And good evening. It was Bill as a debate that was makeup break for all the candidates and each of those candidates on stage right now came to make a mark. Good evening. I'm Tom Yamas here in Miami.
I'm Hallie Jackson alongside Tom here in the spin room. As you are looking live at these candidates on stage. One of the most intriguing parts of the post debate procedure here, greeting spouses, kids, people who have come to see them here at the Adrian Arch center where we are located here in Miami. Two fiery hours, two substantive hours and shots fire at Donald Trump, at President Biden, at each other.
Tom, with these candidates now taking a moment here as we watch some of the interactions. We saw the brief handshake between Nikki Haley, Ron Desantis, we saw Nikki Haley, Chris, Christine rafting in there. Tom is the big grandma swan along with his wife approved on something we did see as well. Vivek making a quick U turn, avoiding Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley's daughter on stage right now next to her.
As you remember, she was invoking this debate, Ramachwani going after her saying she had downloaded TikTok. She was on TikTok, essentially saying that Nikki Haley was hypocrite for attacking him, for being on TikTok. And then he called him a scum. It was the pivotal moment.
The former UN ambassador clearly taking exception with how personal Ramaswamy got invoking her daughter who was obviously in the debate hall joining her now here on stage. Look at this. Tim Scott. Senator Scott, excuse me, looked like he was shouting or speaking to someone in the front row.
He had some very, very tough words for the RNC chair. R Again, it looked like he was talking to somebody in the front row in a very loud manner. We know they went back and forth. And from what we understand, the RNC chair, when she was getting attacked in the middle of debate, really the first few minutes of this debate, she was not too happy.
We're going to ask our producing team to take a look at that interaction there. Watching some more of you on stage. This debate, in large part at least in the first half, dominated by foreign policy here, given the backdrop of that war in the Middle east between Israel and mos candidates to draw distinctions on some of these foreign policy topics, on China, for example, on Ukraine and specifically on Iran, where we heard some new announcements here from Senator Tim's class. We're taking another look here at the Vape Romwe.
Some of these candidates are talking to some of the supporters, some of the donors who are in the hall. 1500 people here for this debate, I see Vivek there with his young son. I got a process that the vexain of this laid. It looks like he's speaking out.
So It's a Ron McNiel candy crop. Exactly. But it looks like they'd be having an exchange. Look, this was a big debate.
The vet came out here, the moderators, he attacked the media, he attacked the RC for setting up this debate the way it was. And for a lot of debate, he was on the attack. It was Vivek first. The rest of the room, when we look at the rest of the candidates who received a lot of incoming, we started with Mickey Haley angels together.
Ron DeSantis who was center stage, of course, the hometown hero of you Williams state of Florida. And then the vet in third place getting other attacks as well. But he clearly was on office. One of the biggest questions Tom had been would this debate change the game given where things stand politically?
Because obviously we have these five candidates on stage. Donald Trump over the course of the last two hours has not been in this building. He's about 20 minutes away. His own rally in Hylia.
The question is, did any voters minds change? Because right now, Donald Trump is not just ahead of the polls, he is dominating in the polls, specifically in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire as well. As we take a live look here at former ambassador Nikki Haley again bringing people there in the crowd. We should mention Senator Tim along with his mother, his biggest supporter who's at the debate, Ian Vulture as well.
Now with his nephew here on stage. Senator Scott has some big moments too, talking about what it means for gas prices, that gas prices when they are on the rise, they are crisis in the American family. Also saying that raising the retirement age for Social Security would be so hard for so many people, including Iowa farmers. There's also a question it may be tough for Senator Scott to hear if he will be on the base age for the next one because he is somebody who has made the threshold but just barely put these debates with him and Chris Christie facing that reality here.
Yeah. So I think Nikki Haley has walked off the stage now without looking at or shaking the veteran or Schwabischwam's hand. I think we hope we'll have a chance to speak to her in a few moments in the last about all the changes. And that is because we are here live in what's called the spin room here in Miami.
The candidates are going to be walking right behind our set where we are now. The room is filling up with reporters Looking at some of the reaction here from what we've just seen over the course of these last two hours, you've heard not just foreign policy, not just the economy, but this issue of abortion assets specifically. Right toward the end, given what we've seen in the last 24 hours election where states like Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, you saw move to protect that asset once again here, right now. Explain to our viewers who have been watching this today for the last two hours, Garrett, it's been poll that when these Republican candidates attack the former president, even though they're trying to beat him and they're running against them, it actually hurts them.
Yeah, that's what time there was such a cautious manner in which these candidates try to separate themselves from the front runner who's been dominating this race. You heard them do in a way where they basically wrapped their criticisms of Donald Trump in praise of his presidency because they're trying to give a permission structure to his voters to say, yes, I liked him then, or I like elements of what he did then, even if he's not the candidate for me now. And that's based in sort of a factual basis based on some of our own polling, which is found that attacking Donald Trump directly can make a candidate less popular with the very Republican voters they're trying to win over. It's something that Chris Christie has struggled with, it's something Mike Pence struggled with.
