From the beginning of the second Republican presidential major debate of the 2024 marketing campaign, the seven candidates on stage had been boisterous and unruly.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum spent many of the night speaking loudly over — and generally fairly angrily at — each other.
The moderators — Fox Information’ Dana Perino, Fox Enterprise’ Stuart Varney, and Univision’s Ilia Calderón — generally struggled to referee on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum in Simi Valley, California, because the presidential hopefuls clashed on subjects starting from the autoworkers’ strike to international coverage. At factors, well being care points crept into the dialogue.
Our PolitiFact companions fact-checked the candidates in actual time. You possibly can learn their full protection right here.
Candidates sparred over manufacturing and employment, inflation, and federal spending. When it got here to the federal government shutdown risk, Haley promised to vary the method, stating that Congress had delivered appropriations on schedule solely 4 occasions in 40 years.
Requested about medical debt, which plagues tens of tens of millions of Individuals, she pledged a multipronged effort to guard folks from monetary spoil after they want care. She spoke of introducing extra competitors within the well being system and placing “the affected person within the driver’s seat” whereas growing transparency.
“We’re going to must make each a part of the business open up and present us the place the warts are,” she stated. She didn’t elaborate on how that might be achieved.
Pence dodged a query about whether or not he would make good on his promise, from 2016 and the present marketing campaign, to repeal the Inexpensive Care Act — also called Obamacare — which Perino famous appeared extra well-liked now than ever.
“It’s my intention,” the previous vice chairman stated, “to make the federal authorities smaller by returning to the states these assets and packages which might be rightfully theirs underneath the tenth Modification of the Structure.” That would come with all Obamacare and Well being and Human Providers funding, he stated.
Pence additionally stated he’s “sick and drained” of mass shootings and promised, if elected, to advance an expedited federal loss of life penalty “for anybody concerned in a mass taking pictures” so that they “meet their destiny in months, not years.” The previous vice chairman criticized DeSantis over the sentence handed right down to a gunman who attacked Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, calling it “unconscionable” that he’ll “spend the remainder of his life behind bars.”
On the problem of medical health insurance protection, DeSantis wore his state’s excessive uninsurance charge as a badge of honor.
“You are able to do nicely within the state, however we’re not going to be like California and have large numbers of individuals on authorities packages with out work necessities,” he stated. Below DeSantis, Florida is one in every of simply 10 states which have declined to benefit from federal funding accessible underneath Obamacare to broaden Medicaid, this system that covers low-income Individuals.
All through the night, the candidates generally invoked Reagan’s identify and reminiscence. He wasn’t the one former president not in attendance however typically talked about. Donald Trump, who enjoys a commanding lead within the polls, opted once more to avoid the controversy stage.
“Donald, I do know you might be watching — you possibly can’t assist your self,” Christie stated early on. He stated Trump averted the occasion as a result of he was “afraid” of “being on the stage” and defending his report.
Trump advised Fox Information Digital in an interview after the controversy that he hadn’t watched it.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson didn’t meet the Republican Nationwide Committee’s donor and polling thresholds to take part. Former Texas Rep. Will Hurd additionally didn’t qualify.
Listed here are final evening’s health-related claims checked by PolitiFact:
Ron DeSantis: 2.6 million Floridians going with out medical health insurance “is a symptom of our general financial decline.”
When moderator Varney pressed DeSantis on the comparatively excessive variety of Floridians with out medical health insurance — Varney stated it’s 2.6 million — DeSantis blamed politicians in Washington, D.C.
However the numbers from DeSantis’ personal state well being division present no correlation between financial situations and the variety of Floridians with out medical health insurance. Regardless of inhabitants development and financial modifications, Florida had about 2.6 million uninsured residents from 2018 via 2021, and about 2.4 million in 2022.
In 2022, Florida’s uninsured charge was 11.2%, larger than the 8% nationwide charge, based on the U.S. Census Bureau.
Vivek Ramaswamy: “Transgenderism, particularly in children, is a psychological well being dysfunction.”
Medical specialists disagree. Being transgender and having gender dysphoria — the misery that some folks might expertise when their intercourse assigned at beginning doesn’t align with their gender identification — shouldn’t be thought-about a psychological well being dysfunction. Traditionally, the analysis has carried the time period “dysfunction,” however specialists not view it as a pathology and are working to destigmatize the analysis.
Earlier phrases reminiscent of “gender identification dysfunction” and “transexualism” have developed into “gender incongruence,” a situation the World Well being Group now considers a situation associated to sexual well being — not psychological well being. The American Psychiatric Affiliation’s “Diagnostic and Statistical Handbook of Psychological Problems,” or DSM-5, incorporates a analysis for “gender dysphoria,” however specialists say it stays partly to let insurance coverage corporations cowl gender-affirming care and let incarcerated folks entry care.
Mike Pence: Linn-Mar Group Faculty District in Iowa had a coverage the place “you possibly can get a gender transition plan with out notifying your mother and father.”
This wants extra context. The Iowa faculty district outdoors Cedar Rapids in 2022 adopted a coverage that allowed college students to request a “gender help plan.” In accordance with Axios, this plan would define a scholar’s most popular identify and pronouns in addition to which locker rooms or rest room the scholar would use, which is related to a social, fairly than a medical, transition.
The coed may select whether or not the mother and father had been knowledgeable, however the plan was not associated to medical transition, which, for minors, requires the consent of parental guardians. Faculties typically don’t inform mother and father when college students sign they’re socially transitioning, The Washington Submit reported.
Tim Scott: The southwestern U.S. border underneath President Joe Biden is “unsafe, wide-open, and insecure, resulting in the deaths of 70,000 Individuals within the final 12 months due to fentanyl.”
Scott’s declare is deceptive. Deaths from fentanyl jumped 23% in Biden’s first 12 months in workplace to greater than 70,000. However they’ve been growing since 2014 and in addition rose through the Trump administration.
Though immigration encounters on the southern U.S. border have spiked underneath Biden’s watch, many of the fentanyl coming into the U.S. from Mexico reportedly comes via authorized ports of entry. The overwhelming majority of individuals sentenced for fentanyl trafficking are U.S. residents, federal information reveals.