits working fewer hours. That is simply not going to stand. I sat in a finance committee hearing when a widow came before the committee whose promised pensions from the unions, $4,000 a month. Unfortunately it had been cut to a thousand dollars a month. We must make sure that we honor the commitments that we make and one of the ways that we do that, do not over-promise and then under-deliver and leave the taxpayers on the hook.

(06:22)
I’ll say this, Joe Biden should not be on the picket line. He should be on the southern border working to close our southern border because it is unsafe, wide open and insecure, leading to the deaths of 70,000 Americans in the last 12 months because of fentanyl. It is devastating. Every county in America is now a border county because fentanyl has devastated Americans in every single state. I will also say 6 million illegal crossings since Joe Biden has taken office and he eliminated Title 42. The one thing he should do is finish the wall, reinstate title 42 and get the job done.

Well, I can promise you that we are going to have a lot of questions on the border and immigration, but in the meantime we do want to talk about the economy and jobs and especially want to talk about this strike for just a moment more. Mr. Ramaswamy, you’ve said you really empathize with the strikers. You’re standing next to Senator Scott, and do you agree with what he said or do you think he’s wrong?

I agree with some of what he said for sure, I like the spirit of it. I’ll say that I don’t have a lot of patience for the union bosses, I think that’s where he and I actually have a common view. I do have a lot of sympathy for the workers however. People are going through real hardship in this country. I’ve been through hardship growing up. My father stared down layoff, said GE under Jack Welch’s tenure at the GE plant in Evendale, Ohio. My mom had to work overtime in nursing homes in Southwest Ohio to make ends meet and pay off our home loan. So I understand that hardship is not a choice, but victimhood is a choice, and we choose to be victorious in the United States of America.

(08:10)
You know what? If I was giving advice to those workers, I would say go pick it in front of the White House in Washington DC. That’s really where the protest needs to be. Disastrous economic policies that have driven up prices that have driven up interest rates and mortgage rates at the same time wages remaining stagnant. What we need is to deliver economic growth in this country, unlock American energy, drill, frack, burn coal, embrace nuclear energy, put people back to work by no longer paying them more money to stay at home, stabilize the US dollar itself and rescind a majority of those unconstitutional federal regulations that are hampering our economy. That is how we unleash American exceptionalism. And that’s not a democratic vision or a Republican vision, that is an American vision that we embrace economic growth, and capitalism is still the best system known to man to lift us up from poverty and we should not apologize for it. That’s what it means to be an American.

Together, the CEOs of General Motors, Ford and Stellantis make 336 times the number of rank and file workers. That’s just part of a wider income inequality trend in the country. The richest 1% now controls one fifth of all income. Vice President Pence, last week you said you side with American workers, but you also support how these companies operate, which is it?

Well, thank you for the question. I want to thank Univision and Fox Business for assembling such a wonderful forum.

(09:55)
Look, I do disagree with something Tim Scott just said. Joe Biden doesn’t belong on a picket line, he belongs on the unemployment line. Look, I’m from the second leading manufacturing state in the country per capita, I was governor of the state of Indiana. We brought 12,000 factories back to America during our administration, I know something about manufacturing. And I got to tell you, while the union bosses are talking about class warfare and talking about disparity in wages, I have to tell you I really believe what’s driving that is Bidenomics has failed. Wages are not keeping up with inflation. Auto workers and all American workers are feeling it and families are struggling in this economy. And Joe Biden’s Green New Deal agenda is good for Beijing and bad for Detroit. We ought to repeal the Green New Deal, get rid of the mandates and subsidies that are driving American gasoline, automotive manufacturing, into the graveyard. And beyond that also, as President of the United States, I’ll be standing with workers all across America and I’ll be standing for the right to work, of every American to join a union or not join a union as they decide.

Senator Scott, you were mentioned will you care to respond?

There’s no doubt that Joe Biden needs to be fired, that’s why I’m running for president. I look forward to being the next President of the United States. I will also say I know America can do for anyone what she’s done for me. It’s why we’re focusing on restoring hope, creating opportunities and protecting the America we all love. Growing up in a single parent household, I wondered if the American dream would work for a kid in the inner city. I’ve got good news for every single child, whether you’re in the inner cities of Chicago or the rural parts of Iowa; America and the dream, it is alive, it is well and it is healthy. God bless these United States of America.

Governor Haley, you raised your hand.

Yeah, I think we need to look at exactly what happened. Biden showed up on that picket line, but why are those workers actually there? It’s because of all of the spending that he has pushed through in the economy that’s raised the inflation. So when you look at the fact that we are paying higher gas prices, higher grocery prices, $7,000 more a year for families, what we need to do is… I came out with an economic plan. Eliminate the gas and diesel tax so that they have more money in their pocket. Let’s focus on going after middle America and cutting taxes for middle America and collapsing those brackets. Let’s get rid of unfair distortions like the state and local tax that they give to wealthy people in blue states and paid by red states. And let’s make sure we make the small business taxes permanent. They only made those temporary, they made the corporate taxes permanent. Let’s focus on what it takes to get more cash in the pockets of workers, that’s when we’ll be able to deal with strikes like this. Not sitting on a picket line like Joe Biden is.

Thank you Governor Haley. We have other questions to get to about economy. Allow me to-

I just have to… I’m sorry.

Allow me to, allow me to-

I’m sorry. I have to jump in because we’re missing the point and every other network is missing the point. The reason why people are striking in Detroit is because Joe Biden’s interference with capital markets and with free markets. The subsidies, we’re subsidizing the automakers and we’re subsidizing the cars and a particular kind of car. Not every car, we’re particularly subsidizing electric vehicles. And when you decide that we’re going to take all of your taxpayer monies, take a billion dollars, subsidize a certain type of vehicle, and the batteries come from China. China controls 85% of the rare earth minerals. They’re called rare earth because they’re measured in parts per million. China is moving a hundred thousand pounds of earth in Indonesia, in Africa. They’re literally destroying the planet so that they can make a battery that’s in a car subsidized here. That’s why they’re striking because they need two thirds less workers to build an electric car. Joe Biden, this strike is at Joe Biden’s feet.

[inaudible 00:14:02]

We’re going to keep the topic of economy but allow me to the following question to Governor Christie. The Government will shut down if Congress does not reach a deal by the end of this week. Vice President Pence warns that politics of “Trump’s populist proteges like Mr. Ramaswamy are a road to ruin for the GOP.” If the government shuts down should voters blame populist Republicans?

Voters should blame everybody who’s in Washington DC. They get sent down there to do the job and they’ve been failing at doing the job for a very long time. And let’s be honest about this with the voters, during the Trump administration, they added $7 trillion, $7 trillion, in national debt, and now the Biden administration has put another $5 trillion on and counting. They have failed and they’re in the spot they’re in now because none of them are willing to tell the truth, none of them are willing to take on the difficult issues, they just want to keep kicking the can down the road. And the inflation that Nikki spoke about is absolutely right and it’s caused by government spending, and that’s why people all across this country are suffering tonight.

(15:11)
And yet we don’t get any answers because Joe Biden hides in his basement and won’t answer as to why he’s raising the debt the way he’s done. And Donald Trump, he hides behind the walls of his golf clubs and won’t show up here to answer questions like all the rest of us are up here to answer. He put $7 trillion on the debt, he should be in this room to answer those questions for the people you talk about who are suffering. And if the government closes and if the government closes, it is to the blame of everyone in Washington DC who has failed to do their job and just plays to the grandstand.

[inaudible 00:15:47]

The next question is for Governor DeSantis. Can we please respect the time. Governor DeSantis, you haven’t spoken. Please.

The people in Washington are shutting down the American dream with their reckless behavior. They borrowed, they printed, they spent, and now you’re paying more for everything. They are the reason for that. They have shut down our national sovereignty by allowing our border to be wide open. So please spare me the crocodile tears for these people, they need to change what’s going on. And where’s Joe Biden? He’s completely missing in action from leadership and you know who else is missing an action; Donald Trump is missing an action. He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record where they added $7.8 trillion to the debt, that set the stage for the inflation that we have. Now I can tell you this, as governor of Florida, we cut taxes, we ran surpluses, we’ve paid down over 25% of our state debt and I vetoed wasteful spending when it came to my desk. And as your president, when they send me a bloating spending bill that’s going to cause your prices to go up, I’m going to take out this veto pen and I’m going to send it right back to them.

Ilia, you mentioned that you had another question I just want to address that.

I’m going to go to Senator Scott. I have a question that is on the minds of a lot of moms and dads and Americans and I know that you’ve been thinking about it because childcare costs, they are up, they’re topping $10,000 per month.

Yes.

Some families are spending up to half of their income on childcare and they’re having to decide is it worth it for me to work or does it not make sense for me financially? In three days, the billions of dollars in pandemic era funding is going to end and 70,000 daycare’s could close. So you had an effort to broaden eligibility for childcare assistance, that fell apart last year. And for the moms and dads out there who are worried, what can you tell them, if you weren’t able to get it through the Congress how could you do it as president?

Certainly one of the things I did as a member of the Congress was to make sure that we protected the Head Start programs around the country, giving people the opportunity to pick and choose the place that they send their children. The challenges that we see today under the Biden administration is that the cost for daycare has gone over $15,000 per child, and the Build Back Broker Plan, he called it a Build Back Better Plan, it was going up to $29,000. The way we fix that problem is to make sure that we actually cut taxes and give more Americans their money back. When I helped write the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, we actually lowered a single mother’s taxes by 70% on the federal level, for dual income households by 60%. Then we went a step further, we doubled the child tax credit and made it refundable. By doing that, more parents had more resources to make the decisions, how to take care of their family. The one thing we should do is let the American people keep their money. When that happens, the greatest opportunities rise from the ashes.

Vivek, I’m going to give you 15 seconds. Go ahead. And then we’re going to the border.

Ilia mischaracterized a part of my view. I think this artificial division is unhelpful in our party. The real divide is not between the Republicans on this stage, and in the Reagan library I want to say these are good people on this stage. The real divide is between the majority of us in this country, who love the United States of America and share our founding ideals, free speech, meritocracy. The idea you get ahead in this country, not in the color of your skin but on the content of your character and the fringe minority in the Democrat party, that has a choke hold over that party, that’s the real divide. So this populist versus classical debate is artificial. We need to unite this party.

