Florida

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Will Skip the GOP Debate and Attend a Fund-Raiser Instead

      by

      The fourth Republican debate will be held next Wednesday night in Alabama. The former president has not attended any of the previous debates.As his Republican rivals wrestle for attention at the fourth G.O.P. debate next week, Donald J. Trump will again be absent from the stage.Instead, Mr. Trump, the party’s front-runner for president, will attend a fund-raiser next Wednesday for his super PAC, MAGA Inc., in Hallandale Beach, Fla., according to two people familiar with his plans.The private event is a departure from Mr. Trump’s activities during the three previous Republican National Committee debates this year. Mr. Trump also did not attend any of those debates, but he held public counterprogramming events to draw attention to his own campaign. He and his aides have cited his dominating lead in the polls in calling on the R.N.C. to cancel future debates — a suggestion that committee members have not entertained.Mr. Trump, who is running in the style of an incumbent president, continues to outpace his nearest rivals by more than 40 percentage points in most national polls. His absences from the previous debates have not dented his support, even as some of his rivals have criticized his nonattendance directly from the stage.During the first debate in August, Mr. Trump promoted a taped interview with Tucker Carlson. In September, he spoke at a nonunion Michigan factory during the strike by the autoworkers’ union. And this month, he held a rally in Hialeah, Fla., at which he called the third debate, taking place less than 15 miles away, a waste of time.The fourth debate, which will be held in Tuscaloosa, Ala., next Wednesday, is one of the final opportunities for the Republican candidates to build momentum before the early primary contests in Iowa and New Hampshire in January. It is expected to feature the smallest lineup this cycle: Several candidates who attended prior debates have dropped out of the race, and those who remain face heightened requirements to make the stage.Candidates for the fourth debate are required to have a minimum of 80,000 unique donors, up from 70,000 donors for the most recent debate. They will also need to reach 6 percent — up from 4 percent — in two national polls or in one national poll and one poll in one of the four early states.The official debate lineup has yet to be announced. But three candidates other than Mr. Trump are expected to qualify: Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida; Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador; and Vivek Ramaswamy, a wealthy entrepreneur.Mr. Trump has gotten personally involved in the push to cancel the remaining debates, aggressively pressuring the Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, according to people briefed on the matter. She has declined to do so.Maggie Haberman More

    • 138 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Musk ‘believes in America’: DeSantis defends X owner after antisemitic post

