GOP rivals clash over Trump in fiery debate: Recap

The super PAC supporting former President Trump slammed his Republican presidential rivals after the party’s fourth debate, with Trump absent from the stage.

“The battle for second place has become the biggest waste of time, money, and energy that politics has ever seen,” said Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for Make America Great Again Inc., in a statement.

Leavitt argued the candidates participating in the Tuscaloosa event are “putting up a fake fight to satisfy their egos and please their billionaire puppet masters” — and called for the party to “unify” around Trump, the frontrunner of the field.

Trump has skipped the four debates so far and called for the Republican National Committee (RNC) to cancel the events. With Trump leading by double digits as the party approaches the start of voting in January, some have looked at the debates as emblematic of a race for second place.

—Julia Mueller

Nikki Haley called for the U.S. to ban TikTok “once and for all,” alleging that the app is fueling antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack against Israel.

The app has faced calls from Jewish content creators and celebrities since Oct. 7 to take more effective action against antisemitic content on the platform.

— Julia Shapero

Nikki Haley declared in her closing statement that she would be a “no-drama” president if elected to the Oval Office in 2024.

She painted the country as one “in chaos” and argued former President Trump, the party’s front-runner, would give the party more discord.

“My approach is different: no drama, no vendettas, no whining,” Haley said.

— Julia Mueller

In his closing statement of the night, Chris Christie predicted former President Trump won’t be able to cast a ballot in 2024 because of the legal battles he faces.

“Picture in your minds Election Day. You’ll all be heading to the polls to vote. And that’s something Donald Trump will not be able to do,” Christie said. “Because he will be convicted of felonies before then, and his right to vote will be taken away.”

Trump is the front-runner of the GOP presidential primary field, but he faces a number of legal battles in courtrooms across the country, including multiple criminal indictments.

Christie’s remark prompted boos from the Tuscaloosa audience.

“You can boo about it all you like and continue to deny reality. But if we deny reality as a party, we’re going to have four more years of Joe Biden,” Christie said.

— Julia Mueller

Chris Christie fired back at Nikki Haley for claiming former President Trump had good trade policy on China, saying, “All he did was impose tariffs, which raised the prices for every American.”

“I’ll say this about what I heard from Nikki earlier. She said that Donald Trump was good on trade. He wasn’t, and the proof that he wasn’t good on trade with China is that all he did was impose tariffs, which raised the prices for every American,” he said.

He further claimed Trump’s trade policy contributed to high inflation.

“You want to know what has contributed to inflation in this country? Yes, it’s more government spending. Yes, it’s the fact that we’re printing too much money. Absolutely. But it is also the increase in prices that were driven by Donald Trump’s tariffs. And one last thing. You can’t say he was good on trade because he didn’t change one Chinese policy in the process. He failed on it.”

— Sarah Fortinsky

Former President Trump released an ad bashing President Biden as his fellow Republican presidential candidates sparred on the Tuscaloosa debate stage.

“Weak leaders talk about the possibility of war. Because they’re weak and insecure,” says the narrator of the 25-second clip shared by Team Trump on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “It’s time for a strong American.”

The video plays a clip of Biden saying “American troops fighting Russian troops” — and argues for a Trump presidency to ensure that possibility “never happens.”

The clip of Biden appears taken from Wednesday remarks in which Biden urged Congress to pass his national security supplemental request, which includes funding to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.

“If Putin attacks a NATO Ally … well, we’ve committed as a NATO member that we’d defend every inch of NATO territory. Then we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today: American troops fighting Russian troops,” Biden said.

— Julia Mueller

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis avoided a question on whether he would send American troops to Taiwan to defend the island nation in the event of a Chinese invasion.

“It’s going to work,” DeSantis said when the moderator asked if he would send troops if deterrence failed.

“Taiwan’s an ally, we have [a] long-standing American policy, and you know how that’s done, and we will follow that.”

— Brad Dress

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley declined to tangle with biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy after the 38-year-old GOP millennial repeatedly criticized the South Carolina Republican.

