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Haley on homeownership and DeSantis on colleges were nice solid answers that seem out of place in what this nomination contest has so far been.
Haley has mounted two substantive attacks on Trump so far tonight. First on China. Haley alleged that Trump focused on the bilateral trade relationship with Beijing at the cost of ignoring its export of fentanyl precursors and its importation of U.S. technology, which China used for military means. Second, Haley attacked Trump on the deficit spending that occurred during his administration that contributed to inflation.
Haley, so far, is the only one who has ventured criticism of Trump. (Twice.) It’s like a bigfoot sighting in its rarity.
Anybody buying this idea that Vivek Ramaswamy is going to walk into a meeting with Xi Jinping, and put the Chinese ruler in his place, and tell him how it’s going to be from here on out? Anybody think Xi is going to be quaking in his boots, coming face-to-face with a 38-year-old tech bro? Color me skeptical.
We’re 45 minutes in, and barely any mention of Trump — who is about 50 points ahead nationally and 30 points ahead in early primary states. If they aren’t saying why they’re better than Trump, what are they even doing here?
Haley doesn’t come across well when she brags about her big-money donors and how DeSantis is angry because they don’t support him anymore. She is not good when taunting. She squarely lost the exchange on Chinese trade, which is a shame because she actually leveled a very solid criticism against Trump’s record on China, which just sort of went by the wayside.
Haley promise to “end all normal trade relationships with China” is a real escalation. She goes even further than DeSantis just did on the wall in making explicit her critique of China.
DeSantis may be pandering and overselling, but his answer about building a border wall and using military force on the border is very clearly thought-out and based on carefully considered policies on declaring cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and taxing remittances to Mexico to fund the wall.
You could practically see the strain to which DeSantis committed himself in the effort to avoid blaming Trump for not building the border wall and having Mexico pay for it.