The power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. And thats a good thing . Great in my book who are you . No power . No problem. Introducing stormready wifi. Now you can stay reliably connected through Power Outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery backup to keep you online. Only from xfinity. Home of the xfinity 10g network. Our Special Report tonight are including moments of the second debate of the republican primary in the space bearing his name, surrounded by pieces of his legacy, including the 707 that was Air Force One at the time, good evening from new york. And good evening from the Reagan Library and see me valley, just outside los angeles. This, as the name suggests, dedicated to preserving the history of the 40th president s term in office. But it was the 45th president and current republican frontrunner who took center stage by his absence. The former president was in michigan tonight and Florida Governor ron desantis pointed that out. He also tried to do with the other six have namely, had a set themselves apart from the former president without also alienating his supporters. We are going to take that up in our coverage tonight and speak with some of the candidates as well as iowa voters who watch the debate tonight, and some who also watch the first one. I want to start, though, with one of the key moments from candidates Vivek Ramaswamy, who is vocal in the first debate, Continuing To tonight including this catch kathy South Carolina governor nikki haley when asked why he joined tiktok despite it being banned on government issued devices. And its ties to china this was infuriating, because tiktok is one of the most dangerous Social Media Apps that we could have. And once you have got honestly, every time i hear you, i feel a little bit more for what you say. Because i cant believe the tiktok situation, what they are doing 150 Million People are on tiktok. That means they can get your contacts, they can get your financial information, they can get your email. They can get this is very important for this is very important for we should stop excuse me, excuse me. You want to dangerous for all. And you were in business with the chinese that gave hunter biden 500 we can trust. You let me say something. This is very important. Mr. Ramaswamy, you have 15 seconds. You have 15 seconds, mr. Ramaswamy. Thank you. I think we would be better served as a Republican Party if we are not sitting here hurling personal insults and actually have a legitimate debate on im sorry, can i answer that . Certainly a lot there to talk about, and here to do it abby philip, david axelrod, john king, alyssa farah griffin, david urban and Scott Jennings. John king, what did you make of it . All that was feisty. The big question, the fundamental question is, if donald trump is ahead by roughly 30 points in iowa and roughly 30 points in New Hampshire, to this change anything . You could see the Desantis Haley exchanges, they are both in second place right now. They had a little bit of a go at, it trying to be the primary second place candidate. I think if you like a candidate everybody had a moment but then the fundamentally change anything i ill be interested to what the republicans who do this for a living do at it. Theres another one in 40 days, the third debate, and then theres gonna be a lot of pressure to shrink this field. Because if you have six or seven candidates and all trump, dont trump was david urban, axelrod, nikki haley in taking on Vivek Ramaswamy or rhonda scent is. And also she got into it with tim scott and maybe at the end in a way that was not particularly helpful to either of them. But look, my fundamental view, in this debate is, that several people who did not do well last time where they are, including ron desantis, who i think was probably far better served by this debate then the last one. But tim scott, who is almost vacant from the last debate was much more aggressive here. Even governor bergum jumped in here, with a a few good answers answer. All of this, it seems to me, it seems to me, helps donald trump, because rather than creating clarity, it creates more of a muddle for voters. And by the way, for all of the random shots at trump you know, they went right for the capillary, not the jugular. And he basically got away again with any serious damage, without any serious damage. I think this was a good night for donald trump me. And it was like a fight for second or third or fourth place among a bunch of people. It wasnt i mean, sure, some people had some moments. And nikki haley had a lot of good, strong moments that really made her stand out. But they are fighting for the bottom of the race right now. And that is really not what is called for when the front runner is leading by how much he is leading by. I kind of had a different view of the desantis of it all. I thought he sort of was okay. He kind of faded into the background, especially the first half of the debate. I was like, where is he . He didnt speak, even, for the first 15 minutes. He was in the center of the debate stage. I checked my clock, but after about 40 minutes he only spoke twice. At the end yeah, but it took him a while to really find his footing. And he is really the person who ought to have the most momentum right now. And i dont think this debate changed his trajectory, which is actually not going up in this race. One other quick point on this. Trump always lets you know who he is mad at. They put out one general statement from the campaign saying the debate was boring, and it was horrible. And they put out one statement attacking the elite. Lets see if more comes. It was quite a detailed attack on nikki haley. Lets see if more calm. But that tells you something