Takeaways from CNN’s town halls with DeSantis and Haley

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley warned Iowa Republican voters Thursday night that nominating former President Donald Trump again could cost their party the White House in November.

DeSantis sought to show a more relatable side of his personality. He opened by handing CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins the jersey of University of Iowa women’s basketball star Caitlin Clark — poking fun at Haley, who mixed up their names over the weekend.

“I just wanted to give you this as a memento and just respectfully, if the game’s on the line and we need a buzzer beater, I’m going with Clark over Collins,” he told Collins.

He also staked out some new policy ground, saying he supports a “flat tax” — a single national income tax rate, with no deductions or exemptions — and would abolish the Internal Revenue Service.

Haley, meanwhile, sought to demonstrate that she was ready and tough enough to deal with hard issues. She emphasized fiscal responsibility, argued that Israel should get whatever it needs from the United States to fight Hamas, and described the approach she took to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the South Carolina statehouse when she was governor.

The two also made their cases that Trump’s legal battles could hurt the party’s efforts to defeat President Joe Biden in the general election.

Here are six takeaways from their CNN town halls:

The candidates set expectations

Polls show Trump with a clear lead in Iowa. But DeSantis and Haley both insisted they will compete to win the state until the last possible moment.

“Don’t let the media or the pundits make the decision. Vote for who you think will be the best president of the United States,” DeSantis said, touting his appearances in all 99 of Iowa’s counties.

Haley’s hopes of winning the GOP nomination are widely seen as more dependent on the outcome of the New Hampshire primary on January 23.

She even quipped Wednesday while campaigning in New Hampshire: “You know how to do this. You know Iowa starts it. You know that you correct it.”

But she didn’t downplay her chances in Iowa, telling voters Thursday night her comment had been a joke.

“You are going to see me fight until the very end, on the last day in Iowa,” she said. “And I’m not playing in one state. I’m fighting in every state. Because I think everybody’s worth fighting for.”

DeSantis and Haley take on Trump

Both DeSantis and Haley made the case that nominating Trump for a third consecutive time is a risk Republican voters should not take.

Both were careful not to knock Trump over the specifics of the indictments he faces in federal court as well as Georgia and New York. But they portrayed him as a candidate whose personal drama would doom the GOP.

“Chaos follows him. 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,” Haley said.

She said he used to tell Trump that he is “his own worst enemy.”

“We have a country to save, and that means no more drama. No more taking things personally,” the former UN ambassador she said.

DeSantis has frequently lamented the indictments, saying they boosted the former president politically because they rallied a Republican base that views the legal proceedings as politically motivated. But he warned Iowa voters Thursday night that the trials Trump is expected to face this year could damage him against Biden.

“Whatever may be beneficial in the primary doesn’t mean it’s beneficial in the general election,” DeSantis said.

“We’re putting the future of the Republican Party, and the future of the nation, perhaps, in the hands of 12 jurors in heavily Democrat D.C.,” he said.

DeSantis’ evolution

The DeSantis that showed up Thursday night for the town hall was not the same DeSantis from earlier in the 2024 Republican primary. He started out by giving Collins a basketball jersey. He used folksy language like “willy nilly” and “appreciate ya.”

He didn’t immediately delve into social issues that he likes to talk about, like transgender healthcare bans or abortion. And the Florida governor argued that while Trump was running on issues important only to him and Haley was running for her donors, DeSantis was running for “you” – the average voter.

DeSantis also was more eager than he had previously been to warn about Trump as a nominee. “The Democrats want Trump to be the candidate,” he said.

DeSantis wasn’t working to appeal to just the most activist base Republican voters. He was looking to appeal to a broader audience. It was a marked change from DeSantis in past appearances who critics panned as overly stiff and unrelatable.

Candidates discuss guns hours after Iowa shooting

Thursday’s town hall took place hours after a school shooting in Perry, Iowa in which a middle school student was killed and five others were injured. DeSantis was asked how, in light of the attack, he would address the issue of gun violence at schools without limiting gun rights.