Part of the reason he's not in this race anymore. So you saw these candidates in this real blind, none of them can be the Republican nominee unless they go through Donald Trump together. It's just mathematically not possible. But to do that, I think all of them are making similar calculations about trying to be the last person standing or hoping someone else will do the dirty work for them.
If we end this election cycle, if we end this primary cycle with Donald Trump once again as the Republican nominee, I think debates like this one, huge stages with lots of eyeballs on them and these candidates not taking the opportunity to draw more direct contrast with the front runner who's been squashing them in state and national polls is gonna be part of the reason we could end up in that same place like we saw in 2015-2016. Garrett, make the important point that while there is some framing here that this is a race now who can take that second place position and take on Donald Trump perhaps in a closer to one to one matchup. They are running out of time, of course. The idiock is just 68 days away.
Gary, hey, thank you so much. Let me pick up here this Spin room with our panel who's joining us here on set, former deputy press secretary for former President Trump, Hogan Bidley, former Republican congressman from right here in Southern Florida, Carlos and conservative fellow Catherine. We are glad to have you all here. Hope you all start with you because you are somebody who is in touch.
Of course, as a former Donald Trump staffer with that team, you understand this Republican Party was your biggest takeaway from I think look, you run a primetime debate. You have prime time players up on stage. But the prime time person that everyone wants to see, he's not here. It's difficult for anybody to gain oxygen when he sucked it all out of the room.
Even though he's not here, he obviously looms large. People had some moments here obviously and I talked about this before, what you want to do is create animal. You want to take that moment and really end the moment and ultimately a movement. Remember Kamala Harris had great moment on the debate stage and the Democrat debate when she called Joe Biden a sex criminal and segregationist.
She had T shirts ready. It was good to go and then it just felt fine, went away. There were some moments tonight. People had some singers for each other.
They said some things to Donald Trump about Donald Trump. But I don't know if that's going to change the calculus at all because Donald Trump wasn't here and he is a you said by many, many points. We just moments away from here from Governor Ron Senior State flat. I do want to ask you texting with a lot of Republican viewers, people who ring, people who are watching at home.
I'm getting a lot of text that Nikki Haley had big night. Was she the winner tonight today? Well, I think Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis had strong performances on this was a different debate than the ones the previous two. There was not a circus like atmosphere.
It was very substantive. It was very serious. I think the moderators did a great job and Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis did what they had to do tonight. They showed that were confident.
You know, a lot has been said about Ron DeSantis and his personality was at Eason. He was comfortable. Maybe it's because he's in his home state. It's warm here in Miami.
Maybe that helps. Right. So I really do think that those two candidates kind of reestablish or reaffirmed their position as the leader of this pack. The race for second place talked about how Ron DeSantis seemed comfortable on the stage in his home state.
Nikki Haley, of course, former U ambassador, foreign Policy is in many ways from wheelhouse. And yet one of the biggest moments for her was her clap back at Vivek Rona's family when he, after her daughters talked about. He talked about her high heels as well. Yes, please, have at it.
I wanted her to note how high her heels were and to clap back at that. And I wanted her to say that her daughter's off the mess. But her daughter is grown. She's not supposed to be dictating her social media presence at this point.
If she did, we could call her weirdo for doing that. And no man would be asked about how he was monitoring his children's social media presence. So there's that look. I do think Rossantis did seem comfortable about that.
Hogan's building momentum is key. Right. So I think having a good night tonight, when he came right out of the gate, coming after trumpet, saying he should answer your questions here on the stage. Stage was good.
Plus the Cameron's endorsement in Iowa. Build on that a little bit. You have a little momentum about your back, you know, for President Trump. Well, how would you rate how.
How former Ambassador Nikki Haley and Governor Ron DeSantis handled the swami? Because I think that if you can't handle debate on this debate stage, how you can handle Donald Trump. Again, some have some good moments, some have some cringe moments. I thought the back and forth was interesting.
It's obvious that the swami and Nikay do not like each other. They went after each other the whole time. Ron DeSantis got into it to some degree with the China issue in South Carolina, went back and forth with that. Listen, I do think that DeSantis and Haley clearly are cut above the rest of the field at this point.
Nowhere near where Trump is, obviously, but they are separating themselves. You're right. It was a very substantive debate. They didn't step on each other.
It wasn't melee. And they were yelling at each other, living like a food fight. They were trying to tell the American people, here's where we need to take this country. And I'm the best person to do it.
The problem is I think the front runner has a better shot at that. This point, as we're having this conversation, just so people don't know what you're seeing on screen. That is the backstage area as the candidates are coming off save. They're heading to the room behind us here, the spin room, which you can probably see is already filling up.
