Half of the four Republican presidential candidates on a debate stage in Alabama on Wednesday night focused their attacks on former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who’s vying for the prized second place in the nominating contest.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy teamed up early in the debate to repeatedly hit Haley on issues including transgender health care, support for Ukraine’s and Israel’s war efforts and her backing from corporate and wealthy donors.

Haley welcomed the focus.

“​​I love all the attention, fellas,” she said. “Thank you for that.”

The extended exchange that defined the debate’s first half-hour segment — and reemerged throughout the two-hour event hosted by NewsNation — frustrated the fourth candidate on stage, Chris Christie. The former New Jersey governor has made criticism of former President Donald Trump, the far-and-away leading candidate in the field, the cornerstone of his campaign. Trump, as in the previous three debates sanctioned by the Republican National Committee, refused to take part.

Christie criticized the others on stage at the event at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, all of whom are polling better than he is, for not taking on Trump. He bemoaned in his first remarks of the evening that Haley, DeSantis and Ramaswamy were too focused on each other and hadn’t even mentioned Trump.

“For us to go 17 minutes without discussing the guy who has all those gaudy (polling) numbers you talked about is ridiculous,” Christie told the moderators, who’d cited Trump’s large lead in the polls.

“The fact of the matter is he is unfit to be president,” he added.

Trump garners nearly 60% of GOP voter support, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average.

Trump instead appeared on a Fox News town hall Tuesday. Host Sean Hannity asked Trump, who was central to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, to dispel concerns he wouldn’t respect democratic norms in his second term.

Trump responded that he wouldn’t be a dictator, “except for Day 1,” when he implied he would exercise extreme powers to control the border and expand fossil fuel development.

“We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling,” he said. “After that, I’m not a dictator.”

Haley in crosshairs

Haley was the target of attacks by DeSantis and Ramaswamy in their first remarks of the debate, as they accused her of being in the pocket of Wall Street and criticized her foreign policy positions.

Although Trump leads the field by a wide margin, the race for second place has been tightening for months, as Haley’s poll numbers have improved largely at the expense of DeSantis. While DeSantis still leads Haley in most national polls, the two were tied at 16% in a recent Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa survey.

Haley has edged ahead of DeSantis in recent New Hampshire and South Carolina polls, and got a high-profile endorsement from Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-affiliated PAC.

Ramaswamy also criticized Haley’s backing from Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, the American-based multinational investment management firm, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, whom he called “George Soros Junior,” as well as criticizing her previous position on the board of Boeing after leaving the United Nations.

The entrepreneur said that an “establishment” candidate like Haley will change her policy positions to align with these large corporations supporting her campaign.

Haley denied the accusation, saying that these backers support her because of her positions, not because she changed them. The former U.N. ambassador pointed to her decision to leave Boeing after the business sought a “corporate bailout” following the COVID-19 pandemic, a decision she did not agree with.

“There’s nothing to what he’s saying,” Haley responded. “And in terms of these donors that are supporting me, they’re just jealous.”

DeSantis also criticized Haley’s relationship with multinational corporations, saying that she would support businesses like BlackRock that want to use “economic power to impose a left-wing agenda on this country.”

He pointed to a Florida law he signed banning environmental, social and governance, or ESG, investing strategies — when a firm considers non-financial environmental, social and government factors when making investments — for the state’s public investments.

“The next president of the United States needs to be able to go to that office on day one and end ESG,” DeSantis said. “And the fact of the matter is, we know from her history, Nikki will cave to those big donors when it counts.”

Social media and national security

The two candidates also criticized Haley for saying that she would require identity verification by name for people posting on social media.

Haley said on Fox News in November that she would require social media companies to share their algorithms with the U.S. government, and that she would require name verification to address “national security” concerns with Russian, Iranian and Chinese bots.

The former South Carolina governor defended her comments on the debate stage, saying that her position was focused on getting rid of foreign influences on social media, not on restricting American rights.

