Viewers of each CNN and Fox News might activate their televisions Wednesday night time and witness Republican presidential candidates present in different realities.
On CNN, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley debated largely as in the event that they have been the one two candidates within the race ― reasonably than trailing former President Donald Trump by large margins in Iowa simply days earlier than its caucuses and in nationwide polling.
And over on Fox News, Trump acquired to exist in a world the place his assist was common and his coup try was an afterthought, if it was considered in any respect.
Throughout the night time, DeSantis and Haley hardly ever deviated from giving solutions that gave the impression of canned traces from their stump speeches. And it appeared that neither candidate was able to sort out the electorally difficult actuality that Trump, barring an act of God, will most probably win Monday’s caucuses primarily based on his 30-percentage-point polling lead.
Trump’s title was barely raised besides to often evoke the truth that he had declined an invite to what was the final Republican presidental debate earlier than voters start to resolve on his attainable return to the White House.
“I wish Donald Trump was on this stage. He’s the one I’m running against,” Haley mentioned at one level, a comment that tried to undercut the particular person standing beside her on stage and look towards future races on the calendar, which polls forecast will likely be a tighter contest between Trump and Haley.
Both Haley and DeSantis dodged a query about whether or not Trump respects the U.S. Constitution, however they went more durable on him in different areas. Haley laughed off the “absolute immunity” argument that Trump’s attorneys are floating in a federal appeals court docket as a trial over the occasions of Jan. 6, 2021, approaches. DeSantis additionally identified — greater than midway by means of the controversy — that Trump’s authorized issues imply that Republicans might probably elevate a nominee who’s going through attainable conviction in a number of instances.
During the hourlong “town hall” on Fox News, Trump fielded pleasant questions from voters, nearly all of whom supported him, and from Fox News’ Bret Baier and Martha McCallum, who by no means as soon as challenged something he mentioned, regardless of how flawed.
Notably, Trump’s varied plans to overturn the 2020 election and his incitement of the revolt on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 by no means as soon as got here up. Instead, viewers have been handled to a softer, kinder model of Trump, one who undoubtedly doesn’t need “revenge” and “retribution” in opposition to the “vermin” who oppose him, as he has repeatedly acknowledged.
“I’m not going to have time for retribution,” Trump mentioned Wednesday, including, “Our ultimate retribution is success.”
Trump was additionally requested about whether or not he supported political violence after he mentioned on Tuesday that there will likely be “bedlam in the country” if the felony instances in opposition to him succeed and he then loses the 2024 election.
“Can you say tonight that political violence is never acceptable?” Baier requested Trump.
“Well, of course that’s right,” Trump mentioned earlier than deflecting by equating political violence with wars.
“Take a look at wars again. I didn’t start ― I wasn’t involved in wars,” Trump mentioned, falsely.
Neither Baier nor McCallum raised the apparent objection right here, that Trump incited an revolt as a part of a plot to maintain him in workplace. Is Fox News simply operating cowl for Trump or, after paying a $787 million settlement for peddling Trump’s election fraud lies and going through additional litigation, is it too afraid of getting him push those self same lies on the air?
Either means, the city corridor offered a window into another actuality the place Trump not solely did nothing flawed however apparently did nothing in any respect after dropping the 2020 election.
Here are three extra takeaways:
Haley goes in on DeSantis’ marketing campaign woes.
“If you can’t manage a campaign, how can you run a country?” Haley mentioned, in a very stinging remark directed at DeSantis, referencing his employees turnover and the whopping $150 million his marketing campaign has spent to this point.
“He has nothing to show for it,” Haley mentioned. “He spent more money on private planes than he has on commercials trying to get Iowans to vote for him.”
Campaign-in-disarray assaults can really feel like inside baseball for the common voter, however Haley’s broader level was meant to undercut DeSantis’ much-touted management within the “great state of Florida.” The Florida governor’s candidacy hinges on his conservative management. His star within the Republican Party rose as he fought COVID-19 security measures and crusaded in opposition to “woke” indoctrination in lecture rooms and at certainly one of his state’s largest employers, the Disney Co.