We are going to go to immigration and the border. Ilia?

I actually want to answer the question.

We are going to talk about immigration and the border.

No, I think we’re going to go. You have to… We have all these questions. We’re going to get to you, we’re going to come back to you. There’s a lot of time, we’re going…

I want to answer the question on childcare. You asked the question about childcare and nobody answered the question.

Sir.

In North Dakota, we knew that the cliff was coming. We knew that there was going to be millions of people without it. And so guess what? We planned.

Okay.

We passed legislation because childcare-

Sir, We’ll get you some questions but you’re going to have to let us move on. We are going to the border next.

Childcare is workforce infrastructure.

I haven’t been given a chance to respond.

In 1984, president Ronald Reagan said the following.

The idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally.

Two years later, President Reagan granted amnesty to nearly 3 million immigrants, something no Democrat or Republican precedent has done since. Governor Christie, as governor of a non-border state in 2010 you supported a path to citizenship. But when you ran for president in 2016, you flipped, saying immigrants should be tracked like FedEx packages. Where do you stand now on a path to citizenship for 11 million of undocumented immigrants?

Well, the problem is that since no one has done anything since we first had this discussion 13 years ago, we’re not in a position to be able to do any of that anymore. What we have to do now is first treat this like the law enforcement problem it is. Our laws are being broken every day at the southern border, every day. And Joe Biden and his crew is doing nothing about enforcing that law. They are letting it go. And by the way, they announced during the presidential race they were going to let it go.

(21:33)
And we need to have a president who acts like I did as governor; enforce the law, first and foremost. And that means what I’ll do on day one is sign an executive order to send the National Guard to partner with customs and border patrol, to make sure that we stop the flow of fentanyl over the border, but also to make sure that we send a much different message. We want you here in this country to fill the 6 million vacant jobs we have, but only if you come here to follow the law and only if you come here legally. If you come here illegally, we will apprehend you and we will send you back across the border from which you came.

(22:14)
And the fact is, that until we set a law and order agenda in this country, not only now but in the future, we won’t be able to continue this. And I’ll tell you this, Donald Trump failed on this as well. He said he was going to build a wall across the whole border. He built 52 miles of wall and said Mexico would pay for it. Guess what? I think if Mexico knew that he was only going to build 52 miles, they might’ve paid for the 52 miles.

Thank you Governor Christie.

All right, Governor Haley.

(22:40)
Most illegal immigrants are coming from countries south of the border. You’ve seen the Fox News drone, it’s captured this steady stream of people coming into the country on a daily basis. In fact, I do believe we have a live picture of it tonight. That is happening right now live. In the last decade, the US has spent nearly $55 billion to address the root causes of migration. But crime, poverty and corruption, they persist, and the number of migrants is only growing. Are we wasting our money?

Well, what happens is when Joe Biden waved the green flag, it told everybody to come. And now we’ve seen 6 million people cross the border. We’ve had more fentanyl that have killed Americans in the Iraq, Vietnam or Afghanistan wars combined. We need to make sure that we are a country of laws. The second we stop being a country of laws, we give up everything this country was founded on. So we have to secure the border. The way we do that is first of all, defund sanctuary cities. You see what’s happening in Philadelphia right now. It’s got to stop. We need to make sure we put 25,000 more Border Patrol and ICE Agents on the ground and let them do their job. I spent 400 miles down that border and I’m telling you, Border Patrol Agents aren’t allowed to do their job. Let’s go back to “Remain in Mexico” policy. Instead of catch-and-release, let’s go to catch-and-deport and let’s-

What about the aid that federal taxpayers are paying to deal with the root causes? It’s not working or is it?

The only aid that we should be spending right now is to secure the border; the southern border, the northern border, period.

You would cut off aid to the region?

We need to keep Americans safe, and right now Americans are not safe. Only when we fix the immigration system, only when we get the border secure should we ever look at putting any more money into this. Our money should be about keeping Americans safe. We’re not doing that, Joe Biden’s not doing that. And you mentioned Congress and shutting down government. I’ll make it clear we have to change the budget process. In 40 years, Congress has only delivered a budget on time four times in 40 years. If they don’t keep the government open, they should not get paid. No pay, no budget. That’s the way we should handle it.

Governor DeSantis-

The amount of money…

Governor DeSantis, we have a question for you. Governor DeSantis, China invested $12 billion in Latin America just last year. They signed strategic partnerships with seven countries including Mexico, and China’s military ties to the region now include arm sales and training exercises. Are you comfortable with China deepening ties with our southern neighbors?

Of course not. And the reason why we’re in this mess, is because elites in DC for far too long have chosen surrender over strength when it comes to the CCP. Some people in our country got rich, our industrial base got hollowed out and they have been able to build the second most powerful military in the entire world. We need a totally new approach to China. We are going to have real hard power in the Indo-Pacific, like Reagan, to deter their ambitions. We’re going to have economic independence from China where we’re decoupling our economy, and we are going to go after the cultural power they have in this country. As governor of Florida, I banned the CCP from buying land in our state. We should do that all across these United States. We shouldn’t have them in our universities. We shouldn’t have Confucius Institutes. So you see a country in decline, our power’s in decline. China’s going to surpass us this decade, and if they do that, that’s going to affect every single American household. As your president, I am not going to let that happen. I’m going to reverse this country’s decline. We are going to choose strength, not surrender when it comes to the CCP.

America is not a country in decline. Under Joe Biden, we are a country in retreat.

Mr. Ramaswamy, you proposed “universal deportation for all undocumented immigrants and their children even if the children are citizens of the United States.” Under what legal premise will you expel US citizens?

So the first thing I want to say is I agree with everything, the Republicans on this stage are on the right side of this issue. Militarize the southern border, stop funding sanctuary cities and end foreign aid to Mexico and Central America to end the incentives to come across. But I do go a step further, you’re right about that, Ilia. I favor ending birthright citizenship for the kids of illegal immigrants in this country.

(27:01)
Now the left will howl about the Constitution and the 14th amendment. The difference between me and them is I’ve actually read the 14th amendment. What it says is that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the laws and jurisdiction thereof, are citizens. So nobody believes that the kid of a Mexican diplomat in this country enjoys birthright citizenship, not a judge or legal scholar in this country will disagree with me on that. Well, if the kid of a Mexican diplomat doesn’t enjoy birthright citizenship, then neither does the kid of an illegal migrant who broke the law to come here. And as the father of two sons, it is hard for me to look them in the eye and say, you have to follow the law when our own government fails to follow its own laws. That’s how we really go the distance and solve this problem and restore the rule of law in the United States of America because that is part of what it even means to be an American.

Senator Scott, you opposed ending birthright citizenship. What does Mr. Ramaswamy have wrong on that issue?

Yeah, there’s no doubt the fact that when you think of the Constitution and the 14th Amendment, it was certainly written as it relates to slavery, not as it relates to illegal immigration. It’s been applied to illegal immigration. So the challenge that we face is in fact one that has to do with whether or not the people that come here are under the jurisdiction of our laws. And frankly, if you come here illegally, you are not. Now surviving a Supreme Court argument is something I can’t tell you, but from a perspective of the Constitution, I think it’s simple, that clearly it was designed for slavery and not for illegal immigration.

(28:35)
I’ll go one step further though. When we have a conversation about the things that are happening on this stage, we think about the fact that Vivek just said we were all good people, and I appreciate that because last debate he said we were all bought and paid for. And I thought about that for a little while and said, “I can’t imagine how you could say that knowing that you were just in business with the Chinese Communist Party and the same people that funded Hunter Biden millions of dollars was a partner of yours as well.”

That’s nonsense.

That’s not nonsense.

So look-

Mr Ramaswamy, you have 15 seconds.

I want to respond. These are good people who are tainted by a broken system and it’s not the fault of anybody who’s involved.

[inaudible 00:29:14].

Some of us aren’t tainted [inaudible 00:29:15]

Excuse me, excuse me. Thank you for interrupting while I’m speaking.

No, you said Biden paid for us.

If I may.

You can’t be on both sides.

Gentlemen, you’ll have your turn.

One of the challenges we should at least-

[inaudible 00:29:26] back and forth. Can we please focus on the issues that matter? [inaudible 00:29:30] big business in China, everybody knows that.

If I may address.

Let’s focus on holding Joe Biden accountable. That’s what we need to be focusing on.

I actually agree with Ron DeSantis.

With everybody speaking at the same time, no one can understand your message.

Exactly. So if I may. I agree with Ron DeSantis on China. When every other CEO expanded into the Chinese market, you know what I did with my first company? We opened a subsidiary in China. But you know what I did that was different than every other company, we got the hell out of there. And when I started my next company Strive…

Yeah, right before you ran for president.

2023. 2023.

… right when I started my next company Strive to compete against BlackRock…

It’s a debate-

Excuse me.

No, no. It’s a debate between you and you.

… to compete against BlackRock, I made a commitment that we would never do business in China. And I will say something-

Mr Ramaswamy, I think you’ve had more than time to explain your point.

Well, I was interrupted by a lot of people here and I want to be respectful because I believe these people.

You were respectful last debate.

But I do not believe in these… we’re sitting here in the Reagan library.

Yes. I wish you would [inaudible 00:30:22]

And in honor of Ronald Reagan’s library, if I may. Tim from one admirer of Ronald Reagan to another. From one admire of Reagan to another.

Did you not do deals with the CCP four years ago?

[inaudible 00:30:32].

This isn’t productive. Nobody can understand what’s going on.

Let’s have a policy debate. Let us have a policy debate and I will see that through.

Mr Ramaswamy, I have a question for Vice President Pence. Thank you very much. Vice President Pence. In 2017, the Trump/Pence administration canceled DACA, which put the legal status of 600,000 dreamers in the hands of the courts. Dreamers work

… and they pay taxes. As President, if the Supreme Court ends DACA, would you work with Congress to reach a permanent solution for Dreamers?

Well, first, let me say I’m glad Vivek pulled out of his business deal in 2018 in China. That must’ve been about the time you decided to start voting in Presidential elections.

Thank you. I’m going to address that in a second too.

