Former Vice President Mike Pence received jeers from the crowd after he called entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy a "rookie," resulting in the first back-and-forth of the night.

"Now is not the time for on-the-job training," Pence said to Ramaswamy, whom he quickly pegged as one of his targets of the debate. "We don't need to bring in a rookie. We don't need to bring in people with no experience."

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His comments quickly brought loud boos and jeers from the crowd, with Ramaswamy laughing at the jab.

"Let's now that everybody's gotten their memorized, pre-prepared slogans out of the way, we can actually have a real discussion now," Ramaswamy said.

Pence responded, saying, "Isn't that one of yours?"

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"Mike, actually, we're just gonna have some fun tonight," Ramaswamy responded, accusing candidates of being "super PAC puppets."

Behind former President Donald Trump, Ramaswamy and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) are currently leading other candidates in the polls.