“Nikki Haley’s campaign launch video sounded like a woke Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light ad talking about how she would kick in heels,” adding later, “you have a corruption problem.”

Haley was asked whether she wanted to respond to Ramaswamy’s attacks.

“No, it’s not worth my time to respond to him,” she replied.

Chris Christie defended his opposition to state laws that ban gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, saying he believes parents should be able to make medical decisions on behalf of their children.

“Republicans believe in less government, not more,” he said. “I trust parents.”

— Brooke Migdon

Ramaswamy held up a pad of paper with “NIKKI = CORRUPT” written on it.

The move elicited boos from the crowd as Ramaswamy accused Haley of ascribing to “identity politics” and a lack of authenticity.

Chris Christie and Ron DeSantis got into a heated back-and-forth about former President Trump.

“There’s no mystery to what he wants to do. He started off his campaign by saying, ‘I am your retribution.’ Eight years ago he said, ‘I am your voice,’” Christie said of Trump.

“This is an angry, bitter man who now wants to be back as president because he wants to exact retribution on anyone who has disagreed with him, anyone who’s tried to hold him to account for his own conduct, and every one of these policies that he’s talking about are about pursuing a plan of retribution,” Christie contended.

DeSantis was then asked whether he thinks Trump is fit to be president for another term. “Father time is undefeated,” the Florida governor said, referencing Trump’s age.

Christie pressed him on the response. “Why doesn’t he just answer the question? … Is he fit to be president or isn’t he?”

— Julia Mueller

Moderators of the fourth debate started off the second hour by asking the four candidates about some of former President Trump’s remarks.

The moderators noted they had offered an invitation for him to join the debate, which they noted he declined. They proceeded to ask the candidates to respond to a clip of his remarks in October in Iowa on Muslim immigrants coming to the U.S.

-Caroline Vakil

Nikki Haley criticized the high barriers to homeownership in the U.S., blaming the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes over the last year and a half, among other factors.

“Right now the average homeowner in America is 49 years old,” Haley said. “You’ve got young people everywhere. That used to be the American dream, and now it’s out of reach.”

“Look at what the Fed did,” she added. “The Fed did a terrible job when they allowed all of that money to go through. You saw the treasury bond rates go up that affected mortgage rates that affected automobile rates that affected insurance rates. And so now we have a high interest rate.”

— Julia Shapero

Ron DeSantis went after congressional leaders for failing to slow inflation and the increasingly expensive housing market.

“That’s just a fact, these Republicans in Washington have spent [so much], it’s driven your prices higher, and it’s driven your interest rates to the point where you can’t afford [a home],” DeSantis said.

The governor relayed meeting a voter in Iowa who described an unaffordable housing market and the struggle to make ends meet. DeSantis said the leadership of President Biden and congressional Republicans has “taken the American dream away from him.”

“So we’re gonna get the inflation down,” DeSantis promised. “We’re gonna get the interest rates down. We’ll reduce spending, and I believe we’re going to have to veto, and I vetoed a lot as governor of Florida and we’ll do that.”

The GOP has emphasized the economy in its political messaging, though the Biden administration has avoided a recession, which many economic analysts called inevitable. Inflation has fallen drastically in recent months and unemployment remains low.

— Nick Robertson

Ron DeSantis called for student loans to be backed by universities, which he said would incentivize schools to equip their students for gainful employment.

“Another thing that’s burdening young people are these student loans. Now I don’t support having a truck driver having to pay a student loan for someone that got a degree in gender studies. That is wrong. We should not have taxpayers do that,” he said.

“What I’m gonna do, though, is I’m gonna get to the root cause of the problem.”

“These student loans are going to be backed by the universities because they need to have an incentive to produce gainful employment for people. They should not be indulging in ideological studies. They should be focusing on things that work and we’re going to take some of this money and we’re gonna move it to actual vocational training,” he said.

— Sarah Fortinsky

Haley criticized the Biden administration for designating Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a program that protects foreign nationals from deportation back to dangerous conditions.

In September, President Biden designated the South American country for the program, giving nearly half a million Venezuelans the right to live and work in the United States for at least 18 months.

