Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate was rather different from the first two of the 2024 presidential cycle.
It was a much more intimate affair. Just five GOP presidential hopefuls — South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — took the stage at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami. It was also the first debate not hosted by Fox News or Fox Business, with NBC News getting the honor this time around.
It also appeared that the candidates spoke much more critically of the race’s frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, than they have in the past, offering more forceful rebukes of the de facto head of the Republican Party.
“He owes it to you to be on this stage and explain why he should get another chance,” DeSantis said of Trump. “He should explain why he didn't have Mexico pay for the border wall. He should explain why he racked up so much debt. He should explain why he didn't drain the swamp.”
“I can tell you that I think he was the right president at the right time,” Haley added of the former president. “I don’t think he’s the right president now. I think that he put us $8 trillion in debt, and our kids are never going to forgive us for that."
They also openly took aim at Republican National Committee and its chair, Ronna McDaniel, following high-profile losses one day prior in elections across the country.
“We have to have accountability in our party,” Ramaswamy, who told ABC News before the debate that his plan was to be “unhinged,” said during the debate. “For that matter, Ronna, if you want to come on stage tonight and look the GOP voters in the eye and tell them you resign, I will turn over, yield my time to you.”
“I am upset about what happened last night,” he added. “We’ve become a party of losers at the end of the day.”
But similar to the previous debates, it featured frequent attacks on the administration and leadership of President Joe Biden, as well as spirited debates over policy and even a couple of tense moments between the candidates — with one Republican hopeful even calling one another “scum” after a heated exchange.
And just like the others, there was one major player missing: Trump, who opted yet again to counter-program the debate, this time with a rally in nearby Hialeah.
Here are some takeaways from Wednesday’s presidential debate in Miami.
The debate opened with moderator Lester Holt giving the candidates an opportunity to sell voters on themselves over former President Donald Trump. While not everyone took advantage of the opening, the question resulted in arguably some of the most direct criticism of Trump, who is skipping the debate again, in the three Republican debates.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Trump should be at the debate defending his record.
“He owes it to you to be on this stage and explain why he should get another chance,” DeSantis said. “He should explain why he didn't have Mexico pay for the border wall. He should explain why he racked up so much debt. He should explain why he didn't drain the swamp.”
"He said Republicans were going to get 'tired of winning,'" DeSantis said. "Well, we saw last night, I'm sick of Republicans losing," referring to Tuesday's elections, which saw several key Democratic wins nationwide.
Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said she thought Trump was the right president in 2016 but not in 2024. She also cited the nation’s soaring debt accrued during the Trump administration.
Haley also said Trump “used to be right on Ukraine and foreign issues. Now he’s getting weak in the knees and trying to be friendly again.”
“I think that we've got to go back to the fact that we can't live in the past,” she said.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, an ally-turned-critic of the former president, said of Trump: “Anybody who's going to be spending the next year and a half of their life focusing on keeping themselves out of jail and courtrooms cannot lead this party or this country.”
Instead of criticizing Trump, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy used the question to attack Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel for the party’s subpar performance in recent elections and the mainstream media.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina did not mention Trump at all in giving his answer. Instead, he offered oft-used refrains about his background and a pledged to be "the president helps us restore faith in God, faith in each other, and faith in our future."
Ahead of Wednesday's debate, Ramaswamy told ABC News that his strategy was to be "unhinged" on the stage in Miami.
Sure enough, the entrepreneur and anti-woke activist made numerous waves during the debate, launching brutal attacks on his fellow candidates and even the Republican Party and its chairwoman.
“At the end of the day, there is a cancer in the Republican establishment,” Ramaswamy said in response to a question why he would make a better presidential nominee than former President Donald Trump. He mentioned Tuesday night’s election results in which, among other victories, Democrats walked away with control of both the House of Delegates and Senate in the Virginia state legislature and saw Gov. Andy Beshear won reelection in deep red Kentucky.
“Since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have lost in 2018, 2020, 2022 – no red wave, that never came. We got trounced last night in 2023,” he added.
“Ron, if you want to come on stage tonight, you want to look the GOP voters in the eye and tell them you resign. I will turn over, yield my time to you,” Ramaswamy said, referring to McDaniel.
Ramaswamy then went on to attack the debate's moderators: "This should be Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and Elon Musk, we'd have 10 times the viewership, asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about and bringing more people into our party."
He later attacked seemingly two of his fellow candidates – Haley and DeSantis – as "Dick Cheney in three-inch heels." At one point, during a particularly testy exchange, Haley called Ramaswamy "scum" after he invoked her daughter in a discussion about TikTok, the popular social media app.
"I want to laugh at why Nikki Haley didn't answer your question, which is about looking at families in the eye," Ramaswamy said. "In the last debate she made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time, so you might want to take care of your family first."
