DES MOINES, Iowa—Presidential candidates Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley fielded questions from voters 11 days before the Iowa caucus, appearing consecutively on the same stage in a town hall meeting on Jan. 4.
The televised event represented a narrowing of the Republican field, though the clear frontrunner for the nomination, former President Donald Trump, was not in attendance.
Mr. DeSantis, the incumbent governor of Florida appeared for the first hour of the primetime event. Ms. Haley, a former U.N. ambassador and two-term governor of South Carolina, took the second hour.
Ms. Haley has gained momentum in recent polls, though she and Mr. DeSantis are still neck and neck both nationally and in Iowa. President Trump polls more than 30 percentage points ahead of both.
Both Looked Presidential
Both candidates appeared composed and in control during their separate appearances on the stage. Mr. DeSantis wore a black suit, standing erect and looking directly at the audience while answering listener questions. Ms. Haley wore a tea-length navy blue dress, smiled freely, and moved about the stage to deliver her answers.Iowans lived up to their reputation for being hospitable, asking polite but sometimes pointed questions, which both candidates handled well. While both Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley have previously bobbled town hall questions, neither made a significant error during their time on the stage.
Mr. DeSantis perhaps made his strongest responses when speaking about the border crisis. “I think a president not only has a right, I think you have a responsibility to fight back against [the cartels]. I am sick and tired of seeing the carnage in this country,” he said, speaking of actions he would take to fight Mexican cartels and stop the flow of illegal immigrants. “I care about this. I care about defending American communities and American families.”
Ms. Haley showed passion when explaining her vision for ensuring peace by projecting American strength in the world. “There is an unholy alliance of China, Russia, and Iran bound together in their hatred against freedom, democracy, and above all things, the United States of America. Our job is to always prevent war and protect Americans,” she said.
America First vs Peace Through Strength
A primary difference between the candidates emerged through their answers to questions about the war in Ukraine and their comments on the greatest threats facing the United States.Asked whether he would send further arms to Ukraine in order to win back territory lost to Russia or would cede the ground to make peace, Mr. DeSantis listed tenets of an America First strategy.
“What are our top national security issues? I would say the top in this country are the border and China,” Mr. DeSantis said. He went on to say that his priority would be to end the Ukraine conflict quickly and that European countries should bear the primary burden of arming Ukraine.
“Our interest in this is to not have larger conflicts,” Mr. DeSantis said, adding that “some of the people always want to get us in deeper, and in these conflicts, you run the risk of an escalation.”
Both Attacked Trump, Not Each Other
With few exceptions, neither candidate spent time attacking the other. But both leveled stinging criticism at President Trump.“I agree with a lot of his policies, but the reality is, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him,” Ms. Haley said of the former president. “And we can’t have a country in disarray and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. We won’t survive it.”
Mr. DeSantis attacked what he said were President Trump’s failures to deliver on policy promises and the apparent reversal of his position on abortion.
Speaking of President Trump’s promise to take executive action to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants, Mr. DeSantis noted that he had the opportunity to do that while in office but chose not to. “I think the fact that he’s campaigning on something does not mean that he would actually follow through on it,” Mr. DeSantis said.
Regarding abortion, Mr. DeSantis said, “Donald Trump has said that pro-life protections, even at the state level, are a quote, a terrible thing,” speaking of comments the former president made about the six-week abortion ban enacted in Florida. “He has flip-flopped on this issue.”
Controversial Policies Explained
Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley both did a good job explaining controversial policy positions they favor.Asked about his position on ending birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants, Mr. DeSantis said the 14th Amendment was intended to ensure citizenship for formerly enslaved people in the wake of the Civil War.
When applied to the children of illegal immigrants, “that creates an anchor in the society so that you then can’t deport the illegal aliens who came in. It’s an incentive to come illegally,” Mr. DeSantis said.
He added that he would issue an executive order to that effect, which would undoubtedly be challenged in the courts. “I’m convinced the court has never actually addressed that issue. And I think we would win on the law because that was not what the 14th Amendment was intended to do.”
A Wobble for Haley
Ms. Haley made a misstep in a New Hampshire town hall meeting in December when she failed to mention slavery as the cause of the Civil War, instead giving a rambling explanation about the role of government, individual freedom, and capitalism.Though she corrected herself later, saying “Of course it was slavery,” she was asked again to clarify her remarks.
This time, Ms. Haley defended her rationale for answering the question as she did in December, saying that slavery and its effects were so thoroughly taught to school children in South Carolina, where she grew up, that she essentially took that for granted when answering the question.
“I was thinking past slavery and talking about the lesson that we would learn going forward,” she said. “I should have said slavery, but in my mind, that’s a given that everybody associates the Civil War with slavery.”
Mr. DeSantis and Ms. Haley will meet face-to-face on this same stage in a Republican presidential debate to be held here on Jan. 10.
The two will be the only participants, as President Trump has declined to participate, and no other candidate met the polling requirement established by the event’s sponsor, CNN.