Nice to have you participating in elections. So let me speak to this issue, number one, I negotiated the Remain In Mexico Policy with the Mexican government. We used economic power to bring the Mexican government to the table. We built hundreds of miles of border wall and, despite what’s said here today, we reduced illegal immigration and asylum abuse by 90%. And as President of the United States, I can do it again. And the truth is we need to fix a broken immigration system, and I’ll do that as well, but, first and foremost, a nation without borders is not a nation. We have to secure the southern border of the United States of America. I know how to do it and we will do it again. Let me say one other thing about China.

Vice President.

Let me say one other thing about China.

Would you negotiate with Congress to give a solution to the problem that Dreamers have right now? They are in limbo.

Well, let me tell you, I served in Congress for 12 years, although it seemed longer, but something I’ve done different than everybody on this stage is I’ve actually secured reform in Congress. Ron, you talk a really good game about cutting spending, but you’ve increased spending in Florida by 30%. When I was a member of Congress in 2006, right after Hurricane Katrina, Dana, you remember it, we stood our ground. I led House Conservatives. We cut $100 billion dollars out of the federal budget. It can be done, but as I said in the last debate, I’ll say again, this is no time for on the job training. I’m going to be ready on day one to get Congress to step up, secure the southern border of the United States, build a military fitted to our times, and we’re going to get spending in Washington D.C. under control once and for all.

Thank you, Vice President. [inaudible 00:33:12].

On the other side of this break and I propose to go to a break, how will these candidates make America safer as rising crime plagues our cities? Debate Night continues in moments.

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I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

You’re looking at the World Trade Center. We understand that a plane…

You can see the fireman assembled here.

[inaudible 00:35:30] huge ball of fire.

At this point, it’s clearly difficult to tell. [inaudible 00:35:34].

… of one nation under God. [inaudible 00:35:50].

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And welcome back to the Reagan Library for the second Republican Presidential Debate. I do want to just remind everyone, there’s one minute for questions, 30 seconds for a follow-up, and the more you mention each other, that means the fewer questions you’re going to get. Okay, so we want to talk about crime. This has been a horrendous problem in our country. Fox News and others have been covering it. Governor Christie, crime in major cities is striking fear into the hearts of Americans. Just last night, looters took over the streets of Philadelphia. You said in the last debate that you would use U.S. attorneys to prosecute crimes local prosecutors won’t, but they are stretched as well and they could not handle all of the lawlessness, the shoplifting, all the carjackings, the armed robberies. They’re all surging. Progressive prosecutors were elected by their constituents and they can’t be fired by a President. So what would you do to end the revolving door of criminality?

Well, look, Dana, I’m the only one on this stage who’s done it. For seven years, I ran the fifth-largest office in this country at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, and we set records for the number of prosecutions that we brought that still have not been broken. And the reason was that we went after the crime that was affecting people’s lives. And as President, I will point an Attorney General and instruct that Attorney General that you are to put all the resources that are necessary to bring our cities back under control. The fact is they will be stretched, there’s no doubt about that, but that’s what they take the job for, because they love the idea of enforcing the law. We’ve got to bring law and order back to this country and not just in our cities, but we need law and order back everywhere.

(39:01)
We need law and order back in our suburbs. People are threatened there. We need it in our rural areas. People feel threatened there. And we need it in Washington, D.C also. And Donald Trump should be here to answer for that, but he’s not. And I want to look in that camera right now and tell you, Donald, I know you’re watching, you can’t help yourself. I know you’re watching and you’re not here tonight not because of polls and not because of your indictments. You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on this stage and defending your record. You’re ducking these things. And let me tell you what’s going to happen. You keep doing that, no one up here is going to call you Donald Trump anymore. We’re going to call you Donald Duck.

All right, I want to ask Governor DeSantis, you fired a couple of prosecutors in your state, but as President, you would not have the ability to do that. How do you think about dealing with the root causes of crime, especially this revolving door of the criminals that just get out and come back and commit another crime?

Well, the crime in these cities is one of the strongest signs of the decaying of America. We can’t be successful as a country if people aren’t even safe to live in places like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Just being in Southern California over the last couple of days, my wife and I have met three people who have been mugged on the street, and that would’ve never happened 10 or 20 years ago. In Florida, we back the blue. We support the men and women of law enforcement. They are keeping us safe. We have a 50-year low in the crime rate. And, yes, when I had two progressive prosecutors that weren’t following the law in Florida, I removed them from their post and the people of Florida are safer as a result of it.

(40:35)
As President, I will use the Justice Department to bring civil rights cases against all of those left-wing Soros funded prosecutors. We’re not going to let them get away with it anymore. We want to reverse this country’s decline, we need to choose law and order over rioting and disorder.

On a related subject, Governor Haley, there’s a nationwide policing shortage, retirements are up, recruitment is in the tank, morale is at a record low. Three years ago, you signed a pledge to support law enforcement. Now, pledges are a nice idea, but what’s your actual plan to get more police on our streets?

And I actually did it in South Carolina too. What we knew in South Carolina was, you take care of those who take care of you. We have to start taking care of law enforcement, but it’s not just taking care of them with words. It’s making sure that you also follow through on what they do. Right now, we have a lot of stolen guns on the street. Well, these law enforcement officers, they arrest these people and then they go and they’re let out the very next day so law enforcement feels like no one has their back. We have to start prosecuting according to the law. We have to make sure we have the backs of law enforcement and we have to make sure that we’re a country of law and order.

(41:47)
But I want to go back to China because I don’t think we spent enough time on that. Right now, we have to look at what government’s doing to hurt us against China too. You have a company, USAntibiotics, that produces Amoxicillin, the number one antibiotic that we need, and right now there is a company in Bristol, Tennessee that produces that yet our federal government only gets it from China. We need to be focusing on companies that produce in America and supporting those companies that produce in America, not companies that are helping China.

Governor, we’ll be talking foreign policy later. Ilia.

Thank you, Stuart. We’re going to stay on the topic of crime because it affects all of us. Governor Burgum, for the first time ever, a Univision poll found that mass shootings and gun safety are one of the most important issues for Latino voters. Mental health concerns are not unique to the United States, but gun violence is. What is your specific plan to curb gun violence?

Well, first, we need to know and understand is I think that the liberal left seems to be just completely bent on prosecuting law-abiding citizens that are gun owners because every solution they have to this is take away the Second Amendment rights of Americans and somehow that’s going to solve the problem. But all these cities that we’re talking about that they showed the videos of tonight, they have some of the strictest gun laws in the country. So we know that that’s not what’s working. What we have to do is get back to the core issues about the family. We have to get back to behavioral health and mental health. We’ve got to get back to actually enforcing the laws these people talked about and, like we’ve done in North Dakota, where we’ve got the goal and we’re on the track to being the most military friendly state in the nation.

(43:31)
We’ve got the most military and the most support of what we’re doing in terms of law enforcement because the morale is down because we’ve been defunding the police, because they’ve been attacked in the press. The police have become the bad guys. There’s all these jobs available in America. Why would you be a policeman if people don’t even respect them? Every time I see a policeman, the first thing I say is thank you, and so does everybody else in my family and most of the people in our state, because they know we have to respect the people that are out there defending us every single day.

Can I answer the question on mass shootings?

Mr. Ramaswamy, according to Customs and Border Protection, about 90% of fentanyl is seized at official border crossings and 57% of the smugglers are U.S. citizens. How would you stop fentanyl brought into the country mostly by U.S. citizens through ports of entry?

There’s two sides to this, so we have to be very honest about it. One is we do have to seal that southern border. Building the wall is not enough. They’re building cartel financed tunnels underneath that wall. Semi-trucks can drive through them. We have to use our own military to seal the Swiss cheese of a southern border. But we also have to be honest, there’s a demand side problem in this country too, a mental health epidemic. I met a family in Iowa, two parents, Kathy and Derek. They lost their son, Sebastian, 17 years old. He bought Percocet on Snapchat and then he died. Why did he die? Because it was laced with fentanyl That is closer to bio-terrorism, not a drug overdose. That is poisoning. It is our job to make sure that never happens, but it’s also our job to make sure that 17 year olds don’t turn to Percocet via Snapchat.

(45:09)
We have to bring back mental healthcare in this country. Not with pumping pharmaceuticals but with faith-based approaches that restore purpose and meaning in the next generation of Americans. Many of them are getting it through social media, and this isn’t a Republican point or a Democrat point, but if you’re 16 years old or under, you should not be using an addictive social media product period. This is something that we can both agree on and we can revive both the mental health of this country while stopping the fentanyl epidemic that will kill more people this year than who died on 9/11. And I refuse to be a passive bystander sitting in the White House like the hollowed husk of a current President we have. We will step up and address this problem to stand for Americans and our children.

I want to go to Vice President Pence next.

Why are you encouraging TikTok? Quit encouraging TikTok.

Everything he said I agree with. That is why as Commander-in-Chief, I’m going to use the U.S. military to go after the Mexican drug cartels. They are killing our people, and the stories that I’ve seen. In Florida, we had an infant, 18 months, parents rented an Airbnb, and apparently the people that had rented it before were using drugs. The infant was crawling, the toddler was crawling on the carpet and ingested fentanyl residue and died. Are we just going to sit here and let this happen, this carnage happen in our country? I am not going to do that. So I guarantee you on day one this border is going to be a day one issue for me as President. We’re going to declare it a national emergency. Yes, we’ll build the wall. We’ll do Remain In Mexico, but those Mexican drug cartels are going to be treated like the foreign terrorist organizations that they are.

I’m going to go to Vice President Pence. [inaudible 00:46:43] All right, Vice President Pence. We’re going to move on to a different issue. Hold on. Sorry. Vice President Pence.

$5 billion.

Just last month, Vice President Pence, you said if elected you would repeal all Obamacare mandates. However, you also made that same promise in 2016, and at that time, Trump-Pence had congressional majorities for at least the first two years and you did not deliver on that promise. So Obamacare right now, it is more popular than ever. Why should Americans trust you if you become President to fix that or is Obamacare here to stay?