“As a mom, do I think that social media would be more civil if we went and had people’s names next to that?” Haley said. “Yes, I do think that, because I think we’ve got too much cyberbullying. I think we’ve got child pornography and all of those things. But having said that, I never said government should go and require anyone’s names.”

DeSantis and Ramaswamy repeatedly went back to criticisms of Haley throughout the debate. Ramaswamy, who has battled with the former ambassador since the first debate in August, held up a piece of paper with “NIKKI = CORRUPT” written on it.

He also compared her to Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender woman who is a social media personality, and said Haley was using “identity politics” to advance her campaign.

Haley declined to respond to his criticisms later in the debate, saying, “It’s not worth my time.”

Christie was the only candidate to not attack Haley on the debate stage, instead defending her against Ramaswamy’s onslaught.

“Nikki and I disagree on some issues,” Christie said. “But I’ll tell you this: I’ve known her for 12 years — which is longer than he’s even started to vote in the Republican primary — and while we disagree about some issues, and we disagree about who should be president of the United States, what we don’t disagree on is this is a smart, accomplished woman and you should stop insulting her.”

Though he defended Haley, the former New Jersey governor went after DeSantis for not directly answering questions posed by the debate moderators, like whether Trump was mentally fit to serve as president, as he would be older when taking office for his second term than President Joe Biden was in 2021.

“Is he fit, or isn’t he?” Christie said. “I’ll concede: You’re fit, Ron, you’re a new generation … This is my problem with my three colleagues, they’re afraid to offend.”

Christie continues anti-Trump crusade, mostly alone

Christie also kept up a relentless focus on Trump, saying that the former president’s comment about being a dictator was not a joke.

“It’s completely predictable,” he said. “He’s made it very clear if there’s no mystery to what he wants to do.”

“This is an angry, bitter man who now wants to be back as president because he wants to exact retribution on anyone who has disagreed with him, anyone who has tried to hold him to account for his own conduct, and every one of these policies that he’s talking about are about pursuing a plan of retribution,” he added.

Christie predicted that Trump would be unable to vote for himself because he’d be convicted of federal felonies before Election Day.

Trump faces federal charges in two cases and state charges in two others. All criminal charges are scheduled to go to trial next year.

DeSantis, who was an ally of Trump as a U.S. House member and received the then-president’s endorsement in his gubernatorial race, and Haley, who was ambassador to the United Nations during Trump’s term, took some shots at Trump, but declined opportunities to go harder on the former president.

Asked if Trump was unfit for office because of his age, DeSantis called for a new generation of leadership, but didn’t answer directly.

“Father Time is undefeated,” DeSantis said. “The idea that we’re going to put someone up there that’s almost 80 and there’s going to be no effects from that? We all know that that’s not true.”

Christie challenged DeSantis to answer the yes-or-no question.

“The rest of the speech is interesting, but completely non-responsive,” he said.

Haley praised Trump’s record on trade, but said his governing style was unproductive.

“We have to stop the chaos,” she said. “But you can’t defeat Democrat chaos with Republican chaos, and that’s what Donald Trump gives us. My approach is different: no drama, no vendettas, no whining.”

Disagreements on Ukraine, Israel aid

Foreign policy continued to provide an area of disagreement, especially between Haley and Ramaswamy.

Ramaswamy, who has aired isolationist views in previous debates, renewed his proposal to seek a peace agreement between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine, criticizing Haley for not knowing the names of the Ukrainian provinces she wanted to protect.

“Foreign policy experience is not the same as foreign policy wisdom,” he said.

Christie jumped in to defend Haley, blasting Ramaswamy’s pugilistic debate style.

“This is the fourth debate that you would be voted in the first 20 minutes as the most obnoxious blowhard in America,” he said.

Ramaswamy also said that as president, he would tell Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States is “rooting for” Israel to defeat the terror group Hamas, but would not be involved in the war.

“As your next president, my sole moral duty is to you, the people of this country,” he said.

