Columnist and political analyst Jonathan Harris joined Cheddar News to break down what stood out from Wednesday's third Republican presidential primary debate.

<div class="block">Columnist and political analyst Jonathan Harris joined Cheddar News to break down what stood out from Wednesday&#39;s third Republican presidential primary debate.</div>

Need2Know Headlines

Breaking Down the GOP's Third Primary Debate

Last night was the third Republican primary debate. That's right. And back again this morning with a full recap is columnist and political analyst, Jonathan Harris. Jonathan. We're happy to have you big night last night. What were the biggest takeaways for you? Oh, gosh, I, you know, I ended up watching the debate twice actually because it was just, uh, there was so much going on so I ended up watching it twice. I think the thing that I, I came away with most, probably more than what I heard in a lot of the post debate reaction was for the people who are critical of President Biden in terms of his support of Israel. Some people who think that maybe, you know, Israel is, you know, ignoring the humanitarian inside of what's happening in Gaza. If you watched the debate last night, it was kind of a reminder that everyone on the right and is in agreement essentially with what President Biden is doing in Israel. And it was just, it was an interesting reminder that, you know, if you have an issue with President Biden's support of Israel, everyone on the right wants to do exactly the same thing including Donald Trump, who wasn't at the debate. And it sort of reminded me of that debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney where they were talking about the use of drones. And if you were against the use of drones, you didn't really have a candidate because they both believed in that. So when I was listening to their opening responses about what was going on in the Middle East, it was kind of a reminder that both the left and the right are completely in agreement essentially with the support of Israel in this situation. That kind of was one of the first things, especially because it was the opening that stood out to me. So you say everyone on the right was on the same page with the Biden administration with regard to what's happening with Israel and Hamas, but who didn't perform as well as they would have hoped, you know, Vivek seemed, I know that they, they said that he had promised to be unhinged and uh he, he delivered on being unhinged. II, I don't know what VKS strategy was, but it just seemed like he was trying more to make a name for himself or make headlines for himself than offer any kind of coherence policy. I mean, by the time you were done, you'd had him calling uh um Vladimir Zelensky, a a Nazi who Vladimir Zelensky is Jewish and you had uh Vivek calling him a Nazi. He was saying that President Biden wasn't really president of the United States that Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson should have, uh, moderated the debate. So, uh, the Vivek's performance has always been a little bit bizarre in these debates, but it was, he took bizarre to the next level last night. Interesting. Um, what were some of the key issues in addition to Israel, Jonathan that we heard the candidates cover? Uh, I, I was really shocked by the way that they portrayed the US and the situation in the US because if you were to listen to them, you know, you would think that the US was falling apart. And I thought it was so strange because if you compare the way the country was doing in 2020 having come off of multiple economic collapses, COVID was out of control. We'd lost millions and millions of jobs. You would think that we were in that situation and not that we, you know, have 5% GDP and not that, you know, President Biden has recovered all of the jobs that the Trump administration lost with the economic crash from the trade war with China and from COVID. So it was interesting the kind of parallel universe and the way we're trying to portray the US as in these dire straits and they talked about inflation, they all seem to want to cover inflation, but not the fact that the inflation comes when an economy collapses and it recovers the recovery comes with the inflation and they didn't really want to seem to address the fact that it was the elephant not in the room. Donald Trump who had crashed the economy multiple times leading to the inflation. So they all painted this picture of the US as being in free fall. Do you expect the field to slim down even further? Given the fact that they're singing the same note before this next debate, Who do you think will see on the stage next time? Jonathan? You know, I, I was saying yesterday, if, if people were maybe taking wages, I do think, uh, Tim Scott is probably gonna fall off. I thought Tim Scott and, uh, former governor Chris Christie both delivered kind of sedated performances yesterday, which I expected from Tim Scott, but not so much from Chris Christie. And I think if that continues, Chris Christie and Tim Scott will probably be falling off before the debates, I think they'll be the next, the next couple to go. All right, the field. Getting smaller and smaller columnist and political analyst. Jonathan Harris. Jonathan. Thank you.