      by

      Ron DeSantis defended Elon Musk as “a guy that believes in America” on Sunday as the Florida governor refused to condemn X’s billionaire owner for an antisemitic post that caused numerous key advertisers to desert the social media platform.In an interview Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, the Republican Florida governor claimed he had not seen the message on the platform that was formerly known as Twitter. The message – in which Musk said an X user who accused Jewish people of hating white people was speaking “the actual truth” – was denounced by the White House on Friday as “abhorrent”.Instead, DeSantis dedicated his remarks on CNN to exalting Musk as a banner carrier for free speech. And he dismissed other prominent right wingers who have expressed antisemitic positions as “fringe voices”.“Elon has had a target on his back ever since he purchased Twitter, because I think he’s taking it into a direction that a lot of people who are used to controlling the narrative don’t like,” said DeSantis, whose campaign for the Republican 2024 nomination continues to crater. “I was a big supporter of him purchasing Twitter.”When State of the Union host Jake Tapper brought Musk’s widely condemned “actual truth” message to the screen, DeSantis said he had “no idea what the context is” and said he would not “pass judgment on the fly”, although he said he stood against antisemitism “across the board”.“I know Elon Musk,” DeSantis said. “I’ve never seen him do anything. I think he’s a guy that believes in America, I’ve never seen him indulge in any of that. So it’s surprising if that’s true.”Critics have previously accused the governor of being slow to condemn rallies by neo-Nazis in his state, some carrying flags with the words: “This is DeSantis country.” He has attempted to portray the criticism as a “smear campaign” by political opponents while a campaign aide posted a “reprehensible” tweet suggesting DeSantis’s Nazi supporters were actually Democratic party staffers.After Sunday’s CNN interview, senior Democrats were skeptical of DeSantis’s insistence he hadn’t seen Musk’s message. The message drew headlines globally and prompted disgusted major companies – including Apple, Disney, IBM and Warner Brothers – to suspend advertising on X.“The guy’s running for president, and Elon Musk [posted] that on Wednesday. It’s Sunday. So this is four days later, and he has not had the chance to read what Musk wrote? That is very hard for me to believe,” Democratic US House member Jamie Raskin of Maryland told Tapper.“You showed it to him, and he still refused to condemn it. If you’re serious about condemning and confronting antisemitism, and racism, and these bigotries, which are the gateway to destruction of liberal democracy, you’ve got to be explicit and open and full throated about it when you’ve got [the opportunity] to denounce antisemitism and racism across the board.”DeSantis has vocally supported Israel since its war with Hamas began in October. On Sunday, he urged greater US support for the Israeli’s military’s onslaught against Hamas in Gaza.“We need to let Israel win this war,” DeSantis said. “We should support them publicly and privately to actually finish the job, because if you just do some glancing blows, Hamas is going to reconstitute itself and we’re going to end up in the same cycle going forward.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Israel’s in a situation where they suffered the biggest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. You have an organization, Hamas, that wants to wipe Israel totally off the map. This is not just some minor dispute. This is an existential threat to the survival of the world’s only Jewish state [and] they have to do whatever they can to protect their people.”DeSantis pointed to his ban of a pro-Palestinian student group from Florida’s university campuses, a policy challenged in court this week on free speech grounds, as an example of standing up to terrorists.“We have Jewish students fleeing for their lives because you have angry mobs,” he said. “I have constituents in Florida whose kids don’t even want to go to campus … because of such a hostile environment.”Tapper, in a thinly disguised dig at DeSantis’s well publicized previous attacks on minority students on grounds of race and gender, replied: “Absolutely Jewish students, just like Muslim students, Black students, gay students, or all students, should feel safe on campuses.” More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      When It Comes to Disdain for Democracy, Trump Has Company

