Does anyone else feel like this was an absolute disaster for both candidates, showcasing them at their most negative and snippy and snide to each other, and desperately lacking in anything positive or optimistic or a sense that either of these candidates are the right person to take on the country’s massive problems?
I would be surprised if this debate were to change many minds. It is much more likely to just reinforce whatever voters already felt about these two candidates.
Haley closing with her polls is a way of finessing the fact that she – like DeSantis – is still behind in the primary polls.
No presidential candidate, on either side, would win by 17 points.
DeSantis’s answer when asked to praise Haley was just the typical light nonsense (“she did some good at the UN and also SC is a lovely state”). Haley’s answer when asked to praise DeSantis was…weirdly steely? A grim “he was a good governor” just clanked around like a penny in an empty rusty bucket.
Possible fun question in the future: “Both of you have said lots of nasty things over the course of the campaign. Do you have anything in reserve? What’s the nastiest burn of your opponent you haven’t yet had the chance to use?”
Actually a little surprised that Haley, asked to say something nice about DeSantis, just praised him as a good governor instead of, say, thanking him for his military service.
Both candidates actually said something nice about the other on the obligatory say-something-nice question.
The Insurrection Act, which Dana Bash just asked about, gives too much power to the president: https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trumps-insurrection-act-gambit-military-police-protest-riot-b04b54a4
We are now one hour and fifty minutes into this debate. Only the most diehard politics junkies are still watching. But because so many people only watch the coverage of the debate, a good moment in the final moments could still help a candidate.