about what they think. Thats what i was going to say. If there was a winner on the stage tonight, i think it was nikki haley. But honestly, the conversation we keep having, governor chris sununu says this all the time that the Republican Party has the winner of the field and we have two as what i just saw as a bunch of people who are ready to attack each other over every single policy issue, and perhaps the only united force on the stages however much everyone seems to move the vector almost won me but honestly it did not come off there were some policy issues but there is nothing that was going to breakthrough that is going to push down Donald Trumps favor ability in any major way. And im not sure i would expect to see a major bump for any candidate. David . As john alluded to earlier, and also abby, everyones stealing market share from each other and they are not taking any market share away from donald trump here. Tomorrow, Governor Desantis, who had a strong close i think governor christie had a last five minutes of the debate where the best part of the debate, right . It was a bunch of muddling and at the end people got a little clarity. And someone will go up a bit, someone will go down a bit. But the field is not going to be winnowed tomorrow and i wake up and someone will be dropped out. Thats the problem and as john said, theres gonna be a lot of pressure in the next 40 days to kick somebody off the island. And i know that Chris Christie said he would kick donald trump off, but he is staying on the island. Hes the middle. Hes the survivor at the end of the game. So, donald trump is the island. Donald trump is the island. In one piece of real estate he can about this was unwatchable. We are all sitting there watching this, the lighting is bad. The set was bad. The questions were, Weird The Cross top was maddening. The fighting, the constant vitriol with each other. I thought the last of it was better. I think that the next one, desantis and haley will be at the center of the stage again. Some of these people likely wont make it. But the real question to me is, has the republican zeitgeist just even moved on from the possibility that we would nominate donald trump . Because, right now, what do republicans believe . They believe trump is the most electable. For months, we thought, who can make an argument about electability. Trump has already won that question and at the same time biden is having a highspeed come apart when you look at these polls right now. So, trump is beating this guy, we cant lose to the sky, and we are finally going to get vindication. I dont need someone more electable, because trump is going to beat him. And i dont know that a debate or tv ad is going to change that. I will say, it feels to me like one of the reasons that nikki haley is having a moment is because of a lot of the polls show that she does very well against president biden, not outlier polls. But a lot of polls are showing that she, unlike a lot of other candidates on that stage, she closes the margin of error in some of these polls. And so on the electability question, it feels to me she is making the best case for now she didnt make the case at all tonight. She did mention she was leading in the polls. She obviously didnt make i think think that that was a compelling argument, for the reason that scott said. The Electability Argument has sort of faded because of that. But on the question of desantis, and i would like to ask you guys this. It seems to me they were moments there like when he went counter to a number of people on ukraine, i was on the other side of this issue, personally. But i suspect there are a lot of voters in these republican primaries, if you follow polls, who dont want to give more money to ukraine. He took a very strong position on that. Those kinds of things are memorable to people, particularly in the states you have been hanging out in, in iowa and New Hampshire. I suspect a few of those things may register with those voters. Listen. Governor desantis unequivocally did better this debate than the prior debate. Was actually noticing, you could kind of hear that the consultants got in the head of some of these candidates. He mentioned a story about his wife. He tried to show some heart about visiting reagans grave site. He did give the answer on ukraine, which is a differentiating point. Vivek ramaswamy were trying to play nice guy this time. Because the biggest critique last time was he came off as so a footing and unlikable. It was interesting. One of his first answers, when he was talking about unions and striking, he expressed sympathy for workers. I actually thought that was one of the strongest moments. If there is one question that put on display how different todays Republican Party is than the one of ten years, ago it was the answer around these strikes going on, and the hearing that some of these people are taking on a more pro worker stance has less to do with what you are given to shareholders and the free market, and its much more about workers. Its much more Pat Buchanans party than it is paul ryan and mitt romneys party. David axelrod, lets just play some of the conversation on ukraine was. Its in our interest to end this war. Thats what i will do as president. We are not going to have a blank check, we will not have u. S. Troops. We are going to make the europeans do what they need to do. But they have sent money to pay bureaucrats pensions and salaries and funding Small Businesses halfway around the world. Meanwhile, our own country is being invaded. We dont even have control of our own territory. We have got to defend the american people, before we even worry about all these other things. Our National Vital interests is in degrading the russian