      by

      It makes perfect sense to treat Donald Trump as the most immediate threat to the future of American democracy. He has an ambitious plan to turn the office of the presidency into an instrument of “revenge” against his political enemies and other supposedly undesirable groups.But while we keep our eyes on Trump and his allies and enablers, it is also important not to lose sight of the fact that anti-democratic attitudes run deep within the Republican Party. In particular, there appears to be a view among many Republicans that the only vote worth respecting is a vote for the party and its interests. A vote against them is a vote that doesn’t count.This is not a new phenomenon. We saw a version of it on at least two occasions in 2018. In Florida, a nearly two-thirds majority of voters backed a state constitutional amendment to effectively end felon disenfranchisement. The voters of Florida were as clear as voters could possibly be: If you’ve served your time, you deserve your ballot.Rather than heed the voice of the people, Florida Republicans immediately set out to render it moot. They passed, and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed, a bill that more or less nullified the amendment by imposing an almost impossible set of requirements for former felons to meet. Specifically, eligible voters had to pay any outstanding fees or fines that were on the books before their rights could be restored. Except there was no central record of those fees or fines, and the state did not have to tell former felons what they owed, if anything. You could try to vote, but you risked arrest, conviction and even jail time.In Wisconsin, that same year, voters put Tony Evers, a Democrat, into the governor’s mansion, breaking eight years of Republican control. The Republican-led Legislature did not have the power to overturn the election results, but the impenetrable, ultra-gerrymandered majority could use its authority to strip as much power from the governor as possible, blocking, among other things, his ability to withdraw from a state lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act — one of the things he campaigned on. Wisconsin voters would have their new governor, but he’d be as weak as Republicans could possibly make him.It almost goes without saying that we should include the former president’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election as another example of the willingness of the Republican Party to reject any electoral outcome that doesn’t fall in its favor. And although we’ve only had a few elections this year, it doesn’t take much effort to find more of the same.I’ve already written about the attempt among Wisconsin Republicans to nullify the results of a heated race for a seat on the state Supreme Court. Voters overwhelmingly backed the more liberal candidate for the seat, Janet Protasiewicz, giving the court the votes needed to overturn the gerrymander that keeps Wisconsin Republicans in power in the Legislature even after they lose a majority of votes statewide.In response, Wisconsin Republicans floated an effort to impeach the new justice on a trumped-up charge of bias. The party eventually backed down in the face of national outrage — and the danger that any attempt to remove Protasiewicz might backfire electorally in the future. But the party’s reflexive move to attempt to cancel the will of the electorate says everything you need to know about the relationship of the Wisconsin Republican Party to democracy.Ohio Republicans seem to share the same attitude toward voters who choose not to back Republican priorities. As in Wisconsin, the Ohio Legislature is so gerrymandered in favor of the Republican Party that it would take a once-in-a-century supermajority of Democratic votes to dislodge it from power. Most lawmakers in the state have nothing to fear from voters who might disagree with their actions.It was in part because of this gerrymander that abortion rights proponents in the state focused their efforts on a ballot initiative. The Ohio Legislature may have been dead set on ending abortion access in the state — in 2019, the Republican majority passed a so-called heartbeat bill banning abortion after six weeks — but Ohio voters were not.Aware that most of the voters in their state supported abortion rights, and unwilling to try to persuade them that an abortion ban was the best policy for the state, Ohio Republicans first tried to rig the game. In August, the Legislature asked voters to weigh in on a new supermajority requirement for ballot initiatives to amend the State Constitution. If approved, this requirement would have stopped the abortion rights amendment in its tracks.It failed. And last week, Ohioans voted overwhelmingly to write reproductive rights into their State Constitution, repudiating their gerrymandered, anti-choice Legislature. Or so they thought.Not one full day after the vote, four Republican state representatives announced that they intended to do everything in their power to nullify the amendment and give lawmakers total discretion to ban abortion as they see fit. “This initiative failed to mention a single, specific law,” their statement reads. “We will do everything in our power to prevent our laws from being removed upon perception of intent. We were elected to protect the most vulnerable in our state, and we will continue that work.”Notice the language: “our power” and “our laws.” There is no awareness here that the people of Ohio are sovereign and that their vote to amend the State Constitution holds greater authority than the judgment of a small group of legislators. This group may not like the fact that Ohioans have declared the Republican abortion ban null and void, but that is democracy. If these lawmakers want to advance their efforts to restrict abortion, they first need to persuade the people.To many Republicans, unfortunately, persuasion is anathema. There is no use making an argument since you might lose. Instead, the game is to create a system in which, heads or tails, you always win.That’s why Republican legislatures across the country have embraced partisan gerrymanders so powerful that they undermine the claim to democratic government in the states in question. That’s why Republicans in places like North Carolina have adopted novel and dubious legal arguments about state power, the upshot of which is that they concentrate power in the hands of these gerrymandered state legislatures, giving them total authority over elections and electoral outcomes. And that’s why, months before voting begins in the Republican presidential contest, much of the party has already embraced a presidential candidate who promises to prosecute and persecute his political opponents.One of the basic ideas of democracy is that nothing is final. Defeats can become victories and victories can become defeats. Governments change, laws change, and, most important, the people change. No majority is the majority, and there’s always the chance that new configurations of groups and interests will produce new outcomes.For this to work, however, we — as citizens — have to believe it can work. Cultivating this faith is no easy task. We have to have confidence in our ability to talk to one another, to work with one another, to persuade one another. We have to see one another, in some sense, as equals, each of us entitled to our place in this society.It seems to me that too many Republicans have lost that faith.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump classified documents trial running about four months behind schedule