It is getting Louder. You see Governor Ron DeSantis there, along with his wife. Congressman, let me ask you as our South Florida resident here, did Senator Tim Scott and former Governor Chris Christie do enough know that Tim Scott is banking it all on Iowa, Chris Christie is banging it all on New Hampshire. Did they do enough to stay in the conversation here?
Hallie I don't think they did enough to break through. I mean, status quo, sure, maybe they can stay in the race a bit longer, maybe they can make the next debate, but they're behind. They really need to, you know, make a leap forward. They need to attack some of these other candidates a bit more.
And they didn't really connect. I think that they did adequate performances. I mean, no one had a disastrous performance here. No one has qualified themselves.
But I don't think Christie or Scott did enough to make it to the next level. Mary Katherine Hammond, what do you think? Republican voters, I would argue the party is obviously fractured. Is it Donald Trump's party?
Is it the party of Ronald Reagan? Is it the party of thunder? CARLSON It's a no right now. But the debate and what was happening at the beginning of debate, especially with the personal attacks on the RNC and then all the other candidates, who does that motivate to vote for?
I'm kind of confused with the strategy was there in the beginning. It's tricky, right, going after moderators. I think it always works well for Republican audiences. It's not, it's not an unusual tactic.
Did it work out well tonight? I don't know. It's fine. I agree that Christie and Scott not exactly exhilarating tonight.
I'm not sure that they should be at the next debate because of that. But here we are and the fracturing is real. And I don't know exactly how people are reacting to this. I talked to some voters over at An American here at Lee Bridge of Hispanic voters who are Florida voters and many of them and this is something I know every time we watch a debate, women voters like Nikki Haley and that is the thing that people have to reckon with because these suburban educated women voters, what you have to earn back in order to make their Republican Party successful again.
Super intrigued as we're here from voters. And good news is we have correspondent station up across the country to some of these states. We'll get to some of those voter panels and we're going to have much more debate coverage for Miami in just a moment right here. 40 Governor Ron DeSantis standing by joining us in this minute.
We'll be able to talk to about the debate, ask him some very tough questions. As we mentioned, those corresponding curious states Include Ryan Nobles stationed Alfaras there in New Hampshire. Hey, Ryan, you watch the debate with some folks there. Tell us what you're seeing.
Yeah, that's right, Howie, you watched the debate with some very engaged New Hampshire voters. And guys have to ask you, who do you think won the debate? Obviously, a lot of different opinions will get the take of these first in the nation voters when we come back, Donald Trump's a lot different guy than he was in 2016. He owes it to you to be on this stage and explain why he should get another chance.
Welcome back to our coverage of the third Republican debate here on NBC News. I'm Hallie Jackson. And I'm Tom Yamas. We're live tonight from Spin Room.
As you can see just behind us, the candidates now making their way to our set after tonight's debate. We're joined now live by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Gilbert, thank you so much for joining our coverage. You were front center stage, hometown hero, if you will, your state of Florida.
How did you feel you did this debate and are you upset that debate after debate the former president is not there. Side by side debate. We did really well and I think MHC did a good job. I mean, I have watched debates over the years.
I participated in a couple already. And I think the people at home probably got a good viewing experience because the questions were substantive. People were able to talk. There went a lot of screaming back and forth.
And so I think the value of this debate was probably more than one we did in C Valley. Look, Donald Trump is not the same guy he was in 2016. You would not have been able to keep him off that stage in 2016. The consultants wouldn't have been able to do that.
Now they don't want him up on the stage. When he gives speeches, it's usually off the teleprompter. And I think his view is it's like, well, he has a holding lead, therefore why would he want to get involved and actually earn the job? But that's not the way this goes.
So what I think you're going to see because I'm on the ground in the early states, voters are now starting to really pay attention. It is going to hurt him if he's not willing to take on four because voters expect you to earn their vote. And if you look at his support, he's got some that are rock solid. He probably doesn't have to debate, but other supporters of his are willing to go for another candidate.
If she hasn't heard me so far, I don't have to tell you that if he say of Iowa, he is up by 27 points in our most recent polling here. Let me ask you, he said even that poll, which is a good poll, he's at 42%. He's the most famous elected former elect official in the world before a Republican president. He's a 40%.
He should just think about this. If Ronald Reagan ran in like 88, Ronald Reagan would be getting 85 or 90%. Donald Trump needs his U plus one. He only needs second.
I understand that but here's the thing. We're in the situation now. The vast majority of people in Iowa and New Hampshire clearly do not want to nominate Donald Trump. So that's not a great position.
And then the field's gonna narrow because of where enthusiasm is because the polling shows that there are loyal supporters of Donald Trump. Who do I see? It's a minority though. It's a minority of those early nominating states.