Well, first, let me speak to the mass shootings issue and then I’ll answer that question. It’s important one, Dana. Look, I’m someone that believes that justice delayed is justice denied and as a father of three, as the grandfather of three beautiful little girls, I am sick and tired of these mass shootings happening in the United States of America. And if I’m President of the United States, I’m going to go to the Congress of the United States and we’re going to pass a federal expedited death penalty for anyone involved in a mass shooting so that they will meet their fate in months, not years. It is unconscionable that the Parkland shooter, Ron, is actually going to spend the rest of his life behind bars in Florida. That’s not justice. We have to mete out justice and send a message to these would be killers that you are not going to live out your days behind bars.

I appreciate that.

You’re going to meet justice in this system.

But does that mean Obamacare is here to stay?

Well, thank you for reiterating the question because I’d love to answer it.

You got 30 seconds.

Look, I think it’s one of the choices here. My former running mate, Donald Trump, actually has a plan to start to consolidate more power in Washington, D.C., consolidate more power in the executive branch. If I’m President of the United States, it’s my intention to make the federal government smaller by returning to the states those resources and programs that are rightfully theirs under the 10th amendment of the Constitution. That means all Obamacare funding, all housing funding, all HHS funding. All of it goes back to the states. We’ll shut down the Federal Department of Education will allow states to innovate. We’re going to revive federalism in America and states are going to help bring America back.

I’m not sure we got an answer on Obamacare’s state, but, Stu, go ahead. May

I remind everyone to keep within their timeframe so that we can get as many questions in as possible. This question for Governor DeSantis, over 26 million Americans don’t have insurance coverage. Governor DeSantis, two and a half million of them are in your state. That’s worse than the national average. Can Americans trust you on this?

Well, I think this is a symptom of our overall economic decline. Everything has gotten more expensive. You see insurance rates are going through the roof. People that are going to get groceries, I spoke with a woman in Iowa and she said for the first time in my life I’m having to take things out of my grocery cart when I get to the checkout line because the total goes up so quickly. This is very real and people are hurting out there so we’ve got to address the underlying problem with Bidenomics, the overspending, taking all Biden’s rules and regulations, I’m going to throw them in the trash can on day one. You’re not going to have to worry about that. We’re going to open up all of our energy. We will be energy dominant in this country that will lower your gas prices. And what we need to do with healthcare is recognize our healthcare is putting patients at the back of the bus. We have big pharma, big insurance, and big government and we need to tackle that and have more power for the people and the doctor-patient relationship.

Governor, why is your record in Florida on insurance worse than the national average?

Our state’s a dynamic state. We’ve got a lot of folks that come. Of course, we’ve had a population boom. We also don’t have a lot of welfare benefits in Florida. We’re basically saying, “This is a field of dreams, you can do well in the state, but we’re not going to be like California and have massive numbers of people on government programs without work requirements.” We believe you work and you got to do that. And so that goes for all the welfare benefits. And you know what that’s done, Stuart? Our unemployment rate is the lowest amongst any big state, we have the highest GDP growth against any big state, and even CNBC, no fan of mine, ranked Florida the number one economy in America.

But you have one of the worst cases [inaudible 00:51:20].

On the topic of healthcare, Governor Haley, healthcare is the leading cause of bankruptcy for American families, accounting for two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies. As President, how will you protect Americans who get sick from financial ruin?

First of all, how can we be the best country in the world and have the most expensive healthcare in the world? We have an issue. My mom was in the hospital, and when she was in the hospital, they tried to bring her a couple of Tylenol and she said, “I don’t need it.” And they said, “Honey, go ahead and take it because paying for it anyway.” Why is it that when we got the bill, the insurance company and the hospital negotiated the bill for her without her having anything to do with it? When I am President, we will break all of it. From the insurance company to the hospitals, to the doctor’s offices, to the PBMs, to the pharmaceutical companies, we will make it all transparent because when you do that you will realize that’s what the problem is.

(52:16)
Second thing is you’ve got to deal with tort law. The doctors don’t give you the 10 tests because they want to. It’s because of the 90% chance they’ll get sued. And then we need to bring competition back to healthcare, get rid of certificate of need systems, and make sure that they can compete. We have to put the patient in the driver’s seat. They’ve been in the backseat for way too long. And once we give the patient the ability to decide their healthcare, deciding which plan they want, that is when we will see magic happen. But we’re going to have to make every part of the industry open up and show us where their warts are, because they all have them and we need to fix this on behalf of the American people.

Governor Burgum, do you have a better way in 30 seconds?

Well, yes. We’re not talking about the real problem ever. We talk about, why do we have the most expensive healthcare in the world? It’s because the federal government got involved the same way they did with EVs and they said, “We’re going to subsidize a particular kind of software,” back in 2008 under Obama, and they said, “Hey, we’re going to do this. It’s going to make everything more productive.” All of you that are watching have been to a doctor’s office when the doctors got his back to you and their hands on a keyboard. The only industry in the world that’s ever absorbed $1 trillion of IT and became less productive. They saw less patients per day in U.S. healthcare because they were subsidizing a certain kind of technology. It wasn’t about improving healthcare. It was about picking winners and losers. Every time the federal government’s involved, whether it’s higher education, healthcare, or now the auto industry, things get more expensive and less competitive.

That was a great transition because we are going to move on, the future of education in America. What’s the government’s role in finding a way forward? The second Republican Debate rolls on from Simi Valley.

An informed patriotism is what we want, and are we’re doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world?

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Oh, I’m updating my content policies.

Really? Do you mind if I take a look?

Sure. Yeah. Here you go. Oh wait, one more. This is a new one.

Thank you. I’ll block off my schedule.

It’s a real page turner. Page 94 is my personal favorite.

Okay. Can’t wait. Honestly, YouTube, this is too much to read.

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And we are back live at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in the Air Force One Pavilion for the second Republican Debate. And let’s get back to our questions. Governor Haley, American students, they are in academic trouble. They have lower scores in math and reading. There’s chronic absenteeism. That’s at record highs. And this has even been called education homicide. You say school choice is the answer, but South Carolina, your home state still has not enacted universal school choice and even the current expansion won’t be fully implemented until 2027. Parents can’t wait four years for a fix. So what would you do right now?

Well, school choice isn’t the only answer, but I’ll tell you, it’s not out of a lack of trying that we didn’t try and get school choice in South Carolina. What I’ll tell you, first of all, is we have to acknowledge the fact that 67% of our eighth graders are not proficient in reading or math. Over 80% of our eighth graders aren’t proficient in history or civics. And recently they came out and said our 12 and 13 year olds are scoring at the lowest levels they’ve been scoring in reading and math in decades. So the first thing we’ve got to do is we’ve got to make sure we catch our kids back up. We have to make sure they can read. A child that can’t read by third grade is four times less likely to graduate high school. We need to do reading remediation. We need complete transparency in the classroom.

(01:00:13)
No parent should ever wonder what’s being said or taught to their child in the classroom. We need to make sure that we have school choice so that there’s competition. We need to move all the programs from the federal government down to the states and let states decide what education looks like in their states. And we need to start building things in America again. Let’s put vocational classes back in our high schools and let’s get our kids building the things that we know that we can make. When we start to focus on that and really bring in that parental involvement, that’s when we’ll start to see a difference.

(01:00:42)
But we’ve got to get parents back included. We’ve got to quit spending time on this DEI and CRT and instead focus on financial literacy, on digital literacy, and on making sure that our kids know what they need to do to have the jobs of the next generation.

On the subjective education, a question for Governor Christie. Students in your state are getting high marks on their report cards, but minorities are not doing well with math and reading. Black and Hispanic students averaging 29 points lower than white students in New Jersey. Would you address minorities first?

Well, you have to address all students and, look, in our state, Stuart, frankly, before I was Governor, that gap was close to 50%. And what we did was institute more charter schools and more renaissance schools and more public school choice in New Jersey with innovative solutions in cities like Camden, where now we took what was the worst school district in America during my time and we have now increased that by nearly 40% in terms of their proficiency. It can be done when you give people choice. But let’s tell the truth to everybody about what this is. This public school system is no longer run by

… by the public. It is run by the teachers’ unions in this country. Randi Weingarten and her crew are absolutely strangling. They’re taking the worst of their members and defending them, rather than advocating for our kids. And when you have the President of the United States sleeping with a member of the teachers’ union, there is no chance that you could take the stranglehold away from the teachers’ union every day. They have an advocate inside the White House every day for the worst of their teachers, not for our students to be the best they can be. A President of the United States is to take on the teachers’ union, I did it in New Jersey and I will do it as President of the United States.

Governor DeSantis, I have a question for you. Governor DeSantis, I have a question for you.

I haven’t started. Are you guys having trouble seeing [inaudible 01:02:47]?

Florida’s new Black history curriculum says “Slaves develop skills, which in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit”. You have said, “Slaves develop skills in spite of slavery, not because of it.” But many are still hurt. For the sentence of slaves, this is personal. What is your message to them?

So, first of all, that’s a hoax that was perpetrated by Kamala Harris. We are not going to be doing that-

Take the line out, just take the line out.

Second of all, that was written by descendants of slaves. These are great Black history scholars, so we need to stop playing these games. Here’s the deal. Our country’s education system is in decline, because it’s focused on indoctrination, denying parents’ rights. Florida represents the revival of American education. We’re ranked number one in the nation in education, by US News and World Report. My wife and I, we have a six, five and three-year-old. This is personal to us.

(01:03:38)
We didn’t just talk about universal school choice, we enacted universal school choice. We didn’t just talk about Parents’ Bill of Rights, we enacted the Parents’ Bill of Rights. We eliminated critical race theory, and we now have American Civics and the Constitution in our schools in a really big way, just like President Reagan asked for, in his farewell addressed back in 1989. Florida is showing how it’s done. We’re standing with parents, and our kids are benefiting.

Senator Scott, you’re opposed to these new standards. What is your message for Governor DeSantis?

There is not a redeeming quality in slavery. He and Kamala should have just taken the one sentence out. America has suffered because of slavery, but we’ve overcome that. We are the greatest nation on earth because we faced our demons in the mirror and made a decision. So often, we think that all the issues, you talk about crime and education and healthcare, we always think that those issues go back to slavery.