      by

      Donald Trump’s trial on charges that he retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and obstructed justice is running about four months behind schedule after the federal judge presiding in the case in Florida declined to set a crucial filing deadline until at least next March.The US district judge Aileen Cannon put off setting a deadline for Trump to submit a notice about what classified information he intends to use at trial – currently set for May – until after a hearing next year that almost certainly precludes the pre-trial process from finishing in time.Trump was indicted this summer with violating the Espionage Act when he illegally retained classified documents after he left office and conspiring to obstruct the government’s efforts to retrieve them from his Mar-a-Lago club, including defying a grand jury subpoena.But the fact that Trump was charged with retaining national defense information means his case will be tried under the complex rules laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa, which governs how those documents can be used in court.At issue is the sequential nature of the seven-stage Cipa process, meaning each previous section has to be completed before the case can proceed to the next section. A delay halfway through the process invariably has the net effect of delaying the entire schedule leading to trial.The judge last week indicated she was inclined to delay the start of the trial at any rate, expressing concern that Trump’s criminal cases in New York and Washington could “collide” with the documents case in Florida because they are all scheduled to commence between March and May.But even on a purely logistical basis, the May trial date is almost certain to be pushed back after Cannon last week issued a delayed pre-trial schedule and then effectively cemented those delays on Thursday with her latest order.The revised timetable itself delayed a series of crucial Cipa dates. Most notably, Cannon will not hold the Cipa section 4 hearing – to decide whether the special counsel Jack Smith can redact certain information from the classified documents turned over to Trump – until February, instead of the original October date.On Thursday, the judge made her most consequential decision yet when she rejected a request from the special counsel that she set a deadline for Trump to submit his Cipa section 5 notice, writing that she would only address that at a subsequent 1 March hearing to decide future scheduling matters.The ruling was significant because, based on an analysis of Cannon’s initial and revised scheduling orders, Trump’s deadline to file the section 5 notice concerning what classified information he intends to use in his defense at trial may not come until potentially next April.In her original scheduling order that projected the current May trial date, the judge allowed Trump to take 32 days between the end of the section 4 hearing and having to file his section 5 notice.Should Cannon allow Trump to have the same 32 days from the end of the 1 March hearing to submit his section 5 notice, that would suggest a new deadline of roughly the end of March or the start of April – an overall delay of roughly four months.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe order in that sense amounted to a victory for Trump, who has made it no secret that his overarching legal strategy is to seek to delay the trial, ideally beyond the 2024 election in November, in the hopes that winning could enable him to potentially pardon himself or direct his attorney general to drop the charges.That new timetable almost certainly leaves insufficient time to complete the Cipa process, according to Espionage Act experts, because the final sections, dealing with the admissibility of redacted classified documents into evidence at trial, are typically the most onerous.Section 5 itself can be lengthy because the defense often files a notice that the government finds too vague, and the Trump legal team would likely be no exception. The special counsel would have to challenge the vagueness of Trump’s notice, which would add weeks of litigation.In section 6(a), the judge holds a hearing to decide the relevance and admissibility of the classified information Trump wants to disclose at trial. But a final ruling might not come for weeks afterwards, not least because Cannon may choose to look through all of the classified documents herself to reach a decision.If Cannon decides at her discretion that Trump can use all the classified information he wants at trial, section 6(c) says the special counsel can propose to Cannon that Trump instead use unclassified “substitutes” or, more commonly, redacted versions of the documents.But Trump could challenge any redactions on the basis that a jury could draw a prejudicial inference from them. If Cannon sides with Trump, the special counsel can appeal under section 7 to the 11th circuit. If the appeals court also rules against the government, the attorney general must decide whether to drop elements of the case. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Ohio Voted to Protect Abortion Rights. Could Florida Be Next?

