Ron DeSantis And Nikki Haley Debate Was A Long Night Of Bickering, Perhaps To The Benefit Of Donald Trump — Update
UPDATE: So much of this debate was about repetitive sparring between two Donald Trump alternatives, and the one-on-one match up made the event seem longer than others this cycle.
The debate had its moments where issues and philosophies were at the forefront, but Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis were so determined to go after each other that they lost their places at certain points. At one point DeSantis identified her as the former “governor of California.” DeSantis debated Gavin Newsom in November.
More from Deadline
How to Watch the First 2024 Presidential Debate: Is It Streaming?
2024 Presidential Election Debate Schedule: Dates, Times, Who'll Be There And Who Won't
There were moments when they did attack the front runner, Donald Trump, albeit with far less of the determination of Chris Christie, who exited the race earlier on Wednesday.
Haley said that Trump would have to “answer for” what happened on that date. DeSantis bashed Trump for his “word vomit” social media post in which he said he would terminate the Constitution.
The debate reflected each candidates’ strategies: DeSantis has an eye on placing at least second in Iowa, and as such highlighted rightward positions on a host of social issues popular with religious conservatives. Haley is looking to win over more independents, and perhaps former Chris Christie voters, as she tries to score a win in the more moderate New Hampshire. In his solo town hall on Fox News, generally friendly territory for him, Donald Trump probably benefited from having a stage to himself, once again affirming his choice to skip the latest debate. As Haley and DeSantis squabbled amongst themselves, Trump spent much of the hour attacking Joe Biden (and the president’s campaign returned the favor).
Within 10 minutes of the debate, they got their attack lines across: According to DeSantis, Haley is a shape-shifting corporatist. According to Haley, DeSantis is a liar, and there’s a website we’ve set up to show it. But it got tiring: They made those points over and over again for another 110 minutes. And they will get a chance to spar again next week, when there are two more debates scheduled before the Granite State vote.
PREVIOUSLY: Nikki Haley reacted to Donald Trump’s legal argument for presidential immunity: “That’s ridiculous.”
Earlier this week, Trump’s attorney John Sauer argued that a president would be immune from prosecution, even for ordering the assassination of a political rival except if he is impeached and convicted. Sauer was being questioned by Judge Florence Pan, one of three judge’s hearing Trump’s immunity claim.
“We need to use some common sense here,” Haley said, before again attacking Ron DeSantis.
She said, “What has President Trump done? You look at the last few years, and our country is completely divided…What a leader does is they bring out the best in people and get them to see the way forward.”
DeSantis said that Trump’s attorney “gave the case away” on the explanation, while predicting that the former president would lose the immunity appeal. “It is not going be an issue with me because I am always going to follow the Constitution and we are going to uphold the best traditions of the office,” he said. DeSantis then warned that if Trump is the nominee, he will be mired in his legal cases. He predicted that “with a stacked left wing jury” in D.C., “I don’t think Donald Trump gets through that.”
“If Trump is the nominee, it is going to be about January 6th, legal issues, criminal trials. The Democrats and the media would love to run with that,” he said.
PREVIOUSLY: The Walt Disney Co. took center stage at a Republican debate, as Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley traded attacks over who better stood up to the company.
Their jabs underscored how much the Republican party has drifted from its traditional embrace of limiting governments role when it comes to private business conduct. Co-moderator Dana Bash raised DeSantis’s attacks on Disney for its opposition to his parental rights bill, otherwise known as the “don’t say gay” bill.
“The proper role of government, if it means anything, it is to protect our kids. It’s wrong to sexualize the curriculum,” DeSantis said. “…It’s wrong to tell a Kindergartner, like Disney wanted to, that you can change your gender, or to tell a third grader that you were born in the wrong body.”
“Disney is the 800-pound gorilla in the state of Florida. Most people, most corporate Republicans would have caved.
He went on to claim that Haley “invited Disney to South Carolina even though they were involved in trans-ing kids.” He said that Haley was “representative of this corporatist element” of the GOP. “We need to stand up for the people and not bow down to woke corporations, and we know Nikki Haley will cave to the woke mob every single time.”
Haley said that DeSantis had distorted what she has said about transgender children, as she has said that “we shouldn’t have any gender transitions before the age of 18.” Then she went into DeSantis for not taking on Disney earlier.
“Disney has been woke for a long time,” she said, claiming that the company was against Trump’s immigration policies and Georgia’s abortion laws. She also alluded to Disney CEO Bob Iger’s resignation from a White House committee after Trump backed out of the Paris climate agreement.
“Ron didn’t have any problem with that,” she said. “In fact, he gave them the largest corporate subsidies in Florida history…Yet when they criticized him he got thin skinned and suddenly started to fight back.”
