First Republican Debate and the Unconventional Winners

Who won the first Republican debate held in Milwaukee, WI, on Wednesday night (August 23, 2023)? The answers vary depending on the sources as it is after all a matter of opinion. However, the victory of two winners appears evident in an unconventional perspective, and none of them was on the debate stage on Wednesday night.

Among the eight candidates vying for the GOP nomination for 2024 presidential election, various sources have praised different candidates depending on their own political positions and personal favorites. On the conservative side, a number of opinion-makers have either called Ron DeSantis or Vivek Ramaswamy as the victorious Republican candidate among those on the debate stage. But a big number of conservative voters, political commentators, and hardcore conservatives have attested to the victory of two people who were off that stage in Milwaukee – Donald J. Trump and Tucker Carlson.

Both Trump and Tucker were in an unofficial battle against their respective rivals on the stage and the screen on Wednesday night. Trump, who refused to participate in the GOP debates by asserting his independence from party commands, is fighting on multiple fronts: the Democratic Party, the leftist establishment that includes the alliance of compromised Republicans, the mainstream media, and the GOP establishment that has brought his rivals into the limelight for 2024 while doing little for his efforts to fight the election fraud of 2020, for which he is being prosecuted by Democrats in Georgia.

Tucker Carlson, at the same time, is in an unofficial battle with Fox News and the leftist establishment that both colluded to have him fired from Fox over, what many believe, offering politically disturbing analysis of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Tucker has allegedly been threatened with a lawsuit by Fox News but he dares to do interviews and post them on Twitter/X, where he gets millions of views for each posted video.

Thus on Wednesday night, Tucker Carlson posted his recorded interview with Trump on Twitter/X at the same time when the GOP debate was airing live on Fox News. The meaning of this move was an open challenge to both the GOP loyals on the debate stage and Fox News as die-hard Trump fans were expected to skip the debate and stick to Tucker’s video. It was a numbers game on an important level, and within minutes of the video’s posting to Twitter/X, the number of hits reached millions, building up quickly each passing minute.

By the time the two-hour GOP debate ended, the number of views of Tucker-Trump interview video had reached nearly 100 million. This towered mockingly high over the 12.8 million total views that Fox News got for the GOP debate moderated by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. The number of views of Tucker-Trump interview video has since crossed the 250 million mark and at the time of this writing, that number stands at 254.7 million. The teaser for the interview alone got over 16 million hits.

Ep. 19 Debate Night with Donald J Trump pic.twitter.com/ayPfII48CO

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 24, 2023

Since Wednesday night, Trump’s MAGA following has claimed their mega victory over the GOP establishment while Tucker’s fans trolled Fox News with memes on Twitter.

They broke the internet.
200M views.#TrumpMugShot pic.twitter.com/h6tm4SiGnD

— American.357 (@ASimplePatriot) August 24, 2023

Staunch MAGA conservative and AZ gubernatorial candidate in 2022 Kari Lake, who used to work at Fox News, posted on Twitter that it’s time to stop joking around this “phony primary” and focus on winning 2024.

.@realDonaldTrump & @TuckerCarlson are at 238M views and counting.

The people have spoken.

Can we stop humoring this phony primary and focus on winning the general?https://t.co/a2BuQ1NwXK pic.twitter.com/Cgn3ttlIwE

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) August 24, 2023