Candidates Refuse Final Request From Moderators

They were asked to write down which candidate should be voted 'off the island'
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 27, 2023 10:16 PM CDT
Candidates Decline Final Request From Moderators
From left to right, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Sen. Tim Scott during the GOP debate.   (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

The three moderators of the GOP debate often struggled to keep the seven candidates from talking over each other Wednesday night, and the candidates united to refuse a final request from the trio. Moderator Dana Perino asked them all to write down the name of a candidate on stage who should be voted "off the island," in the mode of Survivor, per the Washington Post. Ron DeSantis spoke up first and said he would decline to do so out of respect for his fellow candidates, and the others soon agreed. The question was dropped.

However, another of the moderators, Stuart Varney (of Fox News, like Perino) said he noticed that Chris Christie appeared to write down a name. The former New Jersey governor then said he wished to "vote Donald Trump off the island right now" because he was disrespecting the political process and the Republican party by skipping the debates, per the New York Times. (Earlier, Christie christened Trump with the nickname "Donald Duck" for ducking the debates.)

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