military. By degrading the russian military, we actually keep our homeland safer, we keep our troops at home. At the end of the day, when you think about the fact that, if you want to keep american troops at home, the attack on nato territory will bring us and our troops in. By degrading the russian military, we reduce, if not eliminate, an attack on [bell ringing] putins an evil dictator does not mean that ukraine is good. This is a country that has banned 11 Opposition Party a win for russia is a that is not true. Excuse me thats why you you will have your chance in just a moment. The hurling personal insults it is not helping. China is the real army. And we are driving russia further into chinas. Arms we need a reasonable peace plan to end this, especially this is a country who is just last week vivek if we hand ukraine to russia, thats a greenlight to china to take taiwan. Peace comes true strength. The chinese are paying the iranians are supplying more sophisticated weapons. And so are the north koreans now as well, with the encouragement of the chinese. The naivete on the stage from some of these folks is extraordinary. The fact of the matter is, we need to stay say right now that the chinese Russian Alliance is something we have to fight against, and we are not going to solve it by going over and cuddling up to Vladimir Putin. Look, donald trump said Vladimir Putin was brilliant and a great leader. This is the person who was murdering people in his own country. What a difference. There is the divide in the party. Thats the republicans in the senate you watch him play it on the stage right there, where you had Vivek Ramaswamy and Desantis Playing to the trump base, which is America First, its not worth the money, even those voters who dont like putin, say i want that money to go to the border wall first or something in America First. You are playing to that piece of the republican base, and then you have the more stab lisman candidate saying, wait a minute, putin is trying to steal a country. America has to stand up and lead. What was missing is donald trump wants a hostile takeover of the Republican Party in 2016. He won. Its his party now. If theres any place on earth we need to take back, if any of them want to say when you take it back, it was the reagan president ial library to say, this man took our party. Hes not one of us. And there were pieces of he really spending. He didnt get the deficit. Its not really ideological. Hes not conservative. He wont stand up to russia. A couple of them made the case he would not stand up to china. They didnt connected to republicans, please, lets take our party back. And that argument when . They are probably outnumbered. You probably cant. But if you are going to try to take it away from it, you are going to have a alternative, a bigger, broader alternative to either going back or what a new Republican Party would look like. But they all understand there are a lot of trump voters out there, and they cant find a way through that. John king, just like aylssa was raising where was donald trump today . Is michigan appealing to uaw workers . Its a Different Party than Ronald Reagan. Ronald reagan would never stand and go to an auto parts the reagan democrat, though for 20 years studying that. But its a Different Party, i would argue, now. So, its transformed itself to say, we want to claim it back. That party is gone. Lets be clear, Ronald Reagan would have been rolling around in his grave over that ukraine discussion happening. I think the moderators did the best they can. But there are not questions that they are there to challenge the person who is leading the gop nomination. Thats what i was most struck by. And i understand this is kind of a tactic, frankly, we use on the, right which is people care about the pocketbook issues. They care about gas prices. All those things are true. But we also are in a nominating contests, someone who is about 30 points ahead, this past week. The former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff suggested he should be executed. That seems like a question you would want people to answer. The numerous indictments, the fact that you will likely be a criminally convicted felon at the time that he is the president. And it sort of felt like they were kid gloves protecting donald trump on this debate stage. So, unless one opted to attack him, there was no attacks on him. Very few did. Yeah, very few people did, and in some ways and almost seemed like, because so many of them want to keep their options open. Even someone like a nikki haley she is careful to not really go after trump in any kind of aggressive way. Because theres always the possibility that he could be looking at that debate stage for a vp. Thats a serious part of why a lot of its not just about there. Voters i think many of these candidates really dont want to foreclose on even potential opportunities. She did call him the most unpopular politician in america at one point. In the last debate. I actually thought, in the last debate and since, she has actually since taken away the she has been the only one trying to get the nomination away from him. She has attacked him. She has pointed out what she thinks are the flaws in his candidacy. These arguments, im not sure, are going to work. But i dont believe she sees herself as Vice President up to donald she could see herself to the nominee in 2028. Nobody sees themself as the Vice President until they are asked to be the Vice President. Thats just the reality of the situation. On this Point On Trump and the unwillingness to engage in a direct hit on him, i was surprised when we Chris Christie had a pretty good thing going there, a good litany against trump. And then he finished with kind o