Ron DeSantis faced off with three other leading Republican presidential candidates on the debate stage, and as with the previous three debates, Donald Trump was nowhere to be found.
The NewsNation debate in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, found the Florida Governor yet again in the fray with Chris Christie, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy. All candidates felt a sense of urgency, but arguably none more so than DeSantis, a year after much of the smart money saw him as the likely 2024 nominee.
The first question of the debate went to DeSantis and his high burn rate and failure to close the gap against Trump, and whether it was actually his time to be President or if he should drop out like Tim Scott did.
As he has before, DeSantis said polls were inaccurate, saying he was “sick” of the surveys and that he repeatedly “beats” leftist entities, such as the “teachers union.”
He contrasted himself against Haley, who he claimed “caves any time the Left comes out or any time the media comes after her.”
“I did a bill in Florida to stop the gender mutilation of minors. It’s child abuse and it’s wrong. She opposes that bill. She thinks it’s fine and the law shouldn’t get involved with it,” DeSantis claimed, saying that showed she would not “fight for the people back home.”
“He continues to lie about my record,” Haley responded, contending that legislation critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill only extends to “third grade,” which was originally the case before the state Board of Education changed the parameters of the Parental Rights in Education bill to cover K-12.
DeSantis responded that his issue with Haley was about “prohibiting sex change operations on minors,” saying that Haley “opposed” that and “said the law shouldn’t get involved in that.”
“We have the video,” DeSantis said.
The debate would return to transgender issues and “bathroom bills” eventually and the familiar talking points around them, including DeSantis saying that he “signed a bathroom bill keeping boys out of girls bathrooms” and “protected girls” while Haley didn’t. But other issues came up first, including ESG.
DeSantis contrasted his move to take “$2 billion away from Black Rock” to Haley’s interface with “big donors,” saying she would “cave” to them.
DeSantis and Ramaswamy teamed up on Haley over over desire to create a social media registry.
“She said, ‘I want your name.’ And that was going to be one of the first things she did in office. And then she got real serious blowback and understandably so because it would be a massive expansion of government,” DeSantis said. He noted the Federalist Papers were written anonymously and contending today’s conservative keyboard warriors have to stay cloaked because they would otherwise suffer consequences for their opinions.
“It’s something that’s important and especially given how conservatives have been attacked and they’ve lost jobs and they’ve been canceled. You know, the regime would use that to weaponize that against our own people,” DeSantis added.
Haley fired back, noting that Florida considered legislation at DeSantis’ behest that “would stop anonymous people from talking to the press” and “went so far to say bloggers should register with the state.”
Though the Alex Andrade bill emerged in the wake of a DeSantis roundtable spotlighting how difficult it is to win a libel suit, the Governor just blamed it on “some legislator,” neatly throwing the Panhandle Republican under the bus.
The debate moved on to Israel and whether American troops should be involved in removing eight American hostages held by Hamas. After DeSantis criticized the Joe Biden administration, Christie charged that the Florida Governor dodged the question with a “one-minute, 30-second Hosanna about his knowledge of the military” rather than saying whether he’d send troops in or not.
Ramaswamy contended the Hamas attack was not an “attack on America,” driving dudgeon from DeSantis, who said “Americans were killed in that attack” and that “we’re in this together” with Israel.
Haley and DeSantis bickered about China soon thereafter, with DeSantis claiming Haley will “cave” to “Wall Street liberal donors,” and Haley saying of DeSantis that “he’s mad because those Wall Street donors used to support him and now support me.” What was clear by the end of the exchange is both Governors have a history of working with Chinese interests, even as both claimed the other was worse.
“He has a record of lying,” Haley said.
Haley contended that DeSantis recruited Jinko Solar, a framing DeSantis’ own Chief of Staff used to throw Rick Scott under the bus.
“Chinese company Jinko Solar was brought into Florida by Scott when he was governor. Rick Scott endorsed Donald Trump,” posted Jeremy Redfern to X, in the latest example of a taxpayer-funded employee of the Governor’s Office moonlighting as a campaign surrogate.
DeSantis also hit Trump in absentia to a point, saying that he was a poor candidate because “Father Time is undefeated” and that the GOP needs “to have somebody younger” than 80 years old. However, he repeatedly refused to directly answer the moderator’s question about whether Trump was “mentally fit to be President.”
Christie noted DeSantis’ “nonresponsive” answer, saying a jury would “strike the answer” in a courtroom.
“He’s afraid to answer,” Christie goaded, jabbing DeSantis for not answering a “simple” question and saying DeSantis, Haley and Ramaswamy are “afraid to offend” the former President. Christie then wondered how they would handle negotiating with hostile foreign leaders if they couldn’t criticize Trump.
“I don’t think he’s as bad as Biden at all,” DeSantis conceded.
Ramaswamy accused his opponents of “licking Trump’s boots” from there, saying DeSantis “never would have been Governor without Trump’s endorsement” — an assertion DeSantis did not deny.
Beyond the pyrotechnics, DeSantis was probed on his proposed replacement for “Obamacare,” with a moderator noting Florida has more uninsured people than any other state.
The Governor, who previously said he’d have a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act next Spring, said that the issue was greater than “getting a card and Medicaid,” given a lack of access to “good doctors and good hospitals.”
“Florida did not expand Obamacare,” DeSantis said, taking credit for Rick Scott’s decision, before vowing to “go after the cost” because people are “paying too much for everything.”
Whether that answer offered clarity is open to interpretation. It certainly didn’t offer any help for the health care costs incurred by Floridians.
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