GEOFF BENNETT: Donald Trump's legal issues were one of the many topics featured in last night's Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee, even though the former president himself chose to skip it.

A total of eight other candidates took the stage, in hopes of establishing themselves as viable contenders for the GOP nomination.

Lisa Desjardins us up to speed on the first debate of the 2024 presidential election cycle.

BRET BAIER, FOX News Anchor: Tonight, the race for the White House.

LISA DESJARDINS: In Wisconsin, the state where the Republican Party was formed, a heated debate over its future.

MIKE PENCE (R), Presidential Candidate: We don't need to bring in a rookie.

We don't need to bring in people without experience.

LISA DESJARDINS: And that of the country, with eight candidates on stage vying for the spotlight in a debate full of fireworks.

BRET BAIER: Mr. Pence, Mr. Ramaswamy.

Hold on, Senator Scott.

LISA DESJARDINS: Early on, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis touted his record and approach.

GOV.

RON DESANTIS (R-FL), Presidential Candidate: And we must reverse Bidenomics, so that middle-class families have a chance to succeed again.

LISA DESJARDINS: But after that, neither DeSantis nor Biden were the center of attention.

Instead, it was 38-year-old businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, a Trump acolyte and lightning rod.

He had doubled down on climate denial when asked about devastating wildfires and heat waves that scientists agree are exacerbated by human activity.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY (R), Presidential Candidate: Let us be honest as Republicans.

I'm the only person on the stage who isn't bought and paid for, so I can say this.

The climate change agenda is a hoax.

FMR.

GOV.

ASA HUTCHINSON (R-AR), Presidential Candidate: Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

LISA DESJARDINS: There is scientific consensus that climate change is real and driven by mankind.

Ramaswamy quickly found challenges, starting with former Vice President Mike Pence.

The two held a debate over the fundamental state of the country.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY: We're in the middle of a national identity crisis.

MIKE PENCE: We don't have an identity crisis, Vivek.

We're not looking for a new national identity.

The American people are the most faith-filled, freedom-loving, idealistic, hardworking people the world has ever known.

We just need government as good as our people.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY: Well, Mike, I think the difference is, you might have -- some others like you may have on the stage 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.

LISA DESJARDINS: Later, it was former South Carolina Governor and U.N.

Ambassador Nikki Haley railing against Ramaswamy on foreign policy.

He would limit U.S. spending and involvement overseas, including with Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.

Haley accused him of wanting to cut that support altogether.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY: You've been pushing this lie all week, Nikki.

NIKKI HALEY (R), Presidential Candidate: But you have -- you want to go and defund Israel.

You want to give Taiwan to China.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY: OK. Let me address that.

I'm glad you brought that up.

NIKKI HALEY: You want to go and give Ukraine to Russia.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) VIVEK RAMASWAMY: I'm going to address each of those right now.

This is... (CROSSTALK) (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE) VIVEK RAMASWAMY: ... the false lies of a professional politician.

There you have it.

NIKKI HALEY: Under your watch, you would... VIVEK RAMASWAMY: So, the reality is... NIKKI HALEY: ... make America less safe.

You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows.

VIVEK RAMASWAMY: And you know what.

LISA DESJARDINS: Some others on stage, like South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, stayed out of the fray.

SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC), Presidential Candidate: Going back and forth and being childish is not helpful to the American people to decide on the next leader of our country.

LISA DESJARDINS: Scott focused on other issues, schools, abortion SEN. TIM SCOTT: We must have a president of the United States who will advocate and fight for, at the minimum, a 15-week limit.

LISA DESJARDINS: How and if to push for a national abortion ban was a flash point, as in this exchange between Haley and Pence.

NIKKI HALEY: But when you're talking about a federal ban, be honest with the American people.

MIKE PENCE: I am being honest.

NIKKI HALEY: We have -- don't make women feel like they have to decide on this issue, when you know we don't have 60 Senate votes in the House.

MIKE PENCE: Seventy percent of the American people support legislation to ban abortion... NIKKI HALEY: But 70 percent of the Senate does not.

MIKE PENCE: ... after a baby is capable... LISA DESJARDINS: As those eight hopefuls debated, front-runner Donald Trump was absent, but aiming for the same viewers with an interview posted on social media.

