Chris Christie raging at Vivek Ramaswamy is, I must admit, spectacularly entertaining.
Don’t make Chris Christie angry! You won’t like Christie when he’s angry!
All of these candidates, even Ramaswamy, are generally good on Israel and Iran (although Ramaswamy’s lack of depth is still exposed here). At some point, the debate needs to move on from this.
Nikki Haley remains the only candidate on the debate stage drawing the audience’s attention to the connections between America’s adversaries and their overt, unabashed coordination in their respective military challenges to American hegemony.
Haley seems to be making a direct connection between the Ukrainian war and the timing of 10/7, and…that strikes me as a rather novel argument.
Chris Christie hit on DeSantis for not directly answering question about sending troops to rescue American hostages in Gaza was a reach. Christie said as president, DeSantis couldn’t get away with dodging the question. True, but he also wouldn’t have to make a flash decision and explain it in 90 seconds. Also, DeSantis’s points about not handcuffing Israel and taking it to Iran would more likely result in a release of the hostages.
“As the father of two sons, my sole moral duty” is to them, says Vivek. Moral exclusives of this sort are a serious category error.
“I believe I have the strongest pro-Israel position on this stage,” Vivek says to the audience’s laughs after he criticizes Nikki Haley for noting that over 30 American citizens were killed on 10/7, rendering Hamas’s massacre an attack on America, too.
Christie says he’d send US troops into Gaza to get American hostages back. That’s all well and good if it’s the only option, but he’s really missing the point that the best way to deal with hostages is to back our ally on the ground – Israel – to the hilt.
Great answer from DeSantis on Israel, and the need to confront Iran.