Trump Won the Republican Debate He Didn’t Even Attend

Six of the eight Republican presidential candidates said during the debate Wednesday that they would support Donald Trump if he got the nomination, even if he were convicted in one of his many legal battles, a sign of how much influence he still has over the party.

The eight leading presidential candidates, minus frontrunner Trump, took the stage in Milwaukee. When moderator Brett Baier referred to Trump as “the elephant not in the room,” the crowd cheered.

Baier then asked the candidates to raise their hand if they would still support a convicted Trump as nominee, reminding them that they signed a pledge to support whoever wins the party nomination.

Doug Burgum, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Ron DeSantis all raised their hands. So did Mike Pence, despite the fact that an angry mob of Trump supporters wanted to hang him during the January 6 insurrection.

Chris Christie also half-heartedly raised his hand, but later clarified that it was in disapproval. “Here’s the bottom line: Someone has got to stop normalizing this conduct,” Christie said. “Whether or not you believe the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of president of the United States.” His comments were met with both cheers and boos.

Asa Hutchinson also did not raise his hand and said Trump has been “morally disqualified from being president again.”

Still, the majority’s weird hand-raising is a sign of how powerful Trump still is. He isn’t even at the debate, he is facing 91 charges and will be arrested for the fourth time later this week, and yet everyone is still too afraid to criticize him.

This article has been updated to clarify that Chris Christie raising his hand was in disapproval, not support, of Trump.

Chris Christie had the first zinger of the Republican debate Wednesday night, attacking Vivek Ramaswamy for being like Barack Obama.

The eight leading presidential candidates, minus front-runner Donald Trump, took the stage in Milwaukee. As Ramaswamy tried to portray himself as an outsider and a dark horse, Christie took aim.

“I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT standing up here,” the former New Jersey governor said. “The last person in one of these debates … who stood in the middle of the stage and said, ‘What’s a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here?’ was Barack Obama, and I’m afraid we’re dealing with the same type of amateur standing on the stage tonight.”

While this was probably the most devastating comparison Christie could have made, it is also highly inaccurate. Obama is ideologically open-minded. Ramaswamy is a 9/11 denier who is mainly interested in battling “wokeness,” taking away rights, and, apparently, caving to Russia and China.

Eight presidential candidates have qualified for the Republican Party’s first primary debate on Wednesday evening.

Sure, the debate might not mean much when Donald Trump, the party’s front-runner, is skipping out on the whole thing. Still, it is a chance for the American public to hear directly from candidates on what they really stand for.

If you are watching the Republican debate, join us in a game of Bingo.

Secret Service agents were in contact with Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes before he helped lead an insurrection on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, according to a new report.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, published emails on Wednesday revealing that a member of the Secret Service told other agents in September 2020 that he had received a call from Rhodes informing him that the far-right white nationalist group planned to provide “security details” around Donald Trump’s visit to Fayetteville, North Carolina.

The email detailed that the Oath Keepers security detail would be composed of “primarily retired law enforcement/former military members who are very pro-LEO [law enforcement officer] and Pro Trump. Their stated purpose is to provide protection and medical attention to Trump supporters if they come under attack by leftist groups.”

The Secret Service member who spoke to Rhodes even admitted to other members in the agency that he was an Oath Keeper himself. “I am the unofficial liaison to the Oath Keepers (inching towards official),” he wrote.

The CREW report confirms Rhodes’ claims last year that the far-right group had a contact within the Secret Service. Rhodes admitted this during his trial, when he was charged with seditious conspiracy for attempting to stop Joe Biden’s presidential win.

It’s not clear from the CREW report whether the contact continued past September 2020, but the government watchdog notes that the agent claiming to be an “unofficial liaison” suggests a longer-term relationship.

In addition to having ties to the January 6 insurrection, Oath Keepers have worked alongside the Ku Klux Klan, deploying members at polling sites to watch voters, and have compared Hillary Clinton to Hitler on their website.

Nearly 400 “educational intimidation” bills have been introduced by state lawmakers over the last two and a half years, a troubling sign of where academic freedom in this country is headed. 

Between January 2021 and June 2023, Republicans in state legislatures introduced 392 educational intimidation bills, according to a new report published Wednesday from PEN America. While only 38 of those bills actually passed, this tidal wave of legislation represents an ongoing campaign to make teachers afraid to teach.

PEN America classifies educational intimidation bills as different from traditional “educational gag orders,” which explicitly prohibit materials and subject matter that can be taught in classrooms. Educational intimidation bills do not act as direct censorship, but rather encourage self-censorship from teachers, librarians, and administrators by creating environments where free speech is chilled. They often bill themselves as “parental rights” bills, hiding their radical nature behind more neutral language.

Missouri has introduced 30 such bills, the most of any state in the country, but all of the measures failed. Florida was able to pass the most, with 15 pieces of legislation signed into state law, thanks in large part to Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who has led a “war on woke” in education.    

According to PEN America, these bills have been able to become so popular because of clever rhetorical framing.

“By framing such bills in terms of ‘curriculum transparency’ and ‘parental rights,’ supporters hope to make them appear benign—as simple common sense,” the report by PEN America said. “They are not.”

The bills contain provisions allowing for enhanced inspection of curricula, teachers, and library facilities. Some allow opt-outs so that parents can remove their children from certain kinds of instruction, or institute opt-ins requiring parents to proactively approve certain material, thus making restriction the default of education. Many of the bills also expand student and classroom monitoring.

These educational intimidation bills are based on model legislation prepared by conservative think tanks such as the Manhattan Institute, the Goldwater Institute, No Left Turn in Education, and the Parental Rights Foundation.

Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo is quoted in the report, explaining the rhetorical shift from gag orders to educational intimidation.

“The Left will expect that, after passing so-called ‘CRT bans’ last year, we will overplay our hand. By moving to curriculum transparency, we will deflate that argument and bait the Left into opposing ‘transparency,’” Rufo said in 2022.

Around 45 percent of the bills PEN America tracked also included an anti-LGBTQ provision, like the mandatory outing of students via reporting mechanisms for parents to be alerted of any “perceived changes to students’ gender identity and sexual orientation.”

Other anti-LGBTQ provisions include banning the use of preferred pronouns, discouraging discussions about gender and sexuality, and placing pressure on teachers and administration to limit their speech, as well as to monitor and police the expression of their students.

So far in 2023, 17 educational intimidation bills have passed. Perhaps with the introduction of the “educational intimidation” label, the left will have its own rhetorical device to fight those who seek to limit free speech, the rights of students, and the rights of other parents.