Fri • Nov 10, 23

It’s a race for second place. Let’s be real—Donald Trump is so far ahead of the closest candidate that hell would need to freeze over, or Joe Biden would have to admit to all his corruption … and we don’t see either of those things happening anytime soon. The third GOP primary debate held in Miami, Florida, was sponsored by NBC News. Yes—you read that correctly. Hugh Hewitt (conservative radio host who works for Salem Media Group, a co-sponsor of the event), Lester Holt and Kristen Welker (lead anchors at NBC News) were the question-askers—oops ‘moderators’ of the event. Interesting setup, but why? That’s what triggered Vivek Ramaswami as he stormed out of the starting gate in response to the very first question on why he should be president instead of Donald Trump. After lamenting about how poorly the Republican party had performed at the elections the night before, and that Ronna McDaniels should step down, he cunningly turned the question around to drop truth bombs on the establishment media:

“…. think about who’s moderating this debate. This should be Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and Elon Musk. We’d have ten times the viewership asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about, bringing more people into our party…You think the democrats would actually hire Greg Gutfeld to host a democratic debate? They wouldn’t do it.”

BAM! It gets even better

“…This is actually about you and the corrupt media establishment. Ask you the Trump Russia collusion hoax that you pushed on this network for years…was that real or was that Hillary Clinton made-up disinformation? Answer the question—GO!”

The pregnant pause and close-up of the nervous smile on Kristen Welker’s face was priceless! 

Ramaswami continues, “We need accountability because this media rigged the 2016 election. They rigged the 2020 election with the Hunter Biden laptop story, and they’re gonna rig this election unless there’s accountability…” to which Lester Holt quickly interrupted with “your time is up.”

We think this was the best moment of the entire event! And although many media outlets are praising Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis as the debate ‘winners,’ Ramaswami was the only candidate to boldly present the truths we all know, but most are afraid to tell. The New York Times headline “She Certainly Beat All the Boys” should tell you all you need to know. They ranked Haley first and Ramaswami dead last. As @thevivafrei pointed out on “X,” “The New York Times is not information. It is Mockingbird-level disinformation intended to shape public opinion, not reflect it.”

As for the rest of the candidates, when asked the first question of the night, we hear the familiar tropes about how they will fight for safe borders, reduce our debt, restore unity, stop evil Putin, wipe out antisemitism and win wars. And of course, they had to get their jabs in about President Trump with Chris Christie champing at the bit to make the point that “Donald Trump will be too busy fending off his legal issues to lead the country.”

Israel-Hamas War & Anti-Semitism

No surprises here. All candidates passionately condemn Hamas and support Israel. And some have actually put their money where their mouth is. DeSantis used resources from the state of Florida to rescue over 700 U.S. citizens and bring them back home—that’s more than our president did! That’s what a real leader does! 

All agreed that Israel has every right to defend its country, with our full support in exterminating the terrorist group off the face of our planet. Haley said, “Finish them—eliminate Hamas and bring our hostages home.” She pointed out that these terrorist groups would not exist without Iran, who is funded by the unholy alliance of Russia and China, and added “It is not that Israel needs America, America needs Israel.”

Tim Scott said that diplomacy alone, and appeasement leads to war; and condemned Obama and Biden for the blood money they both contributed to Iran that helped fund attacks. He specified, “you have to cut off the head of the snake, and the head of the snake is Iran…we have to be in a position of strength…you cannot negotiate with evil; you have to destroy it.” 

Ramaswami had a slightly different spin, promoting a more autonomous viewpoint, stating that “the founding vision of Israel was based on the idea that they don’t want anybody else’s sympathy or direction in defending themselves…Israel has the right and responsibility to defend itself.” He said he would tell Netanyahu to “smoke those terrorists on his southern border…and I’ll be smoking those terrorists on our southern border.” Ramaswami went on to remind us that he wants to be careful to avoid the mistakes of the neocon establishment of the past. “Corrupt politicians in both parties spent trillions, killed millions, made billions for themselves…fighting wars that sent thousands of our sons and daughters to die…adding seven trillion dollars to our national debt.” He accused both parties of capitalizing on wars, the Bidens with Ukraine and Haley herself reaping monetary gains through her military contracts which led to her now multi-millionaire status. “Do you want a leader from a different generation who’s going to put this country first, or do you want Dick Chaney in three-inch heels?”

All the candidates denounced all forms of antisemitism. However, Ramaswami differed on how to combat this. He felt that DeSantis and Haley promoted censorship as a solution. “We don’t quash this with censorship because that creates a worse underbelly; we quell it through leadership by calling it out. …we need leadership at the top in the United States of America that restores our founding values, and that has no place for this kind of antisemitic hate.” 

DeSantis and Scott were proponents of defunding universities and institutions that promote Hamas and hatred for the Jewish people. DeSantis went on to show the abhorrent behavior of President Biden, “Not only is he not helping the Jewish students who are being persecuted, he is launching an initiative to combat so-called islamophobia—no it’s the antisemitism that’s spiraling out of control.”

Ukraine War, China & Tik Tok 

The gang once again rehashed the war in Ukraine, with most of the establishment candidates going to bat for Ukraine, preaching that we need to protect this ‘democracy’ and we need to stop Putin from spreading his evil aggression across other countries. DeSantis was against the U.S. sending troops, stating “We need to bring this war to an end. We need the Europeans to step up and do their fair share…we need to get serious about the top threat this country faces which is the Chinese communist party.”