(01:04:42)
Here’s the challenge though. Black families survived slavery. We survived poll taxes and literacy tests. We survived discrimination being woven into the laws of our country. What was hard to survive was Johnson’s great society where they decided to put money, where they decided to take the Black father out of the household to get a check in the mail. And you can now measure that in unemployment and crime and devastation.

(01:05:14)
If you want to restore hope, you’ve got to restore the family, restore capitalism, and put Americans back at work, together as one American family. Our nation continues to go in the right direction. It’s why I can say I have been discriminated against, but America is not a racist country. Never ever doubt who we are. We are the greatest country on God’s green earth, and frankly, the city on the hill needs a brand new leader. And I’m asking for your vote.

I’m going to have a question for you, Mr. Ramaswamy. Over 10.7 million students in over 18,000 public schools nationwide have the ability to change their identity without parental notification. Governor Christie told Stewart last week that he would pass a federal law to protect parental rights. Would you try to do the same?

I have to be very clear about this. Transgenderism, especially in kids, is a mental health disorder. We have to acknowledge the truth of that for what it is. I met two young women early in this campaign-

But specifically on parental rights in schools.

Parents have the right to know. And you know what the hypocrisy of this is? Even New Hampshire failed to actually get past a piece of legislation here. The very people who say that this increases the risk of suicide are also the ones saying that parents don’t have the right to know about that increased risk of suicide. And I’m sorry, it is not compassionate to affirm a kid’s confusion. That is not compassion, that is cruelty. I met two young women, Chloe and Katie early in this campaign, who are in their 20s, now regret getting double mastectomies and a hysterectomy. One of them will never have children. And the fact that we allowed that to happen in this country is barbaric. So, I will ban genital mutilation or chemical castration-

Okay. But I want to know, just specifically-

Under [inaudible 01:07:04], parents have absolutely the right-

Would you try to pass a federal law that says parents should have that right?

We are going to require, states absolutely have to follow that through. We stand for parental rights, yes.

Okay. Then I want to ask Governor Burgum just to follow up on this, parental, because in your state you do not have a law that says parents can’t be notified, but you want to be president. Would you try to pass a federal law to say parents have that right?

I think this is a state’s issue, but I do want to say something, because all night long we’ve been talking about issues about how it’s broken in Washington and I respect all of the people on the stage here for their a 100 plus years of public service, thank you. But the reason why we’re not talking about education or healthcare or safety being a problem in North Dakota is because we have a business leader. I’ve got more experience as a business leader than I think this whole group combined. I know I’ve created more jobs than everybody else on stage, thousands of high paying jobs that have real meaning. So as a business leader, you come in and you treat the taxpayer like a customer. So in North Dakota, instead of fighting with the teachers’ unions, we actually created a K12 coordinating council. Everybody gets in the room and the customer is the student.

But you do understand that this is an issue that many people in America really are concerned about, worried about, about parents and notification and schools.

Yes, and that’s why we have fifty platforms of innovation. That’s why we have states. There are certain things the federal government is supposed to do. It’s not the Department of Education, that needs to be assembled, we got to move it back to states. Do what we did in North Dakota instead of like, “Oh, here’s a choice school and here’s an old school, the old way with the teacher’s union, the kids are trapped.” We made every school in North Dakota an innovation school, every school got out from under the red tape and the things that help teach the values that we’re trying to get like 4H, like FFA, like voice [inaudible 01:08:40], they can credit for all of that stuff.

I love the 4H, but we’re going to move on.

Vice President Pence, I have a question for you.

And by the way, North Dakota is now at the top of the median SAT scores in the country, right now.

Vice President Pence, the Department of Homeland Security warns that violence against LGBTQ+ people is on the rise and intensifying. According to a recent study, members of that community are nine times more likely to be victims of violent hate crimes. As president, how would you protect this community from violent attacks and discrimination?

Well, as president of the United States, I’ll stand up for the safety and the civil liberties of every America, from every background, and I want the American people to know that. But I want to answer the question as well, Dana, that you just asked Doug Burgum, because by way of full disclosure, Chris, you mentioned the president’s situation. My wife isn’t a member of the teachers’ union, but I got to admit, I’ve been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years. And full disclosure. Look, education is a state and local function. State of Indiana had one of the very first school choice programs in the country, and when I was governor of the State of Indiana, we doubled it.

(01:09:52)
And as to your question, Dana, let’s be very, very clear. When the Linn-Mar community schools in Iowa had a policy where you had to have a permission slip from your parents to get a Tylenol, but you could get a gender transition plan without notifying your parents, I weighed in with a foundation. That’s not bad policy. That’s crazy. We’re going to stand up for the rights of parents and we’re going to pass a federal ban on transgender chemical or surgical surgery anywhere in the country. We’ve got to protect our kids from this radical gender ideology agenda. And we’ve got to empower parents at the state level with the ability to choose where the kids go to school, whether it’s public, private, parochial, or homeschool. You empower parents, and our schools will straighten up and reflect our values and focus on the basics faster than you could possibly imagine.

Next subject, China.

Can I just say one thing-

China, China, China. China is investing… If you talk over everybody, we lose time. China is investing heavily in their tech companies, 280 billion every year on semiconductor research and development. That is one chips act per year. Governor DeSantis, you say companies like Google and Meta have too much power. Doesn’t going after them give China an edge?

No, I think you look at how our societies develop. They have huge amount of power over our society. They’ve cracked down on free speech. We’re not saying you don’t want them to do business, but you want it to be a free market. And right now they’re monopolies. But this issue of China, I think, is really going to be fundamental. We have subcontracted out so much of our national needs to the CCP. We rely on them for a whole host of issues. We need to reshore and we need to decouple all those important industries. We need to get that back in the United States. They are our top geopolitical adversary by a country mile. Xi Jinping’s got huge ambitions not only in the Asia Pacific, but as you mentioned earlier, in our region. But ultimately we’ve got to beat them on the economy. And so that’s what we’ll do as President of the United States.

Governor Christie, I wanted to follow up on this, because 22% of American workers fear their jobs will be lost to a robot. And you said in the past that the free market is the way to go. Would you retrain workers who lose a job to artificial intelligence, and to do what?

Well, look, what I think artificial intelligence offers us is an extraordinary opportunity to expand well beyond the productivity that we have now, and to have Americans be able to be involved in that revolution, Dana. Each time we have shown incredible innovation and progress in this country, what we’ve done with it is to expand all kinds of new even unthought of opportunities for folks. Yes, we have to do retraining for folks who lose some of their jobs, and we should be doing that and we should have more training available both at the county college level and the local level for people to be able to access it.

(01:13:01)
So yes, I would be in favor of that, but this is a much bigger issue than that. We can’t be afraid of innovation. America has been the great innovator of this world over the last 250 years. A technological innovator, a manufacturing innovator, and a freedom and governmental innovator. And that’s why America has to continue to stand strong in the world, pro-innovation, pro progress. And I will tell you this, as President of the United States, what I will do is to make sure that every innovator in this country gets the government the hell off its back and out of its pocket, so that it can innovate and bring great new inventions to our country that will make everybody’s lives better.

Mr Ramaswamy, TikTok is banned on government-issued devices because of its ties to the Chinese government. Yet you joined TikTok at the dinner with Boxer and influencer Jake Paul. Should the commander in chief be so easily persuaded by an influencer?

So the answer is, I have a radical idea for the Republican Party. We need to win elections. And part of how we win elections is reaching the next generation of young Americans where they are. So when I get into office, I’ve been very clear. Kids under the age of social, under the age of 16, should not be using addictive social media. We’re only going to ever get to declaring independence from China, which I favor, if we actually win. So while the Democrats are running rampant, reaching the next generation three to one, there’s exactly one person in the Republican Party which talks a big game about reaching young people. And that’s me.

(01:14:39)
And let me level with all of you. I’m the new guy here, and so I know I have to earn your trust. What do you see? You see a young man who’s in a bit of a hurry, maybe a little ambitious, bit of a know-it-all it seems at times. I’m here to tell you no, I don’t know it all. I will listen. I will have the best people, the best and brightest in this country, whatever age they are, advising me. We will be probably many of the people on this stage included. That’s how I built my companies. I want to be challenged. I want people who disagree with me. That’s what makes America great, because we’re not a perfect nation-

TikTok is [inaudible 01:15:13] Chinese Communist Party, and it’s not [inaudible 01:15:13].

… we’re founded on the pursuit of perfection. That is what makes America great-

… of Americans every-

… And that is why we will end it once we win this election.

I have to jump in here. I’m sorry, I have-

… when Mr. Ramaswamy was speaking-

There’s one person on this-

This is infuriating because TikTok is one of the most dangerous social media apps that we could have and what you’ve got, honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say. Because I can’t believe-

Governor Haley, if I may-

… they hear about a TikTok situation. What they’re doing is these 150 million people are on TikTok. That means they can get your contacts, they can get your financial information, they can get your emails, they can get-

Let me just say [inaudible 01:15:55], this is important, this is very important for our party-

… text messages. They can get all of these things. China knows exactly what they’re doing. And what we’ve seen is, you’ve gone and you’ve helped China build medicines in China, not America-

… and I’m going to say it. We should stop, we will… Excuse me. Excuse me.

You’re now wanting kids to go and get on the social media that’s dangerous for all of us? You went and you were in business with the Chinese that gave Hunter Biden $5 million? We can’t trust you. We can’t trust you.

So let me say something. I think that we-

We can’t have TikTok in our kids’ lives, we need to ban it.

Mr. Ramaswamy, you have 15 seconds.

I think. Excuse me.

You have 15 seconds, Mr. Ramaswamy.

Thank you. I think we would be better served as a Republican Party if we’re not sitting here hurling personal insults, and actually have a legitimate debate about policy following Reagan’s 11th Amendment, in his honor. And the answer is, that is what actually makes our country strong. And I believe in these people, these are good people on the stage. They disagree, but let’s have a legitimate disagreement. That’s what I would say.

Stuart, can we get back to the question-

No, we cannot. Governor DeSantis, I’m going straight-

The question is on technology, there’s one person on this stage that has a career in technology.

