By Calder McHugh

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks with reporters after the first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

KID GLOVES — As we send Nightly this evening, former President Donald Trump is on his way from his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. to turn himself in for processing at the Fulton County, Ga. jail. Like the 18 other defendants in the sprawling case, we will soon see his mugshot — an image that has in the past been the kiss of death for political careers.

And yet the evening before, when moderator Bret Baier asked the eight candidates on stage at the first 2024 Republican presidential debate to raise their hands if they’d still support Trump as the party’s nominee were he to be convicted in a court of law, six hands raised.

Vivek Ramaswamy’s hand shot up like a student who wants to prove they really did do the reading last night. Five more hands followed, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis looking around surreptitiously for approval before raising his right hand himself.

The scene gave viewers clarity on how the majority of the candidates are going to treat Trump’s legal troubles for the rest of the campaign — with kid gloves.

Ramaswamy, who fueled potential Trump veep talk, doubled down in response to Trump criticism from former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: “President Trump, I believe, was the best president of the 21st century,” Ramaswamy said to raucous applause. “It’s a fact.”

The exchange — in which Christie was also resoundingly booed by the audience for saying “someone’s got to stop normalizing [Trump’s] conduct,” — was representative of the strange state of the Republican primary.

The polls show that there’s at best a slim chance of winning the nomination by attacking the former president. Trump himself feels no need to participate in debates because of the size of his lead. So what’s left on the debate stage is a collection of individuals who look and sound like they’re running for president, but are hamstrung from doing so effectively by a front runner who‘s intent on coasting to the nomination.

Ramaswamy, the quickest riser in primary polls in the last month, has carved out a lane as the most ardent Trump backer on stage. He’s more or less serving as a proxy for most of the former president’s views (Trump called Ramaswamy the debate’s winner today). The consistent attacks against Ramaswamy were what you’d expect a frontrunner like Trump to receive.

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley drew the most blood from Ramaswamy when she told him that he’s “choosing a murderer [Vladimir Putin] over a pro-American country [Ukraine],” drawing applause from the crowd. She also quickly raised her hand when asked if she’d still support Trump if he’s convicted. The two answers might not appear connected, but would Haley have been as quick to attack Trump — who famously has a cozy relationship with Putin — about the war in Ukraine? Would the crowd have responded so positively to such an attack on the former president?

The political world’s consensus was that Wednesday’s debate was pretty good for Ramaswamy, Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence, while South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott faded into the background (pundits and viewers are split on DeSantis).

All of that could change in the next debate, scheduled for Sept. 27. For now, the biggest lesson of the night — and perhaps for the rest of the primary — was that the grand majority of GOP candidates remain unwilling, unmotivated and unable to take on Trump directly.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at [email protected]. Or contact tonight’s author at [email protected] or on Twitter at @calder_mchugh. PROGRAMMING NOTE: Nightly will not be publishing from Aug. 28 through Sept. 4. We’ll be back to our normal schedule on Tuesday, Sept. 5.

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— Fulton County prosecutors ask judge to set Oct. 23 trial on Trump racketeering charges: Georgia prosecutors asked a state judge to schedule Donald Trump’s racketeering trial for Oct. 23, 2023, an unexpectedly expedited timeline that they proposed in response to a formal demand by one of Trump’s 18 codefendants for a speedy trial. The demand came Wednesday from Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who is accused of orchestrating a scheme to send false electors to Congress. His speedy trial demand seeks to force a quick trial that comes within, or shortly after, the term of the grand jury that issued the indictment against Trump and his allies. This morning, Chesebro asked for an “expedited” arraignment to facilitate his speedy trial effort. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis responded to Chesebro’s initial motion today by, essentially, agreeing.

— Feds accuse SpaceX of discrimination against asylum-seekers and refugees: The Justice Department has accused Elon Musk’s SpaceX company of violating federal law by refusing to hire foreign nationals who were granted U.S. work permits as asylum-seekers or refugees. In a complaint filed today, DOJ officials claim SpaceX rebuffed applications from asylum-seekers and refugees from 2018 through last year. The company contended that U.S. export control laws and the sensitive rocket technology SpaceX uses meant that only U.S. citizens and green card holders could work at the firm, according to the DOJ complaint.

