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TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (NewsNation) — The fourth Republican presidential debate centered on the viability of the four candidates on stage to mount a serious threat to front-running former President Donald Trump. You can read NewsNation’s full recap here.
The candidates each took turns attacking the others’ credibility on dinner table issues and personal grounds. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was an identity-politicker too corrupt to trust. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the other candidates were too afraid of offending Trump to trust in a room with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
There were moments of policy discussion, such as DeSantis calling on universities to back student loans, Christie cautioning against government getting involved in gender-affirming care (which inspired a quick rebuke from his opponents), Haley rejecting calls for bombing Iran in response to the Oct. 7 violence in Israel, Ramaswamy calling for the strong defense of Taiwan against China and the candidates agreeing quick action on the border is needed.
Below is our live blog for the debate, featuring regular updates and analysis from a team of journalists from NewsNation, our sister publication The Hill and The Dispatch.
Providing expert analysis are David M. Drucker, senior writer for The Dispatch, and Jesse Byrnes, senior editor for The Hill. They will add regular political insight and analysis throughout the debate. You’ll see additional updates from Tulsi Kamath, managing editor of digital for NewsNation, about the scene in Alabama, and regular summaries of the questions and candidate responses and additional context from NewsNation Digital Producers Tyler Wornell, Steph Whiteside and Damita Menezes.
We’ll also follow your commentary through social media about tonight’s debate. We’ll be watching the hashtag: #GOPDebate. Use it as you post about tonight’s debate, and we may incorporate your comments into our coverage.
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DeSantis expresses concern about aging candidates in office, including Trump, focusing on age rather than Trump’s specific policies. Christie goes after all of the others for failing to call Trump unfit, while Ramaswamy attacks the “deep state” instead of discussing Trump.
Christie is among the Republicans who have argued that this election is critical because of the threat Trump poses to American democracy. On Tuesday, Trump suggested in a town hall he won’t be a dictator, “except for Day 1.”
Age is a concern for some voters, too. In a September poll, about 38% of voters said they are very concerned about Trump’s cognitive health.
Ramaswamy advocates for deputizing local law enforcement to help carry out border policy with ICE. Christie pivots to criticizing Trump, noting candidates who said they would support the former president even if he is convicted of a felony. He said he didn’t think Trump was kidding when he said he’d be a dictator on the first day and called him unfit for office.
Haley rejects the idea of a Muslim ban proposed by Trump, instead advocating for a focus on screening people from countries that have an adversarial relationship with the U.S. or harbor terrorist groups. She clashed with DeSantis, who says the U.S. should not accept people from cultures who are “hostile,” including refugees from Gaza.
On many of the big topics covered here tonight, it’s the candidate not on stage who is most trusted by GOP voters — and even among some who don’t plan to support him.
According to the latest NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll released Monday, former President Trump drew 61% support on the question of who would best handle U.S. foreign policy and 64% on who would best handle the economy.
That’s slightly higher than the 60% of GOP voters who said Trump was their top pick for their party’s nomination. Those figures suggest that some Republican voters view Trump as the strongest candidate in the race on key issues, even if they don’t support him.
Both DeSantis and Haley have a lot of ground to make up here. On handling foreign policy, Haley was second in the poll with 13% support. DeSantis was second for who would best handle the economy, at a distant 8%.
Christie talks to Megyn Kelly. And Ramaswamy talks to DeSantis.
Ron DeSantis has broken through in the second half-hour of the debate with solid answers on border security and the economy. True, both topics are in his wheelhouse and hit his sweet spot. But the Florida governor was in command of a broad range of policy on both topics and showed the attention to detail for which he has distinguished himself in Tallahassee.
This is the DeSantis that might have been the frontrunner had he run a better campaign to date, and not run into a buzzsaw otherwise known as Donald Trump.
Acknowledging the mountains of student debt young Americans are straddled with, DeSantis says he would make student loans “backed by the universities” so they have an incentive to ensure their graduates can afford to pay them back.
Haley says she wasn’t suggesting to bomb Iran.
It’s never been more expensive to own a home, leaving young and middle-class Americans looking from the outside in as they try to buy. Haley faults the government and Federal Reserve for pumping money into the economy and aggressively raising rates. She vows to veto any spending bill that “doesn’t take us back to pre-COVID levels.”
The scourge of fentanyl coming into America has resulted in a drug epidemic that caused more than 100,000 overdose deaths in 2021. Ramaswamy says the “demand-side problem” needs to be addressed.
He blames China as the “root cause” for supplying Mexico with the precursor chemicals to manufacture fentanyl.
Haley sets herself apart from former President Trump on China policy. She calls out Trump for tough talk and little wins. Other Republicans are echoing this criticism. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-WI, who chairs the Select Committee on China, said very much the same when I spoke with him recently here.
DeSantis attacked Haley and she went right back: “He’s mad because some of his Wall Street donors used to support him and now support me.”
Cities far from the border have been hit with an influx of migrants, straining resources, while the Biden administration has pushed Congress to pass meaningful immigration reform, which has not been done in decades.
One problem for those hoping to immigrate legally? A system plagued with backlogs and a lack of immigration judges means many will die waiting for green cards.
Among voters, the issue of border security is one of the top concerns, coming in second to economic concerns.
Both DeSantis and Haley say that if elected, they would use U.S. military assets at the southern border to go after Mexican drug cartels. It’s become a popular viewpoint among many Republicans.
Christie and DeSantis were seen talking.