people make, there was no way that i was going to miss being onstage tonight, even if it meant standing on one leg for two hours. governor, thank you so much. appreciate it. thank you, dana. anderson, back to you. all right, dana bash, thank you so much. i m joined tonight by daniel dale whose gonna fact check some of what we and the republican voters here tonight. we re gonna start with governor desantis on his record in florida during the pandemic. let s take a look. why are we in this mess? part of it and a major reason is because how this federal government handled covid-19 by locking down this economy it was a mistake. it should have never happened. and, in florida, we lead the country out of lockdown. we kept our state free, and what did you find, dana bash? i found it, anderson, the claim we kept our state free and open is misleading at best. that s because governor desantis is omitting a bunch of important information about what he did early in the pandemic. her
to the russians. and taiwan to the chinese. he wants to downgrade our relationship with israel. and apparently wants to impose a massive inheritance tax. i recognize that saying outrageous things sounds like a good idea in the moment. but eventually. eventually these things catch up with you. i m not trying to be provocative but sort of welcome to your new party. because that stuff sells. i mean that is one of the reasons why trump has a commanding lead that he has. let s check in with dana bash at the debate hall. dana? like you anderson. i am here with one of the participants in the debate tonight. candidate for president governor asa hutchison. thank you so much for joining me. what were your impressions being on this stage? how did it feel, how did you feel that frankly you did? actually, i was pretty pleased with the subsidy discussions from education, to the border security, to foreign policy. that s exactly what america needs to hear from our
we are back with special coverage of tonight s debate. dana bash is in milwaukee with former vice president mike pence. thank you very much for being here. this was on another. network i want to play for our viewers one of the exchanges that you had. very animated exchange. this one with former governor of south carolina, nikki haley. when it comes to a federal ban, let s be honest with the american people and say that it will take 60 senate votes, it ll take a majority of the house. in order to do that, let us find consensus. can we all agree we should ban midterm abortions? can we all agree we should
special postdebate show anderson, a lot to unpack here, and what just transpired on that stage. i will join you in just a few moments for that. all right, come on over, abby if, we will see you in a second. welcome to everyone joining our special coverage eight. republican hopefuls tonight at the first republican presidential primary debate of 2024 trying to distinguish themselves from each other as well as the front runner, who is not there. i m here with dana bash at the debate site in milwaukee. anderson, in our live coverage tonight we are hoping to hear from the candidates themselves. we are also going to hear from the supporters. we are going to be joined by our team of political analysts, commentators, fact checkers and veterans of the same kind of verbal clashes we saw on the debate stage right here in milwaukee tonight. there are certainly a lot of those. also, tonight, we will be checking in with a group of republicans, most of them undecided, who now have more info
milwaukee. first presidential campaign debate now in the. books dana bash talking to the candidates. we begin this hour with voters. cnn s gary tuchman has been watching the debate tonight with a group of republican voters in iowa. he joins us now, gary? anderson, we come to you from the heart of iowa. the geographic center. story county iowa. we will tell you the story of this debate from the vantage point of 15 loyal story county republicans. all members of the republican club. or the young republicans of iowa. thanks for letting us be here tonight to watch the debate. thank you everybody. i watched all two hours very carefully. first, questions do you think this debate was good for the republican party? raise your hand if you do. 15 people, a looks like 14, 13 raised their hand. you too did not think it was good? why not? i brought more division.