Elections

Republican Primary Debate in Iowa: Live Updates

Florida governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley at the Republican debate hosted by CNN at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, January 10, 2024. (Mike Segar/Reuters)
Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley face off Wednesday night for the final GOP primary debate before the Iowa caucuses. For the first time, they won’t be sharing the stage with Chris Christie (who just dropped out) and Vivek Ramaswamy. Donald Trump, as with past debates, is not participating. The event in Des Moines is hosted by CNN. Follow along for live updates and analysis from the NR team:
Philip Klein

Nails against the blackboard for DeSantis to talk about people having “paid into Social Security” when in reality it is a Ponzi scheme in which current workers pay for current retirees, and current retirees are taking more benefits than they paid in.

Jeffrey Blehar

I foolishly promised the rest of my NR colleagues that I would drink a shot for every single time Nikki Haley mentioned “DeSantisLies.com” when she first began an hour or so ago, and now alas I am legally dead.

Dominic Pino

If your drinking word for this debate was “desantislies.com,” you are both very perceptive and very drunk.

Jim Geraghty

Wait, DeSantis didn’t vote to raise the life expectancy to 70 years old, he voted to raise the retirement age to 70. A verbal mix-up that steps on the attack Haley wanted to deliver.

If Congress could vote to raise the life expectancy, we would all be hanging around to our 120s.

Dan McLaughlin

Haley says DeSantis voted to raise life expectancies, which is not a thing Congress can raise by rule.

Noah Rothman

“I would never raise the retirement age in the face of declining life expectancy.” – Ron DeSantis on entitlement reform.

Dan McLaughlin

DeSantis pledges to work “with both sides of the aisle” on entitlements but offers a tendentious claim that the retirement age can’t be raised while life expectancies are falling.

Jeffrey Blehar

DeSantis gives the politically necessary answer on Social Security, but obviously everybody’s whistling past the graveyard in terms of the solvency of the program.

Noah Rothman

DeSantis strums populist heartstrings by pining wistfully for a time when America was a manufacturing powerhouse, implying the decimation of American manufacturing is the outgrowth of a Wall Street plot. None of it is true. Per the Cato Institute: “By itself, the US manufacturing sector would constitute the world’s eighth‐​largest economy.”

Dominic Pino

If the promise of entitlements is getting back what you paid in, most seniors would get a large benefits cut. Medicare beneficiaries especially get back far more than they paid in.

NR Staff comprises members of the National Review editorial and operational teams.
Exit mobile version