DONALD TRUMP, Former President of the United States: And I'm saying, do I sit there for an hour or two hours, whatever it's going to be, and get harassed by people that shouldn't even be running for president?

LISA DESJARDINS: And back in Milwaukee, of course, the debate about Trump was woven in.

BRET BAIER: If former President Trump is convicted in a court of law, would you still support him as your party's choice?

Please raise your hand if you would.

LISA DESJARDINS: All but Christie and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson raised their hands.

FMR.

GOV.

ASA HUTCHINSON: I'm not going to support somebody who's been convicted of a serious felony.

FMR.

GOV.

CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ), Presidential Candidate: Here's the bottom line.

Someone's got to stop normalizing this conduct.

And you know this is the great thing about this country.

Booing is allowed, but it doesn't change the truth.

It doesn't change the truth.

(BOOING) LISA DESJARDINS: Others, like North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, bemoaned the topic altogether.

GOV.

DOUG BURGUM (R-ND), Presidential Candidate: And every minute that these eight candidates spend talking about the past, instead of about the future, is time that is just -- you know who loves it?

Biden loves it.

LISA DESJARDINS: Next question, whom do voters love enough to keep in the next GOP debate?

That's set for the end of September.

GEOFF BENNETT: Lisa is back from Milwaukee and with us here in the studio, alongside Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter.

It's great to see you both as always.

So, Lisa, let's talk about Ron DeSantis, who escaped that debate unscathed.

And there are observers and analysts who are citing that as evidence of his diminished standing in the race, that none of his opponents felt compelled to attack him.

What is his campaign saying about that and his debate performance last night?

LISA DESJARDINS: This was the topic of a lot of my questions after the debate as well to my sources.

So, when you talk to DeSantis supporters and some in his campaign and super PAC, they told me three different things.

One, some of them made the argument that he was the adult in the room.

He didn't want to engage.

He wanted to be above everyone else.

There's a different argument too that they made, though.

They said the reason he wasn't attacked is because he has an incredible record.

He has the best record, in fact, I was told by Chip Roy of Texas, of any governor in the country.

However, that does conflict with the third thing that DeSantis supporters told me, which is, no one's been attacked more before this debate.

And that's just a sign that he still is the guy in the center.

I think what happened was a surprise to many in the DeSantis camp.

I think they were ready to be attacked and weren't attacked, and now they're figuring out what it means.

They do know that he still probably is the number two, but they're not sure what he's going where he's going to be in two weeks, three weeks.

One thing they have a lot of confidence in is their ground game.

In Iowa, no one has a better organization at this point.

And these early states are going to matter.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

Well, Amy, The Wall Street Journal editorial board, which cannot be accused of being left-leaning, wrote about Donald Trump's absence this morning.

And they said that Donald Trump did the party and the country a favor by ducking out of the debate.

Part of the editorial reads this way: "Voters were able to hear eight other candidates in size up their policies, sparring abilities, and differences.

GOP voters who want to nominate someone who can defeat a highly vulnerable President Biden have more than one capable non-Trump to choose from."

What do you make that assessment?

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Well, and that's the challenge right there, that they have multiple non-Trump candidates to choose from.

I think this race from the very beginning until now has kind of boiled down to these three key groups of Republican voters, about 30, 35 percent who will stay with Trump, no matter what.

Those folks aren't going anywhere, another 20 percent who will never vote for Trump, and then whatever we have left here, somewhere around 50 percent, sitting in there who are saying, I like Trump.

And, right now, they're probably telling pollsters that they're voting for Trump, but they're open to other options.

I -- what I saw last night was good news for Donald Trump, in that, one, Ron DeSantis did well enough, I think you're right, that he is still in the mix, but he got overshadowed by Ramaswamy.

And, remember, Ramaswamy is the candidate who's most aligned with Donald Trump, who will defend Donald Trump constantly, again, splitting up that vote with him.

The other thing, as Lisa pointed out in her piece, every single person raised their hand except for two when asked if they would support Donald Trump if he were convicted.

If you were trying to get voters who are on the fence about Donald Trump or may be looking around, if a conviction isn't enough to get those people to say, I won't support him, why should I as a voter think that is happening?

