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Republican candidates have gone head-to-head in their first debate. Trump skipped the debate but he won it anyway: his interview with Tucker has been viewed 230 million times, breaking every record in history.

Wednesday marked a big day in American politics. Eight candidates from the Republican party took to the debate stage in Milwaukee to convince the Republican base of their suitability for a shot at the White House in 2024.

In a most unusual twist, Donald Trump, who is the clear frontrunner, opted to skip the debate altogether. Instead he joined Tucker Carlson for a one-on-one interview on X, formerly Twitter.

Trump and Tucker’s Rival Program

Trump and Tucker were a well-suited pair. The Republican party’s leadership still view Trump as a rogue, anti-establishment figure, despite his overwhelming popularity among Republican voters.

Meanwhile, Tucker had his own reasons to direct attention away from the Fox News broadcast: he was easily the most popular cable news host in American history until Fox News ousted him earlier this year.

It is a sign of the times, then, that the two men most rejected by America’s conservative establishment have just produced the most-watched interview in world history. Just 12 hours after the Tucker-Trump chat aired on X, it had racked up over 200 million views. That figure now stands at 230 million views  — and counting.

Fox News, which is yet to report its ratings from debate night, will be lucky to have secured one tenth of that audience.

The events of Wednesday night have prompted many to quip that Trump won the debate he never attended.

Watch Tucker’s interview with Trump here:

The Candidates and the Outsider

Despite a lacklustre television audience, the Republican primary debate was still a lively spectacle.

The best-known names on the stage included Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

The others in attendance are all polling low in the single digits — including Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum, all former state governors, and Tim Scott, a sitting U.S. Senator.

The sole exception is 38-year-old outsider Vivek Ramaswamy, an articulate biotech entrepreneur, currently in third place in the polls, who has risen quickly through the ranks to now poll at over 10 per cent.

Vivek: The New Donald Trump?

Mainstream news outlets have generally praised Mike Pence for his performance, while critiquing Ron DeSantis for his lack of visibility, and the inability of low-polling candidates to make an impression on the night.

The candidate to draw the most commentary, for better or worse, is Vivek Ramaswamy. Characteristic of the assessments made of Vivek are these words from one Politico analyst:

He took all the hits — seriously, almost all of them — but Vivek Ramaswamy got all he could have wanted out of tonight: attention and the opportunity to reinforce the idea the party’s establishment is out to get him. If you were a Republican who still hadn’t seen a clip of Ramaswamy on social media or TV, you learned who he was tonight. And the fact all knives were out for him shows that the other candidates see him not just as an annoyance, but as a threat right now as they’re trying to break through themselves.

Independent conservative commentators generally agreed, with many likening Vivek’s performance and reception this year to Trump’s at the 2019 Republican primary debate.

For his part, Vivek embraced his outsider status, at one point declaring, “I am the only person on this stage not bought and paid for”, in a broadside against other candidates who are relying heavily on funding from Super PACs.

Notably, Vivek was also the only candidate to denounce the Ukraine war, and the only one to openly praise Donald Trump, calling him “the best president of the 21st century,” to loud cheers from the audience.

Is it Morning in America?

One last moment from Vivek that got tongues wagging was his commentary, as a millennial, on the state of America at this present moment.

Other candidates waxed lyrical about the glories of the American empire, as though they were reading a script from the latter half of the 20th century.

For example, Mike Pence said to Vivek, “The American people are the most faith-filled, freedom-loving, idealistic, hardworking people the world has ever known. We just need a government as good as our people.”

Vivek saw it differently.

“Mike,” he replied, “I think the difference is — you might have… a ‘it’s morning in America’ speech. It is not morning in America. We live in a dark moment and we have to confront the fact that we’re in an internal sort of cold cultural civil war and we have to recognise that.”

Watch the full Republican primary debate at the Fox News website here.