Pharmaceutical executive Vivek Ramaswamy was slammed by former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at the Republican Party’s first primary debate on Wednesday night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for what Christie suggested were lines borrowed directly from Barack Obama.

Christie ripped Ramaswamy’s claim that he will gut the entire “federal administrative state” and create a “revolution” — saying that the claims are reminiscent of a political novice.

Ramaswamy started the debate by saying: “Let me just address the question that is on everybody’s mind at home tonight: Who the heck is this skinny guy with a funny last name, and what the heck is he doing in the middle of this debate stage?”

“I’ve had enough already of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT,” Christie said to roars from the audience. “The last guy who stood on a stage and described himself as a skinny guy with a funny name was Barack Obama … I’m afraid we’re dealing with the same type of amateur.”

Obama famously described himself in 2004 during his national debut as “a skinny kid with a funny name.”

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At the Fox News Debate, Christie slams Vivek both for sounding like ChatGPT AND for plagiarizing Obama pic.twitter.com/ozFvPPTLHD

— John Hasson (@SonofHas) August 24, 2023

Former President Donald Trump opted for a one-on-one interview with ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson — an interview that was released on X and timed to compete with Wednesday evening’s GOP presidential primary debate.

While every other candidate who met the Republican National Committee’s criteria chose to attend the debate — and take questions from moderators Shannon Bream and Bret Baier — Trump cited a poll that showed him with a comfortable lead, saying, “I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES.”

That same poll also showed that the majority of Republicans wanted to see the former president on the debate stage — but instead, Trump sat down with Carlson to discuss a wide range of topics, from his reasons for skipping the debate to the problems with corporate media.

Carlson’s 46-minute broadcast preempted the start of the debate by five minutes, and after a few brief digs at the other Republican candidates, they settled in to a long conversation focused on Trump’s claims that the 2020 election had been rigged, whether or not President Joe Biden’s physical and mental health would allow him to make it to the 2024 general election, and issues the next president would likely face.

The pair bonded over their mutual dislike of former “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace and then briefly butted heads over the fate of the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein when Carlson said that he was wholly convinced that Epstein had been killed. Trump — while he admitted “a case could be made” for someone killing him — said he thought Epstein had likely panicked at the prospect of possibly spending the rest of his life in prison and took his own life.

The interview wrapped essentially where Trump had started in the 2016 presidential campaign, with his assessment of the ongoing crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border — followed briefly by his concerns about division in the wake of what happened on January 6th.