5 memorable moments from the DeSantis-Haley debate

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley traded attacks in a heated debate Wednesday night ahead of the Iowa caucuses next week.

DeSantis and Haley were the only candidates on the CNN debate stage in Des Moines, Iowa. Former President Trump, the only other candidate to qualify for the debate, opted to instead participate in a Fox News town hall as counterprogramming in the same city.  

The debate also came hours after former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) announced he was suspending his campaign for the White House. With just a handful of candidates remaining in the race, DeSantis and Haley attempted to make their cases to Iowa voters without alienating supporters of Trump — who remains the front-runner in Iowa and nationally. 

Here are five memorable moments from the debate: 

Haley repeatedly pitches “DeSantis Lies” website 

Haley directed voters 16 times to visit a website launched by her campaign that documents DeSantis’s “lies.” When asked what her response was to DeSantis’s arguments, Haley on multiple occasions instead deflected and pointed to desantislies.com as her response.  

“What we’re going to do is rather than have him go and tell you all these lies, you can go to desantislies.com and look at all of those,” Haley said early in the debate. “There is at least two dozen lies that he has told about me, and you can see where a fact-checker says exactly what’s going to happen and exactly why it’s wrong.”

The website has a list of what Haley’s campaign labels as “documented lies” organized underneath 21 topics.

“The more Ron DeSantis loses, the more he lies. Get the facts about Ron DeSantis’ latest lies about Nikki Haley’s record and his own,” the website states. 

Haley slams DeSantis over the handling of his campaign 

Haley blasted DeSantis over the state of his campaign, arguing he has “nothing to show” for spending millions of dollars on his operation. Before tearing into him, she said the “best way to tell about a candidate is to see how they run their campaign.” 

“He has blown through $150 million. I don’t even know how you do that,” she said. 

“He has nothing to show for it. He’s spent more money on private planes than he has on commercials trying to get Iowans to vote for him. If you can’t manage a campaign, how are you going to manage a country?” Haley said, being met with applause. 

DeSantis did not respond to Haley’s criticism of his campaign, instead saying he was “proud that in the state of Florida, we’re ranked No. 1 for economy of all 50 states by CNBC.” 

DeSantis presses Haley on the gas tax 

DeSantis and Haley argued over their home states’ respective gas taxes in a heated exchange in which the Florida governor accused Haley of attempting to raise gas taxes when she was governor of South Carolina.  

“We’re going to open up all energy for production, because that would be deflationary. You know, Nikki Haley, when she was governor, she promised she would never do the gas tax. Then she tried to raise the gas tax on hardworking South Carolinians,” DeSantis said.  

“Here’s the thing, we need to fly a flag of bold colors carrying the banner of putting the American people first, not the pale pastel of the warmed-over corporatism of people like Nikki Haley,” he continued.  

Haley pushed back on him and referred viewers again to her “DeSantis lies” website.  

“So I can tell you that we killed the gas tax multiple times. But what we said, is if you want to raise the gas tax, you have to reduce the income tax by five times that amount. They didn’t want to do it. We’ve killed taxes every step of the way,” she argued. 

Haley, DeSantis weigh in on Trump immunity claims 

Both candidates weighed in on Trump’s legal team’s arguments that he should be barred from prosecution on charges related to the 2020 election, claiming he has “presidential immunity.”

Haley pushed back on an argument put forward by Trump lawyer John Sauer earlier this week before a three-judge panel that said the president would be immune from prosecution if they ordered SEAL Team Six to kill a political rival, should the president not be impeached and convicted by the Senate first. 

“That’s ridiculous. That’s absolutely ridiculous. We need to use some common sense. You can’t go and kill a political rival and then claim immunity from a president,” she said in response to the argument. 

DeSantis also predicted that the federal appeals court will rule against Trump’s argument on presidential immunity in the 2020 election interference case. 

“Donald Trump’s gonna lose that appeal. He’s going to end up going to trial in front of a stacked left-wing D.C. jury of all Democrats. What are the odds that he’s going to get through that? … I don’t think he gets through that,” DeSantis said. 

“And so, what are we going to do as Republicans in terms of who we nominate for president? If Trump is the nominee, it’s going to be about Jan. 6, legal issues, criminal trials. Democrats in the media would love to run with that. I’m not running for my issues. I’m running for your issues,” he continued.  

Haley, DeSantis exchange attacks over Israel, foreign policy  

Haley criticized DeSantis for campaigning in Iowa with the “most anti-Israel Republican” in one of her attacks against the Florida governor. 

“But it’s really rich that Ron is going to act like he suddenly cares for Israel when he brought the person to Iowa that’s the most anti-Israel Republican in the state, the person that went and voted against Israel’s right to exist in Congress, the person that voted with ‘the Squad’ against antisemitism on college campuses,” she said.

“You brought that person to Iowa to go and campaign with you,” she added.

Haley was referring to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who sided with 18 Democrats last year in voting against a resolution honoring the U.S.-Israeli relationship and expanding the Abraham Accords. DeSantis campaigned with Massie in Iowa last month, which Haley blasted at the time due to Massie’s voting record. 

DeSantis said the criticism was “cheap garbage,” which Haley responded with, “it’s true.” 

Haley also hit DeSantis over his stance on Ukraine and accused him of flip-flopping his position to match Trump’s. Meanwhile, DeSantis accused Haley of being a “carbon copy” of President Biden’s polices on Ukraine. 

“Nobody knows what [DeSantis] believes, because when President Obama was in office, he supported foreign aid to Ukraine. Now, he is copying Trump and trying to act like he doesn’t want to support Ukraine,” Haley said.

“I supported Trump’s policy vis-à-vis Russia, Ukraine, and it was successful. You know, the Biden policy has not been,” DeSantis said in response. “But, Nikki Haley is basically a carbon copy of what Biden is. It’s an open-ended commitment. They want another $108 billion. They will not tell you when the — they have achieved their goal. And this is going to go on maybe hundreds of billions more into the future.”