      by

      A coalition of groups collecting petition signatures for a ballot protecting abortion rights says its fund-raising got a boost after the Ohio results.Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, campaigns to protect abortion rights have galvanized voters in state after state. It has become Democrats’ most successful issue ahead of an uncertain 2024 election cycle — and their biggest hope, especially after voters in Ohio approved on Tuesday a measure to enshrine abortion rights in the State Constitution.That triumphant streak has propelled campaigns for similar abortion measures in swing, or potentially swing, states, including Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Pennsylvania. But none might be as tantalizing a prize as Florida, which has moved increasingly out of Democrats’ grasp in electoral contests.But getting a question on next year’s ballot in the state is hardly guaranteed.Like in Ohio, Florida’s government is controlled by Republicans. Also like Ohio, Florida has put in place a six-week abortion ban, with its enactment pending approval by the state’s Supreme Court. (That case centers on Florida’s existing 15-week ban, but affirming that restriction would then trigger the six-week ban approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis in April.)Abortion rights supporters reacted after the ballot measure in Ohio passed. Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThe parallels between the two states give Florida organizers hope for success, despite steep obstacles that include a court review of the proposed ballot measure and a costly petition-gathering process. If voters in Florida get to weigh in on the abortion question, organizers say, they too are likely to want to protect their rights.“Florida has always been a deeply libertarian state,” said Anna Hochkammer, executive director of the Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition. “‘Find your tribe, find your people, live your life — we’ll leave you alone.’ It’s part of Floridian culture. And Floridians reject outright that the government should be involved in these decisions. It is deeply offensive to Floridians’ sense of independence and freedom.”Since June 2022, when Roe was overturned, states have given voters a direct say on abortion access, either to protect abortion rights, weaken them or explicitly exclude them from state constitutions. Kansas, Kentucky and Michigan all voted to expand or maintain abortion rights.In Florida, a coalition of groups under the umbrella organization of Floridians Protecting Freedom, including Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union, has collected a little more than half of the nearly 900,000 petition signatures it needs for a ballot measure that aims to limit “government interference with abortion” before a fetus is considered viable, which is often around 24 weeks of pregnancy. Abortion was legal up to 24 weeks in Florida until last year.The coalition had collected about $9 million by the end of September but says its next report will show that more than $12 million has been raised. Most donations have come from Florida, with limited interest so far from the out-of-state donors who propelled campaigns in Ohio and elsewhere.The coalition raised more than $300,000 on Wednesday after the Ohio victory, Ms. Hochkammer said, with more people clicking through the group’s fund-raising emails or taking calls.State Senator Lori Berman of Florida speaking at a news conference in March to voice her opposition to the state’s near total abortion ban.Alicia Devine/Tallahassee Democrat, via Associated Press“The phones started ringing, and pledges started coming in,” she said. “I think that there were a lot of people that were sitting on their money, waiting to see what happened in Ohio. And we had a great day.”Among the places where volunteers and paid petition-gatherers have found eager supporters are screenings of the “Barbie” movie and the Taylor Swift Eras Tour movie, both of which have feminism as a key theme and strong female leads, said Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates.The coalition still needs to collect — and the state must validate — about 400,000 more signatures by Feb. 1, a difficult and expensive task.The ballot language must also be approved by the conservative-leaning Florida Supreme Court. The state’s Republican attorney general, Ashley Moody, announced a challenge to the measure last month.She and several groups that oppose abortion have argued that the measure is too broad, vague and misleading. Florida requires that ballot questions be clear and limited to a single subject.“This effort to hoodwink the Florida electorate should be rebuffed,” Ms. Moody wrote in a legal brief filed Oct. 31.The ballot question, which would include a summary of the amendment that would be added to the State Constitution if the initiative passes, would read in part, “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.” The question does not adequately define “viability”; whether “the patient’s health” would include mental health; and who would be considered a “health care provider,” Ms. Moody argued.“It’s abortion on demand for any reason,” said John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council, a conservative Christian group. “It’s not only extreme, but it’s deceptive — and that’s a problem.”Mr. Stemberger said there was “a very good chance” that the State Supreme Court, whose ideological balance has shifted from liberal to conservative, could strike down the amendment. If not, his organization and others have already formed a political committee, Florida Voters Against Extremism, to prepare for a campaign.“Ohio is just a reminder that we still have a lot of work to do,” he said. “We have to go back to the drawing board and explain to people why unborn children are valuable, why adoption is always the better option.”Unlike in Ohio, where protecting abortion rights passed with about 57 percent of the vote, Florida requires citizen-led ballot initiatives to obtain more than 60 percent of the vote to pass. A University of North Florida poll found last year that 60 percent of residents opposed the 15-week ban after they were told that it does not include exceptions for rape or incest.Ms. Hochkammer said the coalition’s polling suggested that more than 70 percent of Floridians supported the abortion rights measure, including 64 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of voters who supported former President Donald J. Trump.Florida voters have tended to support ballot measures championing liberal causes, even while also electing Republican leaders who in many cases later watered down or undermined the implementation of those measures once in office.Until recently, Florida was considered the nation’s largest presidential battleground, with elections decided by tiny margins and former President Barack Obama winning the state twice. But Republicans have been making gains: Mr. Trump won by more than three percentage points in 2020, and Governor DeSantis by 19 points, a landslide, last year.Still, significant citizen-led constitutional measures have done well once they have overcome the hurdles to make it onto the ballot.In 2020, voters backed a $15 hourly minimum wage — and Mr. Trump. In 2018, they voted to restore felons’ voting rights — and for Mr. DeSantis. In 2016, they voted to legalize medical marijuana — and for Mr. Trump.“We are not a deeply conservative, extremist state,” Ms. Hochkammer said. “We are a deeply gerrymandered state, and the fact that our divided election results have been skewing a certain way should not mislead people about what the political appetite is in Florida.” More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Outrage grows after ‘chilling call for genocide’ by Florida Republican