Sir, we’ll have to cut your mic and I don’t want to do that. I don’t. So Governor DeSantis, let me go to you. Experts say President Putin has ordered assassinations across Europe, cheated on arms control treaties with the US, and seeks to work with China to force our decline. President Reagan believed that if you want to prevent a war, you better be prepared to fight one. Today, the Republican Party is at odds over aid to Ukraine. The price tag so far is $76 billion. But is it in our best interest to degrade Russia’s military for less than 5% of what we pay annually on defense, especially when there are no US soldiers in the fight?

It’s in our interest to end this war. And that’s what I will do as president. We are not going to have a blank check. We will not have US troops, and we’re going to make the Europeans do what they need to do. But they’ve sent money to pay bureaucrats, pensions and salaries and funding small businesses halfway around the world. Meanwhile, our own country is being invaded. We don’t even have control of our own territory. We have got to defend the American people before we even worry about all these other things. And I watch these guys in Washington DC, and they don’t care about the American people. They don’t care about the fentanyl deaths. They don’t care about the communities being overrun because of this border. They don’t care about the Mexican drug cartels. So as commander in chief, I will defend this country’s sovereignty.

But it’s not a territorial dispute, it’s never been a territorial dispute.

And 90% of the resources that we send over to Ukraine is guaranteed it’s a loan. It is not… 90% of the money that we send over there is loan. Well, we can talk about this, but at the end of the day, 90% of the money that we send over there is actually in a form of loan.

We’re not getting it back.

It’s actually not being paid by Ukraine, it’s paid by the NATO or NATO allies.

So I think it’s a good topic, it’s a good topic for debate.

I think it’s a really good topic too, but I’ll say let’s debate the fact that our national vital interest is in degrading the Russian military. By degrading the Russian military, we actually keep our homeland safer, we keep our troops at home and we all understand Article 5 of NATO. When in fact-

We have to level with the American people on this.

I thought you said something about waiting until your turn to talk. So at the end of the day, I’m going to finish my… I’ll be happy to-

Go ahead, and I’ll respond.

I’ll look forward to this one right now. So at the end of the day, when you think about the fact, if you want to keep American troops at home, the attack on NATO territory would bring us and our troops in. By degrading the Russian military, we reduce, if not eliminate, an attack on NATO territory.

If I may finish that exchange, we have to level with the American people on this issue. The reality is-

We are leveling with-

… just because Putin is an evil dictator does not mean that Ukraine is good. This is a country that has banned 11 opposition parties.

A win for Russia is a win for China.

That is not true. We’re driving Russia… Excuse me.

A win for Russia is a win for China.

Excuse me, and you’ll have a chance-

But I forgot, you like China, that’s why you’re-

You’ll have your chance in just a moment. The hurling personal insults isn’t helping. China is the real enemy and we’re driving Russia further into China’s arms. We need a reasonable peace plan to end this, especially… And this is a country whose president, just last week, was hailing a Nazi in his own ranks-

Vivek, if you let Putin have Ukraine, that’s a green light to China to take Taiwan. Peace comes through strength, get a reasonable plan to peace.

Governor Christie-

The communist party of China is the real enemy.

Governor Christie, governor Christie, President Biden’s first two years have brought China, Russia and Iran closer together. Are we focused too much on Ukraine, and not enough on this threat from the new world order?

No, they’re all connected, Stuart. They’re all connected. The Chinese are paying for the Russian War in Ukraine. The Iranians are supplying more sophisticated weapons, and so are the North Koreans now as well, with the encouragement of the Chinese, the naivete on this stage from some of these folks, it’s extraordinary. Look, I understand people want to go and talk to Putin. Guess what? So did George W. Bush. So did Barack Obama. So did Donald Trump, and so did Joe Biden when he said a small invasion wouldn’t be so bad. Every one of them has been wrong. And the fact of the matter is, we need to say right now that the Chinese-Russian Alliance is something we have to fight against and we are not going to solve it by going over and cuddling up to Vladimir Putin.

(01:21:35)
Look, Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin was brilliant and a great leader. This is the person who is murdering people in his own country and now not having enough blood, he’s now going to Ukraine to murder innocent civilians and kidnap 20,000 children. And let me tell you, if you think that’s where it’s going to stop, if we give him any of Ukraine, next will be Poland. This is a guy who said… Wait one sec. This is a guy in 1991 who said that was the darkest moment in world history, when the Soviet Union fell. Listen, everybody, he wants to put the old band back together and only America can stop it. And when I’m president, we will.

Governor Burgum. I want to get to Governor Burgum. He hasn’t had a chance. I have a question I think you’re going to really like, or at least you have experience in it, and we need to talk about America’s farmers, because there is a foreign policy connection here. The US and China are in this fierce economic competition. It’s hurting American businesses and there is blowback against American farmers because China then targets them in retaliation. How would you as president protect American farmers and ranchers from that kind of retaliation from a foreign government like China?

Well, first of all, we’ve got the best farmers and ranchers in the world right here in America. If they have a level playing field, they can out-compete anyone in the world. But this is part of the larger issue that we’re talking about here, which is, we’re in a Cold War with China, the Biden administration won’t admit that. But we’re also in a economic war through what we’re doing with agriculture and energy. And we’re also in a war with them relative to cyber war. We get attacked every day in North Dakota, every state, every school district, our tribes, all being attacked every day by either China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. And now we’ve got a Biden administration whose whole policy is appeasement. They’re out there creating the world, making it less safe. $6 billion they traded for five people. They’ve just now set a price on anyone’s head who’s a tourist from America, who’s a student from America, for kidnapping.

(01:23:28)
If you want more kidnapping, put a price on it. And they’re also helping Iran get to have more closer to nuclear weapon, which pushes all of the Middle East closer to China and Russia. The whole thing is absurd. And then of course we’re going to give Ukraine to Russia, and then we’re going to give Taiwan to China and think that’s a foreign policy? That will make our nation less successful, make us more poor. And at the core of all that is energy policy because China imports 10 million barrels of oil a day. They’re the largest import in the world. And we’ve had four cabinet members from the Biden administration there this summer, and none of them talked about US energy. The first one to go to each of those countries was Kerry, to talk about the folly of the climate policy, which is making the world less stable. It’s empowering dictators. It’s not about climate change that we need be worried about. It’s about the Biden climate policies that are actually the existential threat to America’s future.

Thank you.

Can I speak-

Governor Haley, Mexico’s president called who supports sending US military into the country, ” scoundrels.” Mexico is the United States’ most important trade partner and border security. You say you will send special operations to attack the cartels in Mexico. So this means boots on the ground, drone strikes?

It means special operations. It’s how we deal with our terrorists and what you need to do is understand that Mexico’s not being a good partner if we lost 75,000 Americans last year. Mexico’s not being a good partner if they’re letting the cartels get away with what they’re getting away with. What we will do is, we will make sure that we send in our special operations and we will take out the cartels, we’ll take out their operations, we’ll take out anything that’s doing it, but we’re going to go after China, because China is the one sending the fentanyl in the first place, and we will end all normal trade relations until China stops sending fentanyl, and then we’ll do the special operations and we’ll get it from both sides.

(01:25:24)
This is where President Trump went wrong. He focused on trade with China. He didn’t focus on the fact that they were buying up our farmland. He didn’t focus on the fact that they were killing Americans. He didn’t focus on the fact that they were stealing $600 billion in intellectual property. He didn’t focus on the fact that they put a spy base off our shores in Cuba. They didn’t focus enough on the fact that all of our law enforcement drones in America are Chinese, and we’ve got all these little surveillance cells. We need to start focusing on what keeps Americans safe. That hasn’t happened in a long time. As your president, I will make sure every American is safe, and we’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.

All right, I want to get to Senator Scott. You’re all auditioning for the job as President of the United States. You want to earn these votes, but the world’s problems land in the Oval Office. During the presidential debates in the year 2000, neither Al Gore nor George W. Bush was asked about Al-Qaeda, yet, just one year later, Al-Qaeda’s attack on September 11th claimed nearly 3,000 lives. And the farther we get from September 11th, the closer we are to September 10th. Senator Scott, you have no executive branch experience. What has prepared you to protect the nation from a major manmade national security crisis?

One of the things I’ve had the good fortune of doing is serving on committees in the United States Senate, like the senate armed services committee. I’m on the senate foreign relations committee, also on the finance committee and the banking committee. Talk about addressing the issue of fentanyl. I’ve written the legislation, passed it through the banking committee and the Senate, that would freeze the assets and sanction the accounts of the Mexican cartels. There are weapons that we have within the arsenal that I was able to get passed 23 to 0, in the polarizing Senate as it is.

(01:27:16)
I’ve also understood without question the fact that if you look at the details before 9/11, there was information and intelligence that was available that suggested an attack was coming. Having the right intelligence partners with us is key to making sure that we prevent the next 9/11 from ever happening. Having that experience for the last 10 years is really important in getting the job done.

30 seconds to you, Mr. Pence.

Well, I think you asked a question about executive experience, and I think it’s vitally important. And I stand before you today as a candidate for president because I think this country’s in a lot of trouble. You hear the fire on the stage tonight, you hear the fire in all of our voices, and it’s because Joe Biden is weak in this country, at home and abroad. This is a time for those of us that have the experience, the tested experience, and a commitment to the conservative agenda that Ronald Reagan brought forward in this party, of a strong national defense, standing with our allies, standing up to our enemies, supporting limited government and traditional values need to step forward-

Understood.

… Because frankly, our party does face a time for choosing, as they said at the top of this debate, whether we’re going to stand on the foundation of that conservative agenda that Ronald Reagan poured, or whether we’re going to follow the siren song of populism on more to conservative principles.

And now is the time-

I’m the most experienced, most qualified, and most consistent conservative in this field. And I’m ready to lead America at home and abroad on day one.

Okay, it is now a time for choosing to go to a break. Ilia.

We need to go to a commercial break. Reagan built a coalition that lasted decades. Can any of these candidates do the same? We’ll take that up when the debate continues.

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Hi, welcome to YouTube.

Thanks, it’s great to be here. I’m just going to upload my video right now.

Let me see it first. [blows whistle 01:30:46]. Flag.

Did you just cancel me? All right, I’m going to be leaving now.

Where are you going?

To a place where I can’t get canceled and they celebrate free speech.

What, in fantasy land?

It’s not fantasy land. It’s called Rumble. Later, pal.