But then, she criticized DeSantis for going after Disney in the first place. She said, “We don’t need government fighting against our private industries. Well, we are not woke in South Carolina. I will always invite businesses to come to South Carolina. But the one thing you don’t do is, government doesn’t bully our businesses, and that can’t happen, and Ron is determined.” Last year, as DeSantis’ attacks on Disney started to draw criticism from Republican donors, Haley invited the company to set up operations in her home state.
Even though DeSantis claimed victory in his battle against Disney, the topic has faded from his campaign speeches. And his administration is still in the midst of a legal battle with the company, one of the state’s largest employers, over his move to strip the company of control of a special district that oversees its theme parks.
Iger, meanwhile, told CNBC last year that “the notion that Disney is in any way sexualizing our children quite frankly is preposterous and inaccurate.” On the campaign trail last year, per The New York Times, DeSantis claimed that Disney “embraced the idea of getting the sexualized content in the programming for the young kids,” as he targeted the company following its opposition to the parental rights bill.
This was not the first time that Disney has been a focus in a GOP debate. In the 2016 cycle, candidates singled out the company for its use of the H-1B worker visas.
PREVIOUSLY: Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis don’t differ significantly on the issue of U.S. support for Israel, but they still found a way to attack each other over the issue.
Haley blasted DeSantis for “bringing the most anti-Israel Republican” to campaign with him in Iowa. She was referring to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who last year was the sole House vote against a resolution condemning anti-Semitism.
“That is just cheap garbage,” DeSantis said.
While the debate has focused on key issues, viewers may be perplexed or even exhausted as each candidate rolls out their campaign opposition research on the other.
PREVIOUSLY: Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis quickly sparred with each other as they faced off at CNN’s debate in Iowa on Wednesday night, as front runner Donald Trump once again spurned the event for his own spotlight, a Fox News town hall.
Haley and DeSantis started their first one-on-one match up by calling each other liars.
“We don’t need another mealy mouthed politician who just tells you what she thinks you want to hear,” DeSantis said.
Haley responded that her campaign had set up a website, DeSantislies.com, to point out her opponent’s falsehoods. “His campaign is exploding,” Haley said, adding that viewers should not turn DeSantis’s false attacks on her into “a drinking game because you will be overserved.”
With less than a week before the Iowa caucuses, the Haley-DeSantis debate likely is a race for the No. 2 slot, given Trump’s lead in the Hawkeye state. But their acrimony underscored the extent to which they have set their sights on each other, rather than going full throttle at the former president.
The one candidate who has gone after Trump on a consistent basis, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, dropped out of the race earlier on Wednesday, blasting Republicans for their unwillingness to call out the former Celebrity Apprentice host for being unfit for office. In the early moments of the debate, Haley and DeSantis were critical of Trump, but fell far short of adopting Christie’s scathing rhetoric about the former president and his character.
That said, in the pre-show before the debate started, CNN commentator David Axelrod said that Haley, as the most likely Trump alternative, will get a boost from Christie’s exit.
Both the CNN event and the Fox News town hall were taking place in Des Moines, which has traditionally been media ground zero as presidential contests kick off. Yet Trump’s wide lead has muted the media presence somewhat, along with the lack of a contest on the Democratic side.
Two of CNN’s star anchors, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, moderated the debate, the network’s first of this cycle, while Fox News’s Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum hosted the Trump town hall.
At that event, Baier asked Trump about his warning that there would be “bedlam” in the country if the courts do not treat him fairly. He also pointed out President Joe Biden’s criticisms of Trump.
“Can you say tonight that political violence is never acceptable?” Baier asked.
Trump responded, “Well, of course that is right, and of course I am the one who has had very little of it.”
Baier then asked, “When you say ‘bedlam,’ what do you mean?”
Trump said, “When you look at Joe Biden it is bedlam. You have a man who can’t lead. You have a man who can’t find a way off the stage after he makes a speech that lasts two minutes. No, I think bedlam is Joe Biden.”
He also complained again about coverage of his remark in a previous town hall with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, in which he said that he would not be a dictator except for the first day in office, and for the purposes of fixing the border and for drilling for oil. “I am not going to be a dictator. I am going to manage, like we did,” Trump said. He also noted that Baier and MacCallum wouldn’t ask him easy questions, in contrast to Hannity.
Best of Deadline
All the Surprise Songs Taylor Swift Has Played On The Eras Tour So Far
How to Watch the First 2024 Presidential Debate: Is It Streaming?
'The Bear' Season 3: Release Date, Cast, Everything We Know So Far
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