— Trump taps veteran Atlanta defense attorney to lead fight against racketeering charges: Donald Trump has tapped Steve Sadow, a veteran Atlanta-based defense attorney, as his new lead defense attorney in Fulton County. Sadow filed an appearance on Trump’s behalf this morning in Fulton County Superior Court, supplanting Drew Findling as Trump’s lead attorney in the case. Sadow has represented other high-profile clients in recent years, including a star University of Georgia linebacker who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two women, and Sergio Kitchens, a rapper known as “Gunna,” who pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge last year. Sadow’s high-profile clients have also included figures like Howard Stern, Usher and Rick Ross.

THOSE ONES HURT — Vivek Ramaswamy quickly emerged Wednesday night as the punching bag in the first Republican presidential debate, finding himself in the midst of nearly all of the most fiery clashes.

And the 38-year-old political newcomer, who’s been rising in the polls, seemed to relish in the attention.

“We’re just gonna have some fun tonight,” Ramaswamy said early on in a tussle with former Vice President Mike Pence. The former biotech entrepreneur, who’s been rising in the polls in recent weeks, dished out some of the night’s most memorable one-liners. And Ramaswamy was a major target for attacks from the other candidates on stage.

Read POLITICO’s Michael Stratford’s rundown of the five harshest burns from the debate, most of which have Ramaswamy either dishing them out or taking them.

TALK IS CHEAP — The Republican candidates for president revealed more than they thought on Wednesday night, writes Joe Navarro, a body language expert.

As someone who has studied nonverbal communication for over 50 years, 25 of them as an FBI agent specializing in decoding human behavior, Navarro learned that humans are fairly good at lying — but they’re lousy at concealing their true emotions, especially when stressed. We reveal our unspoken thoughts in our bodies: faces flushed with embarrassment, lips pursed at unwelcome questions, fingers covering the neck dimple when discussing a touchy subject.

Body language is the primary means by which we communicate, revealing our true thoughts and feelings. It tells stories that canned speeches do not.

Navarro analyzed each candidate’s body language — from Nikki Haley tensing her jaw to Doug Burgum flashing a pocket constitution.

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with acting governor of the Kherson region Vladimir Saldo at the Kremlin in Moscow today. | Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

OPERATION FALLOUT — Russian President Vladimir Putin today made his first public remarks since the death of Russian warlord-turned-mutineer Yevgeny Prigozhin in a fiery plane crash on Wednesday, write Gabriel Gavin and Douglas Busvine.

Speculation is rife that Putin ordered the killing of the mercenary boss who rose up against the Kremlin in June, but in his public remarks he urged people to wait for the results of an investigation that will be carried out by Russian authorities.

“The head of the Investigative Committee of Russia has reported to me about this, as is correct,” Putin said during a meeting with Denis Pushilin, the Kremlin-appointed head of Russia’s occupation administration in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. “They launched an investigation into this incident and it will be carried out in full and reach a conclusion. Let’s see what the investigators say.”

“I have known Prigozhin for a long time, from the beginning of the 1990s,” Putin said of his former caterer. “He was a man with a complex fate. [Sometimes] he made mistakes; and [sometimes] he got the results he wanted — for himself and in response to my requests, for a common cause.”

Meanwhile, Wagner’s social media mouthpieces were quick to suggest the light aircraft’s sudden crash — en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg with many of the group’s leadership on board — was no accident.

“The fact that our best soldiers died in battle is the will of God,” wrote the pro-Prigozhin “Fatherland” Telegram channel. “Probably whoever organized it thinks he’s won, but he hasn’t … if it’s a knife in the back, the motherland will survive but your fate as Judas is unenviable.”

Enter the “room where it happens”, where global power players shape policy and politics, with Power Play. POLITICO’s brand-new podcast will host conversations with the leaders and power players shaping the biggest ideas and driving the global conversations, moderated by award-winning journalist Anne McElvoy. Sign up today to be notified of the first episodes in September – click here.

BOILING POINT — What’s the best, most economical way to cook pasta? Can you turn the heat off halfway through and let the boiled water do the rest of the job? Is there a way to “cold cook,” putting in the pasta and bringing the water to a boil afterwards? Do any of these alternate methods, aimed at saving electricity or gas, actually produce the same kind of flavor and texture? In National Geographic, David Fairhurst and two researchers set out to find out, speaking with everyone from Nobel Laureates to gourmet restaurant chefs in order to find out the secrets held within one of the most popular dishes in the world.

On this date in 1961: Spanish painter Salvador Dali, wearing a Venice gondolier's costume and a red Spanish beret, works on decorations for his surrealistic one-act comic opera in the "La Fenice" opera house in London. | Girolamo Di Majo/AP Photo

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