It's a minority. It's not a majority you are talking about because you're in this unique position along with some of these other candidates where you are looking obviously to win over the corporate president's face while also distancing yourself from him. So you need to be tougher on him. Here's how I view the Republican electorate.
25 are going to do Trump no matter what, give or take 25% have moved on. They don't want to do it. And then the 50 in the middle conservative voters and but they also I'm the only guy that really can play in that space of the other candidates here. So what you have to do is you have to prove yourself as like question of attacking him as much as telling the truth.
So for example, when I'm on the campaign trail, I always say he said Mexico would pay for the border wall. Now what he's saying is well, there was no legal mechanism I could have done. I think if you guys covered that campaign, he was very clear Mexico paid for. The thing is people told him at the time you could tax the remittances of foreign workers and you could raise the So I will actually do that.
So I tell people is this Governor Floyd deliver 100% my promises. I'll do that as president but also deliver on his promises that he didn't fulfill. I'm curious what you've learned in the campaigns aren't easy and I wonder what you're telling your voters and your donors because a year ago a Wall street dropped had you 14 points above former President Trump. And so it seems as Republican poll numbers have dropped, I have the highest favorability and the highest we consider.
I think the issue is if you look at the information flow, when I got reelected, I was on, I was dominating the news. Trump was not getting a lot of news. What changed was the Alvin Braggment where he started to dominate voters. Without a doubt, it definitely helped that the brag certainly did.
And part of this I think, Theo, I agree on the brag, that it was not a valid case. But it's also just the fact, if you look at the amount of media he gets versus me, that the information flow in these national polls doesn't make the difference in like in Iowa and New Hampshire is you have a chance to pierce through that. Yeah, he may get five to one coverage on me, but I can go shake someone's hand, I can run advertising and I can try to even that out. But then you're not going to see, I think the sea change in that until people really start to make decisions.
I do think with Kim Reynolds endorsing me though, I think that that's a big moment for the albacus because I talked to people basically said, you know, when Governor Rose came out for Governor DeSantis, basically that's telling Iowa. Castle, you know what, you got plugged in now and you're starting the last 24 hours. We're coming fresh off your election in 2023. As we head into election 2024 and the issue of abortion, accessing to power, Democrats to victories and some of these key states and some of these key races.
One of the things you alluded to on stage was that a lot of states feel very differently about the issue of abortion rights. Do you believe then that there should be no national ban and national ban should be off the table here? What I've said is if you look at the practical reality of a divided country, it's going to be a bottom up situation. That's just the reality, regardless of what you think.
But what I also say on this is pro lifers in particular have a big problem on these referenda because if you look at like Ohio, a chunk of those voters would vote for Republican candidates. But if the issue is presented the way it is, they're willing to vote for what from a pro life perspective was a very extreme, very expansive pro abortion amendment. So I think the pro life movement has got to start keying in on these referenda. You gotta be strategic about how you're doing it.
You need to know the landscape that you're dealing with. There May be some states where you shoot in a certain direction. There may be others you shoot shoot a different one. But they have to get their clock clean on the referendum.
I think that's a big problem. I don't think it's I don't think it's as much about the electoral in terms of the candidates. I mean it obviously plays a role but good Republican candidates did very well in 2022 and the aftermath of docs I think for our party I think that's part of it but I think it's also quite frankly the Trump factor. I think there's certain voters that he does they don't like the Trump Trump the Trump shtick and they break for the Democrats even though they think the country's going in the wrong direction.
That is why I've argued Tim Reynolds argued Donald Trump as the nominee would be a huge risk because when push comes to shove all these elections since Biden's got in special elections than this in the midterm we should be cleaning house. He's unpopular president of another party and yet they're overperforming almost everyone that's predoms too. It's not just postdocs. That's why they show this may be up against heads when it comes to abortion.
We're grabbing Governor, we appreciate all your time the governor and everyone that stage hoping to change minds right in the key first primary states. All Ryan Nobles in the town of Key New Hampshire tonight. So Ryan, the question of the night, did anyone gain any ground at this time? What's up?
We're at Tempest's restaurant in Keene, New Hampshire and these Republican voters were really keyed in on this debate today and you mentioned that issue of abortion and I want to talk to Doreen about that because it was perhaps one of the biggest reactions we've gotten in the room. Nikki Haley's response on abortion during why were you so struck by it? Well, I am so disappointed that there are so many women in this country that vote with their emotions. And she really kind of brought out that that is what women want.
And what most of them don't realize is with overturning of Roe vs Wade is now the states have the choice, they have the choice of voting in their state elections on whether or not they want abortions for 15 weeks, 24 weeks, whatever it is. And the family is a huge factor in if you ask any grandparent if they would want to have their daughter have an abortion. When you see that little grandbaby down there, I can't believe so many women just vote on the issue of the abortion instead of what all these other things. She articulated that message.
