Much to Debate about Nothing

RECAP- Donald Trump wins the first GOP debate by skipping the snoozefest in its entirety. Here’s our recap on the Battle in the Badger State, highlighting all the swings and the misses

Before we begin with the 2024 Presidential Debate breakdown, let me make one thing crystal clear: Not one of the participants won the the first Republican Presidential Primary Debate last night, there were NO winners.

And from what I witnessed, there wasn’t a potential Vice Presidential candidate in the building yesterday either.

The entire event was equal parts comedy and a tragedy, and the only objective achieved was that it gave the American people some insight into what conservative politics will look like once President Donald J. Trump decides to no longer partake in them.

And that debacle which went down in Milwaukee last night should absolute terrify you.

From the get go, the heavily make-upped, awkward, timid, unprepared and not ready for prime time slate of Republican pretenders reminded the American electorate what life was like before the 45th President came down the golden escalator at Trump Tower.

Packed with focus group and strategist laden talking points, the “fireworks” never happened and the take away, talking points from the debate fallout are close to unmentionable.

Starting with the pregame show that featured the podcast arm of the Mitch McConnell delegation of the Republican Party, the Ruthless Variety Progrum boringly spent their show opening fawning over bbq pork and America First supervillain, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (not much difference) before (shocker) delivering a heaping helping of begging their listenership and the live audience to please clap for primary human dumpster fire, Ron DeSantis.

Breezing over Doug Burgum’s torn achilles, they then split debating over trying to legitimizing the campaigns of South Carolina’ers Nikki Haley, and Tim Scott.

Haley, who can’t complete a sentence without reminding everyone that she’s a woman or mentioning China and Russia or Russia and China has had a disastrous and obscure month in the polls continued with the same, neocon rhetoric on the debate stage last night.

Scott, who’s decent on policy per his voting record is quite honestly, a middle of the road Senator in Congress who’s compiled that decent record by siding with America First when McConnell’s push for legislation doesn’t service him. Sprinkle over every talking point a mention of race and growing up poor, and you don’t have to look much further as to why the South Carolina Senator hasn’t been able to separate himself from anyone else in the “best of the rest” field.

After a short mention of Vivek Ramaswamy (we’ll circle back to his performance in a bit), the gang at the Ruthless dedicated an over 10 minute portion of their pregame to none other than Sloppy Chris Christie.

Christie, the scandal-ridden former New Jersey Governor was hyped up with accompanying audio, highlighting his (lack) of debate performance over the years trying to “get” legitimate candidates with off color remarks and jokes while ignoring and deflecting from his own atrocious gubernatorial record.

The only highlight of the pregame festivities provided by Ruthless was the brief drop-in by Trump Campaign senior advisor, Chris LaCivita.

Having Kemp come back on to call Donald Trump the clear and only loser of the debate to end the show was an establishment moment from the the #1 program from inside the beltway.

But what else would expect from some of the former minions of Mitch McConnell- I can still hear Tucker Carlson’s iconic laugh from here.

As the debate kicked off, the nearly 4000 family members, donors, consultants, staffers, press, and miscellaneous guests in attendance were un-treated to a low energy three ring circus which was a perfect microcosm of the desperation to clean up the scraps of poll numbers that Donald Trump hasn’t already gobbled up.

The moderators, early general election caller, Brett Baier and notorious never-Trumper, Martha MacCallum rarely had control over the field, were spoken over time and time again, and of course used gags like hand raising vote questions, something that the RNC Chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel expressly hoped that the FoxNews tandem would avoid.

Like an inexperienced sports program or more specifically a junior varsity team, the slate of candidates attempted (and failed) to tear into and ding each other for the next two hours.

Instead of the much hyped up, “knives out for (Ron) DeSantis,” narrative the mainstream media has force fed you leading up to the debate, the candidates wasted time to end their talking points or spoke over the ends of Vivek Ramaswamy’s to take Downy soft pot shots at the only true outsider (aside from President Trump) in this race.

Asa Hutchinson, who in any version of the multiverse shouldn’t have been allowed of the debate stage, barely opened his mouth speaking for just over seven minutes throughout. It clearly wouldn’t have been better to allow the first debate to serve as Royal Rumble and include Larry Elder and Perry Johnson who were both late scratches at the behest of the RNC.

Tim Scott never got off the tarmac after reports surfaced suggesting that the Senator may have been under the weather, and decided to played it safe and boy did it show.

Nikki Haley certainly had her moments, and they were just as cringe as her entire campaign has been. She even failed to land easy jabs in back and forth spats with Ramaswamy, who essentially entered the debate as a big a rookie that these seasoned politicians could have hoped for.

