Candidates not named Donald Trump are at war over the time and place of their next showdown after the Republican National Committee bowed out of the debate cycle last week. The former president and current front runner, meanwhile, continues to refuse to step on stage with the competition.
Nikki Haley called Trump’s absence “an arrogant approach.”
“You can’t have an election and not appear on a debate stage in front of the people who are going to be voting for you,” the former South Carolina governor told an Iowa reporter last week before adding that she “totally expects” Trump on stage at some point.
But there is only one debate currently on the calendar before the Iowa caucuses, a contest hosted by CNN, and Haley has not said whether she will attend.
“Since the RNC pulled out of the debates, many new offers have come in. We look forward to debating in Iowa and continuing to show voters why Nikki is the best candidate to retire Joe Biden and save our country,” Olivia Perez-Cubas, a spokeswoman for Haley, told RealClearPolitics.
The Haley campaign did not say when or where another Iowa debate should occur, but regardless of the forum, Perez-Cubas reiterated that it “should include Donald Trump.”
That isn’t likely. Trump has boycotted each of the previous four debates, alternatively dismissing them as “a complete waste of time” or billing them as little more than auditions for those later interested in serving as his vice president. Despite his absence, the former president has pulled away from the rest of the field. He leads a recent Des Moines Register poll by 32 percentage points in Iowa and by 47 points nationally in the RealClearPolitics Average.
The candidate happy to debate anyone? That is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He was quick to accept CNN’s invitation to debate in both Iowa and New Hampshire. And after he mixed it up with California Gov. Gavin Newsom during a Fox News exhibition, the DeSantis campaign called out Haley for not immediately agreeing to appear on stage again.
“Ron DeSantis has accepted every major debate and won each of them,” said Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for the governor’s campaign, who pointed to the Newsom contest as proof that DeSantis could take Republicans the distance in a general election and claimed that DeSantis “caused Nikki Haley to shrink into the backdrop” during their previous clash in Tuscaloosa last week.
“After that loss,” Griffin claimed, “it is no wonder why Haley has failed to confirm she will join Ron DeSantis on the debate stage in Iowa and New Hampshire next month.”
Haley has experienced an upward trajectory in the polls and attracted the support of new deep-pocketed donors, positive developments that earned her incessant attacks on stage. DeSantis argued that she would “cave” to the left and monied interest. Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy accused her of, among other things, being beholden to “puppet masters.”
“I love all the attention, fellas,” the only woman on stage told the men on her left and right that night. “Thank you for that.”
The focus remains. No candidate has yet managed to claim the mantle of viable Trump alternative. Sensing an opportunity, rivals have seized on Haley’s reluctance to commit to the CNN debate as weakness. But a source close to the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations seemed to shrug at all the incoming criticism: “DeSantis is acting rather desperate.”
Before the DeSantis campaign came after her for not committing to the CNN debate, Haley was going after Trump for not debating at all. “I think he’s gonna have to get on a debate stage here in Iowa because you’re fighting for Iowans votes,” she said last week in Iowa. “I think he’s got to sit there and do the groundwork.”
“This is what desperate people do, they cry and complain because they’re losing so bad they can’t do anything else,” Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, told RCP before alleging that money from communist China was propping up super PACs affiliated with Haley and calling her a “birdbrain.”
Such is the current debate about future debates. The RNC exit created an undeniable vacuum as television networks now scramble to set up new contests and book venues. News that CNN would host a debate at St. Anselm in New Hampshire even caught the college by surprise. Administrators said they were unaware that the event would take place. For now, it isn’t clear who will show up, either.
