The five Republicans scrapping to fashion themselves as the alternative to Donald Trump opened their debate Wednesday night blaming the former president for the party’s latest election embarrassment — then spent the next 90 minutes doing little to distinguish themselves from the GOP frontrunner.
Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who entered the forum in Miami ascendant in the GOP’s second tier, capitalized on the debate’s foreign policy focus and effectively parried attacks from others on the stage, including deeply personal digs from entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who risks being supplanted by Haley as the first runner-up in early primaries, turned in one of his stronger performances, with an enthusiastic hometown crowd papering over moments where he again retreated to familiar and repetitive talking points.
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina avoided any moments that might disqualify him from consideration as Trump’s running mate, but likely did not resonate enough with voters to inject new life into his struggling campaign.
But with the exception of former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie - whose campaign has focused largely on warning Republicans about the dangers of again nominating Trump, and who seems unlikely to make another debate stage - the candidates seemed to tread carefully away from a true break with the former president.
Pressed about whether to fund additional assistance for Ukraine, even Scott — a longtime defense hawk — said the US needed to impose new conditions on any additional aid, a reflection of Trump’s skepticism on the issue that has become dominant among his party’s base.
And while Haley, Scott, and DeSantis acknowledged that the issue of abortion had likely driven the party’s recent electoral losses — including on Tuesday night — they strongly backed federal abortion bans. The Florida governor echoed Trump’s call for military action in Mexico to deal with drug smuggling and illegal immigration, and all the candidates universally backed tough action against China.
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The debate in Miami was more substantive and more controlled than previous Republican contests, but Trump — who rallied with supporters just 10 miles away — continued to cast a long shadow. There was little indication that the fundamental outline of the Republican race would be changed.
Ramaswamy told reporters after the debate that the losses Republicans experienced in recent elections were unrelated to the former president, who holds a commanding lead over the other GOP contenders in national and state polls.
“They’ve been all trying to blame Trump for a long time — 2022 now 2023,” he said. “There’s a deeper cancer in the Republican Party. It’s a culture of losing the establishment managerial class.”
Trump’s advisers dismissed efforts by DeSantis and his fellow Republicans to cast blame for Tuesday’s results on the former president.
“It’s only when President Trump is not on the ballot that we see things like last night,” Trump adviser Jason Miller said.
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Questions on foreign policy largely dominated the first hour, with the candidates backing aggressive military action by Israel against Hamas — designated a terrorist organization by the US and European Union — saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should consider the complete eradication of the militant group.
DeSantis said he would advise Netanyahu to “finish the job once and for all with these butchers.”
The Florida governor said the Biden administration’s emergency request for Ukraine aid was excessive and he didn’t support money that would go to members of that country’s government.
“We need to bring this war to an end,” DeSantis said. “We need the Europeans to step up and do their fair share.”
But the focus of other candidates at the debate seemed trained on Haley, who was was arguably the winner of the first two. Those performances have seen her draw new attention from prominent Republican donors and rise in the polls. She delivered another strong showing on Wednesday night.
Citadel founder Ken Griffin, who has praised Haley, said he was putting his hopes on her having a “great night” at the debate. “If she does, I think that could be a galvanizing moment for her campaign,” Griffin said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum on Thursday in Singapore with the debate underway.
Read more: Griffin Says Haley Faces ‘Galvanizing Moment’ in Campaign
Haley argued for the US to keep supporting Kyiv in its fight to repel Russia’s invasion — but said the focus should be on providing weaponry rather than the combination of arms and financial support sought by the White House.
“No, I don’t think we should give them cash. I think we should give them the equipment, the ammunition to win. And I’ll tell you if Biden had done it when they first asked for it, this war would be over,” Haley said.
Scott said he endorsed continuing aid to Kyiv, but only after a system of greater “accountability” and a review of “the overall Russian military.”
Ramaswamy, espousing the GOP’s populist bent, said he was “absolutely unpersuaded” about the need to provide more assistance, calling Ukraine “not democratic” and saying efforts to assist the country from Russia’s invasion had been “a disaster.”
Ramaswamy sought to make a verbal splash on stage and draw attention to himself within the opening minutes, calling the GOP “a party of losers” in reference to a series of state races on Tuesday where Republicans lost high-profile contests.
Ramaswamy singled out the Republican National Committee chair personally for these defeats before saying he thought Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and Elon Musk should moderate the next debate.
He called both Haley and DeSantis “Dick Cheney in three inch heels” for what he cast as their neoconservative stances on foreign policy. He attacked Haley personally by saying her daughter used ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok social media app, widely seen as a national security risk.
“You might want to take care of your family first,” Ramaswamy said.
Those remarks prompted an eyeroll from Haley, who called him “scum.”
After the debate, one of DeSantis’s top advisers continued to push the campaign’s preferred narrative that the GOP primary remains as a race solely between the Florida governor and Trump.
“It’s a two man race in Iowa,” said DeSantis spokesman Andrew Romeo. “We’re taking it to Donald Trump.”
--With assistance from Christian Hall, Hadriana Lowenkron and Stephanie Lai.
Author: Justin Sink, Nancy Cook and Anna Kaiser