DeSantis countered that U.S. citizens were among the victims in Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel.

Haley also argued for a more robust role in global conflicts, saying the U.S. should support Ukraine, Israel and — potentially — Taiwan against an alliance of Russia, Iran and China.

“There’s a reason the Ukrainians want to help Israelis,” Haley said. “Because they know that if Iran wins, Russia wins.”

Transgender issues

The issue of allowing minors to transition, either socially or medically, was also a hot topic on the debate stage.

DeSantis and Ramaswamy both called for banning gender-affirming surgeries for transgender youth, even with parental permission. Minors should not be allowed to get procedures like mastectomies, hormone replacement therapy and in rare cases, genital surgeries, the two candidates said, with DeSantis calling the medical interventions “mutilation.”

Moderators asked Christie to defend his position on transgender youth procedures as well as allowing students to socially transition — use a different name or pronouns than what they were given at birth — at school without parental permission.

Christie denied claims that he did not support requiring parental notification if a child uses a different name or pronouns at school, but said he would not support restricting parents’ rights to make choices for their minor children.

“Every once in a while, parents are going to make decisions that we disagree with,” Christie said. “But the minute you start to take those rights away from parents, you don’t know, that slippery slope, what rights are going to be taken away next.”

DeSantis interrupted Christie, saying that parents “do not have the right to abuse your kids.”

“This is mutilating these minors, these are irreversible procedures,” DeSantis said. “… I signed legislation in Florida banning the mutilation of minors because it is wrong. We cannot allow this to happen in this country.”

The Florida governor said he believes Christie has an “honest position” on the topic of transgender youth transitioning, but also criticized Haley for not signing into law a so-called “bathroom bill,” banning use of gendered facilities like school restrooms and locker rooms for people of the opposite biological sex, regardless of gender identity or legal gender.

Haley said that her position has changed on the issue of bathroom use by transgender people since she was governor of South Carolina.

“When the bathroom situation came up, we had maybe a handful of kids that were dealing with an issue, and I said, ‘We don’t need to bring government into this — but boys go into boys bathrooms, girls go into girls bathrooms, and if anyone else has an issue, they use a private bathroom,’” she said. “Now 10 years later, we see that this issue has exploded.”

She also claimed DeSantis was being hypocritical, claiming the Florida governor said on the campaign trail in 2018 that bathroom bills were not “a good use of his time.”

“I signed a bathroom bill in Florida, so that’s obviously not true,” DeSantis responded. “… You killed it, I signed it. I stood up for little girls, you didn’t do it.”

DeSantis also said he had spoken with South Carolina state legislators who told him that there were transgender women going into women’s facilities in the state at the time of the legislation’s proposal. Haley said that claim was false and that “South Carolinians never allowed that to happen.”

She also pointed to her opposition to transgender women competing in women’s sports, an issue she has referenced often on the campaign trail.

“Biological boys shouldn’t be playing in girls’ sports, and I will do everything I can to stop that because it’s a women’s issue of our time,” Haley said.

Five Republican candidates for president tussled over support for Ukraine and abortion policy at a debate in Miami Wednesday evening, while the leading contender for the nomination, former President Donald Trump, sought Latino votes in an event across town.

Trump, who consistently garners more than 50% in polls of Republican voters, once again declined to participate in what was the third debate of the primary race, holding his own rally in nearby Hialeah instead.

That left five candidates, the fewest of any GOP debate so far this cycle, vying to be the lead alternative to the former president in the two-hour debate aired by NBC News. The moderators were the network’s Lester Holt and Kristen Welker, joined by Salem Radio Network’s conservative host Hugh Hewitt.

The candidates — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina — largely agreed that the United States should support Israel’s war against Hamas, calling for aggressive action from the key U.S. ally in the Middle East.

But they showed sharp divisions on other issues, highlighted by a growing rift between DeSantis and Haley, whose position in the race has improved in recent weeks largely at the expense of the home-state governor, and a continuing quarrel between Haley and Ramaswamy that descended into personal attacks.