And there's so many other things in the world happening that we are. All right, thank you for that. But we want to get back here. And you told me before you thought that this was the most substantive debate that you've seen up to.
This was the best managed. It was the most substantive and by consequence, it was riveting. The second debate, I literally fell asleep. You didn't fall asleep tonight.
That's good. That's part because Jim here did a good job taking care of us. We want to get one more take here before we go. And.
And ma', am, tell me. And our camera here is behind us. He's coming around. Here he is.
What did you think was the most important issue in the conversation tonight amongst these candidates? Well, I thought the idea that the world's on fire was pretty important and the question of whether we help these countries or not was important. And I also need to repeat that. I think that Nikki did a good job with the abortion issue, particularly after thinking about the losses the Republican party had yesterday.
The Democrats are making that issue again. I would like to see it be issue to all of the women here and all of the women in the country and. And not be such a public, public issue that will forget about our economy and about the state of the world. Okay, great.
Thank you for that and thank you to all these voters. They said your hatch voters among the most educated in the country. We saw that firsthand here tonight. Tom and Halle, they were very engaged in this debate.
I think they learned a lot about these candidates. What's it about you guys? They sure were paying attention. Right?
Thank you so much for us for New Hampshire. We're going have a lot more to be coverage from here in this room in Miami in just a minute, including somebody who's just joined us here on set, the former governor of South Carolina, the former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. She'll be with us in just a minute. In the last debate, she made funny for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time.
You might want to take care of your family first. Leave my daughter. The next generation Americans are using it. And that's actually the.
Yeah. Grabbing her up. That's fine. Here's the truth.
Easy. One of the more fiery moments of tonight's debate. Welcome back to our coverage of the Republican presidential debate on Tom and I'm still making their way through their spin room here in Miami. Joining us now is somebody who was one of the biggest targets of the night, former UN Ambassador and Nikki.
Ambassador, thank you for being with us. Thanks for having me. Listen, this debate was largely focused on foreign policy. But I have to start with that moment that we just saw.
We got to start with Scott and these attacks from Viswami against you here. Can you take a minute to just reflect on that moment what was going through your head and help us understand. Do you dislike him? Look, I'm a mom.
I'm a mom. So the second that you go and you start saying something about my 25 year old daughter, I'm gonna get my backup. But this is, it's not even about the personal part. There are serious differences that I have with him.
You know, he doesn't think that we need to be helping Israel. He sides with Putin and thinks that Ukraine doesn't matter. He's okay with getting Taiwan to China. There's so many issues.
He doesn't think America needs friends. That's dangerous. I think he has a dangerous foreign policy that we can't afford and I think he would make America less safe. He called you Dick Cheney in three and Shields.
Do you think that was sexist? I don't even give him the time. Today he has proven that he is just not worthy of being president of the United States. Everybody knows that.
Everybody sees it. There's so many things that he said that were just uncalled for tonight. But you know, I'll let people decide that. We've got real serious issues.
We've got to talk about what's happening. We've got wars all around the world. We've got an economy that's in shambles. We've got a border that's open and we've got a lot of families that are concerned.
And those are the things that I wanted to talk about, not the fact that they got my heels wrong. So let's talk about some of those issues here, including what we just heard from with our colleague Ryan Noble who's live in Hampshire talking with voters there. I know you're listening. When one of those voters talked about you and your answer as it relates to abortion access and what you would push forward.
Here you are, it seems, pushing the pragmatic in your response about what can actually get past in Washington and what cannot. Do you believe that your competitors on stage are missing something in the dynamic here? I think the fellas like deal with this differently. I look at it from the perspective that this is personal for every woman and every man in America.
I had a roommate who was raped in college. I wouldn't wish on anyone what she went through wondering if she was wondering if she was pregnant. What I'll tell you is I'm totally pro life in every way whatsoever. I just don't judge someone for being pro choice.
Anyone don't want them to judge me for being pro life. So when you're looking at this, I don't want to see this divide. Women don't want to be divided over this. I want this in the hands of the people.
I want it at the state level. But if you're going to talk about a federal bill, at least be honest with the American people. Don't make them. And you've got Democrats making people feel scared that something's going to happen.
And you've got Republicans trying to push something that's not even realistic. So ask you to say they ask disant before you should Republicans even be pushing a federal bill at this point in your I think we always want to save as many babies as we can and support as many moms as we can. And so I think the reason why I talked about consensus is let's see what we can get. 6 Because anything would save more babies.
It would do more. And so and as we're seeing state laws, you know, come on just like I said, we want to steal women, get to abortion, get put in jail or get the death penalty. There's certain things that I think there's a place but there has to be consensus at that can act. Let's turn to Israel and Hamas.