Her take on abortion of course was atrocious, but what would you expect from a neocon warmonger who lusts to simply blow shit up.

Her campaign officially ended when she referred Donald Trump the most hated man in modern politics, so there was that as well.

Mike Pence was just as boring as you’d expect, as he has been since splitting with Donald Trump after the last election., His only notable highlight came holding Ron DeSantis to task when challenged on whether or not he did his job on January 6th by passing through the delegates and certifying the 2020 Presidential Election.

Chris Christie and Ron DeSantis were clearly the largest (pun intended) disappointing disasters of the evening by a lot.

DeSantis, who is currently on nearly a half dozen campaign reboots, looked sweaty, nervous and fumbled over the talking points that he failed to memorize beforehand. He still hasn’t been coached on how to control the volume level of his voice, often screaming out his answers while uncontrollably bobbing his head.

And after watching DeSantis look around before raising his hand on the Trump unity question should tell you all you need to know about the mettle and integrity of this soon to be failed political candidate.

The optics alone of DeSantis and Christie huddling and game planning on commercial breaks was just another reason for America First to say farewell to the embattled Governor from Florida, as if they they needed another reason.

For Christie, his tired, repetitive act of trying to play “gotcha” with candidates for the last three cycles was much easier recognized and equally deflected than they were when he first attempted to use these parlor tricks instead of debating his record all the way back in 2015. Haley, Pence and Ramaswamy easily brushed off his insults with ease and countering them and landing blows on physically largest candidate in recent memory.

Which leaves us with Ramaswamy.

The billionaire businessman from Ohio did more than hold his own. Landing significant shots to DeSantis, Haley, Christie and Pence throughout the night, Vivek came with a simple plan and stuck to it only having a couple of noticeable flubs.

He ran on the Trump blueprint, which is as the true outsider. He called out the billionaire donors, the overpaid consultants, big pharma, the military industrial complex, radical climate mafia and the gang over on K Street. Ramaswamy clapped back on nearly every dunk attempt and without the 45th President in the building or on debate stage was allowed to do so freely causing the more seasoned politicians and debaters to play defense for as long as he needed to eek out the overall win.

As Baier and MacCallum seethed watching a virtual rookie and outsider run shop on their prized candidates like poor Ron DeSantis, Ramaswamy avoided the initial blitz before settling into a groove and for the most part, directed the flow of the debate for the remainder of the time.

This method was successful in breaking through the previously established system used when Trump applied it 2015, so it was no surprise for me to watch Ramaswamy brilliantly use the tactics against the establishment candidates to keep them on their heels for nearly the entire debate last night.

What I don’t get is so many major pundits, commentators and analysts are now online gushing over Vivek’s performance and essentially crowning him as a cabinet-level caliber selection or Trump’s eventual VP pick.

Don’t get me wrong, Ramaswamy was solid, but for a demographic as big and tested as America First has become which is also is demographic used to getting screwed over, do ya’ll think we could do just a little more vetting and hear a little more from the Ohio businessman before we hand him the keys to anything in a future Trump administration?

I mean, he has already hinted to some major consultants that he would be open to entertaining such a nod, so, really, what’s the rush?

Keep in mind, that at some point between now and next November all the candidates running are going to have to present their own policy platform. This goes for Ramaswamy who will have to expand beyond running on Donald Trump talking points and unveiling a policy platform of his very own.

With that being said, let me remind you that if and when Donald Trump decides to grace the field with his presence during the primary season all the game plans go directly out the window and not one candidate on that stage is safe, not even the diaper dandy, Vivek.

Which brings me to my final point. It’s become clear that when Donald Trump decides that he’s finished, and at some point after his next term in office and leaves politics and the entire apparatus that’s tried to destroy him behind, we are in a world of trouble.

While it’s refreshing to see candidates like Vivek drop truth bombs before a national audience, those like Ramaswamy are few and far between and often shunned and repressed from every gaining the national spotlight much in the way he did last night.

Which is why the irrelevant candidates running in this fake primary should take our most popular and powerful candidate, namely Donald Trump, and unite behind him now to beat Joe Biden now.

I but I digress, if that were to happen, what would all the consultants, special interests and lobby groups do?

Maybe then we’d miss the moments like those we witnessed last night when Vivek Ramaswamy hit back at the Beltway and made them feel a way they hadn’t since way back in 2015.

America First impatiently clammers for more moments similar to those that we’ll see when Donald Trump returns to the main stage.

• Rone is the Executive Producer and Host on the Steak for Breakfast Podcast, a proud partner of the Pulse Media Group. You can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts at: