Donald who? Fox barely mentions Trump in first half of debate until 10-minute indictment discussion
Donald Trump was barely mentioned in the Fox News Channel debate that he skipped until halfway through
NEW YORK — Fox News Channel's two-hour Republican presidential debate was halfway through when moderator Bret Baier said he wanted to take a brief moment to talk about “the elephant not in the room” — Donald Trump and his four criminal indictments.
Up until that point the former president, who skipped the debate and has a large lead in polls for the 2024 GOP nomination, had hardly been mentioned by his eight rivals on a Milwaukee stage on Wednesday.
The reluctance to talk about the topic was evident, but the 10 minutes when it was discussed included some of the debate's more electric moments.
When asked for a show of hands on how many would support Trump as the GOP nominee if he were convicted of a crime, six indicated they would. Two former governors, New Jersey's Chris Christie and Arkansas' Asa Hutchinson, were the exceptions.
The audience booed Christie for saying that Trump’s conduct should not be normalized. “Booing is allowed,” he said. “But it doesn’t change the truth.”
Baier and Fox colleague Martha MacCallum told Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis three times that he had ducked the question when, after being asked whether then-Vice President Mike Pence acted properly to resist Trump's request not to certify Joe Biden's presidential election victory, he said he wanted to talk about the future instead of the past.
So did Pence, until DeSantis said, “Mike did his duty. I've got no beef with him.”
“We spent an hour talking about policy,” Baier said to DeSantis. “Former President Trump is beating you by 30, 40 points in many polls. So it is a factor in the GOP primaries.”
After saying they had fulfilled a promise to spend a
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