Haley made a distinction between the “seven or eight million illegals that have come under Biden’s watch” and undocumented immigrants who have lived in the country for years or decades.

Haley said new arrivals allowed to work in the United States prompt more migration because they encourage friends and relatives in their countries of origin to migrate.

“You have to go and deport these people so they know it can’t happen again,” said Haley.

— Rafael Bernal

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley took a swipe at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over his donors, suggesting during the fourth debate that some of his big-dollar donors were switching allegiances and backing her.

“Her donors, these Wall Street liberal donors, they make money in China. They are not going to let her be tough on China, and she will cave to the donors — she will not stand up for you,” DeSantis accused of Haley.

“First of all, he’s mad because those Wall Street donors used to support him and now they support me,” she shot back, noting that he took money from the chief executive of a Chinese-backed company called iGas, among other entities, according to the Miami Herald.

— Caroline Vakil

DeSantis and Haley tangled over policy on China, with DeSantis accusing Haley of being too friendly and not tough enough.

DeSantis accused Haley of sending a “love letter” to the Chinese ambassador and recruiting Chinese businesses to South Carolina as governor.

“That is not true. You have a record of lying,” Haley responded.

— Jared Gans

Vivek Ramaswamy defended attacking Haley for her call to “finish” Hamas and outlined his position on Israel, which he described as “the strongest pro-Israel position actually on the stage, even though it’s a little bit different than the standard GOP talking points.”

He clarified that when Haley said to “finish them,” he understood the remarks to be “purposefully vague in a discussion that included Iran, which is what I objected to.”

Ramaswamy condemned Hamas’s attack on Israel, saying it “was medieval. It was subhuman. It was immoral. And we have to call that out for what it is on Oct. 7.” He added, “But to say that that was an attack on America fails a basic test.”

Ramaswamy then outlined his general position on Israel.

“I think Israel has an absolute right to defend itself to the fullest, without the U.S., the U.N. or the EU, or anybody else second-guessing their decisions as the Biden administration — guess what? — is now starting to do,” he said.

“As your next president, my sole moral duty is to you, the people of this country,” he continued. “That’s how I’m gonna lead. So I’ll tell Bibi, ‘You smoke the terrorists on your southern border, you go ahead and we’re rooting for you. We’re going to smoke the terrorists on our own southern border.’ And that’s how I’m going to lead this country.”

— Sarah Fortinsky

TikTok, the video-based social media app, advertised during the first commercial break of the debate, featuring a user who creates videos to support U.S. troops.

The app, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has faced intense scrutiny in Washington over national security and data privacy concerns.

— Julia Shapero

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie defended former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in the face of attacks from businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.

“We are now 25 minutes into this debate and he’s insulted her basic intelligence,” Christie told Ramaswamy. “This is a smart, accomplished woman. You should stop insulting her.”

Ramaswamy targeted Haley from the start of the debate, zeroing in on her foreign policy experience.

“Foreign policy experience is not the same as foreign policy wisdom. One thing that Joe Biden and Nikki Haley [have in common] is that neither of them could even state for you three provinces in Ukraine that they want to send our troops to fight for,” Ramaswamy said.

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy compared U.S. support for Ukraine to the 2003 war in Iraq.

“These people are lying to you,” Ramaswamy said, saying they were “the same people who told you about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to justify that invasion.”

Ramaswamy accused Ukrainian supporters Nikki Haley and Chris Christie of not knowing the provinces in eastern Ukraine and said they wanted to send troops into the country to fight Russia.

“These people want to send your sons and daughters to go die in Ukraine,” Ramaswamy said. “They’ve been arguing for it for a year.”

— Brad Dress

Christie slammed Ramaswamy as the “most obnoxious blowhard in America” in a tense exchange between the two candidates.

“This is the fourth debate that you would be voted in the first 20 minutes as the most obnoxious blowhard in America, so shut up for a while,” Christie told Ramaswamy.

The attack came after Ramaswamy interrupted Christie while the former New Jersey governor criticized his position on the war between Russia and Ukraine.