At one point, as each accused the other of being too friendly to China, Ramaswamy pointed out Haley’s daughter has an account on Chinese-owned TikTok. “You might want to take care of your family first,” he said.

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

On abortion, all of the candidates declared themselves against abortion rights. But the day after Republicans saw setbacks in state elections where abortion rights were central issues, Haley, Christie and DeSantis said the question would largely be left to states. Scott said he’d support a national ban.

In Hialeah, Trump focused his attention on Biden and Democrats — comparing the current administration to regimes in communist-led countries.

“If you don’t want to let the communists destroy America like they destroyed Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and so many other countries, you need to send the message by voting crooked Joe Biden … and every last Democrat, get them the hell out of office,” Trump told the crowd.

Trump’s shadow looms

In the first round of the questions, candidates were asked why GOP voters should support them over the race’s frontrunner.

DeSantis launched into a short stump speech that touched on inflation and border security.

He then criticized Trump for not appearing at the debates and said Republicans were losing elections with Trump as the most recognizable leader in the party.

“Donald Trump’s a lot different guy than he was in 2016,” he said. “He owes it to you to be on this stage and explain why he should get another chance. 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.”

Haley said Trump performed well as president, but that new leaders should address new challenges.

“He was the right president at the right time,” she said. “I don’t think he’s the right president now.”

Haley also criticized Trump for allowing the national debt to grow and said he “used to be right about Ukraine and foreign issues. now he’s gotten weak in the knees.”

Christie continued strong criticism of the former president, a consistent message in a campaign that has struggled to gain traction with a GOP electorate still largely loyal to Trump, who is facing criminal indictments in four cases.

“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,” Christie said.

At the Trump rally 15 miles away, the crowd cheered when the former president asked if it was the right decision to not participate in the debates.

“Somebody said, one of those dumber ones, ‘He doesn’t have the courage to stand up’ – Well, listen, I’m standing in front of tens of thousands of people right now, and it’s on television,” Trump said. “That’s a hell of a lot harder to do than a debate.”

The former president said he didn’t know who the “best” other Republican presidential candidate was, but said he liked “one of them” — referring to Ramaswamy.

“One of them said … on the stage – that, ‘President Trump is the greatest president in many generations,’” Trump said, referring to a past debate. “I sort of like him. … I mean, how can I dislike him? He’s so nice.”

He said he thought it was “okay” that Ramaswamy said he is running for president because he’s a younger version of Trump, but that “we want the older version, right?”

He briefly called out DeSantis by name, claiming the Florida governor only won his reelection campaign because of Trump’s endorsement.

Israel center stage

Debating for the first time since the Israel-Hamas war began Oct. 7, the candidates spent more time on foreign policy Wednesday.

All five used harsh language to describe what they would tell Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I will be telling Bibi: Finish the job once and for all with these butchers,” DeSantis said. “They’re terrorists. They’re massacring innocent people.”

The other candidates also called for Israel to destroy Hamas and criticized calls for a ceasefire, with Haley also dismissing even a temporary cessation of fighting to allow for humanitarian aid.

But differences emerged on Ukraine’s war with Russia.

Scott said he has supported Ukraine’s war effort, but said an aid package for both Israel and Ukraine, as President Joe Biden has proposed, was the wrong approach.

“We need to focus specifically on providing Israel with the $14 billion that they need so that we show the world that we are 100% undeniably standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel,” he said.

Aid to Ukraine, he said, should be conditioned on a higher degree of accountability “to understand where the resources have gone.”

As he has been since the start of the race, Ramaswamy was the most explicitly pro-Russia, criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and saying the regions of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded last year are culturally Russian.

“To frame this as some kind of battle between good versus evil: Don’t buy it,” he said.

He called Haley “the sharpest of the war hawks on Ukraine” who should be held accountable for her position.