      by

      Outrage continues to grow over a public comment made by a Florida state Republican lawmaker calling for all Palestinians to die.The remarks came during a debate in the state legislature about calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s invasion of Gaza, which has so far killed more than 10,000 Palestinians, many of whom are children. The assault came after Hamas fighters attacked Israel from Gaza, killing at least 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostage.In the speech in support of the ceasefire resolution, the Democratic Florida state representative Angie Nixon said: “We are at 10,000 dead Palestinians. How many will be enough?”“All of them,” Michelle Salzman called in reply.Nixon acknowledged the interruption and said: “One of my colleagues just said, ‘All of them.’ Wow.”The Florida state house later voted 104-2 to reject Nixon’s resolution.Salzman’s office did not respond to a request for comment.The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair-Florida), the US’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said in a statement that Salzman’s remarks were a “chilling call for genocide” and a “direct result of decades of dehumanization of the Palestinian people by advocates of Israeli apartheid and their eager enablers in government and the media”.The news comes on the heels of the censure of the Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in the US Congress, after Tlaib echoed a popular rallying cry for Palestine that some have called antisemitic but others say is a call for Palestinian civil rights.The censure resolution, which was supported by 22 Democrats, punishes Tlaib for allegedly “calling for the destruction of the state of Israel” and “promoting false narratives” about the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel.In Florida, calls for Salzman to be censured are being made by those opposed to her comments.“Salzman’s words are incredibly dangerous and dehumanizing to Palestinians here at home and under the Israeli occupation,” the Cair-Florida executive director, Imam Abdullah Jaber, said. “She must face her party’s censure and a public repudiation from all Florida legislators.”Hours before Nixon’s speech, Israel agreed to daily four-hour humanitarian pauses. But Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, reportedly rejected a deal for a five-day ceasefire with Palestinian militant groups in Gaza in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages.On Thursday, Joe Biden said there was “no possibility” of a ceasefire. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Support for Israel and verbal sparring propel fiery third Republican debate

