What the 2024 Republican presidential nominees said in their first debate
MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – Here is a selection of quotes from the 2024 Republican presidential nominees at their first debate in Milwaukee on Wednesday.
FLORIDA GOVERNOR RON DESANTIS
“I will not send troops to Ukraine, but I will send them to our southern border. If these drug dealers are taking fentanyl across the border, that will be the last thing they do.”
TECH ENTREPRENEUR VIVEK RAMASWAMY
“The real choice we face in this primary is this: Do you want a Super PAC puppet? Or do you want a patriot who tells the truth? Do you want incremental reforms you hear about, or do you want revolution?”
FORMER GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY CHRIS CHRISTIE
About Ramaswamy: “I’ve had enough tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT standing up here. And the last person in one of those debates, Brett, standing in the middle of the stage and saying, ‘What’s up? Is there a skinny guy with a weird last name up here? was Barack Obama, and I’m afraid we’re dealing with the same kind of amateur on stage tonight.”
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE
About Ramaswamy: “Now is not the time for on-the-job training. We don’t have to hire a newbie, we don’t have to hire people with no experience.”
About Former President Donald Trump: “He asked me to put him above the Constitution. And I chose the Constitution. And I always will. I had no right to overturn the election.”
FORMER UN AMBASSADOR NIKKI HALEY
“We need to address the fact that three-quarters of Americans don’t want a rematch between Trump and Biden. And we have to face the fact that Trump is the most unpopular politician in America. We can’t win a general election that way.”
US SENATOR TIM SCOTT FROM SOUTH CAROLINA
“The only way to change education in this country is to break the backs of teachers’ unions. They stand at our children’s doors, locking them in failing schools and shutting them out from the greatest future they can have.”
FORMER GOVERNOR OF ARKANSAS ASA HUTCHINSON
On Trump: “We must have respect for our justice system and the rule of law, and that starts at the top with the President of the United States.”
North Dakota Governor DOUG BURGUM
“I think I took it a little too literally when they said, ‘Go to Milwaukee and break your leg.'”
(Reporting by Josephine Walker in Washington; Editing by Ross Colvin and Andy Sullivan)
Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.