"Leave my daughter out of your voice," she fired back at Ramaswamy to a sea of boo's and jeers from the crowd as he defended the use of TikTok to reach young voters.
Haley rolled her eyes and said of Ramaswamy: "You're just scum."
In his closing remarks, Ramaswamy urged Democrats to force President Joe Biden to step aside as their 2024 presidential nominee.
"End this farce that Joe Biden is going to be your nominee," Ramaswamy said, before falsely claiming that "he's not even the President of the United States, he's a puppet for the managerial class."
"Have the guts to step up and be honest about who you're actually going to put up so we can have an honest debate," he continued. "Biden should step aside and end his candidacy now so we can see whether it's [California Gov. Gavin] Newsom or [former first lady] Michelle Obama or whoever else, just tell us the truth."
Biden is currently facing a primary challenge from Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson, though neither is polling significantly against the president.
As Israeli troops fight inside Gaza City – with over 200 hostages who remain captive and civilian casualties mounting – all five GOP candidates say they would advise Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to eradicate Hamas.
“I would be telling Bibi, ‘Finish the job once and for all with these butchers,’” DeSantis said. “They’re terrorists. They’re massacring innocent people. They would wipe every Jew off the globe if they could.”
DeSantis condemned President Biden for his handling of removing Americans from the situation following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and said Florida sent planes and brought back 700 people to the U.S.
DeSantis set the tone for the responses and rhetoric his rivals would use answering the same question. Haley said, “The first thing I said to him when it happened was, “Finish them.’”
Haley said she worked on the Israel-Palestine conflict every day when she was at the United Nations. “They have to eliminate Hamas.”
The role of the United States is to support Israel with whatever it needs whenever they need it and bring American hostages back home, she said.
Ramaswamy said he would go one step further.
“Israel has the right and the responsibility to defend itself,” he said. “I would tell him to smoke those terrorists on his southern border, and then I’ll tell him, as president of the United States, I’ll be smoking the terrorists on our southern border.”
Sen. Scott also said he’d tell Netanyahu he had “the responsibility and the right to wipe Hamas off of the map."
"We will support you," Scott said. "We will be there with you. We’ll stand shoulder-to-shoulder.”
Gov. Christie took the most measured tone, saying “these problems are so big and serious that the first thing I would say to Prime Minister Netanyahu is pretty simple: America is here no matter what it is you need at any time to preserve the state of Israel.”
Meanwhile, aid to another U.S. ally – Ukraine – was also a point of contention in Wednesday's debate. There was little agreement across the stage about whether the United States should continue to provide aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia.
Ramaswamy said Ukraine does not deserve U.S. support because it “is not a paragon of democracy,” accusing it of squashing dissent. He called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a former actor, “a comedian in cargo pants.” And Ramaswamy argued that Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine has “not even been part of Ukraine since 2014.”
“To frame this as some kind of battle between good versus evil, don’t buy it,” he said.
Haley responded to Ramaswamy’s remarks by saying: “I am telling you, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] are salivating at the thought that someone like that could become president.”
Haley called Putin “a thug” and Ukraine “a freedom-loving, pro-American country that is fighting for its survival and its democracy.”
She said she doesn’t believe the U.S. should give Ukraine cash but should provide it with the equipment and ammunition needed to win the war.
“If Biden had done it when they first asked for it, this war would be over,” she said.
Christie evoked World War II in saying “the last time that we turned our back on a shooting war in Europe, it bought us just a couple of years.”
“This is not a choice,” he said. “This is the price we pay for being the leaders of the free world.”
He added, referring to Ramaswamy: “Giving in to dictators, which is being suggested on this stage, just shows the immaturity of the approach.”
Scott said he supports Ukraine but called for greater accountability of the United States’ funding, while DeSantis said the U.S. needs “to bring this war to an end” and should focus more heavily on China, which he called “the top threat that this country faces.”
Acknowledging that the GOP debate is being heard in Beijing, moderator Hugh Hewitt asked several questions about how the candidates would respond to what Republicans perceive as Chinese President Xi Jinping and his government’s existential threat to the United States.
Citing President Trump’s missed goal of a 355-ship Navy, he asked Haley if the 300 ships he got during his term, and the 291 that remain, are enough to defeat and deter an invasion of Taiwan.
Haley showcased her international chops, citing the exact number of ships China has (350) and the number it will have in two years (400).
“We won’t even have 350 ships in two decades,” she said. “China has built up their military. It’s not just land, air and sea. They’re doing cyber. They’re doing artificial intelligence. America needs to modernize our military.”
She said U.S. support of Ukraine sent a message of strength to China, but it isn’t enough. The U.S. also needs to prohibit the sale of American land to China, stop Chinese investment in American universities and threaten to end trade relations until “they stop murdering Americans from fentanyl.”
DeSantis said the 291 ships the Navy currently has is “not enough. We have to have the ability to back up a strategy of denial of President Xi’s ambitions.”