Haley responded that Ramaswamy, a 38-year-old with no government experience, was naive about world affairs.

“I’m telling you, Putin and (Chinese) President Xi (Jinping) are salivating at the thought that someone like that could become president,” she said.

Ramaswamy also said that U.S. troops should be sent to the border with Mexico.

“We will use our own military to seal our own Southern border,” he said. “What we need to do is stop using our military to protect somebody else’s border halfway around the world, when we’re short right here at home.”

Abortion rights

The debate came a day after an Election Day that highlighted Republicans’ weakness on abortion rights, an issue that has remained salient in the nearly 18 months since the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear won reelection in heavily Republican Kentucky. Democrats in Virginia ran on a pro-abortion-rights message to win both chambers of the General Assembly and Ohio voters approved a measure to protect abortion rights in the state constitution.

All candidates said they were opposed to abortion, but, with Scott as a notable exception, most de-emphasized the role of the federal government and the president.

Scott called himself “100% pro-life,” and said as president he would enact a 15-week national ban.

Haley said she would sign any bill to limit abortion rights, but that it was not realistic to make such promises because a federal bill would have to get 60 votes in a U.S. Senate currently controlled by Democrats.

Instead, she said, abortion opponents should work with abortion rights supporters to find consensus on issues to expand access to contraception and adoption.

DeSantis said Republicans had to better contest ballot measures at the state level.

Christie said conservatives have long called for the issue to be decided on a state level, which he said was consistent with the foundations of U.S. democracy.

“The founders were really smart,” he said. “And this is an issue that should be decided in each state. I trust the people of this country, state-by-state, to make the call for themselves.”

Ramaswamy said it would take a “different generation of leadership to actually lead us forward and unite the country on this.”

Haley clashes with DeSantis, Ramaswamy

Haley, running third in most polls behind Trump and DeSantis, trained much of her rhetoric on the only candidate on stage ahead of her.

She said she would end formal trade relations with China until fentanyl was better controlled and noted DeSantis had not taken that position.

DeSantis criticized Haley for, as South Carolina governor, trying to lure Chinese companies to the state.

“She welcomed them into South Carolina, gave them land near a military base, wrote the Chinese ambassador a love letter saying what a great friend they were,” he said. “That was like their number one way to do economic development.”

Haley said relations with China have worsened in the 10 years since she sought economic development from the country.

She added that as governor, DeSantis has much more recently tried to bring Chinese companies to his state.

She also attacked DeSantis’ record opposing fracking in Florida. DeSantis’ presidential campaign supports fracking, a controversial part of extracting natural gas, but he has opposed it in Florida. DeSantis said Wednesday he only opposed fracking in the Everglades, but analysis has shown he campaigned on a broader objection.

Ramaswamy, whose isolationist foreign policy has been a central part of his campaign, referred to neoconservatives in the Republican Party who resembled “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels,” apparently referring to both Haley and DeSantis.

DeSantis didn’t respond to the dig, but Haley later said that her heels were “for ammunition.”

Trump holds separate rally

Trump took the stage in Hialeah, 15 miles away from the debate, his campaign declaring Florida is “Trump County.”

Trump called for supporters to help him win the Florida primary “for the third straight time.” Though the event coincided with the GOP presidential debate, Trump spent most of his time criticizing Biden.

He repeated false claims that Biden and Democrats “cheated” in the 2020 general election, and said that he is often asked by supporters if he expects Biden to try to “cheat again.”

“The radical left Democrats rigged the presidential election of 2020 and we’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election of 2024,” Trump said.

He said that Biden could not win a fair election, saying voters will not support a candidate whose presidency led to high inflation, international conflicts and “open borders.”

While Trump said he believed he could win in a rematch against Biden, he also claimed that the upcoming presidential election is the last chance to prevent his political opponents from permanently seizing power.

“This election will decide whether power in America belongs to them forever, or whether it belongs to you, the men and women who make this country great, who make this country run,” Trump told the crowd. “2024 is our final battle. Stand with me in the fight.”

