A Breakdown of All Four Town Halls on Fox Before the Iowa Caucus
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Last week Fox News announced the network was hosting one last round of town halls for the leading Republican candidates for president. The network did not give any advanced notice or promotion about these events. They were mentioned on “Fox & Friends,” and “The Five” last week before the first broadcast.
The week started out with Nikki Haley a former ambassador to the United Nations and governor of South Carolina.
Nikki Haley Town Hall - Monday Jan. 8th 6:00 p.m EST
Moderators:
Bret Baier
Martha MacCallum
Duration: 42 minutes
The event started out with a two and a half minute overview of the some breaking news from the day. The last clip was of President Biden speaking at the Mother Emanuel AME Church.
A couple of weeks ago Haley was asked at a campaign event about the Civil War she said she thought the cause,"was basically how government was going to run, the freedoms, and what people could and couldn't do." She was widely criticized for not mentioning slavery.
Biden, at the Mother Emanuel AME Church, the site of one of the worst racially motivated mass shootings in recent history, seemed to address Haley’s recent comments.
“Let me be clear. Those who don't seem to know. Slavery was the cause of the Civil War. There's no negotiation about that. Now we're living in an era of a second lost cause. Once again, some in this country trying to turn a loss into a lie. A lie which, if allowed to live, will once again bring terrible damage in this country.”
After she spoke at length about the mass shooting that occurred a the church in 2015 Haley took a stab back at Biden.
“For Biden to show up there and give a political speech is offensive in itself. But the second thing I'll say is I don't need someone who palled around with segregationists in the seventies and has said racist comments all the way through his career, lecturing me or anyone in South Carolina about what it means to have racism, slavery or anything related to the Civil War.”
During a question about the Ukraine War Martha MacCallum incorrectly said that the U.S. was spending a larger percentage of our GDP to support Ukraine than any other country. The U.S. spends the most money but we also have the largest economy by far.
In terms of the largest percentage of GDP spending Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, U.K. and Czechia all spend a larger percentage of their GDP for Ukraine than the United States according to the latest information available from May 31, 2023.
Haley confirmed her commitment to supporting Ukraine and emphasized the threat Russia poses to the rest of Eastern Europe.
When asked about the border crisis Haley responded.
“We will defund sanctuary cities once and for all. So there are no safe havens for any illegal immigrants. We will go back to the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy. So they never step foot on U.S. soil to start with. And instead of catch and release, we'll go to catch and deport. And for all of those that have come over, as cruel as it sounds, you got to send them back. We have to send them back. Because if we don't send them back, it is an incentive for others to come.”
She also implied an undocumented immigrant could commit a terrorist attack.
“We need to start thinking of again national security. America right now is acting like it's September 10th. We better remember what September 12 felt like because it only takes one person.”
MacCallum and Baier both brought up criticism Trump and DeSantis had made of Haley.
“Stimuluses never work. Debt never works. Everybody talks about how great the economy was under Trump, but at what cost? He put us $8 trillion in debt in just four years.”
Out of the four town halls I analyzed only Haley was badgered by the moderators over negative statements that DeSantis and Trump said about her. In total Baier and MacCallum brought up four critical statements that the two other candidates had made about Haley.
When asked why she decided to run against Trump she answered,
“I will tell you, when I said that, I would never run against him. We hadn't had the debacle in Afghanistan. We hadn't had inflation go through the roof and we didn't lose the midterms by ridiculous numbers. And I campaigned for a lot of candidates, House and Senate and governor's races on those. And we were devastated when we lost the midterms.”
Haley also pointed out that most polls showed her leading Biden by 17% in a hypothetical two way race whereas Trump was only beating Biden within the margin of error in most polls.
“Pro Trumpers don't think I love Trump enough, Anti Trumpers don't think I hate him enough and I don't hate him. I told you I think he was the right president the right time.”
Ron DeSantis Town Hall - Tuesday Jan. 9th 6:00 p.m EST
Moderators:
Bret Baier
Martha MacCallum
Duration: 42 minutes
The event featuring Florida Governor Ron DeSantis started after the moderators featured a media clip of Biden talking about Israel.
“What's your reaction to President Biden saying that he's pushing Israel to get out of Gaza? And then today, the White House saying, you know, no, there's no change in policy,” asked Baier.
“Well, look, Israel is a rock solid ally of ours. They're the strongest ally we have in the Middle East. As president, I will stand with Israel in word and indeed in public and in private. And what Joe Biden is doing, he's got a schizophrenic policy because he first said he was for Israel. Then he's got his far left who doesn't like Israel. So he's kind of bouncing back and forth and behind the scenes, they're doing a lot to try to kneecap Israel. The October 7th attack represented more Jews being killed than at any time since the Holocaust,” said DeSantis.
After going on a confusing short rant about Nikki Haley demands about correcting votes in Iowa DeSantis made a pivot to Ukraine.
“Now, if I could snap my finger, I'd give all of that territory back to Ukraine. Russia had no right. They had no right to go into Crimea in 2014 or Donbas. And what they've done now is wrong. At the same time, they're spending your money to do things like pay salaries for Ukrainian bureaucrats. They're paying pensions for retired Ukrainian government workers. Is that America's role to be doing that?”
A young audience member asked DeSantis if he supported fracking.
“You promised Floridians to ban fracking. Will you promise the rest of the country so everyone has access to clean water?”
Instead of addressing her concern about clean water DeSantis went talked about the many economic benefits of fracking. He didn’t even attempt to assuage her concerns about what fracking might do to ground water or water supplies.
“Americans can rest assured we are going to be the dominant energy producer in this world. And you're going to pay less for energy and for gas,” said DeSantis at the end of his pro-fracking speech.
When Baier asked DeSantis why he wasn’t polling better in the state DeSantis seemed to take a page out of Trump’s self-pitying playbook.
“They have spent more money attacking me than all the other Republicans have faced combined. They've spent more money attacking me than Biden and Trump combined in this election cycle. The media, I mean, who does the media not want to be the candidate? Me, they are after me all the time,” said DeSantis.
During a discussion about Trump’s legal problems DeSantis casually said that Joe Biden might be the Democratic candidate for president. When he was finished Bret Baier asked him to clarify what he’d said.
“Look, I just think there's clearly people in the Democratic Party who look and say, you know what, this guy is a few fries short of a Happy Meal,” said DeSantis.
When asked by an audience member how he would handle immigration better than Trump DeSantis responded,
“I'm going to declare a national emergency on day one in office. I'm going to marshal resources, including the military, to stop the invasion when people come illegally. They need to be deported back to their home country. You know, Donald Trump promised record deportations. He actually deported less than Barack Obama did in his first four years. So he's promising the same this time. But he didn't do it the first time around.”
Later DeSantis went on to say he would use U.S. special forces to kill drug cartel members in Mexico. He went to say that this would include anyone who cut through the border wall.
“If someone breaks into your home, you would have every right to use lethal force to protect your family. Yet somebody can cut a hole into a wall and break into our country. And we're just supposed to let that happen? Not on my watch.”
Probably the most exciting part of his town hall was when protesters jumped up and chanted “No More Oil Money.” The California governor laughed off the incident.
In stark contrast to his Nikki Haley the moderators only brought up one negative thing she had said about DeSantis.
Donald J. Trump Town Hall - Wed. Jan. 10th 9:00 p.m EST
Moderators:
Bret Baier
Martha MacCallum
Duration: 45 minutes
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