Sat, Sep 23rd, 2023 - 1:33pm
August 23, 2023 - 10:53pm | By Chris Larson
(MILWAUKEE, WI) — Eight Republican candidates vying for the Republican nomination for President of the United States converged on Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum on Wednesday night for the first debate of the 2024 election cycle. Each of the candidates touched on multiple topics, including the policies each candidate found important to those who will decide who will be the next President of the United States.
Governor Doug Burgum, the Republican leader from North Dakota, talked about China.
“If we’re going to stop buying oil from the Middle East, instead of starting to buy batteries from China, we’re just trading OPEC for sine OPEC,” Burgum said. “And then, belatedly, the Biden Administration says, ‘No, we’re gonna put sanctions on Russian oil.’ Well, we put sanctions on Russian oil, well then its 20 percent off. Who’s buying it? China.”
Vivek Ramaswamay, who is an entrepreneur, drew jeers and cheers from the crowd when he called climate change ‘a hoax.’
“Anti-carbon agenda is the wet blanket on our economy,” he said.
Donald Trump, who opted out of the debate and appeared on X, formerly known as Twitter, wasn’t spared in the discussion, after former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie called out Ramaswamay, starting a heated moment between the two vying for the Republican nomination.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he would “never let the deep state bureaucrats lock you down,” referring to the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley called out Republicans for causing Washington’s spending crisis.
“No one is telling the American people the truth,” she said. “The truth is that Biden didn’t do this to us; Republicans did this to us, too. When they passed that two-point-two trillion dollar COVID stimulus bill, they left us 90 million people on Medicaid, 42 million people on Food Stamps. No one has told you how to fix it.”
The next GOP Debate will be on September 27 at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California.