Biden’s campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa released a statement Wednesday saying that Trump continues to lie about the 2020 election “rather than admit he lost — like an adult.”

“It would be sad, if it weren’t so dangerous,” Moussa said. “… The dangerous and erratic ramblings of a loser who can’t admit defeat only underscore that Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States.”

Trump highlights Sanders endorsement

While he briefly criticized DeSantis, Trump also highlighted another Republican governor supporting his campaign: Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Sanders, who served Trump as press secretary, endorsed her former boss Monday, and told the Florida crowd to help him return to the White House “because our country has never needed Donald Trump more than we do right now.”

Sanders said she faced countless attacks and “mean tweets” during her time as press secretary and governor — and that Trump has also faced constant criticism and scrutiny.

“I know that a lot of people may complain that President Trump was too loud, too disruptive, and sometimes even a little too direct,” Sanders said. “But to me, that’s the very best thing about this president. He tells it like it is.”

Sanders was not the only endorser Trump highlighted at the Florida event — he thanked comedian Roseanne Barr and rapper Lil Pump for their support while on stage. He also thanked Florida Republicans who endorsed him. The crowd booed when he thanked U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a Republican who voted against U.S. GOP Rep. Jim Jordan for House speaker.

“Oh, you don’t like him?” Trump asked. “What’s going on? Carlos! Come on now. Well, you got to get that straightened out.”

The mayor of Hialeah, Esteban Bovo, joined Trump on stage. He thanked Trump for holding an event in the city, and said that he plans to ask the Hialeah city council to authorize naming a street after Trump — holding up a road sign of “President Donald J. Trump Avenue” on stage.

“That’s an honor, great honor,” Trump said. “I did not know that. Thank you very much.”

Thousands attended the event in South Florida, which political analysts say was a strategic location to appeal to Florida Latino voters, including many Cuban Americans. In the most recent census, 95% of Hialeah residents identified as Hispanic or Latino.

Trump told the crowd Biden and Democrats were turning the U.S. into “communist Cuba.”

“We have some great Cubans here,” Trump said. “And nobody ever did more for Americans who love Cuba than a gentleman named Donald J. Trump when he was president.”

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The candidates polling from second to eighth in the race for the Republican nomination for president largely agreed on policy, fought over their records and took aim at former President Donald Trump at their second debate of the year Wednesday night.

Trump, who leads polls of the race by substantial margins, skipped the event at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, hosted by FOX Business, as he did for the first debate last month.

With Trump absent, the remaining major candidates spent much of the rest of the night largely espousing the same conservative positions on a host of issues: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

They criticized the Biden administration for what they called lax enforcement of the Southern border, decried a rise in crime and promised to be tougher on China. They promoted charter schools and rejected gender-affirming health care for transgender people. They pledged to reduce the size of the federal government and reverse President Joe Biden’s policies meant to transition away from fossil fuel use.

Confronted by moderators on the last question of the evening about how they planned to overcome their substantial polling deficits, DeSantis said voters in early states would make their own choices, regardless of polls.

In the latest FiveThirtyEight average of polls, Trump was the choice of 54% of GOP primary voters, with DeSantis a distant second at 13.8%.

UAW strike

The second Republican presidential debate coincided with United Auto Workers holding strikes in multiple states at American vehicle manufacturing facilities, including Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, for high pay, fewer hours per week and improved benefits. Another stipulation is ensuring manufacturing workers maintain job security during the industry transition to electric vehicles.

Democrats’ climate, taxes and social policy law provides tax credits for some electric vehicles, a policy Burgum criticized Wednesday.

Both Biden and Trump held events in Michigan this week, with Biden becoming the first sitting president to join a picket line with UAW workers at a Ford facility in Detroit Tuesday, and Trump holding an event just before the debate Wednesday at Drake Enterprises, a non-union auto parts shop, with some UAW members in attendance.

