National Security at the Republican Debate

On August 23rd, the US Republican Party held their first debate for presidential hopefuls. Included in the list of questions were items about Ukraine, China and using the military against Mexican cartels. Below are the transcripts from those portions of the event.

Participants in the debate were Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum.

Disclaimer: I have made minor edits to the text below in the form of excluding banter and consolidating text when interruptions occurred. Hopefully this makes it easier to consume the thought of the candidate on each item. Candidates also tended to veer from the original question to get into other items they wished to talk about. I left those aspects in for overall context rather than selectively choose to remove certain portions.

Finally, the below is not intended as an endorsement of any position, candidate or political party. I plan to also pull out the national security discussions from Democratic and eventually the presidential debates so we can all see how the candidates feel about these specific issues.

Full transcript can be found here: https://rollcall.com/2023/08/24/transcript-gop-presidential-hopefuls-debate-in-milwaukee/

Full debate video on Fox News website: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6335464873112

Funding and Support for Ukraine

BAIER (MODERATOR): The US has committed nearly $77 billion in aid to the Ukraine war. The administration is now asking Congress for $24 billion more, regardless of that the specifics of that plan, is there anyone on stage who would not support the increase of more funding to Ukraine?

RAMASWAMY: I would not support it.

DESANTIS: Europe needs to step up. I mean, I would have Europe step up and do their job.

BAIER: Mr. Ramaswamy, you're -- but you're saying you would not too, Governor DeSantis?

DESANTIS: I will have Europe pull their weight. Right now they’re not doing that.