Donald Trump skipping the first 2024 Republican presidential primary debate, eight of his primary rivals – most of them men wearing ties similar to the bright red one regularly worn by the former president – brawled for second-place status Wednesday night.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the 38-year-old entrepreneur and first-time candidate, was alongside Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the center of the stage – and he was the central figure for much of the night. Ramaswamy brawled with former Vice President Mike Pence over his experience, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley over foreign policy, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie over Trump, and more.
And because he has positioned himself as a defender of Trump, Ramaswamy was, at times, a stand-in for the former president, who momentarily ceded the stage Wednesday night but will take it back Thursday when he turns himself in at the Fulton County jail in Georgia as he faces election subversion charges.
Vivek Ramaswamy: The man who never ran for public office - and didn't even vote for a president from 2004 to 2020 - simply dominated this Republican debate.
With a broad smile and a quick tongue, he frequently seemed to be the only candidate on the stage who was enjoying himself. That may partly be because this political novice has exceeded expectations, and is essentially playing with house money while he takes centre stage.
He easily fended off swipes from his fellow candidates, suggesting that Mr Christie was auditioning for a show on left-leaning news channel MSNBC and that Ms Haley was angling for spots on the board of defence contractors with her positions on Ukraine.
"I'm the only person on the stage who isn't bought and paid for," he said during a discussion of climate change - prompting cries of outrage from his rivals
Ron DeSantis may have had the No. 1 spot on the debate stage. But it’s the man in the No. 2 spot, Ramaswamy, who took the most heat over the first hour of the two-hour melee in Milwaukee.
Pence and Christie piled on Ramaswamy, who entered the debate on the rise while DeSantis has been sliding in polls. They attacked him on his age and his political inexperience — Pence called Ramaswamy a “rookie,” Christie derided him as an “amateur” — as they look to stop his climb.
"The IRS will lose about 50,000 people over the next five or six years," said Natasha Sarin, Treasury’s counselor for tax policy and implementation. "A lot of this hiring is about replacing those people."
This fact-checking was done by a team of more than 30 fact-checkers who watched Wednesday's debate. PolitiFact has been "been fact-checking presidential politics since 2007 using their Truth-O-Meter, which helps them rate claims based on their relative accuracy."
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