You have been attacked for saint and Hamas. Former governor Chris Christie says what does that even mean? My question to you is this. Israel obviously suffered a horrific terrorist attack.
Innocent Israelis were killed, getting kidnapped, likely being tortured. And the T system there in Gaza. Can you destroy Hamas without destroying Gaza? Essentially.
Is there any way to do this without all those innocent Palestinians now dying as well? Look, I mean we've always focused on civilians versus terrorists. I think that's important. That's what America does.
That's what Israel does. That's what civilized countries do. But the reality is if 1400Americans had been brutally murdered that way and Americans taken hostage, would America be okay with that? We would not be okay with that.
What we have to remember is here you had 1400 people. We had 33Americans that were murdered. We have Americans being held hostage. This is not just personal for Israel, it's personal for America.
And so when you look at that, we have to eliminate Hamas. I dealt with this every day. What I can tell you is Israel is not going to do this without thinking of every single human life. The problem is Hamas does not think of every single human life.
I've been in those tunnels and those tunnels are underneath hospitals, they're underneath playgrounds, they're underneath schools because they use women and children as human shields. The best way to save people in Gaza is to eliminate Hamas because they should not let us prior no humanitarian pause. You would not encourage that. You would not fight for that if you were president, right?
If you do a cause, if you do a ceasefire, people die because we've done this before. And what Hamas did before, they killed Israeli soldiers and they took more Israeli soldiers hostage, that's what would happen. They refuel to try and get ready so they can shoot more rockets. What they need to do is they need to let out every hostage they have and we're not going to talk to them until they release every single one of those hostages.
Former UNB thank you so much for your time there after this third Republican presidential primary. Appreciation thanks so much for the time. We got a lot more coming up here. Our SHA viewing party over in the key state of Iowa outside Des Moines.
Chat talk to us out of the B over there. Well, let's ask them directly. Hey guys, can you raise your hand for me if at this point two months from Iowa caucuses you have pretty much made a decision on who support. We'll dig into those answers after this break.
We are live here in Miami giving you a little bit of a behind the scenes tour of what this arena, what this debate site actually looks like. The candidates walk down this hallway after coming off the debate stage and head here to where we've been coming you from and what's called the spin room. These are all our friends from various media agencies, reporters from lots of different outlets. They come in to hear from if not the candidates, at least campaign staff surrogates who have come here in this.
Let me take a further in this a little bit. It's pretty packed out here. If you're wondering what happens, you can see each of the surrogates as a sign. Tim Scott's team is here.
The big Bronson team's over there. Got better Ron Sanders team here as well. And this is all about trying to help set the narrative. Now as we are post debate heading into the next piece of this right the push to Iowa just 68 days away, these candidates are hoping to have their teams help frame some of what that momentum, some of the conversation is going to be about when you wake up tomorrow morning.
Tom. Ms. Jackson, we have questions for you. Can you come over here?
Questions for you. We have questions for you. None of that matters if it doesn't change when voters come out of rally. President Trump is by far the front runner national as well as the critical early voting stage here.
She is not running for office but joining me live, we're going to roll Altoona, Iowa. So this is the million dollar question. Jack Rooster said with some voters inside of a bar. Jack, you're definitely the brightest one here.
Being a rowdy bar tonight. Any minds change there? Well, I'll tell you, you know one of the first things, we're crashing this party here. So there's food, there's drinks.
They're welcoming us here. But let me ask that question. Guys, can you raise your hand? One more show of hands.
Raise your hand if any minds were changed by the debate performance tonight. Some minds were changed here. Kyle, we were talking earlier. You came in a little bit undecided.
What are you thinking right now? I'm probably going to either caucus for Haley or DeSantis and that's my two. Why those two? I think they would both make good presidents.
I think they have strong policies. I think they could win. We saw in Lagos poll they were actually tied. How are you going to make a decision?
What's going to distinguish one or the other? Well, there's two months left of this campaign so I'm sure a lot of things will happen in that time. I'll tell you that is one of the most eyewitnesses because earlier he told me that he was going to wait until the actual caucus day to make a final decision. I want to talk to you guys about this.
What are you thinking? What did this debate change for you? I was excited about Vic early on. He captured my attention.
But I've been thinking that he lacks a few things and I also like to satisfy daily and. But I do need some more time. I meant to make a checklist. What's going on?
Checklist. How do you make this decision? Well, first of all, I feel like any five of them would have been better than the corrupt, incompetent leadership that we have now. So.
But I feel like there's the World Order is fracturing a little bit which is what concerned me about Vague. He doesn't pay enough attention to that. I like it. He talked about the war at home and that's what I really like about him.
But that World Order fraction a little bit. We may be in A pre war era here. And I feel like we need really competent, serious and sober leadership. And so whoever can give me the best read on that is who I'll probably support.
