Duking It Out In Des Moines: Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley Go Head-To-Head

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Throughout 2023, everyone from media pundits to everyday voters bemoaned the lack of excitement in the GOP presidential race – which has until recently resemble a foregone conclusion. Then Wednesday rolled around, and that complaint went right out the window. It seems the political gods waited till January 10, 2024 to get involved — and then proceeded to go into overdrive to make up for lost time.

The 2024 Iowa Caucus — the initial round of voting in the primary phase of the campaign — is now just days away. With last year’s four officially sanctioned Republican National Committee debates in the rearview, CNN stepped in at the last minute to the fill the sudden void in the campaign calendar.

The self-proclaimed “world’s most important network” quickly arranged a two-hour encounter just ahead of the January 15, 2024 caucuses. Since runaway frontrunner Donald Trump passed on participating in the first four debates, there was never any reason to suspect he would join in the fifth. And he stayed true to form. Only two other candidates met CNN’s qualifying criteria: Florida governor Ron DeSantis and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley.

That left former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and – most significantly (according to the polls) – entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy out in the cold. The latter earned a reputation for getting under Haley’s skin during the preceding debates, and the political world was rife with speculation that Haley’s camp told CNN early on in negotiations, “If Vivek is on that stage, Nikki won’t be.” Hence, the speculation claimed, the qualifications for participation were rigged to intentionally exclude him.

Whatever transpired behind the scenes, the big Haley-DeSantis showdown was all set … which is when things got crazy.

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First, Fox News made a bid to steal CNN’s thunder by announcing its intention to televise a Trump town hall which was held just two miles away from Drake University, where DeSantis and Haley were debating.

Counter-programming at its best, right?

Then, Ramaswamy made sure his campaign message would be felt in his absence. The entrepreneur bought a commercial spot which dropped at the very beginning of the CNN debate. In the spot, he bluntly warned viewers, “Don’t fall for their trick. They don’t want you to hear from me.”

“You can fix that,” Ramaswamy said. “Take your remote and turn that sh*t off.”

Here is his ad …

(Click to View)

Both Trump and Ramaswamy’s counter-programming had nothing on Christie, though.

The rotund #NeverTrumper picked Wednesday to toss a major curveball into the race. At a 5:00 p.m. EDT town hall in New Hampshire, Christie announced he was suddenly calling it quits. He suspended his campaign, refused to endorse anyone, and trashed Trump on his way out. Referring to his now former rivals, he said “their campaign is one that doesn’t play to win. It’s a campaign that plays to not offend (Trump).”

But that wasn’t Christie’s biggest bombshell.

Before his event began, he was conversing with a local supporter in Windham, New Hampshire when his comments were captured by a “hot mic” – and then carried over his campaign’s own livestream.

Christie’s comments were not favorable to Haley – or her chances to win the GOP nomination.

“She’s spent $68 million so far, just on TV,” Christie said. “Spent $68 million so far – $59 million by DeSantis – and we’ve spent $12 (million). I mean, who’s punching above their weight and who’s getting a return on their investment, you know? And she’s gonna get smoked – and you and I both know it – she’s not up to this.”

Listen for yourself …

(Click to View)

“She’s not up to this …”

All of a sudden, there was an entirely new dynamic to this race heading into the twin televised events in Des Moines four hours later.

As for Trump’s town hall, it was exactly what Republicans have come to expect from their two-time standard bearer. The former president alleged Joe Biden has been a terrible failure, the 2020 election was stolen, and that he can set everything right if voters return him to the Oval Office. Trump did make one bit of news; he hinted he knows who he wants his running mate to be if he wins the GOP presidential nomination for a third time this summer.

Who is it? He didn’t say.

Could it be Haley? As we noted in our latest Palmetto Political Stock Index, the escalating anti-Haley acrimony emanating from big-name conservatives urging Trump not to do so “signifies sufficient smoke is billowing from this particular prospect that a fire must be burning somewhere.”

Expect Trump’s pronouncement in Iowa to pour gasoline on that fire …

Back at Drake University, Haley and DeSantis went at each other like a pair of Rock’em Sock’em Robots. Each went for the jugular in their opening remarks – with DeSantis hitting Haley hard on authenticity, painting her as a candidate who isn’t who she claims she is.

Haley hit back equally hard, calling her opponent a liar. And then repeating it. And then repeating it again. And again. And again. It was her main theme of the night. Her campaign had slapped together a special website to showcase DeSantis’ alleged untruths, and she must have set a new record for the number of times a URL address was mentioned in a single evening.

Haley apparently never learned the word “overkill;” it felt like she was sandwiching the website address into every third or fourth sentence, continually rattling it off like an auctioneer with a bad bladder.

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The more Ron loses, the more he lies. My record speaks for itself. Get the facts at https://t.co/vsSdcWrMfj. pic.twitter.com/buxNA6J2Px

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) January 11, 2024

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Haley got in one — and only one — good zinger. “Every time he lies, Drake University, don’t turn this into a drinking game because you will be over-served by the end of the night.” 

But the encounter’s most memorable lines all belonged to DeSantis. His best was a tie between, “You can take the ambassador out of the United Nations, but you can’t take the United Nations out of the ambassador,” and “She’s got this problem with ballistic podiatry — shooting herself in the foot.”

Only one bit of new ground was covered. Haley repeatedly, and bizarrely, attacked the DeSantis’ campaign itself, calling it a “revolving door” and citing claims staffers had nearly had fistfights over strategy differences.

“How did you blow through $150 million in your campaign, and you were down in the polls?” she asked. “He spent more on private planes than on TV commercials.” 

How well that line of attack will play with voters is unclear, however.

“When middle-class families are struggling to afford groceries during this inflationary time, who the hell cares how much money politicians are spending on their campaigns?” a political operative unaffiliated with either campaign mused.

For their part, moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash did a surprisingly good job of keeping the questions on an even keel. There were none of the head-scratching questions that married previous debates, like a detour into Woke World when LGBTQ+ rights came up or the sheer imbecility of being asked to vote opponents “off the island.” But it was CNN, after all, so there were two questions about climate change in the final twenty minutes. But even those interrogatories were fairly tame by CNN standards.

The encounter ended on a civil note, with DeSantis and Haley each saying something nice about the other (although Haley seemed to do so through clenched teeth). Thus was the anticlimactic end to the busiest, wildest, and most interesting day of the 2024 campaign cycle so far.

A closing observation: It will be interesting to see the TV ratings when they come in. Did more viewers pick Trump’s town hall over the DeSantis-Haley debate? Or did a majority of them tune out both events? The answer could reveal much about how the race stands heading into Tuesday’s caucuses.

Which reminds me: As we go to press, Haley is narrowly leading DeSantis in the race for second place in Iowa – drawing 17.7 percent and 17.2 percent, according to updated polling averages from FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolling, respectively. DeSantis is at 16.2 percent and 15.2 percent in the same indexes, respectively.

Trump is dominating them both, though, polling at 53.6 percent according to RealClearPolling and 52.3 percent according to FiveThirtyEight.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.

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