Republican debate highlights: TV ratings plummet as Haley addresses ‘scum’ spat

“Think about who is moderating this debate. This should be Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and Elon Musk,” Mr Ramaswamy said. “We’d have 10 times the viewership, asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about and bring more people into our party.”

The 2024 candidate claimed Democrats would not allow a conservative news anchor or media personality to host their debates.

Mr Ramaswamy then attacked Ms Welker, an NBC News anchor, accusing her of being part of the “corrupt media establishment.”

MSNBC host Ari Melber quoted the movie Scarface and said that Republicans had bought into too many of their own lies about the 2020 presidential election.

Melber spoke on Thursday evening about how Republicans faced massive electoral defeats in Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia and noted how the Republican Party is now in thrall to the wing that supports former president Donald Trump and his lies about the 2020 election.

“The fact that the Trump wing of the party embraced denialism has hurt the party’s ability to get anywhere near competitive,” he said. “If you’re watching this and want a healthy democracy, that’s a bad thing. If you’re watching and want Republicans to keep losing elections you’re hoping they keep making this mistake.”

Melber then played a clip from the movie Scarface wherein Elvira Hancock, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, said “Lesson two, don’t get high on your own supply.”

The world was left reeling last June when millions of women across America lost their legal right to an abortion.

And since that fateful day that the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade – the landmark decision that legalised abortion nationwide in 1973 – the landscape for reproductive rights has changed beyond recognition.

Some 21 states have either enacted abortion bans or restrictions earlier in pregnancy than the benchmark that Roe established – many of them also barring exceptions in the case of rape or incest.

As a result, tens of thousands of women are estimated to have been forced to endure the rigmarole of travelling to a different state to access an abortion.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, campaigners have voiced fears that the war being waged on reproductive rights in America has also emboldened anti-abortion activists in the UK. In the immediate aftermath of the US Supreme Court decision, campaigners and academics told The Independent that US funding received by UK anti-abortion groups was likely to “ramp up” in light of Roe’s dismantling.

But in the US, pro-choice lawyers, campaigners and politicians have fervently and ferociously fought abortion bans.

And, on Tuesday night, they secured a major win for anyone who believes women and people with wombs should have the right to choose.

The issue of abortion rights in the United States is staring the 2024 GOP presidential candidates in their eyes as they prepare to kick their campaigns into high gear.

Since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark case Roe v Wade (1973) last summer, abortion has become a top concern for many voters.

Though the anti-abortion stance has long been associated with the Republican Party, approximately 61 per cent of adults in the US believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to Pew Research Center – that statistic includes Republican and Democratic voters.

As Americans look toward their next Republican presidential nominee, no doubt many will be considering where the candidate stands on abortion when determining who they support.

Once the spotlights came on, the GOP candidates called for a further ratcheting up of military operations, urging Israel to annihilate Hamas and the US military to directly attack Iran.

Responding to a question about what advice she would give to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley had two words: “Finish them.”

Several election offices reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and US Postal Service Inspection Service that they received envelopes containing a “white powdery substance” and a threatening note about elections.

In Pierce County, Washington the auditor’s office shared a letter accompanied by the suspicious substance that read “End elections now”, according to The Associated Press.

Another “very similar” letter sent to the elections office in King County, Washington during the August primary contained fentanyl, elections director Julie Wise said.

The third Republican primary debate was an ugly slugfest reminiscent of the earliest Trump debates of 2015 — except the former president wasn’t even there.

A group of five candidates, minus their party’s frontrunner, appeared onstage Wednesday evening in Miami for what was billed as a presidential debate but in the end may have just been an exercise in futility, given the continued dominance of Donald Trump in every available poll of the GOP primary.

What transpired over two hours served as a reminder of what Mr Trump has done to this party, and raised the question of whether his shadow will loom over Republicans long after he fades from relevance.

Let’s look at the main takeaways from Wednesday’s showdown:

“It just means that the Republican platform sucks, and that’s not what America wants,” Sen John Fetterman (D-PA) told The Independent. Mr Fetterman, of course, largely won his Senate seat in Pennsylvania last year on the back of the Dobbs backlash, especially when his Republican opponent, celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz said that “women, doctors, local political leaders” should make decisions on abortion.

“And unfortunately, the states have to rebuild abortion in after the Supreme Court, but that’s exactly what they’re doing because that’s what the people want,” he said.

And Republicans seem to understand that abortion motivates voters. Sen Thom Tillis (R-NC) tried to note that all three contests were low-turnout races. But he also warned that this could lead to Democrats putting more abortion referendums on state ballots come 2024.

The tech entrepreneur was booed by the crowd in Miami after attacking Ms Haley’s daughter during a heated exchange over security concerns about TikTok and China – a touchy topic of previous debates.

“In the last debate, [Ms Haley] made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time so you might want to take care of your family first,” Mr Ramaswamy shot at Ms Haley.

The former UN ambassador responded furiously, “Leave my daughter out of your voice.”

As the crowd booed, Ms Haley shook her head, adding: “You’re just scum.”