Ramaswamy back on attack against Haley: 3 takeaways from the third Republican debate

The third Republican primary debate in Miami on Wednesday included the slimmest field of contenders to date, with three central candidates jousting among the five left on stage for primacy to become the last standing contender against Donald Trump.

But the anticipated showdown between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley was usurped by a series of bitter exchanges between entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and the former South Carolina governor, with an exasperated Haley at one point calling Ramaswamy “scum.”

With wars in Israel and Ukraine and a chasm over U.S. aid dividing the party, foreign policy sat at the forefront of the two-hour debate.

Ramaswamy attacked Haley as an overly hawkish pawn for the defense industry, citing her time serving on Boeing’s board of directors after her tenure as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Haley retorted that U.S. adversaries like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping were salivating at a hypothetical President Ramaswamy.

DeSantis sparred with Haley on fracking policy in Florida and the business they each did with China during their governorships. But Ramaswamy’s pugnacious performance is what will be remembered in this November clash, forcing Haley into a two-front verbal battle that complicated her goal of eclipsing DeSantis.

“DeSantis continues to mostly rise above the fray in these debates,” said Aaron Kall, director of debate at the University of Michigan. “This allows him to appear presidential and avoid the harshest attacks and viral moments that emerge.”

With Trump sitting on a 27-percentage point advantage with just over two months before Iowans head into caucuses, no candidate made a consistent case against the front-runner they’re all chasing.

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Here are three takeaways from the third Republican debate:

VIVEK BACK ON ATTACK

Vivek Ramaswamy, who dominated the first debate with his bellicosity and then tempered his approach during the second, returned to his arsenal of attacks on Wednesday, assailing NBC’s Kristen Welker, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis all within the first hour.

But arguably the most malicious interchange came at the top of the second hour, when Ramaswamy invoked Haley’s daughter for her use of TikTok.

“In the last debate she made fun of me for actually joining TikTok. Well, her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time. So you might want to take care of your family first,” Ramaswamy lectured, gesturing at Haley.

“Leave my daughter out of your voice,” Haley responded, shaking her head, before adding, “You’re just scum.”

Haley has contended the Chinese owned app, popular with young people, is being used by the Chinese Communist Party as an instrument of espionage. While Ramaswamy had previously called TikTok “digital fentanyl,” he has fully embraced the platform as a vehicle to reach voters in his insurgent campaign.

Many of the attacks Ramaswamy unleashed were clearly premeditated.

At the start of the debate, he aimed a double-barrelled assault on Haley and DeSantis for their embrace of military interventionism.

“I want to be careful of making the mistakes of the neocon establishment of the past,” Ramaswamy said. “Do you want a leader from a different generation who’s going to put this country first? Or do you want Dick Cheney in three-inch heels, in which case we’ve got two of them on stage tonight.”

While the audience erupted in groans following many of Ramaswamy’s barrages, Trump-supporting America-first conservatives showered praise on him online.

“I’m sure DeSantis appreciates that Vivek is taking the lead on attacking Nikki,” said Drew Klein, the Iowa state director for Americans for Prosperity, which is embarking on an anti-Trump campaign in the caucus state. “I don’t think it’s helping Vivek.”

DIFFERENT TACTS ON TRUMP

Unlike the first two debates, the moderators did not wait to raise the 45th president with his challengers. NBC’s Lester Holt asked for a contrast in his first question and the answers he received provided a window into the different playbooks being contemplated to catch the front-runner.

Whereas DeSantis raised Trump’s political weakness, Haley challenged Trump’s strength on the world stage.

“He said Republicans were going to get tired of winning. Well, we saw last night, I’m sick of Republicans losing,” DeSantis said, referring to GOP losses in Kentucky, Virginia and Pennsylvania on Tuesday night. “In Florida, I showed how it’s done. One year ago here, we won a historic victory, including a massive landslide right here in Miami-Dade county.”

The hiccup with DeSantis’ case that he’s better equipped to defeat President Biden is fresh polling showing Trump ahead of the Democratic incumbent in five of the six battleground states that will determine the 2024 Electoral College.

Haley rattled off a list of issues portraying a country in turmoil before characterizing Trump as going wobbly on global threats.

“He used to be right on Ukraine and foreign issues, now he’s getting weak in the knees and trying to be friendly again,” said the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Only Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, raised Trump’s approaching legal entanglements as a growing political liability.

“Anybody who’s going to be spending the next year and a half of their life focusing on keeping themselves out of jail and court rooms cannot lead this party or this country — and it needs to be said plainly,” Christie said.

CHRISTIE AND SCOTT SIDELINED

The center-stage pile-up, with DeSantis in the middle of a messy fight between Ramaswamy and Haley, left the other two remaining candidates as bit players who failed to land impressions.

Christie on one end of the stage and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, on the other end, delivered subdued performances that unlikely moved them out of their single-digit standings.

“Tim Scott’s vibe says, I might quit in the middle of this debate,” tweeted Tommy Vietor, the former National Security Council adviser to President Obama.

Christie has fallen to fourth place in New Hampshire, where he’s staked his entire candidacy and Scott is in fourth in Iowa, which traditionally only produces viability for the top three finishing candidates.

It’s unclear if either will qualify for the next debate, scheduled for Dec. 6 in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

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