Takeaways from CNN Town Hall with Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley

(CNN) — For a week and a half of the Iowa caucuses, the two Republican contenders for the 2024 presidential primaries tried to convince voters that Trump is not a sure bet to win, and to demonstrate their own electability.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley warned Republican voters in Iowa Thursday night that a re-run of former President Donald Trump could cost their party the White House in November.

DeSantis sought to show a more recognizable side of his personality. He opened by giving CNN moderator Caitlan Collins a jersey of University of Iowa women’s basketball star Caitlin Clark, mocking Haley, who mixed up their names over the weekend.

He also broke new political ground, saying he supported a “flat tax” (a single rate of national income tax, with no deductions or exemptions) and that he would abolish the Internal Revenue Service.

Meanwhile, Haley tries to prove that she is ready and strong enough to face difficult problems. She emphasized fiscal responsibility, argued that Israel should get everything it needs from the United States to fight Hamas, and described the approach she took to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the South Carolina statehouse when she was governor.

Both also argued that Trump’s legal battles could hurt the party’s efforts to defeat President Joe Biden in the general election.

Here are six takeaways for participating in CNN Forums:

Candidates set expectations

Polls show Trump with a clear lead in Iowa. But DeSantis and Haley insisted they would compete to win the state until the last possible moment.

“Don’t let the media or experts decide. Vote for who you think is the best president of the United States,” DeSantis said, promoting his appearance in all 99 Iowa counties.

Haley’s hopes of winning the Republican nomination are seen as more dependent on the outcome of the New Hampshire primary on January 23.

He even joked Wednesday while campaigning in New Hampshire: “You know how to do this. You know Iowa starts it. You know you can fix it.”

But he didn’t play down his chances in Iowa, telling voters Thursday night that his comments were a joke.

“You’ll see me fight to the end, the last day in Iowa,” he said. “And I’m not just going to play in one state. I am fighting in every state. Because I think it’s worth fighting for everyone.”

DeSantis and Haley take on Trump

Former President Donald Trump waves to the crowd at a campaign rally in Durham, NH on Saturday, December 16, 2023 (Credit: Reba Saldanha/AP)

DeSantis and Haley argued that choosing Trump as their nominee for a third consecutive term is a risk that Republican voters should not take.

Both were careful not to criticize Trump on the details of the charges he faces in federal courts, as well as in Georgia and New York. But they portrayed him as a candidate whose personal drama would doom the Republican Party.

“Anarchy follows. And we can set fire to a deranged country and world and not go through four more years of anarchy. “We’re not going to last,” Haley said.

He said she used to tell Trump he was “her worst enemy”.

“We have a country to save and that means no more drama. No more taking things personally,” said the former UN ambassador.

DeSantis has repeatedly bemoaned the charges, saying they gave the former president a political boost because they rallied a Republican base that sees the legal action as politically motivated. But he warned Iowa voters Thursday night that the tests Trump will face this year could hurt him against Biden.

“Whatever might be beneficial in the primary doesn’t necessarily mean it will be beneficial in the general election,” DeSantis said.

“We are putting the future of the Republican Party, and perhaps the future of the nation, in the hands of 12 juries in heavily Democratic Washington,” he said.

Evolution of DeSantis

The DeSantis who appeared at the forum this Thursday night were not the same DeSantis from earlier in the 2024 Republican primaries. He started by giving Collins a basketball jersey. He used popular language such as “like it or not” and “I admire you.”

He did not immediately address the social issues he likes to talk about, such as health care restrictions for transgender people or abortion. And the Florida governor argued that while Trump was only running on issues that mattered to him and Haley was running for her donors, DeSantis was fighting for “you” the average voter.

DeSantis was also more eager than ever to warn about Trump as a candidate. “The Democrats want Trump to be the nominee,” he said.

DeSantis wasn’t just working to appeal to the most activist Republican voter base. He tried to appeal to a wider audience. It was a marked change from past appearances by DeSantis, who critics noted as too rigid and difficult to relate to.

