Tonight's recap
Just days away from the Iowa caucuses, when the first voters will make their picks for a Republican presidential nominee, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis exchanged bitter barbs and often circuitous criticisms in a debate that yielded few memorable points.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump carried on as usual in a televised Fox News town hall, comfortable in his spot as the top candidate.
Thanks for following along. And stay tuned for more updates and analysis across the Guardian.
Closing thoughts from each candidate are …
“We can’t run under a banner of pale pastels of warmed-over corporatism, the likes of which is practice by Nikki Haley,” said Ron DeSantis, trying once again to make “pale pastels” stick as an insult.
“We can’t go through four more years of chaos,” said Haley. Though her real catch-phrase tonight was “Desantislies.com”.
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A question about climate change, and what each candidate is willing to do about it, has – as expected – yielded little useful information.
DeSantis promised to tear up the “Biden’s green new deal” while Haley said she opposed “extremes” in policy and transitioned the conversation over to the topic of crime.
Last summer, during the first Republican presidential debate, a pointed question from a young activist elicited slightly more interesting results. Alexander Diaz, a young conservative who is part of the American Conservation Coalition (ACC), a youth conservative group that pushes for action on the climate crisis, asked candidates what they would do to improve the party’s standing on climate policy. None of the candidates at that time raised their hands to affirm that climate change was real.
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Demonstrating a careful balancing act, DeSantis both defends and critiques Trump, saying that the former president is being wrongly prosecuted but also, “if Trump is the nominee, it is going to be about Jan 6”.
Haley, meanwhile, said that no president should be immune from all prosecution, but as she tends to do, cast her self as a leader who could restore civility after too much “chaos” surrounding Trump.
With Chris Christie out of the running, there’s no one where willing to overtly or forcefully take down Trump. The resulting debate has been an odd, largely disengaging slog for for a silver medal.
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Meanwhile, on the debate stage, abortion has just come up.
And DeSantis has started by questioning whether Trump and Haley are adequately pro-life. But he also mentioned that Republicans need to do a better job of highlighting support for mothers.
“Republicans need to do a better job of lifting up folks who are having children,” he said. “It’s very difficult to raise kids in this environment. You need to help with medical care, you need to help with affordability and we need to help with education choice. You got to be pro life for the whole life.”
In an implicit acknowledgment about how extreme anti-abortion restrictions are alienating voters, he claimed that abortion opponents do not support criminalizing women. That’s not quite right, as the Guardian has reported. Bills in state legislatures have proposed prosecuting women for seeking abortion care.
Haley, meanwhile, said of Trump and DeSantis: “These fellas don’t know how to talk about abortion.
“We’re not going to play politics with this issue any more. We’re going to treat it like the respectful issue that it is and the tropes that you want,” she said.
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Over at the Trump town hall, the former president is taking credit for ending the right to abortion.
Trump takes credit for "terminating" the right to an abortion: "I did it. And I'm proud to have done it." pic.twitter.com/9hnjBD0e5z
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 11, 2024
That’s a notable stance for the GOP frontrunner, at a time when it’s become increasingly clear that extreme anti-abortion policies are alienating voters. More than a dozen states could ultimately vote on abortion in 2024. And voters have already enshrined rights to abortion in state constitutions in Ohio, Arizona and Florida.
My colleague Lauren Gambino reported recently:
The supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade delivered Republicans one of their most significant policy victories in a generation. But in the year and a half since the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the ruling has also become one of their biggest political vulnerabilities.
Over the last 18 months, voters have favored abortion rights in seven consecutive ballot measures, including in conservative states. Republicans underperformed in the 2022 midterm elections while Democrats scored off-year election wins in Wisconsin, Kentucky and Virginia – results that again emphasized the enduring power of abortion rights.
“With abortion, there’s really a kind of catch-22 for Republicans,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis and a leading expert on the history of abortion in the US. “On the one hand, you have a lot of base Republican voters who really care about opposing abortion and on the other you have a huge group of something like 70% of Americans who don’t like abortion bans.”
