As they seek to consolidate the non-Trump Republican primary vote, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley are sparring over how the U.S. should handle Palestinian refugees fleeing the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas.
DeSantis accused Haley of wanting to bring Palestinian refugees into the U.S. in an interview conducted Sunday evening at the Tampa airport, shortly after the governor greeted the 270 Americans he airlifted out of Israel.
“Nikki Haley would import people, that’s been her position,” DeSantis said. “I would not import.” The Florida governor then accused Haley of “trying to be politically correct” and said that her position was driven by a desire “to please the media and people on the left.”
DeSantis was responding to comments Haley made Sunday during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper in which she argued that U.S. policymakers should draw a distinction between Hamas terrorists and Gazan civilians.
“Half of them, at the time that I was there, didn’t want to be under Hamas’ rule. They didn’t want to have terrorists overseeing them. They knew that they were living a terrible life under Hamas. You have the other half that supported Hamas and wanted to be a part of that,” Haley said.
“We see that with Iran, too. The Iranian people don’t want to be under that Iranian regime,” she continued. “They don’t- we saw what happened to Mahsa Amini. We saw how they treat them. There are so many of these people who want to be free from this terrorist rule. They want to be free from all of that. And America’s always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists. And that’s what we have to do.”
DeSantis’s campaign and supporters have jumped on that quote, with the Never Back Down PAC writing in a post on X that “Nikki Haley argues in support of bringing Gaza refugees to America.”
A Haley campaign spokesperson replied in a statement to National Review, saying the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations never called for such a thing and “opposes the U.S. taking in Gazans. She thinks Hamas-supporting countries like Iran, Qatar, and Turkey should take any refugees.”
If that is the case, she and DeSantis have a similar outlook on the issue. The Florida governor said at a campaign event over the weekend that “the Arabs should be taking them. If you have refugees, you don’t fly people in and take them to the United States of America.”
A Republican operative told National Review that “it’s really outrageous that DeSantis and his online minions are straight-up lying about Nikki.”
The rhetorical disagreement seems to stem from the 2024 candidates’ perception of Gazan civilians: Haley has argued that at least half of Gazans are repulsed by Hamas, while DeSantis has said that the antisemitic nature of the Gazan education system makes the population more receptive to terrorism.
“In Gaza, they teach the kids to hate Jews,” DeSantis said later in the NBC interview. “If you look at the textbooks, Israel is not on the map of the Middle East. And so, this is embedded in the culture.” He continued, saying the antisemitic nature of Gazan culture is a good reason not to allow its refugees into the U.S.
“I don’t think that you’re gonna find a lot of polling suggesting that they believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state,” he said. “And I don’t think you would find a lot of pro-Jewish sentiment amongst the population.”
To that point, Haley would be able to cite her record at the U.N.
“Nikki was the one who fought to defund UNRWA, who produces those textbooks,” a GOP operative told NR. “She did more than anyone to crack down on Hamas and its supporters. What did DeSantis do?”
This tit-for-tat demonstrates where the GOP presidential primary stands. At the moment, DeSantis and Haley are the two highest-polling alternatives to former president Donald Trump.
In national polls, DeSantis holds second place to Haley’s third, and early-state numbers show DeSantis behind Trump in Iowa. Haley, meanwhile, holds second place in New Hampshire and South Carolina. For DeSantis, who was at one point the clear non-Trump candidate in the race, attacking Haley may be a way to stave off her rise and consolidate the support of Republican primary voters who want a new nominee. For Haley, a successful fight with the Florida governor might help her move into pole position to take on the former president.