The candidates debated guns hours after the Iowa shooting

Law enforcement officers work at the scene of a shooting at Perry High School on January 4, 2024 in Perry, Iowa, US. (Credit: Scott Morgan/Reuters)

Thursday’s CNN town hall took place hours after a school shooting in Perry, Iowa, that left one high school student dead and five others injured. DeSantis was asked how, in light of the attack, he would address the issue of gun violence in schools without limiting the right to bear arms.

DeSantis cited gun reforms passed by his predecessor, Republican Gov. Rick Scott, in the weeks following the February 2018 shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which a gunman killed 17 people.

“Everything we’ve done, as school resource officers, we help with enforcement, but we also help identify students who are exhibiting really problematic behavior,” DeSantis said. That this student had very serious problems.

A Florida law passed in March 2018 also raised the age limit for purchasing firearms in the state from 18 to 21 and extended the waiting period for purchases from one to three days.

DeSantis was asked if he supports ending the three-day waiting period, which is currently supported by a Florida state senator. He said he favors instant background checks.

“You shouldn’t be in a mandatory waiting period,” DeSantis said. “Instant controls will work.”

Haley also focused her response on mental health and safety.

“We have to deal with the cancer that is mental health,” he said.

He said the country does not have enough mental health therapists, mental health centers and addiction centers, and that insurance sometimes does not cover treatment. Haley also called for protecting schools the way the country protects airports and courthouses.

When asked if she supports any restrictions on guns, Haley said she has a concealed weapons permit and doesn’t support restricting people’s ability to protect themselves.

“We can go and take a certain type of gun from you today, and it will make you feel better today. But within a week there will be another shooting,” he said. “Instead, why don’t we work harder. And take care of mental health? If we start doing that, I know we’ll see a reduction in what’s happening.”

Haley revises his answer on the Civil War

Audience members watch Nikki Haley speak during CNN’s Republican Town Hall on Thursday. (Credit: Rebecca Wright/CNN)

Haley had one of the worst weeks of her campaign last week after failing to mention slavery when asked what caused the Civil War. One of his Republican opponents, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, suggested he did not mention slavery because he feared offending people.

When asked about the backlash to her comments, Haley reiterated that she thinks it’s true.

“I should have said about slavery from the beginning, but if you grow up in South Carolina, literally in second and third grade you learn about slavery,” he said. “I was thinking about beyond slavery and talking about the lessons we will learn moving forward. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

CNN’s Erin Burnett asked Haley to share discussions about slavery when she was growing up, and brought up Haley’s own history with racism. In previous interviews and in her memoir, Haley described many racist incidents that she and her parents, who are Indian immigrants, experienced after moving to their rural South Carolina hometown.

“We face our own challenges,” he said. “I remember picking up at the playground and coming home. My mom always said, ‘Your job isn’t to show them how you’re different, your job is to show them how you’re the same.’

She also spoke about how she handled two major moments of her governorship: the fatal police shooting of Walter Scott and the white supremacist shooting at Emanuel AME Church. After the shooting of Scott, a black man, Haley signed into law police body cameras. After the church attack, he called for the Confederate battle flag to be removed from the Capitol grounds.

Haley said the South Carolina Emanuel AME Church wanted to avoid “riots and protests” after the shooting because he realized half the state saw the flag as “heritage and tradition” and the other half saw it as “slavery and hate.”

“My job was not to judge any party,” he said. “My job was to make them see the best in themselves and move on.”

DeSantis takes a soft tone on abortion

DeSantis faced difficult and persistent questions about his position on abortion, a departure from debates in which the issue has been largely ignored.

While maintaining his anti-abortion record, DeSantis sought a softer tone in discussing the government’s role in enforcing the ban, which he signed. DeSantis was also evasive when asked how the onus falls on women to access the exceptions included in Florida’s six-week ban.

However, his answers are likely to be used against him in the general election campaign. (Haley, who has discussed her position in more detail, is not asked about it here.) In the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade and the push to outlaw the procedure in many subsequent states are deeply unpopular in both parties.

DeSantis continued to attack Trump from the right and told Collins that he did not believe the former president was truly opposed to abortion.

“For pro-life voters in Iowa, Donald Trump is taking positions that are very different from what he claimed to believe when he first ran for president,” DeSantis said.