President Donald Trump on Jan. 10 held a town hall in Iowa as his two leading rivals debated in his shadow.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took shots at each other at a debate hosted by CNN in Des Moines, Iowa. The two other contenders for the nomination, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, failed to meet the heightened requirements to take part in the debate.
Also in Des Moines, President Trump fielded questions from voters in a town hall hosted by Fox News, opting again to skip the debate and upstage the competition with counterprogramming.
The competing events came only five days ahead of the Iowa caucuses, the first major political contest of the 2024 campaign season.
Haley, DeSantis Take on Trump
Throughout the night, both Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis were called to speak critically of President Trump, who is far ahead of both of them in the polling.
At the start of the debate, Mr. DeSantis said—as he often has—that the former president is “running to pursue his issues.” Ms. Haley soon said that she doesn’t think the 45th president “is the right president to go forward,” touting herself as “a new generational leader.”
Mr. Tapper, one of CNN’s moderators, noted that President Trump had not accepted their invitation to take part in the pre-caucus debate. The former leader of the United States instead held a town hall elsewhere in Des Moines that aired on Fox News.
After citing former Vice President Mike Pence’s claim that the former president elevated himself above the U.S. Constitution on Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Tapper challenged Ms. Haley on whether she sees that founding document similarly to President Trump, who at one point was her boss when she was the country’s ambassador to the United Nations.
“He said that January 6th was a beautiful day. I think January 6th was a terrible day,” the candidate said before saying that the elections that year were indeed marked by “discrepancies.”
“That election—Trump lost it [and] Biden won that election,” she continued, saying that the former president would “have to answer” for Jan. 6 without specifying how or in what way. When pressed on the question of President Trump’s constitutional views by Mr. Tapper, she cited his challenges to the traditional process for choosing electors in run-up to the protests and riots on that day.
“You don’t ever allow in D.C. for those votes to be changed at the federal level. States’ rights matter,” she said.
Both candidates spoke in harsh terms about President Trump’s claim of presidential immunity in a District of Columbia federal appeals court, where he’s fighting Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case alleging he sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
His legal team argued that immunity even applied to a presidential directive aimed at assassinating a political rival.
“That attorney gave the case away on that explanation,” Mr. DeSantis said. “I think the D.C. circuit is going to rule against Trump on that issue.”
He added that he wasn’t certain of the “outer limits” of presidential immunity before stressing that he would “always … follow the Constitution.”
The Florida governor went on to argue that the former president would ultimately face trial in front of “a stacked, left-wing D.C. jury of all Democrats.”
Ms. Haley also rejected the Trump team’s argument, describing it as “absolutely ridiculous.”
“What has President Trump done? You look at the last few years, and our country is completely divided,” she continued.
When asked whether she thinks President Trump is pro-life, the former governor said, “Don’t ask me what President Trump thinks. You need to have him on this debate stage and ask him for yourself.”
Trump Fields Tough Question on Abortion
President Trump clarified his stance on abortion in response to a question from a pro-life voter who said that the issue was the most important for her.In his past campaigns, President Trump presented himself as strongly pro-life, pushing for the end of Roe v. Wade and strongly criticizing abortion.
The voter pointed out that recently President Trump has spoken out against some of the strictest anti-abortion statutes. He has said that these statutes are politically unpopular and bad for the Republican Party.
His concerns aren’t unfounded.
Several states—including deeply red ones—have tried to ban or restrict abortion through referendums. These efforts have failed in many cases.
Abortion ban referendums failed in Kansas and Kentucky, two of the reddest states in the union. Likewise, in Ohio—a former swing state that’s now generally considered a red-leaning state—voters chose to enshrine the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution.
Some observers blame strict abortion rhetoric and fears of abortion bans for Republicans’ lackluster performance in the 2022 midterm elections.
President Trump called the overturning of Roe v. Wade—achieved in no small part thanks to the three conservative justices he placed on the Supreme Court during his presidency—“a miracle.” But he also warned that Republicans need to be mindful of the effects of strict abortion policies on the GOP’s electoral success.
He explained that he’s opposed to abortion, but maintained his opposition to so-called “heartbeat bills,” which ban abortion once a heartbeat is detectable.
“A lot of people ... talk five or six weeks, a lot of women don’t know if they’re pregnant in five or six weeks,” he said.
He also said he’s in favor of the most commonly-cited exceptions—the health or life of the mother, cases of incest, and instances of rape.
“I happen to be for the exceptions, like Ronald Reagan, with the life of the mother, rape, incest,” President Trump said.
But despite his own personal opposition to abortion, President Trump said, electoral considerations shouldn’t be disregarded. He warned that if Republicans continue to lose due to hardline abortion stances, Democrats will be able to undo the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
“You have to win elections,” President Trump said. “Otherwise, you’re going to be back where you were, and you can’t let that ever happen again. You’ve got to win elections.”
President Trump suggested instead that he wants a middle way on abortion.
Trump Responds to Christie’s Exit
During his town hall, President Trump responded to news that former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was dropping out of the race.Just hours before cameras started rolling for President Trump’s town hall, Mr. Christie announced that he was ending his 2024 campaign.
“It’s clear to me tonight that there isn’t a path for me to win the nomination,” Mr. Christie told voters on Jan. 10. “Which is why I’m suspending my campaign for president of the United States.”
The move was far from unexpected, as Mr. Christie has consistently trailed in the polls.
Mr. Christie’s campaign departure marked the electoral finish of a candidate who had made criticism of President Trump a key pillar of his campaign strategy. It also means that only four of President Trump’s opponents remain in the race.
President Trump joked about Mr. Christie in response to a question about who his 2024 running mate will be.
“What about any of the people you’ve run against, would you consider mending fences?” host Martha MacCallum asked.
“Well, I’ve already started liking Christie better,” President Trump quipped in response.
“Christie for vice president?” she asked, laughing.
“I don’t see it, I don’t see it,” President Trump replied, also laughing.
The comment was met with whooping applause from the audience.
Mr. Christie, when he spoke publicly, has often been greeted with jeers and boos for his comments about President Trump.
President Trump indicated as well that he already has an idea of who he’ll choose as his running mate should he take the nomination, as he seems poised to do according to current polling.
“If you were the nominee … who would be in the running for vice president?” Ms. MacCallum asked.
“Well, I can’t tell you that really. I mean, I know who it’s going to be,” President Trump said.
“Give us a hint,” Ms. MacCallum pleaded.
“We'll do another show sometime,” President Trump said, smiling but still tight-lipped.
After President Trump left the stage, reporters also asked Jason Miller and Chris LaCivita, senior advisers for the Trump campaign, for more information on President Trump’s running mate. But these advisers were equally taciturn.
“That’s an issue that we really have not in any great detail discussed,” Mr. Miller told The Epoch Times, adding, “He’s shared with us the type of qualities that he’s looking for.”
President Trump will go public with his choice for vice president “on his timetable,” Mr. Miller added.
Mr. LaCivita said that Mr. Christie’s dropping out of the race changes nothing for the Trump campaign’s strategy.
“We’ve known that Chris Christie’s gonna drop off for quite some time,” he said. “It doesn’t change the trajectory, [or] the race whatsoever.”
The people who supported Mr. Christie, Mr. LaCivita added, were “mostly Democrats and independents that have a strong distaste for President Trump.”
Therefore, he said, “our strategy hasn’t changed.”
After dropping out of the race, Mr. Christie declined to immediately make an endorsement.