In the first question of the night, debate moderators asked Scott if he would fire the striking UAW workers if given the power. While the South Carolina Republican said the president does not have the power to fire private sector employees, he said Biden should be using his time elsewhere.

“We must make sure that we honor the commitments that we make,” Scott said. “And one of the ways that we do that: Do not overpromise and underdeliver, and leave the taxpayers on the hook. I’ll say this, Joe Biden should not be on the picket line. He should be on the Southern border working to close our Southern border.”

Ramaswamy said that the UAW workers should be striking at the White House instead of at manufacturing plants, because Americans’ fiscal woes come from “disastrous economic policies” passed in the nation’s capital.

“We needed to deliver economic growth in this country,” Ramaswamy said. “Unlock American energy – drill, frack, burn coal, embrace nuclear energy, put people back to work by no longer paying them more money to stay at home, stabilize the U.S. dollar itself and rescind a majority of those unconstitutional federal regulations that are hampering our economy. That is how we unleash American exceptionalism.”

Christie and – briefly – DeSantis knock Trump 

Trailing in the polls, two candidates – Christie and DeSantis – sought to bring Trump into the conversation, blasting the former president for skipping the debate.

Both mentioned Trump early, about 15 minutes into the debate.

Asked who was to blame for the impending partial shutdown of the federal government, Christie said everyone in Washington. He added that Trump should shoulder some blame for adding to the national debt during his four years in the White House and blasted Trump for being missing from the debate stage.

“Donald Trump, he hides behind the walls of his golf clubs and won’t show up here to answer questions like all the rest of us are up here to answer,” Christie said. “He puts $7 trillion on the debt. He should be in this room to answer those questions.”

DeSantis piled on.

“Donald Trump is missing in action,” DeSantis said. “He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record.”

Later, Christie spoke directly to the camera as he imagined Trump watching on television.

“You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on the stage and defending your record,” he said. “You’re ducking these things. And let me tell you what’s going to happen. You keep doing that, no one up here is going to call you Donald Trump anymore. We’re gonna call you Donald Duck.”

In a statement, Trump campaign senior advisor Chris LaCivita said the Republican National Committee should cancel future debates in deference to the former president.

“Tonight’s GOP debate was as boring and inconsequential as the first debate, and nothing that was said will change the dynamics of the primary contest being dominated by President Trump,” LaCivita said. “The RNC should immediately put an end to any further primary debates so we can train our fire on Crooked Joe Biden and quit wasting time and money that could be going to evicting Biden from the White House.”

CBS News later reported LaCivita said Trump would also skip the next debate, scheduled for November in Miami.

Ramaswamy, Haley tussle

One candidate on stage, Ramaswamy, drew most of the attacks from his competitors, following the large share of attention he grabbed in the first debate.

In perhaps the most heated moment of Wednesday’s debate, Haley criticized Ramaswamy, the only candidate who has not held elected office and who spent much of the first debate attacking the other candidates.

Moderators asked Ramaswamy about joining the social media service TikTok. China critics in the U.S. have voiced concerns about the platform’s Chinese parent company, saying it presents a national security risk to provide the company user data on Americans. Congress banned the app on government devices this year.

Ramaswamy defended his move, saying it was necessary for Republicans to speak to young people.

Haley, a foreign policy hawk, jumped in.

“Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say,” she told Ramaswamy, adding that he was naively downplaying the threats TikTok poses. “What they’re doing is, 150 million people are on TikTok. That means they can get your contacts, they can get your financial information, they can get your emails.”

Scott also directed attacks at Ramaswamy, saying his biotech businesses did business with China’s Communist Party.

And Haley and Scott scuffled over their records on spending.

Scott said he supported an amendment to the Constitution to require the federal government to run a balanced budget.

Haley said Scott’s rhetoric didn’t match his record in Congress, which controls federal spending.

“He’s been there 12 years and he hasn’t done any of that,” she said.

