In a second GOP presidential debate that often seemed more like a disorderly reality TV show, the Babylon Bee’s satirical news headline may have best captured the mood of viewers: ‘Mute Button’ Wins GOP Debate.
The seven Republican candidates on stage at Wednesday evening’s gladiator match in Simi Valley’s Ronald Reagan Presidential Library shouted and talked over each other and slung more mud than an Iowa hog farm.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump, the far and away front-runner in the GOP presidential nomination chase, was 2,300 miles away in Detroit ripping President Joe Biden in a rally speech aimed at blue-collar workers.
Debate moderators — Stuart Varney of Fox Business Network, Fox News’ Dana Perino, and Univision anchor Ilia Calderón — lost control almost from the get-go, ineffectually scolding candidates for constantly interrupting, piling on, and altogether abusing the 1-minute answer clock and the patience of the audience.
In one particularly chaotic scene, the race’s two South Carolinians, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and U.S. Senator Tim Scott, incessantly quarreled about Haley’s gas tax proposal when she was governor of the Palmetto State and $53,000 curtains for her official ambassador residence.