      by

      The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and other foreign policy issues dominated Wednesday’s fiery third debate of Republican presidential hopefuls in Miami. Candidates pledged wholehearted support for Israel’s military response following last month’s Hamas attacks, and clashed over Ukraine, China and immigration.The debate, minus Donald Trump, the runaway favorite for the party’s 2024 nomination who was hosting his own private rally elsewhere in the area, was a more bitter affair than its predecessors in Wisconsin and California. Lively verbal sparring sometimes regressed into insults, with Nikki Haley at one point calling one of her rivals “scum”.The candidates also grappled over immigration, the devastatingly bad night for Republicans in Tuesday’s elections, and the party’s staunchly anti-abortion stance on abortion that analysts say was the reason.Discussion over Israel’s actions in Gaza were, however, most prominent.“I will be telling Bibi [Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu] to finish the job once and for all with these butchers Hamas. They’re terrorists. They’re massacring innocent people. They would wipe every Jew off the globe if they could,” Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, said.Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations, was equally forthright. “The first thing I said to him when it happened was, ‘finish them’. They have to eliminate Hamas, [we have to] support Israel with whatever they need whenever they need it, and three, make sure we bring our hostages home.”DeSantis took credit for chartering flights to rescue stranded Americans in Israel, but overreached by claiming “there could have been more hostages, if we hadn’t acted”. The DeSantis flights, which some have criticized as a de facto foreign policy, took place after Hamas took about 240 hostages on 7 October.Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been criticized for controversial racial comments, took potshots at each other. Haley’s policies, Ramaswamy said, fueled war, and in a reference to a former vice-president called her “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels”.“I wear five-inch heels, and don’t wear them unless you can run on them,” she shot straight back. “I wear heels not for a fashion statement – they’re for ammunition.”A further unpleasant exchange between the two came in a discussion about the Chinese social media platform TikTok. “In the last debate, she made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time, so you might want to take care of your family first,” Ramaswamy sniped.“Leave my daughter out of your mouth,” Haley interjected. “You are just scum.”Haley performed well in the first two debates, and has enjoyed a recent surge in popularity. She had painted DeSantis as an isolationist at a time when, she said, the US needed to work with global partners, and their feud continued Wednesday with bickering over China, each accusing the other of operating policies favorable to one of America’s foes.But the pair were united in tearing strategically into the absent the former president, who they trail by a significant margin in the race for the nomination. Trump, DeSantis said, “owes it to you to be on this stage”.“He said Republicans were gonna get tired of winning. Well, we saw it last night: I’m sick of Republicans losing,” DeSantis said, referring to Tuesday’s Democratic electoral successes in Kentucky and Virginia.Haley said: “I think he was the right president at the right time. I don’t think he’s the right president now. I think that he put us a trillion dollars in debt and our kids are never gonna forgive us for that. I think the fact that he used to be right on Ukraine and foreign issues – now he’s getting weak in the knees and trying to be friendly again.”The South Carolina senator Tim Scott, who is trailing in the polls, was asked how he would assist Ukraine in its battle against Russia, but pivoted to criticizing the Biden administration’s border policies. He warned that “terrorist cells” were entering the country from Mexico.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThen he said: “The American people are frustrated that they do not have a president who reminds us and tells us where’s the accountability. Where are those dollars? How are those dollars being spent? We need those answers for us to continue to see the support for Ukraine.”Joe Biden has asked Congress for $106bn for Ukraine and Israel aid.Scott said he wanted to see the southern US border closed to immigrants, Ramaswamy said he would build a wall there and at the northern border with Canada, while DeSantis repeated his previous promise to send troops to the border and shoot drug smugglers “stone-cold dead”.Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, spoke of a need to deter China from invading Taiwan as the debate moved to other foreign policy topics. “We need to go straight to our nuclear submarine program, and we need to increase it drastically,” he said.Christie weighed in on the TikTok debate, saying the platform was “not only spyware – it is polluting the minds of American young people all throughout this country, and they’re doing it intentionally”. As president, he said, he would ban it.Regarding abortion, which was behind many of the Republican losses on Tuesday, Haley expounded a softer position than other candidates that might yet resonate with voters. “As much as I’m pro-life, I don’t judge anyone for being pro-choice, and I don’t want them to judge me for being pro-life,” she said.Trump, meanwhile, says he is so far ahead in the race for the nomination, more than 44 points, according to Real Clear Politics (RCP), as to make debate meaningless. In campaign messaging on Tuesday, he called it “a battle of losers”.While Trump’s own candidacy is mired in legal troubles that could yet derail him, his remaining rivals are not even close. Scott, Christie and Ramaswamy are all polling in the low single digits, leaving DeSantis and Haley, themselves only at 13% and 9%, per RCP, as the most viable alternatives.There will be one more Republican debate, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on 6 December, before the 2024 primaries begin with the Iowa caucuses on 15 January.The field, already down to five in Miami after the withdrawal of former vice-president Mike Pence and non-qualification of North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, could be further reduced by then. And after Wednesday’s debate concluded, a campaign adviser said Trump would also not be present in Alabama. More