But the drama unfolding with DeSantis’ marketing campaign operation and his allied tremendous PAC, Never Back Down, has generated a collection of unflattering headlines, most not too long ago when its chief political architect, Jeff Roe, stop simply two months earlier than the caucuses.
‘You can take the ambassador out of the U.N.’: DeSantis knocks Haley’s conservative credentials.
With dwindling money reserves and little likelihood of an upset in New Hampshire, DeSantis has loads driving on the Iowa caucuses, with polling exhibits him neck-and-neck with Haley for second place.
DeSantis’ closing argument in opposition to Haley was that she merely isn’t conservative sufficient and can cave to liberal or large enterprise stress on hot-button cultural points.
DeSantis repeatedly forged doubt on Haley’s file on border enforcement, standing as much as China, squashing transgender rights for youth, holding the road in opposition to taxes and championing private-school vouchers, claiming she had “caved to the teachers union” reasonably than give the mother and father of each public college scholar the cash to select a non-public choice.
“When you need someone standing and fight for you, don’t look for Nikki Haley,” he mentioned. “You won’t be able to find her if you had a search warrant.”
His assaults hit hardest, nonetheless, when he used a debate over support for Ukraine to forged doubt on her credentials as an American nationalist. DeSantis mentioned he wished to look at the place the U.S. support goes and what could be one of the best ways to attain a peaceable consequence to a Russia-Ukraine warfare that’s now in a stalemate.
“We’ve got homeless veterans, we have all these problems. This is the U.N. way of thinking that we’re somehow globalists and we have unlimited resources,” he mentioned, drawing cheers from the viewers. “You know, I think here’s the problem: You can take the ambassador out of the United Nations, but you can’t take the United Nations out of the ambassador.”
Haley pushed again on a few of DeSantis’ claims but additionally repeatedly urged viewers to go to DeSantisLies.com for extra full rebuttals.
DeSantis’ populist notes sign a shift on Social Security.
If DeSantis tried to outflank Haley from the best on nationalist, fiscal and cultural grounds, he bobbed left on the query of Social Security, sounding at occasions like a populist Democrat.
Asked repeatedly whether or not he would increase Social Security’s retirement age for future retirees to be able to shut this system’s funding hole, DeSantis mentioned he would “never” achieve this whereas Americans’ life expectancy is declining.
“Just think about it: That hurts blue-collar folks,” he mentioned. “You get taxed your entire life, life expectancy’s down ― you may not even be recouping that many benefits.”
In truth, life expectancy within the United States elevated in 2022 however declined considerably from 2019 to 2021.
But DeSantis is right that there’s proof that Americans with out faculty levels aren’t benefiting from total features in life expectancy. From 2010 to 2019, life expectancy for these with out faculty levels declined, in keeping with a research by two Princeton economists that got here out in September.
DeSantis additionally defended Social Security as a program whose advantages Americans earn with contributions from their payroll taxes.
“Gov. Haley has said Social Security is an entitlement, but you know it’s not an entitlement. You’re paying into it,” he mentioned. “It’s not a welfare program. You’re being taxed for it your whole life, and so, to expect to have benefits on the back end ― I don’t think that that’s too much.”
Not all the things he mentioned made sense, comparable to his regurgitation of the conservative speaking level that Congress’ spending squandered Social Security’s previous surpluses. (Social Security, which is self-financed, has been spending down its surpluses to accommodate the retirement of the child increase technology.)
And Haley accurately identified that DeSantis’ rhetoric is at odds together with his file of voting to extend the retirement age as a member of Congress.
But DeSantis’ remarks are proof of simply how a lot the controversy over Social Security has shifted to the left since former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, tried to chop this system’s cost-of-living adjustment. His stance comes after Trump ran in 2016 on guarantees to not minimize Social Security, a break with Republican orthodoxy that many analysts consider helped him win.
