DES MOINES, Iowa — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who served as the Trump administration’s United Nations ambassador, diverged primarily on their records as lawmakers and leaders in their one-on-one Jan. 10 debate at Drake University.
But in matters of substantive policy, the two Republican presidential candidates vying to emerge as former President Donald Trump’s most viable challenger in securing the GOP nomination most distinctly diverged on three issues: Ukraine, Israel, and Social Security.
Ms. Haley said she’d sustain support for Ukraine in fighting off Russia’s invasion.
“Dictators always always do what they say they’re going to do. China said they were going to take Hong Kong—they did. Russia said they were going to invade Ukraine—we watched it. China says Taiwan is next—we better believe them,” she said.
“Russia, once they take Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltics are next. Those are NATO countries. And that puts America at war. This is about preventing war.”
United States support for Ukraine is “only 3.5 percent” of the nation’s defense budget, she said.
“This is a pro-American, freedom-loving country. And we better remember that you have to be a friend to get a friend and we needed a lot of friends Sept. 12,” she said.
“We’ve got to make sure that we’re having the backs of the right friends because if Russia wins, China wins. There’s a reason the Taiwanese want us to help the Ukrainians, and that’s because they know if Ukraine wins, China won’t invade Taiwan. This is about preventing war.”
Mr. DeSantis said Ms. Haley “is basically a carbon copy of what Biden is. It’s an open-ended commitment” when the nation is already $35 trillion in debt.
“We need to find a way to end this because our priorities for national security” are not defending Ukraine, he said, adding, “People like Nikki Haley care more about Ukraine’s border than she does about our own southern border, which is wrong, but we also have to look at what’s the top threat to this country—it’s the Chinese Communist Party.”
Ms Haley said it is a false choice to say “you have to choose between Ukraine or Israel or Israel and securing the border,” noting military assistance for both is “only 5 percent of our defense budget. If we support Ukraine, Israel, and secure the border, that’s less than 20 percent of Biden screen subsidies. You do not have to choose when it comes to national security. This is about keeping Americans safe. This is about preventing war.”
Mr. DeSantis countered.
“She doesn’t articulate how this comes to an end,” he said, adding Ms. Haley said in a previous debate that she’d “bring it to an end by bringing Ukraine into NATO. But of course, we’re a NATO country. So if you bring Ukraine into NATO, that puts the United States at war.”
Mr. DeSantis said he would not try to impose a two-state solution on Israel, while Ms. Haley, “when she was at the U.N., she supported the idea of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. The problem with that is the Palestinian Arabs don’t recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. So, doing a two-state solution doesn’t create something that’s going to lead to lasting peace.”
Ms. Haley “was wrong when she embraced that,” he said. “We trust Israel to make these decisions. They’re a good ally of ours, we should trust their judgment on these sensitive issue.”
Mr. DeSantis said Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Arab states have “never been willing to accept” Palestinians into their countries to relieve pressures on Gaza and the West Bank.
Ms. Haley said she would support a two-state solution—if there were two states that agreed to the solution.
“When I was at the United Nations, I fought every day for Israel. And if you wouldn’t listen to what I said at the United Nations, a two-state solution wasn’t possible because Israel would always come to the table and the Palestinians wouldn’t,” she said.
“But right now, we have to make sure that Israel has the support that it needs.”
Social Security
Ms. Haley said she supports raising the Social Security retirement age to 70 years old but over a multi-decade span.“We go to those in their 20s and say, ‘We’re going to change the retirement age to reflect life expectancy. Instead of cost-of-living increases, we do increases based on inflation, we limit benefits on the wealthy, and we expand Medicare Advantage plans with seniors,” she said.
“Let’s just put this in perspective,” Mr. DeSantis said. “Under her administration, you would have seniors getting less cost-of-living adjustments while your tax dollars are going to pay the pensions of Ukrainian bureau.”
Ms. Haley noted Mr. DeSantis voted three times when he was in Congress to raise the Social Security eligibility age.
Mr. DeSantis said that was then, and this is now.
“One of the things that I think we disagree on, too, is Gov. Haley has said Social Security is an ‘entitlement.’ You know, it’s not an entitlement. You’re paying into it. It’s not a welfare program,” he said. “You’re being taxed for this your whole life.”
