The beginning of the Republican primary debate in New Hampshire Thursday night may go down as the most awkward in memory.
It all started when Ben Carson failed to walk onstage when his name was called, causing a bottleneck in the wings that the other candidates had to walk around. Then Donald Trump apparently didn’t hear his name and stood by Carson while other candidates walked by the two of them. On top of it all, the ABC News moderators forgot about John Kasich, leaving an empty podium on stage and one Ohio governor hovering off to the side.
Then Marcodyne Rubicon Systems Model T100 faltered last night, getting stuck on repeat.
Vox:
The context is important here: Early in the debate, Christie mocked Rubio for relying so much on his stump speech at the debate. Christie said, “Every morning when a United States senator wakes up, they think about, ‘What kind of speech can I give, or what kind of bill can I drop?’ Every morning, when I wake up, I think about, what kind of problem do I need to solve for the people who actually elected me. It’s a different experience.”
Rubio then went on to repeat the same line over and over again, doing exactly what Christie criticized him for:
8:30 pm: “And let’s dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.”
8:32 pm: “Let’s dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.”
8:34 pm: “This notion that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing is just not true. He knows exactly what he’s doing.”
9:21 pm: “I think anyone who believes that Barack Obama isn’t doing what he’s doing on purpose doesn’t understand what we’re dealing with here. Okay?”