Why should I as a voter think that is disqualifying?

And then, as we said, finally, we came out of this with, I think, three candidates who did either reasonably well or did get good attention, Ramaswamy, Haley and DeSantis, but not one of them has been able to put together that never-Trump and sometimes-Trump coalition.

So the second-place question, I think we will see when polling comes out whether DeSantis is still there, but it's really a question of how much they need to make up to get close to Donald Trump.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, let's talk more about Vivek Ramaswamy, because, last night, he was slick, he was fast-talking, he attacked his rivals on the stage, he took a lot of incoming.

He was downright Trumpian in many ways.

But he seemed to delight in having a target on his back.

LISA DESJARDINS: Right.

He did know how to take a punch, which is something very few candidates on a debate stage, especially first-time candidates, can do.

I think the question here for the Ramaswamy camp that was answered last night that they liked this morning -- and I knew this when I was at the Iowa State Fair.

I was hearing this from our sources.

They had a problem with name I.D.

They had a problem with voters even being able to say his name, Vivek Ramaswamy.

And what name are we saying again and again today?

AMY WALTER: That's right.

LISA DESJARDINS: So, whether he won you over last night, whether he rubbed you the wrong way, he is the person we're talking about.

And that was a huge goal that they had last night.

That's one reason he was very happy, much like the Trump school of thought.

As long as they're talking about you, you're doing well.

GEOFF BENNETT: Let's talk about Nikki Haley, the only woman on that stage last night.

And you could argue that Nikki Haley ran away with that debate.

She had that really passionate exchange with Mike Pence about abortion.

She had that other exchange with Ramaswamy about his foreign policy experience, or lack thereof.

He said -- she said: "You have no foreign policy experience.

And it shows."

I have talked to any number of never-Trump Republicans who had their eye on Tim Scott.

It strikes me that attention might shift to Nikki Haley.

AMY WALTER: I think that is a -- is very astute, in that for those folks who really do want to make a break from Donald Trump, she gave them a lot of what they're looking for.

In her messaging, it was aimed more at swing voters than it was at base Republican voters, her answers on climate, on abortion, on foreign policy.

It also was something... GEOFF BENNETT: Is that smart to do, though, when this is a debate aimed at... AMY WALTER: Well, there we go.

GEOFF BENNETT: OK.

Sorry.

AMY WALTER: That's the question.

GEOFF BENNETT: I didn't mean to steal your thunder.

AMY WALTER: No, no, no, that is the right question, which is, how far is that going to get you?

And, again, this helps Donald Trump because now does she become the candidate of the never-Trump wing, which is 20 percent of the vote, leaving whoever else fighting over the persuadable sometimes-Trump voters, and again, Trump than getting the biggest chunk of the vote and able to win in a divided race?

GEOFF BENNETT: We have got a couple of minutes left.

LISA DESJARDINS: Yes, there was no one happier in the spin room than the Haley supporters.

They were very, very happy.

However, I do think that what she presented last night was something very appealing in a November election.

And so I -- the voters I have been talking to, I didn't hear the kinds of things that got her into that first-place spot.

I will also say the other camp that was very happy last night, Mike Pence.

He was someone that, really, he's -- he has the most debate experience, the most White House experience of anyone on that stage.

He really should be a dominant character.

And, until now, he's been kind of an afterthought.

They knew he had to perform last night.

Now, you could argue, did he try too hard?

Was he kind of pushing back too much, causing problems on stage?

He wanted to look authoritative, and he did.

The question is, can he overcome, I think, the bad taste that former President Trump has intentionally put in voters' minds about him?

But they were also very happy with his debate last night.

GEOFF BENNETT: We have got about 20 seconds left.

Time for a lightning round.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Did any candidate on that debate stage last night emerge as a real threat to Donald Trump's front-runner status?

AMY WALTER: I don't think it did change much of that at all.

It's just a question of, if DeSantis has stabilized, that's probably good news for DeSantis, may be a problem for Trump down the road.

LISA DESJARDINS: No, Trump's only competition is himself right now.

GEOFF BENNETT: Lisa Desjardins, Amy Walter, we get to talk to you twice this week.

AMY WALTER: This has been great.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: Thanks so much.