The crossfire has gotten away from the moderators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, struggling to rein in DeSantis shouting over Haley.
“I think I hit a nerve,” Haley said.
Over on Fox News, which is airing the Trump town hall, the former president was pressed on his recent warning that “it’ll be bedlam in the country” if he loses the election.
Co-host Bret Baier asked: “Can you say tonight that political violence is never acceptable?”
Trump replied: “Well, of course that’s right. And of course, I’m the one that had very little of it.”
Later Trump offered some idle speculation on the origins of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China. “I think it was done out of incompetence,” he said, “I believe that a scientist went out, said hello to his girlfriend, and that was the end of that. She died and then people started dying all over the place.”
After a short break, we’re on to the issue of Ron DeSantis’s battle with Disney, following the company’s condemnation of Florida’s “don’t say gay” law.
DeSantis was asked whether it aligns with conservative values to antagonize businesses. The Florida governor doubled down on his choice to go after the company for “trans-ing” kids, repeating a slew of baseless talking points about what education, parental and medical support for transgender children entails. “Most corporate Republicans would have caved. I stood and I fought,” he said.
Haley accused DeSantis of supporting Disney until they came out against his policies. “When they went and criticized him he got thin-skinned and suddenly started to fight back,” she said.
Here’s more context on DeSantis’s beef with Disney:
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The candidates are divided on Ukraine, and tonight reiterated views they’ve expressed before.
Haley is for the US supporting Ukraine which she said is is “a pro-American, freedom-loving country”.
DeSantis is against sending more money to Ukraine, preferring to “ focus on our issues here at home”.
Both candidates are for sending aid to Israel.
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Fact checks: Immigration
Haley said that millions of people who cross the border should be deported “because they are jumping the line”. This is a mischaracterization of how immigration policy works. Migrants at the border are allowed to just show up and ask for asylum, per US law.
DeSantis said that Biden “let in” 8 million people coming through the southern border. A recent report from Department of Homeland Security notes that the administration has expelled about 4 million migrants taken into custody, and released 2.3 million.
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The debate has turned to the topic of immigration, an issue that’s loomed large for both Democrats and Republicans.
DeSantis said that Trump did not deport enough people, noting that more people were deported under the Obama administration. Haley, whose governorship was defined by her signing into law some of the country’s harshest immigration policies, exchanged barbs about her record versus that of DeSantis. But the candidates’ rapid exchange of criticisms on specific policies, and efforts to one-up each other on who has been harsher toward immigrants will be hard to follow for most voters.
Neither candidate has thus far delivered a memorable line, or a clear idea of what their vision for the presidency is beyond generic endorsements of the right’s tenets (lower taxes, more energy independence and fewer undocumented immigrants).
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Trump has decided the identity of his running mate in the presidential election but is not yet ready to announce it, he told a Fox News town hall in Iowa on Wednesday.
Asked who he would pick as vice-president, Trump replied: “Well, I can’t tell you that, really. I mean, I know who it’s going to be but –”
Co-host Bret Baier entreated: “Give us a hint.”
Trump joked in response: “We’ll do another show some time.”
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At competing town hall, Trump attacks Haley and DeSantis
Donald Trump began his Iowa town hall on Fox News by highlighting an incident in which Chris Christie was caught on a hot mic. “She’s going to get smoked, and you and I both know it,” the former New Jersey governor was heard saying on his campaign’s live stream. “She’s not up to this.”
It is widely assumed that Christie, who dropped out of the Republican primary race today, was referring to Nikki Haley, perceived as Trump’s principal rival in New Hampshire.
Trump said: “Chris Christie was in and he got a hot mic I heard about. I thought the bigger story wasn’t actually the fact that he dropped out – nobody cared too much about that – but he had a hot mic where he was talking to somebody about the weather and he happened to say she doesn’t have what it takes, she’ll be creamed in the election.”
The former president added: “I know her very well and I happen to believe that Chris Christie’s right. That’s one of the few things he’s been right about actually.”
Trump admitted he didn’t known whether Christie’s departure would change the dynamic of the race and complained that independents and Democrats can vote in the Republican primary. “Even with that, I think we’ll win substantially,” he added.
