5 lessons from the Haley-DeSantis debate and Trump’s town hall
Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis traded attacks on a debate stage Wednesday night as Donald J. Trump basked in the applause of a friendly audience on another television network, with dueling performances showing how the Republican primaries are increasingly feeling like a battle for the runner-up place .
At Drake University in Iowa, Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley engaged in a two-hour verbal battle in which they showed more determination to ruthlessly score points against each other than to present a coherent vision for the American people — or to attack the dominant frontrunner. , Mr. Trump.
At times it seemed as if Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley thought the winner would be determined by whoever spoke the most words per minute, as he rushed through the attacks at such a speed that they were virtually indecipherable.
With a platform all his own, Mr. Trump appeared to continue marching toward the party’s nomination. He even broke the evening’s news — in a way that revealed how much he sees past his perceived rivals — when he said he had made his decision on a running mate, though he did not name it.
It was the smallest stage of the Republican primaries yet and reflected the rapid winnowing of the field. Just hours before the candidates faced off, Chris Christie dropped out of the race.
Here are five lessons from the final night of debate before voting begins:
The winner of the Haley-DeSantis clash: Trump.
Ms. Haley cast Mr. DeSantis as a desperate and failing candidate who lied because he was losing. He portrayed her as a liberal in conservative clothing who could not be trusted based on core values for the right.
The two hours of back and forth on CNN did little to elevate Trump’s top rivals, and the fact that they were still brawling on stage an hour after his Fox News town hall event in Des Moines wrapped up. felt symbolic of the race.
Nearly 90 minutes into the debate, Mr. DeSantis decided to express concern that the front-runner — regardless, he said, of the validity of accusations that he tried to undermine the last election — could be convicted during the campaign. Whatever larger vision the two candidates wanted to convey was often lost in detailed discussions about policy, as they traded attacks on everything from Walt Disney World to the Renewable Fuel Standard.
And even though they debated days before the Iowa caucuses, it took an hour for Mr. DeSantis to highlight the support of the state’s governor, Kim Reynolds, in a sign of how intense the sparring was.
On Fox News, Mr. Trump enjoyed a charmed evening, uninterrupted by competitors and their investigations of the opposition, and he seemed relaxed as he shrugged off the few gently skeptical questions he received from the audience. One questioner even introduced himself as a “caucus captain” for him, and nothing deterred him from his topics of conversation.
Haley and DeSantis poked and poked and poked.
If there was one thing voters would remember from Wednesday’s debate, Ms. Haley made sure it would be a URL.
At least a dozen times, she repeated the name of a website called DeSantisLies, which she used as an all-encompassing shield to absorb his many attacks, while blasting the chaotic management of his campaign as a symbol of his willingness to lead. to give. “I think I struck a nerve,” she said at one point.
It was clear that they didn’t like each other very much. “You’re so desperate,” she told him. “You’re just so desperate.”
Mr. DeSantis, who has moved to the right as Ms. Haley has found traction among moderates, tried to call her too “mealy” and liberal for the 2024 Republican Party.
He said there was little difference between her and President Biden and that she was to the left of Governor Gavin Newsom of California. He even made a comparison to John Kerry, who ran for president in 2004 and was attacked by Republicans as an unreliable flip-flopper.
Mr. DeSantis tried to talk about some of Ms. Haley’s recent verbal stumbles. In one of the strangest statements of that night, if not the entire debate season, he accused her of “ballistic podiatry” (shooting herself in the foot). But he also landed one of the strongest lines of the night.
“You can take the ambassador out of the United Nations, but you can’t take the United Nations out of the ambassador,” Mr. DeSantis said.
Trump looked ahead to a general election audience.
Mr. Trump’s advisers have long believed that he is doing himself no favors with voters in the general election when he tells the Republican base, “I am your retribution” and promises a second term of revenge.
But so far in this campaign he has doubled down on the language of retaliation — including a promise to become dictator on “Day 1.”
During his Fox News town hall event, Mr. Trump showed signs that he is heeding advice to make himself more palatable. “I’m not going to become a dictator,” he said. He agreed with Mr. Biden’s recent statement that political violence is never acceptable. And he even claimed he “wouldn’t have time for retaliation.”
Mr. Trump’s advisers were pleased and texted each other about his speech.
Still, it wasn’t exactly believable. He has a well-documented desire for revenge. And he had begun his response by reflexively replying that retribution wouldn’t be “that bad,” and by listing the many injustices he believes he has suffered.
Trump also said he knew who he wanted to choose as his running mate, but that he did not want to identify that person. It is unclear whether he has made up his mind, but either way, the comment was another way of projecting his inevitability as he hopes to avoid a drawn-out battle with his rivals in February.
Haley and DeSantis mainly targeted the leader.
For much of the debate, the stage felt not just like a location separate from Mr. Trump’s performance, but like an entirely alternate reality. Both candidates largely shied away from discussing Mr. Trump and his actions until the moderator brought up the topic.
When asked to assess the legal claims by Mr. Trump’s lawyers that a president has complete immunity for any conduct while in office, including killing a political rival, Ms. Haley quickly dismissed the argument as “ridiculous.” She described Trump’s administration as four years of “chaos” and vowed to be “a new generational leader who brings sanity back to America.”
Mr. DeSantis made a more complicated argument, saying that Mr. Trump was being wrongfully prosecuted for his involvement in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But he also argued that the prosecution could end in a conviction, which would upset Republicans harm. chances to win the White House in the fall.
“If Trump is the nominee, it will be about January 6, legal issues, criminal trials,” he said. “The Democrats in the media would like to work on that.” He also argued that Mr. Trump had failed to “deliver” in office by increasing the national debt, failing to prosecute Hillary Clinton and failing to complete the border wall with Mexico.
Trump tap-danced about abortion.
While the night was largely favorable for Trump, it also foretold the difficult road ahead for Republicans on an issue Democrats want to put at the center of the 2024 race: abortion rights.
When an anti-abortion voter asked Mr. Trump for reassurance that he remained committed to limiting the procedure, the former president responded by boasting about appointing the conservative Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade.
“I did it. And I’m proud that I did it,” Mr. Trump said, describing the fall of the landmark decision after decades of effort by conservatives as a “miracle.”
Within minutes, Mr. Biden’s team had cut the video and posted it to social media. It was the only clip posted to X by the president’s main account.
Mr. Trump, who supported abortion rights before changing his position in 2011 when he considered running for president as a Republican, quickly sought to soften his position at town hall. Even after talking about his pride in ending Roe, he said Republicans should focus on winning elections, indirectly suggesting that hardline positions — like the six-week abortion ban that Mr. DeSantis signed — were harmful been.
Mr. Trump, allies say, has had little interest in raising the end of Roe in the campaign, privately telling advisers before it happened that it would hurt Republicans. Democrats agree with him and will do what they can to prevent him from appearing moderate on this issue.
Trump wasn’t the only Republican who struggled to correct his record on abortion. Ms. Haley was asked if she thought Trump was “pro-life,” and on rare occasions she gave away almost all of her time, seeming almost uncomfortable talking about the front-runner.
“Don’t ask me what President Trump thinks,” she said, telling him to stand on stage. DeSantis also dodged a direct answer, a reflection of how difficult attacking Mr. Trump remains for his rivals.