Utah GOP debate goes off the rails as candidate uses it to hawk gold: report

The race to replace retiring Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) is heating up, and the Salt Lake Tribune reports that a debate of Republican Senate candidates this week highlighted the role that "fringe" ideas have taken within the party.

Among the candidates was Jeremy Friedbaum, who the Salt Lake Tribune reports "used Wednesday’s forum to hawk his company which sells gold money that can be used as currency in Utah."

Friedbaum also drew cheers from the crowd during the debate by touting his plan to rename his hometown of Provo's airport after former first lady Melania Trump.

Other candidates at the debate weren't quite as colorful but they nonetheless demonstrated their fealty to right-wing causes, including former Utah House Speaker Brad Wilson touting his past decision to call "the legislature into a special session in June of 2020 to make DEI (diversity, equality, and inclusion) and CRT (critical race theory) illegal in terms of having those issues taught in our schools."

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Attendees at the debate were also given a series of pamphlets from groups such as the John Birch Society that urged parents to completely remove their children from schools so that they wouldn't be exposed to critical race theory.

Another pamphlet, meanwhile, falsely claimed that a United Nations environmental program was a secret program aimed at enslaving Americans.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the topics of discussion at the debate reflected the conspiratorial tone of those pamphlets.

"Many of the questions during Wednesday morning’s Republican U.S. Senate debate in Orem reflected the alternate political reality inhabited by GOP base voters where esoteric topics that might seem odd to everyday Utahns are intensely important," the publication writes. "It’s a universe where the “deep state” is perpetually on the verge of turning the country into a socialist society and politicians in Washington are all too willing to set fire to the Constitution to assist in that goal."