He pledged to increase the number of Navy ships to 355 by the end of his first term and to 385 ships by the end of his second term and develop a path to 600 ships over the next 20 years.
“The future of freedom is going to be determined in the Indo-Pacific,” he said.
Florida, he added, had already banned China from buying land in the state and also kicked out Chinese Confucius Institutes from its universities.
Scott said Made In America investments would be necessary to combat China, which he deemed a “long-term threat,” second to the immediate threat of the U.S. border with Mexico.
Ramaswamy said he would increase the number of Navy ships by 20%, but said the real problem was U.S. dependence on China for much of its military systems, including the supply chain for F-35 jets and ships.
Additionally, several candidates said they would ban or force the sale of the popular and increasingly controversial social media app Tik Tok – and the topic led to a row betwee Haley and Ramaswamy for the second debate in a row.
TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is currently banned on federal government-issued mobile devices as well as government devices in many U.S. states over concerns about data sharing with the country's government.
Christie said he would ban TikTok during his first week as president, claiming that the app is “polluting the minds of American young people all throughout this country.”
Christie also used the issue to go after former President Donald Trump, saying he personally heard the former president talk about Tik Tok but said he did not ban it “when he could have and should have.”
“This is one of the big failings among many of the Trump administration,” Christie said.
DeSantis responded “yes” when asked if he would force the sale of the app, saying as a father he is concerned about the data the Chinese government is getting from young people.
“It's a full spectrum approach to be able to fend China off. Yes, military deterrence, yes, economic decoupling, but also their role in our culture – if we ignore that, we're not going to be able to win the fight,” he said.
Scott the U.S. should “ban TikTok, period.” The senator also said parents should have to give their kids under 14 permission to use the app.
Meanwhile, Haley used her initial time on the topic to respond to attacks directed her way from DeSantis and Ramaswamy during the previous question regarding China. DeSantis and Haley got into a back-and-forth over doing business with China while she was governor of South Carolina.
Ramaswamy then went after Haley mentioning her daughter used TikTok, adding “you might want to take care of your family first,” after Haley railed against the app in the last debate.
“Leave my daughter out of your voice,” Haley responded, adding “You’re just scum.”
In the previous GOP debate in September, Haley called TikTok “one of one of the most dangerous” social media apps, leading to a feud between Haley and Ramaswamy in which the former ambassador told the entrepreneur: “Honestly every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.”
Candidates offered a range of answers on how they would handle the issue of abortion following voters in Ohio Tuesday night voting to put protections for abortion access in the state constitution.
It marked the latest victory for supporters of abortion rights after voters in red states like Kansas also chose to keep the practice more widely available following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The issue has energized Democrats and left Republicans with questions over how to approach the topic ahead of 2024.
DeSantis – who signed a 6-week abortion ban in his state – said he stands “for a culture of life,” and the “pro-life cause” has been “ caught flat-footed” when the abortion issue has appeared on ballots in states since Roe v. Wade’s overturning.
Christie noted the topic of abortion is nowhere in the Constitution and therefore should be decided by each state and not at the federal level.
“I trust the people of this country, state-by-state to make the call for themselves,” he said.
The bigger issue, he said, is that the party needs to be "pro-life" throughout a person’s entire life.
“For the whole life means that the life of a 16-year-old drug addict on the floor of the county lockup is precious and that we should get treatment for her to restore her life,” Christie said.
Scott also made the point that the party should “not only be pro-life before the child was born, we should be pro-life after the child is born just as much.”
“We have an opportunity in this nation to stop that reckless behavior from states like California to New York and Illinois,” he said, referring to their unrestrictive abortion policies.
Scott definitely said he would support a ban on abortions after 15 weeks at the national level and called on former U.N. ambasador Gov. Nikki Haley and DeSantis to join him.
Haley said she is “unapologetically for life,” but argued lawmakers in Washington need to find a consensus on the issue because any policy would need to have the support of the majority of the House, 60 senators and the president occupying the White House.
“As much as I'm pro-life, I don't judge anyone for being pro-choice, and I don't want them to judge me for being pro-life,” she said.
“So let's find consensus. Let's agree on how we can ban late-term abortions. Let's make sure we encourage adoptions and good quality adoptions. Let's make sure we make contraception accessible,” Haley added.
She continued to push for a consensus on the issue and said while she would “support anything that could pass,” would not answer whether she would sign a 15-week ban.
Ramaswamy then went after Haley for not answering in specific weeks.
“You should be honest – not making a political calculus – but to say if it was served up, would you sign it?” Ramaswamy said.
He added he was disappointed in the results in Ohio – his home state – and argued there needs to be “sexual responsibility for men.”
“We live in an era of reliable genetic paternity tests that are 100% reliable, so we can say men deserve more responsibility,” he said.