On Friday, a full six months before the 2024 Iowa caucuses, six Republican presidential aspirants gathered at the FAMiLY Leadership Summit in Des Moines for the party's first candidate forum of the 2024 election cycle, presented by Blaze Media. Throughout the day, each of the candidates spoke to recently ousted Fox News broadcaster Tucker Carlson, who said in introductory comments with event organizer Bob Vander Plaats that he hoped to "find out who they are" and judge their "instincts" rather than simply determine their beliefs. One candidate's professed beliefs stirred the crowd against him, but he demonstrated an admirable commitment to limited government.
After Sen. Tim Scott (R–S.C.), Carlson's second guest was former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a long-shot candidate currently polling at 1 percent in a statistical tie with "Someone else." Carlson's first question related to Hutchinson's 2021 veto of H.B. 1570, an Arkansas bill that would have prohibited medical professionals from providing any medical treatment to minors related to gender transitioning, including puberty blockers and gender reassignment surgeries. It also did not include a grandfather clause, meaning any minors who were on hormone therapy when the law went into effect would either have to stop or seek treatment across state lines. (State lawmakers overrode Hutchinson's veto, but the law is currently on hold pending litigation.)