“I’m not done yet,” Christie said after Ramaswamy interrupted.

— Jared Gans

Chris Christie said he would “absolutely” send American troops into Gaza in order to rescue American hostages held by Hamas if he was president of the United States.

Ron DeSantis previously avoided answering the same question, which Christie objected to.

“Your generals, your secretary of Defense, your secretary of State, your national security adviser are going to present plans to you, they’re going to look at you and say, ‘Do we go or don’t we, Mr. President?’ and you give a 90-second speech about your military service?” Christie said.

He said he would “absolutely” send troops, if the military “had a plan which showed me that we can get them out safely.”

“You’re damn right,” he continued. “I send the American Army in there to get our people home, to get them home now, and I’ll answer that question directly.”

President Biden has adamantly refused to deploy U.S. military assets amid the Israel-Gaza war, which has raged for about two months.

— Nick Robertson

Nikki Haley defended sitting on Boeing’s board and said other candidates were “just jealous” that big donors are supporting her campaign instead of theirs.

“I did serve on the board of Boeing. I did a lot of work with Boeing when I was governor. They were a great partner to me. I served for 10 months. And then when they decided after COVID that they wanted to go for a corporate bailout, I’ve never supported corporate bailouts, so I respectfully stepped back and got off the board,” she said.

“I love Boeing. They build good commercial airplanes. They build airplanes for our Air Force. I am proud of them. They employ a lot of people in South Carolina, but that’s why I left the Boeing board, she continued.

Pivoting back to Vivek Ramaswamy, Haley said, “There’s nothing to what he’s saying. And in terms of these donors that are supporting me, they’re just jealous. They wish that they were supporting them.”

— Sarah Fortinsky

Conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy slammed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley over the recent donation that Democratic mega-donor Reid Hoffman made to a super PAC supporting her campaign.

Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn and an open supporter of President Biden, gave $250,000 to SFA Fund Inc.

“When I said they were bought and paid for, I meant the Republican establishment, not the Democratic establishment,” Ramaswamy said.

“Now you have Reid Hoffman, the person who’s effectively George Soros Jr., funding lawsuits across this country against Donald Trump to get him off the ballot, funding left-wing causes. We discovered this week that he is one of Nikki Haley’s largest supporters.”

— Julia Shapero

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the Biden administration is holding Israel back in its fight against Hamas.

“This administration is trying to hobble Israel from defending itself,” DeSantis said. “They have a right to eliminate Hamas and win a total and complete victory.”

President Biden has pushed Israel to help civilians in besieged Gaza, but DeSantis said he has tried to “kneecap them every step of the way.”

— Brad Dress

Nikki Haley responded to the barrage of attacks from her male opponents on stage by thanking them.

“I love all of the attention, fellas. Thank you for that,” Haley quipped.

Haley is the only woman running in the Republican presidential primary. She was met with criticism from Ramaswamy and DeSantis, who swiped at her over her relationship with donors and vision for the GOP going forward.

— Julia Manchester

Christie criticized his fellow candidates on stage for avoiding the subject of former President Trump’s significant lead in the Republican primary and the lack of references to him in each of the candidates’ opening responses.

“It’s often very difficult to be the only person on stage who’s telling the truth and the only who is taking on who needs to be taken on,” he said.

“We have these three acting as if the race is between the four of us,” he said, adding that the other candidates are acting like Trump is “Voldemort, he who shall not be named.”

— Jared Gans

Nikki Haley shot back at attacks from Ron DeSantis over her record on transgender rights and gender issues in schools, saying that she thought Florida’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill “didn’t go far enough.”

DeSantis went after Haley in his first question response, saying Haley “caves anytime the left comes after her” and opposes bans on gender transition surgery, which he described as “child abuse.”

“He continues to lie about my record,” Haley responded. “I actually said his ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill didn’t go far enough because it only [bans] talks about gender until … third grade. And I said it shouldn’t be done at all. That that’s for parents to talk about. It shouldn’t be talked about with schools.”

Haley and DeSantis have feuded on the issue before. She made the same comment back in February.

— Nick Robertson