DeSantis referred to gun reforms passed by his predecessor, GOP Gov. Rick Scott, in the weeks after the February 2018 Parkland, Florida, shooting, in which a gunman killed 17 people.

“We’ve done everything like school resource officers, help with hardening, but also help identify students that are exhibiting really problematic behavior,” DeSantis said. “We’re getting more information about what happened in Perry, but it seems like this student had some serious, serious problems.”

The Florida legislation, passed in March 2018, also raised the age limit for buying a firearm in the state from 18 to 21 and increased the waiting period to buy one to three days.

DeSantis was asked if he supports ending the three-day waiting period, a move currently backed by a Florida state senator. He said he is for instant background checks.

“You shouldn’t have to be on a mandatory waiting period,” DeSantis said. “Instant checks will do the job.”

Haley also focused her answer on mental health and security.

“We have got to deal with the cancer that is mental health,” she said.

She said the country doesn’t have enough mental health therapists, mental health centers and addiction centers, and insurance sometimes doesn’t cover treatment. Haley also called for securing schools the way the country secures airports and courthouses.

Asked if she supports any restrictions on guns, Haley said she is a concealed weapons permit holder and doesn’t support restricting people’s ability to protect themselves.

“We could go and take away a certain kind of gun today, and that would make you feel better today. But a week from now, there’d be another shooting,” she said. “Instead, why don’t we do the hard work and deal with the mental health? If we start to do that, I know that we will see a reduction in what’s happening.”

Haley revisits her Civil War answer

Haley had one of the worst weeks of her campaign last week after she failed to mention slavery when asked about what caused the Civil War. One of her GOP rivals, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, suggested that she didn’t mention slavery because she’s afraid of offending people.

Asked about the reaction to her comments, Haley repeated that she thought it was a given.

“I should have said slavery right off the bat, but if you grow up in South Carolina, literally in second and third grade, you learn about slavery,” she said. “I was thinking past slavery, and talking about the lesson that we would learn going forward. I shouldn’t have done that.”

CNN’s Erin Burnett asked Haley to share what discussions about slavery looked like when she was growing up, and mentioned Haley’s own history dealing with racism. In past interviews and her memoir, Haley has described several racist incidents she and her parents, who are Indian immigrants, experienced after moving to their rural South Carolina hometown.

“We dealt with our own challenges,” she said. “I remember when I would get teased on the playground, and I would come home. My mom would always say, ‘Your job is not to show them how you’re different, your job is to show them how you’re similar.’”

She also discussed how she handled two pivotal moments of her governorship – the fatal police shooting of Walter Scott and the White supremacist shooting at Emanuel AME Church. After the shooting of Scott, a Black man, Haley signed police body camera legislation. After the church attack, she called for the Confederate battle flag to be removed from the statehouse grounds.

Haley said South Carolina was about to avoid “riots and protests” after the Emanuel AME Church shooting because she realized that half of the state saw the flag as a “heritage and tradition” and half saw it as “slavery and hate.”

“My job wasn’t to judge either side,” she said. “My job was to get them to see the best of themselves and go forward.”

DeSantis uses softer tone on abortion

DeSantis faced difficult and persistent questions about his positions on abortion – a departure from debates in which the issue has been largely glossed over.

Though he stood by his anti-abortion record, DeSantis sought a softer tone when discussing the government’s role in enforcing the bans, including those he has signed himself. DeSantis was also evasive when asked about the onus put on women to be able to access the exceptions baked into Florida’s six-week prohibition.

Still, his answers are likely to be used against him in a general election campaign. (Haley, who has spoken at greater length about her position, was not asked about it here.) The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade and the subsequent push in many states to outlaw the procedure have been deeply unpopular across the usual partisan divides.

DeSantis spent more time taking shots at Trump from the right, telling Collins that he did not believe the former president truly opposes abortion.

“For pro-life voters in Iowa, Donald Trump is taking positions that are way different than what he professed to believe when he first ran for president,” DeSantis said.

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