Thank you very much. And you know, for you two, we talked earlier and you came in, you said you were leading Donald Trump. What do you think right now? Well, probably still.
However, as I've been telling you and other people, there's a lot that still could happen. And I don't mean bad things, just things that could maybe happen, that who knows. So my allegiance is still with Donald Trump. But I really like the way that Ron DeSantis came out.
I think much stronger in this debate than he did in the first one. I like his answers that were very direct. They were very understandable. I liked that his military background came out.
I still swing back to Donald Trump who kept peace for four years and he was very, very strong in keeping peace. I like that. I think, think that Ron DeSantis could actually do the same thing for us, you know, if he were elected. Let me get one more person here or let me actually toss back and I'll do one.
One final show of hands. We're in Iowa. These are the voters who are born to have their say. First, tell me, who do you think for the next debate?
Should Donald Trump be on the stage? Raise your hand if you think he should be on stage. You see nearly the entire room. We'll send it back to you.
Yeah, they want to see him in some clear favorable Shaq cruster in Iowa tonight. Shaq, thank you. Join us now live. One candidate who was really trying to pick up some of that elder support, Senator Tim Scott.
Senator, you've made your positional story my heart of your campaign. You had two more that thought resonated. One, talking about how high gas prices are actually a gas prices in some families. I also talk about Iowa farmers and how if you raise the retirement age physically, it can hurt them, almost kill them 100%.
When we think about the Iowa farmer, there's no about it, but the physical wear and tear on your body is tremendous. So when you're talking about raising the termination where it is today by a year or two or three, that is devastating for the average person who is a blue collar worker. I think we should take into consideration the fact that it's not just Social Security that is a challenge. It's all of our mandatory spending and frankly our annual appropriations that have skyrocketed.
That's why I talk about going back to pre Covid levels of appropriations on an annual basis as well as dealing with the overall state of spending so that we can manage our resources better. But we have to actually increase the economic activity in the private sector so that it converts to more resources in the other sector and cut our spending. I'd like to lead the charge towards a balance. Senator, let me ask you about some of your comments on Iran.
Specifically, what's here like a new policy that you're trying to roll out, a new position which is to the U.S. in your view, potentially strike Iran here. There has been a lot of concerns you will know about any further escalation in the region, putting the Israel Hamas war on even on an even more terrifying life path for border contact very easily. What we've seen since October 17th, there's been 40 attacks on military personnel in the region.
What we know is appeasement is a terrible strategy that leads to more chaos or conflict. And frankly, if you want to reverse that, to de escalate the situation in the Middle east requires us to cut off the head of the snake and or to strike in Iran. That is what is necessary for us to deal with the challenge that we see in the Middle East. It is really clear Hamas gets 90% of its funds from Iran as well, similar fashion.
So what we know that we need to do in order to reduce the number of attacks, proxy attacks on our military is not just to strike a warehouse in Syria. It is actually turn our attention to the funders of terrorism in the region and the attacks on American military. And let us not forget, we've lost American lives now. 60 or 70, 100 Israelis, 35American lives.
All of that blood goes back to Iran. If you want to de escalate the situation, it starts and ends with Iran. You cannot negotiate with evil. You have to destroy it.
Senator, you know I asked this next question not easily. Campaigns are tough. You sacrifice a lot of your time. A lot of people work very hard for you.
You work very hard. You run states, spending time in Iowa. The threshold for the next debate is a little tougher, right? You have to be 6% national polls or one of the first four states.
You have 80,000 unique donors. We know it was a challenge for you to make the debate each year. Do you think tonight is your last debate or can you promise your donors, your voters you're going to be there? I'm 100 confident that 30 days from now in Alabama, we'll be hanging out, having a conversation about awesome.
You. You are on the stage. Of course I'll be on the stage. What we saw in the last, in less than about a week, we saw thousands of people come and donate to our campaign.
And our numbers already are helping us to qualify in Iowa for the next debate. We're running a national campaign. We're running a campaign state by state. That's how these campaigns actually work.
You think back to 2011 and 2015. It was Herman Kane and the 999 winning in Iowa right now, 2015 with Bin Carson. So what we know is that the voters are just turning their attention towards this election. I'm very optimistic that we can continue to make gains.
Senator Scott, we appreciate you joining us here after the debate on NBC News. Appreciate your time with the help in Miami. Ready. Back in just a second with the moderators.
Hugh Hewitt will join us after the break. Cheney and three inch heels. I wear heels. They're not for a fashion statement.
They're for ammunition. I'm telling you. Putin and President Xi are salivating at the thought that someone like that could become president. They would love to.
Republican national debate right here in SP columnist Mary Catherham and former President Biden and current NSNBC host Jen Saki, who we talked right after we finished with this panel. A quick operation here at the beginning of the broadcast. I thought you had seen the Arnold chair on Daniel go at it, or at least they were talking to each other. Apparently they had not spoken just yet.