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Welcome back to the Republican Primary Debate here at the Reagan Library. We’ve got a lot more issues to cover and a lot more questions to go, so let’s dive right back in.

(01:33:17)
We’re here in California where gas is nearing $6 a gallon. Oil is close to $100 a barrel, again. You say drill, baby, drill, but the courts won’t let you. Mr. Ramaswamy, how would you bring down prices without immediate drilling?

Well, look, I think that we do have to run through the courts and get through that administrative state to make sure we’re using the natural resources here at home, but here’s the other thing that we can do that’s easy.

It would take forever, Mr. Ramaswamy.

And it addresses the national debt as well as brings down prices, put people back to work. We are using taxpayer money to pay people more to stay at home than to go to work. That is wrong. That contributes to our supply chain crisis. It contributes to inflation. That’s the easiest way to unlock this economy.

(01:34:05)
Here’s the other thing. We have to put the Federal Reserve back in its place. This is an agency that has gone rogue. So in January 2026, when I have the opportunity as your next commander in chief, we will have a new chairman of the Federal Reserve who places priority on dollar stability. And then most importantly, send packing 75% of the administrative state, reduce the federal employee headcount by 75%, rescind 50% of unconstitutional federal regulations that are shackling businesses, both large and small.

(01:34:37)
I’ve offered a very clear, practical plan to do it. That’s how we unleash the economy. That’s how we revive the integrity of a three-branch constitutional republic rather than this technocracy and aristocracy in the administrative state.

Vice President Pence, your response please.

I think one of the signature accomplishments of our administration was in just a few short years, we achieved energy independence. We became a net exporter of energy for the first time in 75 years. But on day one, Joe Biden declared a war on energy, which was no surprise, because when Joe Biden ran for president, he said he was going to end fossil fuels, and they’ve been working overtime to do that ever since.

(01:35:21)
If I’m President of the United States, we’re going to open up federal lands. We’re going to unleash American energy. We’re going to have an all-of-the-above energy strategy. I have a plan that actually would not only reclaim energy independence, but in 2006, America lost our position as the leading energy producer on earth. I believe in the next 10 years with the right policies and experienced leadership in the White House, we can reclaim our role as the leading energy producer on earth, and that’ll grow the American economy for generations to come.

Governor Haley, reaction to that please.

As the only person who’s leading an energy state, could I answer the energy question?

No. Governor Haley.

The first thing I’ll say is what I saw at the United Nations is energy security is national security. We need a president that understands we have to partner with our producers and make sure that we have their backs. What you don’t need is a president who is against energy independence. Ron DeSantis is against fracking. He’s against drilling. He’s been against… You did it.

(01:36:25)
He always talks about what happens on day one. You better watch out because what happens on day two is when you’re in trouble, day two in Florida, you banned fracking, you banned offshore drilling.

That is not true.

You did it on federal lands, and you took green subsidies that you didn’t have to take. It is true. Look at day two.

Governor DeSantis, you were mentioned. You have the right to respond, 30 seconds.

I just did a plan out in West Texas for American Energy Dominance. We’re going to choose Midland over Moscow. We’re going to choose the Marcellus over the [inaudible 01:36:53] and we’re going to choose [inaudible 01:36:54] over Beijing and we are going to lower your gas prices. We are going to get that job done because it’s important for our national security. It’s important for jobs, and that’s one of the best ways to drive down inflation.

Governor DeSantis-

Did you ban fracking? Did you ban [inaudible 01:37:08]?

Governor DeSantis. This question is for you.

Our voters enact enacted a constitutional amendment.

You banned it before they voted.

That doesn’t allow… No, it’s not true.

You banned it before they voted-

Nikki-

And not only that fracking wasn’t… They didn’t vote on fracking.

She’s just totally wrong. They voted it in.

Check it.

That’s what we did. On shore, we do do it in Florida. We don’t have as much as maybe West Texas, but we do it. But that was a constitution amendment, so that’s just wrong and let’s just get real here. My plan will get the job done. We are going to be energy dominant.

-before the voted, and the voters didn’t even vote on fracking.

We’re moving on with this question for Governor DeSantis. Governor-

As the only leader of an energy-

Excuse me. We cannot talk over each other. We must respect each other’s time. My apologies for that.

I’m ready, Stuart. Let’s do it.

Governor DeSantis, this is your question. The Biden administration is hell bent on student loan forgiveness, but you say colleges should be on the hook when graduates cannot pay their debt. How does that address the cost of college itself?

Because the colleges are going to have to make a decision. Do we offer, do we expand the gender studies department knowing some of those graduates may not have great learning opportunities? No. They’re going to focus on the things that really matter. They’re going to make different choices. They’re going to try to graduate people in four years.

(01:38:24)
I also just want to come back to something Dana asked last segment about 9-11 because I was just at the 9-11 Memorial with the families, my wife and I, everybody. It’s very touching to be there, and it affected my life because I ended up joining the military as a result of that. I had been a blue collar kid, minimum wage in Dunedin, Florida. I ended up getting through Yale and Harvard Law School and somehow came out more conservative than when I went in, and that is not easy to do.

(01:38:47)
Had a lot of opportunities to make money, but I wanted to serve, and I’ll never forget coming back on the plane from Iraq landing in Coronado, California, North Island, and feeling that breeze off the Pacific Ocean and saying you know what? I am lucky to have been born an American, and I think being able to serve, and I’ll be the first president elected since 1988 who’s actually served overseas in a war. I think that’s going to help me as commander in chief to know how you see these issues and understand that there are real lives at stake for people that wear the uniform.

We know that Governor Haley’s husband is serving right now as well, and we thank him for that. Senator Scott, the national debt has nearly doubled in your time in office. The approval rate for Congress is at a mere 19%. If this were a business, you’d probably all be fired in Washington, but you’re here tonight looking for a promotion.

(01:39:34)
In 2013, Governor Haley hired you for the Senate. I’d like you to tell her why you should be promoted to CEO of the nation instead of her.

Certainly. One of the things I’d say is if you look at our national debt of $33 trillion, I would love to have an opportunity to have this country pass a balanced budget amendment that would constrain the spending in Washington in the same fashion that it does in every state in our nation. Number one.

(01:40:03)
Number two, if you want to actually reduce our national debt, you have to grow our economy. In order to grow our economy, you need to create about 10 million jobs to grow our economy at 5%. You can do that in three specific sectors. Number one, the energy sector. We could create between three and three-and-a-half million jobs if we unleashed all of our energy resources. America is the most, we’re the richest country if you combine coal, gas, and oil. Why not unleash all of our resources? Number two, we’ve lost 100,000 factories, 100,000 factories in the last 25 years. If we continued on my Made in America Plan, we could bring jobs back to America in a similar fashion that we did when I wrote the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

(01:40:51)
We actually lowered the corporate tax from 35% to 21%, reshored or repatriated $1.7 trillion. We brought the unemployment rates for African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians to the lowest level in the history of the country and a 70-year low for women.

Governor Haley, would you think you would deserve the promotion?

Well look, I appreciate Tim. We’ve known each other a long time, but he’s been there 12 years and he hasn’t done any of that. They’ve only given four budgets on time in 40 years. He was part of that-

The biggest, largest tax cut in the history-

He increased the national debt. He voted for the spending. He has made sure that the borders are open, and they haven’t done [inaudible 01:41:40]. 12 years. Where have you been? Where have you been, Tim? 12 years. We’ve waited and nothing has happened.

Here’s what you’ve done-

Here’s the thing that I to find interesting.

Ron, let me finish it first.

All these guys have said-

Here’s the fact-

And I appreciate a lot of the things they’re saying.

Nikki Haley-

I’m the only one up here who’s gotten in the big fights and has delivered big victories for the people of Florida, and that’s what it’s all about. You can always talk, but when it gets hot in there, when they’re shooting arrows at you, are you going to be stand up for parents’ rights, to keep the state free? Are you going to be able to do all those things? And in the State of Florida, because of our success, the Democratic Party lies in ruins. We have won the big fights. We have turned our state into a Republican state. People respond to leadership. I’ve done it while others have talked about it.

We actually have a CEO [inaudible 01:42:23]. What I think we need. If I may just briefly interject here-

I haven’t had my opportunity 30 seconds-

We need a zero-based budgeting. That’s the way businesses are actually run. Start with zero as the baseline for the budget, and then see what’s actually necessary. There isn’t a blue state or a red state in this union that does it. The federal government doesn’t do it, but successful companies, including the ones that I’ve built as a CEO-

I think that Governor Burgum would disagree with you, though.

-will do it. We need a CEO in the White House to get that done.

Governor Burgum runs a state that way.

(01:42:52)
Yes, go ahead.

Ask questions you didn’t ask the only guy that’s been attacked. You have energy questions. You don’t ask anything, but I’m just going to say right now, when you say nobody else has done it, the energy plans that have all been announced in the last month by these other folks on stage, we’re already doing it in North Dakota. The border plans they’re already talking about, we’ve got troops down at the border flying helicopter missions from North Dakota from San Diego to the Gulf Coast trying to stop transnational criminal organizations from inflicting the invasion and the mass casualties in our state.

(01:43:19)
And on the energy policy, we’re already doing it, and it’s not saying when nobody else has done the big fights, North Dakota was leading the charge. We won the battle to get… The Biden administration was ignoring the law. They were the first administration since Truman that wasn’t holding the quarterly required lease sales, and we won that in federal court [inaudible 01:43:37]. We won that in federal court. We’re fighting the Biden administration on 20 fronts.

(01:43:40)
To say that nobody’s fighting the big fights. Just look at the record of what we’re doing right now. Energy, economy, national security. I’ve been talking about it since day one and now finally, good, we’re having the conversation about it, but we’ve got the answer in North Dakota.

Governor Burgum, let’s talk big government. This question’s for you. Big government keeps getting bigger. One fifth of all new jobs this year are being created by the government. Governor Burgum, you say you want to shrink the size of government, but it has been a century since any president has done that. Why would you be any different?

Well, because we’ve done it in North Dakota. When I took office, we shrunk the state budget general fund by 27% in the first four months I was office, and we all the trains still running on time. Why? Because you had a business leader that was actually there.

