On Wednesday night, Fox News and the streaming platform Rumble hosted the first Republican presidential debate with the eight GOP hopefuls who made the cut: North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, former governor of Arkansas Asa Hutchinson, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, former vice president Mike Pence, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Missing from the stage was Donald Trump, who refused to attend the debate. Instead, he sat down Tucker Carlson—a move that allowed him to flip the bird to the RNC and allowed Tucker to do the same to Fox, who fired him a few months ago. Trump’s interview with Tucker aired exclusively on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and more than 74 million people tuned in.
Here at The Free Press, we love a good debate night, and we were up until the wee hours discussing it all. So today on Honestly, TFP reporter Olivia Reingold, TFP senior editor Peter Savodnik, and Newsweek’s opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon are here to discuss who emerged on top? Who fell by the wayside? And did the elephant not in the room still somehow manage to dominate?
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Barri: as a Jewish woman, does the term “America First,” especially in reference to refusing aid to Ukraine, not being back memories of people following the same slogan in 1939? Are we surprised that Europeans continue to distrust our commitment to their security?
I fear that the neocon position of endless war until Ukraine reclaims all its territory will result in the first Great War of the 21st Century.
A soldier who earned his Combat Infantryman's badge in Vietnam once told me that it doesn't matter how much you pound a hill with artillery, or how many bombs you drop on it, it's not your hill until one of your grunts is on top of it. I don't think Ukraine has enough grunts to take back the territory Russia has conquered, no matter how many tens of billions of dollars in hardware we send their way. The stalled counteroffensive supports my position.
If a fully intact Ukraine is the only acceptable outcome to this war, and Ukraine doesn't have the capability to push Russia out, we're going to have to supply the grunts. It's that simple.
Ukraine is not worth that level of commitment and sacrifice. Obama said it himself: "Ukraine will always matter to Russia more than it will to us."