He has some very tough words for Ali, as you know, during the day on Live. Mike tagging right off the bat. So far we've been told from the rcb, Haley as well, she has some words right back at him, as we just heard here coming out of the break. Yeah, look, I, I think he's fair game.
I think it's fun to hit him. I do wonder strategically there might be more advantages to hit Christie, who stands between Mick Haley and a new pincher. Good finish. Right.
He's a guy who's going to peel off for votes in that state. So maybe I would go after him and more missiles on his end instead of on Vivek. Olivia makes himself a very right turnkey. I also ask you if Vivek called the Ukrainian Jewish President Zelenskyy a Nazi.
Who is he appealing to with Kamasakh? Yeah, I don't know. I think some of his stances on Israel, for example, do not line up with the majority of the base at this point. So at first I think his stance on Ukraine was something that people shunned.
And then all of a sudden a shift began to happen when people on the on the right and the left are asking, okay, fine, you want to find Ukraine, fine. Where's that money going? What is it doing? Can we see some, some accountability here?
And then all of a sudden he was kind of in the mainstream and then he went kind of in a weird direction on Israel's eyes. It was kind of weird. I do want to bring up something about the exchange where he just went right after Rana, for example. It's interesting because a lot of people in the Republican base are furious.
And what the RNC does or doesn't do during these elections yesterday was a good example that people are furious that there's no ballot chase program about harvest program. Early voting is not what it should be. The 72 hour plan of Karl Rove, you know, years ago that was so successful, it's like we forgot how to block and tackle and do the things necessary to win those elections at the local level. I'm not saying he's right.
I'm just saying there are a lot of people out there who are concerned at the future because they feel like the RNC is not doing the tedious menial tasks needed to win elections at the local level. In a couple minutes left, let me bring it back to what is the central question of what we've all sat here and watched over the course of the last three hours here, which is did anything happen on this stage change the dynamics of this Republican race enough to potentially topple former presidential from that number one position where he sits at top the polls and all of these candidates on stage, hope will happen given what we heard from some of these voters with chat in this moment. No, I don't know that it's changed that much. What I do think it can do is lead to consolidation.
I thought that Scott and Christy were not catching fire up there tonight. Chrissy, for one, I'm like, you're here to Mr. Bombs, what are you doing? Entertain me.
And he wasn't even doing that. So I think the complete consolidation, which does lead to a chance if it's Haley and Santa, so I think showed why they were top of the pack in this group, then it gets to be a much closer thing for Trump. I think she's right. Look, Donald Trump has a luxury not coming to these things because he is so high up in the polls.
I don't advise Donald Trump right now, but I would say it would be political malfeasant to me to say come on that stage when you're up 450 points and let everyone else attack you. So it makes no sense for him to be here. I do think, though, as the field strikes, there may be an opportunity for him to come in and shake things up a bit. Okay.
And talking about before we run out of time, Jen, real quick, you've been on the inside before. Tell us, who do you think the Biden campaign really wants to run against in this Republican nomination? I mean, look, I think whoever they run against, they're going to paint in the same way. And I think you'll see that in how they paint these candidates from the, the debate.
I don't know. I mean, look, they're planning to run against Donald Trump at this point, as most people are. So I don't think they're planning strategies for anyone on that stage. Exactly.
Jen, as you well know, the unforeseen event, if you will, the thing that we don't know is coming, right, as always, potential when voters actually start voting, folks along with people close to him. Polls are not votes, if you will, that you talk to. On the Democratic side, we largely focus on Republicans. This is a Republican primary debate.
You're talking to saying about the next steps here. Look, I think what they're focused on even coming out of tonight, and I checked in with the campaign to see what stuck out to them is the abortion section and the Social Security section because to them they are still focused on the general election. They're not engaged in the practice primary. Right.
They're focused on how they're going to run in contrast with the Republican platform, the nominee. And you can see from both the election last night as well as kind of some of their responses tonight that they're going to continue to run hard on abortion rights and continue to run hard on the Republican Party being the party of extremism. So I don't think that changes. I think it's going to start to harden and they're going to start to continue to make that choice, you know, more harsh over the coming months.
Jim, real quick, any chance because of the growing calls from Democrats that the president wasn't finding that sinking poll numbers, he doesn't run in 2024? No, I don't think so, Tom. Look, I think I worked for Barack Obama when there were lots of headlines saying there's no way this guy's going to win and then he won. So, no, they're not paying that attention to that.
Jen Psaki, thank you so much. A big thanks to everybody who has joined us here live on SET in Miami. That wraps up our coverage of the NBC News Republican presidential debate much more tomorrow on today@NBC news.com NBC News Goodnight and thank you so much for watching. Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of the Drink.
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