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We’ve barely started, but the gloves are off.
DeSantis called Haley “another mealy-mouthed politician who just tells you what she thinks you want to hear”.
Haley mentioned her new campaign website desantislies.com.
Neither was especially strong in their critiques of Trump. DeSantis mentioned debt increasing under Trump, and his failure to prosecute Hillary Clinton. Haley demurred in response to a question about Trump’s character, saying his way “is not my way”.
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Haley and DeSantis take the stage
Let’s buckle up for a two-hour debate!
We’re starting with a question about why voters looking for an alternative to Trump should vote for them.
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As Nikki Haley’s poll numbers inch up, Donald Trump has dredged up his nativist birther conspiracies.
This week, the former president shared on his Truth Social platform a post from Gateway Pundit, a far-right site, falsely claiming that Haley was disqualified for the presidency because her Indian immigrant parents weren’t citizens when she was born. Haley was born in South Carolina and therefore meets the “natural born citizen” requirement to become president.
Trump previously pushed the baseless and racist claim that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and therefore disqualified from the presidency. He also pushed misinformation that Ted Cruz, his 2016 rival, was intelligible because he was born in Canada to American parents.
Haley and DeSantis fight for second place
If DeSantis and Haley are fighting neck and neck, it is probably for second place. Polls show Trump holding an increasingly commanding lead in Iowa in the weeks before the caucuses – despite putting fewer campaign resources into the early primary than his opponents.
If DeSantis fails to eat into Trump’s share of Iowa voters, his campaign – which has faltered repeatedly among gaffes and staffing shake-ups – could shutter before he sees another primary.
Chris Christie suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, he announced on Wednesday evening.
“It is clear to me tonight that there is not a path to win the nomination,” he said at a town hall in Windham, New Hampshire.
The former New Jersey governor, who also ran unsuccessfully for the presidency in 2016, when he lost out to Donald Trump, has been struggling in the polls for weeks and had failed to qualify for the last GOP debate before Monday’s Iowa caucuses kick off the nominating contest of the 2024 race for the White House.
He had always stood out as the Republican candidate with the most overtly critical viewpoint of the policies and character of Donald Trump.
He has yet to endorse a rival and was heard publicly on an apparent inadvertent “hot mic” before he took the stage in New Hampshire predicting that one, almost certainly Nikki Haley, will “get smoked” in the race for the nomination and that a “petrified” Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, had called him, while a person he was talking to was heard predicting that the struggling DeSantis would not last beyond next week’s Iowa caucuses. Haley and DeSantis are the closest contenders behind the solid frontrunner, Trump.
The hot-mic comments were widely heard on a YouTube audio livestream before Christie’s event began, with the audio being cut abruptly after a few seconds.
Appearing before a subdued crowd at the town hall event a few moments later, Christie said: “This race has always been bigger than me.” And he warned the US against re-electing Donald Trump to a second term.
“If we put him back behind the desk at the Oval Office, and a choice is needed to be made about whether to put himself first or you [the public] first, how much more evidence do you need? He will put himself first,” Christie said.
Haley and DeSantis are set for fifth Republican debate
As Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis face off for a fifth Republican presidential debate on CNN, Donald Trump – by far the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP nomination – will be on Fox News for a live town hall event.
All three candidates are in Iowa today, just five days out from the caucuses, when the first voters will begin to picking their preferred nominee. Unlike the last four debates, this one isn’t coordinated by the Republican National Convention. CNN’s requirement that candidates poll at 10% in at least three surveys left only Haley, DeSantis and Trump qualifying. The former president has declined to participate in any debates this far.
Earlier today, Chris Christie – the former New Jersey governor and Trump’s biggest critic among the Republican candidates – announced he was dropping out of the race. Vivek Ramaswamy, the rightwing tech entrepreneur, remains in the running but trails far behind the competition in polls. He’s in Iowa as well, at a live taping of a podast hosted by right-wing commentator Tim Pool.
Follow along for live debate coverage.
