Who earned the title of Donald Trump’s most special boy in the GOP governor’s debate?

It is an exhausting time to be a West Virginian who follows politics.

We’ve passed the halfway mark of the 2024 regular legislative session, there’s a governor’s race going on and Gov. Jim Justice is running for U.S. Senate while a bank is planning to auction off some of his land to pay off some of the millions he owes. 

I know. It’s a lot. It’s easy to miss some of it, and it’s OK to not pay attention to all of it. That’s what we’re here for.

Let me catch you up.

For weeks now, the Legislature has been attacking the transgender community with transphobic bills — the Women’s Bill of Rights, a bill to prohibit the use of “non-binary” on birth certificates and a transgender bathroom ban.

They’ve wasted time on bills that can’t be enforced because of court rulings (see the transgender bathroom ban above) and others that don’t really change anything because of laws already in place. They’ve gone on unhinged tangents about supporting Texas, and an hourlong debate about whether systemic racism exists. (It does.)

It’s not all terrible though, good bills are moving through. The House passed a bill that would allow Medicaid recipients to get dentures without it counting against the $1,000 annual cap on dental care services. A bill to ban smoking in cars with children present — which has been introduced each of the past 10 years — finally moved to the full Senate for a vote for the first time ever. There are multiple bills trying to address the state’s child care shortage. 

Meanwhile, Carter Bank & Trust listed several of Justice’s properties at the Greenbrier Sporting Club for auction in hopes of getting back some of the $300 million that Justice and his family owe. Justice’s companies have now sued to stop the sale of the properties. 

And right after the news of the property auctions came the announcement that Babydog Justice, the governor’s bulldog who attends most events with him, needs two surgeries for a torn ACL. Wild timing, huh? Justice mentioned during the LG economic announcement on Jan. 3 that Babydog wasn’t there because she hurt her leg jumping out of a chair. A week later, Babydog made an appearance at the State of the State address walking on her injured leg. I hope she has a speedy recovery.

And that’s not all.

Did you know there was a Republican governor’s debate last week? It was announced last Monday, MetroNews streamed audio online live on Tuesday, but it only aired on TV in Beckley on Sunday. You’d really have to be looking for it to watch it, and honestly who doesn’t want to watch four white men loudly arguing with each other for 90 minutes about who is most conservative?

The candidates — former House Judiciary Committee Chairman Moore Capito, business owner Chris Miller, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Secretary of State Mac Warner — weren’t as polite and buddy-buddy with each other as they were doing the first GOP debate that Morrisey skipped.

The debate, sponsored by the Raleigh County Republican Executive Committee and moderated again by Hoppy Kercheval of MetroNews, started with each candidate explaining why they’re the most conservative and who loves former President Donald Trump the most, and then continued to compete for the title of Trump’s most special boy for the rest of the evening.

It was a lot of the same talking points as the first debate, but there were a few new topics that the men basically all agreed on.

Kercheval asked Miller about his commercial where he says he wants to drug test welfare recipients, explaining to him that it’s against the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. Miller said that it was necessary to test welfare recipients, and Capito, Morrisey and Warner all agreed, but the three others said it must be done in a way that is constitutional. 

When Utah passed a law to do mandatory testing on welfare recipients, only 12 tests out of 466   — or 2.57% — came back positive for drug use. It cost the state $30,000 to do the tests. This is not the stance to take if these candidates are serious about saving the state money. 

While all four men said they were anti-abortion, Warner came out as the candidate most likely to allow abortion to be legalized again. Warner said that if the state Legislature makes a decision to legalize abortion, he would stand with what they decide, even though he is against abortion.

Del. Kayla Young has sponsored House Joint Resolution 27, which would give West Virginia voters the chance to vote on reproductive health care access, including contraception and abortion. This bill was sent to House Health and Human Resources, but hasn’t been discussed yet. 

The next tricky question: were the men vaccinated? Miller referred to the pandemic as a “scamdemic,” and said his family wasn’t vaccinated. He also falsely claimed that the vaccine wasn’t a part of clinical trials. 

Warner was the only one who admitted to being vaccinated, saying he was used to getting vaccines because of his years in the military. However, he said didn’t want to get it, and regretted it because his daughter got the vaccine while she was breastfeeding, and her breast milk turned green the next day. 

Breast milk can turn a whole rainbow of colors, including green, which has been linked to consuming green colored sports drinks, seaweed, herbs or large amounts of green vegetables, like spinach. 

The debate really fell apart at the end when Kercheval asked the candidates about the GOP restricting their primary to only GOP voters starting in 2026. Currently, independent voters can choose which primary ballot they want to vote on.

Morrisey agreed with the decision and claimed that “the liberals” are recruiting independents to vote in the GOP primary. 

Capito said that every West Virginian should have the opportunity to vote for Trump and that Morrisey “tried to rig this election in the middle of it,” by wanting the 2024 primary to be closed. He then pointed out that Morrisey received money from the Never Trump group, and Warner piled on that Morrisey received $10 million from an anti-Trump group.

Morrisey fought back by asking Warner — who said the 2020 election was stolen — why he was the only candidate who didn’t endorse Trump.

Warner’s answer: “Because I am the secretary of state, I’m the chief elections officer for this state. I didn’t even endorse my wife when she ran for House of Delegates. I have to keep above the fray, and be ready to handle any challenges that come up”

And that’s what we’re working with, folks — an attorney general running for governor who doesn’t understand why the secretary of state, who is an election denier, can’t endorse political candidates.