(01:44:26)
Inside of every government job, there’s 10 or 20% of mind-numbing, soul-sucking work that even the state and federal employees don’t want to do, and you can engineer that work out of the job. That would free up right there, 20% of 2 million civilian employees, and by the way, we’ve got 10 million jobs open. They’d have plenty to do and they could be generating taxes instead of being paid by taxes. This is totally possible to do it if you have somebody that understands because having worked in technology for 30 years, everything we had to do was to be better, faster and cheaper the next day. That’s what we can do in government. That’s what we’re doing in North Dakota.

All right, Governor DeSantis, I want to ask you about something that I think is on a lot of Republicans minds. This election could come down to less than 50,000 votes in three states. Abortion was on the ballot in six states in 2022. Republicans lost all of them. Next year abortion will likely be on the ballot in Arizona. That is a must win state. Governor DeSantis, how are you going to win over independent pro-choice voters in Arizona?

Same way we did in Florida. We won the greatest Republican victory in a governor’s race in the history of the state, over 1.5 million votes. We were winning places like Miami-Dade County, Palm Beach, that nobody thought was possible because we were leading with purpose and conviction.

(01:45:44)
I reject this idea that pro-lifers are to blame for midterm defeats. I think there’s other reasons for that. The former president, he’s missing in action tonight. He’s had a lot to say about that. He should be here explaining his comments to try to say that pro-life protections are somehow a terrible thing. I want him to look into the eyes and tell people who’ve been fighting this fight for a long time. My wife and I earlier today were at the grave site of President and Mrs. Reagan, and I noticed that there was a quote where it says, “Every single person has purpose and worth.” We’re better off when everybody counts, and I think we should stand for what we believe in. I think we should hold the Democrats accountable for their extremism, supporting abortion all the way up until the moment of birth. That is infanticide and that is wrong.

Let me ask Governor Christie. Governor Christie, do you think that Republicans can do that in Arizona if this referendum is on the ballot there?

Yeah, because I did it in New Jersey, Dana.

Then why are all these other states losing?

Well, because they don’t have leaders in those states who are leading the fight the way it should be led. The fact is, look, I was a governor here of the only blue state that’s represented up here. This is where the fight is really tough for Republicans, and those are the states that we’re going to have to try to win if we’re going to win the White House back. What we did was 14 times, Dana, in eight years I vetoed Planned Parenthood funding 14 times. No one else gets it that much. The Democrats just kept sending it to me and I kept saying no because I believe in life, but I also believe in state’s rights and I think we fought hard against Roe versus Wade for decades to say that states should make these decisions.

(01:47:30)
So we’re going to have those fights in the states, but what you need is a leader who can talk to people and make them understand that if you’re pro-life, you have to be pro-life for the entire life, not just the nine months in the womb. And we talked a lot about fentanyl tonight and we haven’t spoken one moment about treatment, but we need to make sure that for the drug-addicted 16 year old on the floor of the county lockup, her life is precious too. We need to be providing treatment to cure this as a disease that it is. If you’re pro-life, you got to be pro-life for the entire life. We start talking like that, they’re going to do what I did in the blue state, which was get reelected with 61% of the vote and won 70% of independents and 51% of Latinos because I told them the truth from my heart.

Thank you.

Vice President Pence, the latest Univision poll found that 73% of Latino voters think the Republican party doesn’t care about or is being hostile toward them, the Hispanic community. Only Governor DeSantis has translated his campaign into Spanish. How will you reach out to Latino voters?

Well, I promise you that we’re going to continue to build bridges to every community in this country, and I’m incredibly proud of that tax cut and tax reform bill. I worked on Capitol Hill to help get that bill passed into law, the largest tax cut in American history. We saw literally the lowest unemployment ever recorded for Hispanic Americans, the lowest unemployment ever recorded for African Americans, 50 year low for women. So I think the President of the United States needs to be a champion for the American dream for every American.

(01:49:07)
It begins with the unborn and the aging and the infirm, and it begins with every ethnic group in this country. And I promise you, if I’m President of the United States, I’ll be a champion. I’ll be a champion for the American dream, for Hispanic Americans and for every American. So help me God.

Senator Scott, reaction?

Yes, there’s no doubt that if you lead by example, it’s the best way to get the job done. If you look at my office in the Senate, my chief of staff is the only Hispanic female chief of staff in the Senate. I hired her because she was the best, highest-qualified person we have. What we need are leaders who lead by example.

(01:49:48)
And I will simply say I would love to finish my conversation with Nikki as it relates to the job that needs to get done. Nikki offered a 10 cent gas tax increase in South Carolina. Talk about someone who has never seen a federal dollar. She doesn’t like. 10 cents on the gallon in South Carolina as the UN ambassador. You literally-

Bring it, Tim.

-put $50,000 on curtains and a $15 million subsidized location. Next

You got bad information. First of all, I fought the gas tax in South Carolina multiple times against the establishment.

Just go to YouTube and see it yourself.

Against the establishment. You want to know that 10 cent was? When they wouldn’t pass the gas tax, the establishment and the companies wanted me to do it so much that I said, the only way I will pass it is if you will give us three… Excuse me-

Here’s what you have to do. All you have to do is go watch Nikki Haley on YouTube.

Let her finish.

If you will give me three times the deduction in income tax, then I will look at your gas tax, which is why it didn’t happen.

You said yes. Exactly, right?

Secondly, on the 50 million-

Here is a nice part.

Secondly, on the curtains, do your homework, Tim, because Obama bought those curtains.

Did you send them back?

It’s in the press.

Did you send them back?

It’s the State Department. Did you send them back? You’re the one that works in Congress.

Oh my gosh.

You get it done.

You hung them on your curtains.

They were there before I even showed up at the residence. You scrapping. You are scrapping. [inaudible 01:51:16].

Here’s here’s the fact though. You wanted a gas tax increase and then you wanted [inaudible 01:51:27].

Ladies and Gentlemen, we do not intend to go ahead like this. In fact, we are about to take a commercial break. We’ll have more of the second Republican Debate live from the Reagan Presidential Library in just a few moments.

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How are we looking up there Sergeant [inaudible 01:52:49].

On target on time, boys. Fire [inaudible 01:52:52]. Fire.

I became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. You make me miss being a professor at Penn. I was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. I was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. I became a professor at University of Pennsylvania. I was a professor at Penn. I was a full professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. I was the Ben Franklin professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania.

Hello, I’m Rumble.

And I’m YouTube.

YouTube, why are you dressed like that?

Well, I’ve been seeing a lot of violations in the community lately, so I’m enforcing that.

You mean like people not following your policies?

Strike one.

What if someone tells the truth, but it’s labeled as misinformation.

Strike two.

Wow. What if I want to ask questions and have different opinions on things?

Strike three. You’re out of here.

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And welcome back to the final minutes. I could go another hour, but we only have a few minutes. And candidates, it’s now obvious that if you all stay in the race, former President Donald Trump wins the nomination. None of you have indicated that you’re dropping out. So which one of you on stage tonight should be voted off the island? Please use your marker to write your choice on the notepad in front of you, 15 seconds starting now. Of the people on the stage-

Are you serious?

Who should be v-

I’ll decline to do that with all due respect.

I’m absolutely serious.

I mean, we’re here, we’re happy to debate. I think that that’s disrespectful to my fellow competitors.

I’m not doing it. [inaudible 01:57:17]

Nobody wants to participate.

Let’s do some questions. Let’s talk about the future of the country. [inaudible 01:57:17].

I want to be clear-

Let me ask you this-

If I may [inaudible 01:57:17].

Let me ask you something then if you won’t answer to that question, let me ask you this one. What is your mathematical path, Governor DeSantis, in order to try to beat President Trump who has a commanding and enduring lead in this race?

So polls don’t elect presidents, voters elect presidents. And we’re going to take the case of the people in these early states. We’re going to do it in the state-by-state direction, and why? Because as Reagan said in his day, this is our time for choosing.

(01:57:42)
We are not getting a mulligan on the 2024 election. Republicans have lost three straight elections in a row. We are supposed to have a red wave. With inflation at 9% it crashed and burned. Not in Florida, it didn’t. We delivered it in Florida. And so we’ve got to choose right. We’ve got to win, and we need somebody that’s going to be able to serve two terms. So in January of 2023, they’ll be able to address the nation saying, we turned the economy around, we secured the border, and we fended off the threat from communist China as your president, I will get that job done.

Governor Christie, I believe I did see you write something. Governor Christie, I believe. [inaudible 01:58:18]. Excuse me. Governor Christie, I believe I did see you write something on the card.

No, but I’ll certainly tell you.

Go.

Okay.

Look, I think I’ve been the only one on this stage who’s been clear about this. I vote Donald Trump off the island right now, and the reason I voted him off the island-

Any of the people on the stage [inaudible 01:58:38].-

Every person on the stage has shown the respect for Republican voters to come here to express their views, honestly, candidly and directly and to take your questions honestly, I have respect for every man and woman on the stage because they’ve done it. In fact, put your hand down for a second. I still got time, dude. So chill out. Here look, this guy has not only divided our party, he’s divided families all over this country. He’s divided friends all over this country. I’ve spoken to people and I know everyone else has who have sat at Thanksgiving dinner or at a birthday party and can’t have a conversation anymore if they disagree with Donald Trump. He needs to be moving off the island, and he needs to be taken out of this process.

Can we give Vivek 15 seconds?

You have 15 seconds, Vivek.

I appreciate your sense of humor. Look, I have a different view on this. I think Trump was an excellent president, but the America First agenda does not belong to one man. It does not belong to Donald Trump. It doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to you, the people of this country.

(01:59:46)
And the question is, who’s going to unite this country and take the America First agenda to the next level? When we rallied behind the cry to make America great again, we did not just hunger for a single man. We hungered for the unapologetic pursuit of excellence. Yes, I will respect Donald Trump and his legacy because it’s the right thing to do. But we will unite this country to take the America First agenda to the next level, and that will take a different generation to do it

That does it. I repeat, that does it. For the second Republican primary debate, live from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Thank you to all the candidates. We’ve loved having you here tonight, and we will see you out on the campaign trail.

Have a great evening. Thank you for joining us, everyone. Goodnight.