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The VICE Guide to the 2016 Election

What You Need to Know About the Fourth Republican Presidential Debate

The Republican candidates face off in Milwaukee Tuesday night.

It's been two weeks since the last Republican presidential debate, and the party hasn't come any closer to picking a frontrunner in the goat rodeo that is the 2016 primary race. Instead, it watched helplessly as the race degraded further into inane absurdity and literal theater, with one of the party's leading candidates stumbling his way through a baffling SNL gig and another insisting that he really did try to kill someone when he was a teenager. And anyone who still believed the race would take a more serious turn in the lead-up to the Iowa caucus was effectively shut down this week, when the field erupted in outrage over a red Starbucks holiday cup.

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Such is the state of the Republican Party's discourse going into Tuesday night's presidential debate, hosted by Fox Business Network. It's a do-over of the last round, hosted by CNBC in Boulder last month, in which the Republican candidates bonded over their liberal media paranoia, and ganged up to overpower the debate moderators. The mutiny that followed was short-lived, and Republican candidates are back tonight without having won any of the major rule changes they had originally demanded. But they are unlikely to find a common enemy in the Fox Business loyalists moderating Tuesday's debate—which means the candidates won't have anyone to turn on but each other. We'll be liveblogging the main event, but in the meantime, here's a guide to get you up to speed:

When and where is the debate taking place?
The main debate will kick off at 9 PM Eastern in the Milwaukee Theater, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Incidentally, it's the same theater where Theodore Roosevelt campaigned immediately after being shot in the chest during the 1912 presidential race—so when Rand Paul inevitably declares out of nowhere that "It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose!" that's who he's plagiarizing.

The Fox Business-WSJ debates start tonight at 7p ET! Here's how to watch: — FOX Business (@FoxBusiness)November 10, 2015

Who's debating?
Some of the dozen-plus candidates were finally voted off the island for this round, and only eight contenders—Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, and Rand Paul—will appear in the main event. Sadly, neither Mike Huckabee nor Chris Christie qualified, depriving viewers of two of the most reliably inflammatory zealots in the GOP primary field. They've been kicked down to the kid's table debate with Bobby Jindal and Rick Santorum, who are apparently still running.

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If Michael Jordan can have his NBA Finals Flu Game, then I can have my Laryngitis Presidential Debate — Rick Santorum (@RickSantorum)November 9, 2015

Lindsey Graham and George Pataki have been cast out of the debates entirely, after failing to earn even 1 percent in recent polls. Graham, apparently undeterred by the fact that no one is particularly interested in him, will be hosting his own debate of one, posting his thoughts on a "new social platform called Sidewire," an app that [Washington is reportedly "all over"](ds started Sidewire ove) but that no one else has ever heard of—sort of like Lindsey Graham.

What's the debate about?
Like the CNBC debate, Tuesday night's debate will focus on "jobs, taxes, and the general health of the economy, as well as domestic and international policy issues."

OK, but what's it really about?
Sadly, jobs, taxes, and the general health of the economy. After CNBC moderators allowed the inmates to take over the asylum and turn the last debate into an airing of grievances and paranoia about the "liberal media," Fox Business seems to have gotten the message. Tuesday's debate moderators—FBN's Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo, and Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker—have promised to stick to questions about policies and issues. "Our debate will be about business, and it will be clear, and it won't be condescending, and it won't be gotcha," Cavuto stated in one of the network's promos.

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In practice, this means that most of the candidates will likely escape embarrassing questions about their questionable financial practices and personal backgrounds, though it's hard to imagine that courtesy being extended to Ben "The Hammer" Carson, who has spent most of the past two weeks trying to convince reporters that he really did try to kill people when he was a teenager. And while the moderators may decide not to ask Carson about that pyramid thing, they may not be able to stop his opponents from bringing it up. Trump in particular has suggested that he'd like to ask Carson about his belief that "Joseph built the pyramids in order to store grain."

And Carson's not the only candidate in Trump's crosshairs Tuesday night.

Marco Rubio is totally weak on illegal immigration & in favor of easy amnesty. A lightweight choker - bad for — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)November 10, 2015

Marco Rubio couldn't even respond properly to President Obama's State of the Union Speech without pouring sweat & chugging water. He choked!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)November 10, 2015

Marco Rubio is a total lightweight who I wouldn't hire to run one of my smaller companies - a highly overrated politician!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)November 10, 2015

VICE will be covering the debate live here and on Twitter.