Speaking of China, Haley laid out the fact that China has the largest naval fleet in the world and that America needs to modernize our military. How do we do that? She detailed, “The first thing is you make sure you have the backs of Ukraine, that’s why the Taiwanese want us to support Ukraine because they know that sends the biggest message to China.” Wait, what? Send more military aid, depleting what we have now—that’s how we build our military? Then she suggests we “start getting tough with China---no more sales of our American soil to China...” She explains we should stop all formal trade with China and “stop murdering Americans with Fentanyl, something Ron has yet to say he's gonna do.” 

DeSantis addressed this accusation as he laid out his strategy on China. “You know, Ambassador Haley said somehow I wasn’t doing—she welcomed them into South Carolina, gave them land near a military base, wrote the Chinese ambassador a love letter saying what a great friend they were. That was like their No. 1 way to do economic development. In Florida, I banned China from buying land in this state, and we kicked out all their universities and the Confucious institutes.”

Scott said he believes the long-term threat is China; but the short-term threat is our border. He also doesn’t believe we have the resources to be fighting in three different continents at the same time. When it comes to building up our military, Ramaswami shared another truth bomb: that the U.S.’s defense industrial base depends on China for the supply chain, the same way it relies on China for pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. “That’s why we can’t get tough with China—it’s because we depend on them for our modern way of life, and we have to declare economic independence from our enemy.” Christie got in his 2 cents, promoting nuclear submarines as the answer to deter China from Taiwan.

The candidates were then asked about Tik Tok, with several of them declaring that it should be banned due to ‘poisoning American minds’ and illegal data mining. But when the moderator got to Ramaswami, the infamous name-calling fiasco was heard around the world. Ramaswami reminded Haley that her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time and that she might want to ‘take care of her family first.’ “Leave my daughter out of your voice,” Haley firmly retorted. The audience was booing at this time and Ramaswami rambled on as the bomb dropped…

“You’re just scum.” Haley clearly stated into her microphone while rolling her eyes. Yep, that really happened! And the media has been playing it up non-stop!

Fentanyl, Abortion and Final Statements

The candidates were asked how they would address the fentanyl issue on their first day of their presidency. All candidates referred to the border. Haley recommended we “go to the source…end all normal trade relations with China until they stop murdering Americans—you watch how quick that flow stops.” She also endorsed sending in special operations to take out the cartels, defunding sanctuary cities and switching to ‘catch and deport’ instead of ‘catch and release.’ Ramaswami took it a step further by stating many fentanyl-laced drugs are a form of bioterrorism, which warrants more aggressive means to deal with it. He also added, “We need to stop using our miliary to protect somebody else’s border halfway around the world when we’re short right here at home.” He interestingly brought up the danger of our northern border stating that “there was enough fentanyl captured just last year to kill three million Americans, so we gotta just skate to where the puck is going, not just where the puck is.” 

All candidates stated they are pro-life. Haley believes that abortion should be in the hands of the states and the people should decide. Christie agrees and trusts the people of this country to make the call for themselves, even though his state of New Jersey voted for abortion right up to birth. Although he finds it reprehensible, he accepts that that’s what the people voted for. Scott wants a 15-week national limit for abortions. He claims that four out of five Americans are on board with this. Ramaswami was very upset about the vote in Ohio (his home state) that allows abortion up to birth. He believes men deserve more responsibility— “it’s not men’s rights vs. women’s rights, it’s about human rights.” 

In his closing statement, Scott received a large burst of applause when he was talking about basic truths and said, “…and if God made you a man, you play sports against men.” Christie said he’s tired of division, anger and exhaustion for petty politics, and will return honesty and integrity to the oval office. Ramaswami talked about the war right here at home—the war between those of us who “believe in our founding ideals and love this country and a fringe minority who hates the United States of America…I’ll shut down the deep state, I’ll declare economic independence from China, I’ll keep us out of World War III, and then revive national pride in this country.” And to those of us who LOVE hearing the truth, he directed this message to the Democratic Party, “End this farce that Joe Biden is gonna be your nominee. We know he’s not even the president of the United States. He’s a puppet for the managerial class, so have the guts to step up and be honest about who you’re actually gonna put up. Biden should step aside and end his candidacy now so we can see if it’s Newsom or Michelle Obama or whoever else; just tell us the truth so we can have an honest debate.” He received a huge round of applause from the audience, and a very curt “your time is up” from the moderator. 

The supposed “winners” of the debate delivered lackluster final statements. Haley talked about the difference between good and evil. We can’t win the fights with politicians from the 20th century. DeSantis espoused the need for leadership, saying he will always put service ahead of self and “as your president, I will not let you down.”

Conclusion

Whether or not we need this level of analysis with the “Junior Varsity Team” could be debatable. However, it’s important to know what these candidates stand for, even if they don’t have a chance for the presidency. There are other major positions they could be filling, so we think it’s worth the effort. 

One last thought, although this is the third GOP primary debate, there is still time for others to join in on the fourth debate, which is scheduled for Dec. 6 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The event will be sponsored by NewsNation and will be moderated by Megyn Kelly, Elizabeth Vargas and Eliana Johnson. Who knows who might show up? We just heard from a secret source that Rand Paul might be considering a run…that could definitely add an interesting element to ‘number four.’ You can bet we’ll be there for it!