Scott later said that as South Carolina governor, Haley raised gas taxes and accepted federal spending.

“Talk about someone who has never seen a federal dollar she doesn’t like,” he said.

Immigration center stage

One of the lengthier segments of the debate centered on immigration policy and border security, with the candidates nearly unanimously voicing criticisms of the Biden administration’s approach and pledging to block illegal migration.

Haley said Biden “waved the green flag” to encourage migration to the United States.

Christie said Biden “is doing nothing about enforcing” the law at the border. But Christie sounded one of the softer notes on immigration of the evening, saying those who seek to move to the country legally should be welcomed to help fill 6 million job openings.

Ramaswamy said he would “militarize” the border and eliminate birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants in the country without authorization — a position certain to be challenged under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

DeSantis also said he would “use the U.S. military to go after the Mexican drug cartels.”

The candidates said a porous border with Mexico was to blame for the supply of illegal drugs like fentanyl. Haley also tied immigration to crime in U.S. cities including Philadelphia, though data shows immigrants who entered the country illegally are much less likely to be arrested for violent crime.

Trump and abortion

Trump came under fire from some members of the GOP following a September interview on MSNBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he said he does not support the call for a 15-week federal abortion ban advocated by other candidates in the 2024 Republican field.

In Iowa, the former president said that the issue of abortion was one of the issues causing Republicans to lose ground in elections, pointing to the 2022 midterms when a predicted “red wave” failed to come to fruition in many states.

All ballot measures voted on in states following the fall of Roe v. Wade, in both red and blue states, supported access to the medical procedure.

Trump also criticized DeSantis, for signing into law a so-called “fetal heartbeat” measure that would prohibit most abortions after six weeks of gestation.

“I mean, (DeSantis) is willing to sign a five-week and six-week ban,” Trump said in the interview. “I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”

The Florida governor on Wednesday night defended the state law he signed, as well as saying Republicans who oppose abortion rights did not need to cede ground on abortion in order to win elections.

“I reject this idea that pro-lifers are to blame for midterm defeats,” DeSantis said. “I think there’s other reasons for that. The former president … He should be here explaining his comments, to try to say that pro-life protections are somehow a terrible thing.”

Christie said that he could use his experience as governor of a traditionally Democratic state to advocate and sign abortion laws as chief executive.

“What you need is a leader who can talk to people and make them understand that if you’re pro-life, you have to be proactive for the entire life, not just the nine months in the womb,” Christie said. “And we talked a lot about fentanyl tonight. We haven’t spoken one moment about treatment, but we need to make sure that for the drug-addicted 16-year-olds who are in the county lockup, their life is precious too. … if you’re pro-life, you’ve got to be pro-life for the entire life.”

Pence and Obamacare

Pence was asked about his claim before taking the vice presidency that he would repeal the mandates imposed by the health care law President Barack Obama signed in 2010, with the debate moderators saying that these promises were not kept during the Trump presidency.

While the former vice president first answered by discussing his support for the federal death penalty for mass shooters, Pence later said that he believes that continuing the Affordable Care Act is “one of the choices” available moving forward.

He compared his approach to that of his former running mate, Trump, who he said wants to consolidate power in the presidency and executive branch.

“It’s my intention to make the federal government smaller by returning to the states those resources and programs that are rightfully theirs under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution,” Pence said.

“That means all Obamacare, all of housing funding, all of HHS funding — all of it goes back to the states. We’ll shut down the federal Department of Education, we’ll allow states to innovate. We’re going to revive federalism in America, and states are going to help bring America back.”

DeSantis, when asked about the large numbers of people who are not insured, said that lack of health care coverage is a symptom of “national decline” in the American economy. DeSantis linked rising insurance costs to “Bidenomics.”

“What we need to do with health care is recognize our health care (system) is putting patients at the back of the bus,” DeSantis said. “We have big pharma, big insurance and big government, and we need to tackle that, and have more power for the people and the doctor-patient relationship.”