Nikki Haley has never been a good debater whereas Ron DeSantis has, so it was unsurprising how their one-on-one debate at CNN went. CNN, although liberal, was perhaps to the right of Fox News and easily more professional. As soon as the bell rang, punches were thrown between DeSantis and Haley, and there was a decisive winner in the Iowa debate.
What exacerbated Haley’s poor performance was her insistence on referring viewers to “DeSantis Lies Dot Com.” It is always bad to mention a campaign website in a debate, but Nikki Haley made it a drinking game that puts people in the hospital. The Hill reported the number to be 16 times that Haley plugged her website which is undoubtedly a presidential debate record. It came across as a desperate crutch answer because she did not have or could not articulate a rebuttal.
Ron DeSantis roasts Nikki Haley for siding with BLM rioters during Summer 2020:
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) January 11, 2024
“She was virtue signaling to the Left, she was accepting the narrative, and she was trying to impress people who were never going to like us.” pic.twitter.com/yWnZ6Ha1Se
Perhaps the biggest own was over Ukraine when Ron DeSantis said “You can take the ambassador out of the United Nations, but you can’t take the United Nations out of the ambassador.”
You can take the ambassador out of the United Nations, but you can’t take the United Nations out of the ambassador. pic.twitter.com/n3wBmAfMan
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) January 11, 2024
Nikki Haley’s most successful line of attack was to go after DeSantis for traveling with Rep. Thomas Massie, one of the best Congressmen, because he’s not sufficiently pro-Israel. She would attack his meme after the debate. Yet how much of this will actually sink in the minds of Iowa’s voters who caucus on Monday?
But it appears universal that Ron DeSantis crushed Nikki Haley last night.