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Calls to ‘finish’ Hamas and ‘you’re just scum’: key Republican debate takeaways

      by

      The third Republican debate was held in Miami on Wednesday, with frontrunner Donald Trump once again foregoing the debate for his own rally nearby.The pool has dwindled since the last debate, and Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott and Chris Christie seemed to be more serious and focused this time around as they answered questions on the Israel-Hamas war, immigration, abortion and the federal budget. Even so, the debate had moments where it devolved into a shouting match, with petty barbs and personal attacks.Here are the main things to know about the debate.1. The Israel-Hamas war was top of mind – and the rhetoric turned uglyThe candidates largely tried to one-up each other on their unequivocal support for Israel and its military response to the Hamas attacks on October 7, with the exception of Vivek Ramaswamy, who said the US should not be as actively involved in regional wars.“The first thing I said when it happened was, I said, finish them. Finish them,” Haley said about Hamas, touting her former position as special envoy to the United Nations under Donald Trump. DeSantis, meanwhile, focused on the flights he chartered for Floridians in Israel before overstating his aid to the Israeli government.When asked about how the impact of the war was playing out on college campuses in the US, however, DeSantis seemingly denied the existence of Islamophobia, and said he would quash some pro-Palestine student groups.The candidates did not address the estimated 10,000 Palestinian civilians killed by Israel’s strikes and its ground invasion in Gaza.2. After Republican election losses, candidates tried to regain ground, especially on abortionThe day before the debate, the Republican party saw major losses across the country, from the Virginia state legislature to Kentucky’s governorship. The candidates addressed that head on.“We’ve become a party of losers,” Ramaswamy said in his opening statements. “We got trounced last night in 2023. And I think that we have to have accountability in our party.”Many of the election losses were in states where Republicans were trying to enact stricter abortion laws after Roe v Wade was overturned last year. DeSantis, Christie and Haley tried to address that issue by backing away from rightwing anti-abortion rhetoric and focusing on states’ rights to choose.Haley, in particular, took the most measured stance, saying she did not judge those who support abortion and that a federal abortion ban was politically untenable.3. Haley and DeSantis continued to battle for second placeWhile neither Haley nor DeSantis are polling anywhere close to Trump, they stood out in the pack throughout the debate.Haley focused on her experience in the UN and on foreign policy issues, and DeSantis on his tenure as Florida governor. Both seemed to try to remain more composed than usual, with Haley only reacting to barbs from Ramaswamy.“Our world is on fire,” Haley said in her closing remarks. “We can’t win the fights of the 21st century with politicians from the 20th century.”Not far from the debate hall, Trump held a campaign rally. But fellow Florida man DeSantis avoided many direct attacks on the former president.“This is not about me, this is about you,” he said in his opening and closing remarks.4. There were personal attacks – particularly involving RamaswamyRamaswamy started his debate by attacking the media, the RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, and even the NBC moderators, seemingly as part of his attempt to portray himself as the anti-establishment candidate.He then turned his focus to Haley. “Do you want a leader from a different generation who is going to put this country first, or do you want Dick Cheney in three-inch heels?” he said, criticizing her hawkish foreign policy positions.And when it came the entrepreneur’s turn to talk about his policy on TikTok, Ramaswamy referred to Haley and said: “In the last debate, she made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time. So you might want to take care of your family first.”“Leave my daughter out of your voice,” Haley shot back. When Ramaswamy went on, she dismissed him, saying: “You are just scum.”5. Candidates were more serious and focused than in past debatesThe earlier debates, with larger candidate pools, have tended to be circus-like in their atmosphere, with more riffs and off-topic detours. From the opening statements, the debate seemed to be more focused on the issues Americans are grappling with, from war in the Middle East and in Ukraine, and kitchen-table issues such as social security.The seriousness of the candidates seemed to reflect that the primary season was just around the corner, and that positioning themselves strategically around Trump would mean building more trust with American voters. More