The fifth Republican presidential primary debate on Wednesday (hosted by CNN) between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley was certainly heated; with both candidates taking wild rhetorical swings at each other. And in a post-debate interview, DeSantis showed he still had a lot of fight in him as he schooled CNN’s Anderson Cooper for parroting falsehoods about his campaign that Haley brought up.
“Her criticism of you is that a lot of those donors, which you were criticizing her for, used to be your donors,” Cooper poked, knowing fleeing donors was a bad sign for a campaign. DeSantis immediately pushed back, declaring “That's actually not true.”
DeSantis went on to point out that Haley had donors who would never support him, including left-wing ones:
I mean, think about it. She's got the founder of LinkedIn, who’s a liberal Democrat. That was never anybody – She’s got BlackRock CEO. We kneecapped ESG in Florida. We took money out of our pension – moved from BlackRock out of our pension. She's bragged about being there with Larry Fink. He’s the king of ESG.
So, I mean, those people were never in my camp. She's got a lot of people who are I think more liberal donors. And the question is why? I think a lot of it is because they're never-Trumpers. That's what I find it odd that she just won’t say she won't be the VP nominee.
Cooper repeatedly tried to give credence to Haley’s claim that DeSantis’s campaign was mishandling funds and was essentially just burning money. DeSantis shot back with the fact that what she was talking about was a super PAC which he is legally unable to coordinate with:
COOPER: Her other criticism of you was that you essentially have not run a good campaign. That you have wasted tons of money—
DESANTIS: Here’s the thing. First of all, that's all process stuff. She's citing an organization that’s an outside group that I don’t even control. People in Iowa, they don't care about process stuff. They care about the substance and they care about the leadership. So, she spent a lot of time focusing on polling –
COOPER: There has been a lot of turnover in your campaign though. Hasn’t there?
DESANTIS: In the PAC side that I don’t control. But here’s the thing. What does not have to do with what's going on in the country? I don’t think people care about these PACs.
“So, I just think, you know, she brought that up in relation to her failure to do school choice,” he explained. “It's a huge issue for Republicans. We have delivered on it in Florida, more than anyone. And she failed on it and she blamed the legislature. And I said that's not leadership. And then she pivots to talking about commercials and polls and stuff.”
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
CNN Republican Debate Post Analysis: Des Moines, Iowa
January 10, 2024
11:25:43 p.m. Eastern(…)
ANDERSON COOPER: Her criticism of you is that a lot of those donors, which you were criticizing her for used to be your donors.
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): And that's actually not true. I mean, think about it. She's got the founder of LinkedIn, who’s a liberal Democrat. That was never anybody – She’s got BlackRock CEO. We kneecapped ESG in Florida. We took money out of our pension – moved from BlackRock out of our pension. She's bragged about being there with Larry Fink. He’s the king of ESG.
So, I mean, those people were never in my camp. She's got a lot of people who are I think more liberal donors. And the question is why? I think a lot of it is because they're never-Trumpers. That's what I find it odd that she just won’t say she won't be the VP nominee.
COOPER: Her other criticism of you was that you essentially have not run a good campaign. That you have wasted tons of money—
DESANTIS: Here’s the thing. First of all, that's all process stuff. She's citing an organization that’s an outside group that I don’t even control. People in Iowa, they don't care about process stuff. They care about the substance and they care about the leadership. So, she spent a lot of time focusing on polling –
COOPER: There has been a lot of turnover in your campaign though. Hasn’t there?
DESANTIS: In the PAC side that I don’t control. But here’s the thing. What does not have to do with what's going on in the country? I don’t think people care about these PACs.
So, I just think, you know, she brought that up in relation to her failure to do school choice. It's a huge issue for Republicans. We have delivered on it in Florida, more than anyone. And she failed on it and she blamed the legislature. And I said that's not leadership. And then she pivots to talking about commercials and polls and stuff.
No process stuff. I’ve not been asked one process question in any town hall I've done, in any state during this whole campaign. It's all substance, all the time.
(…)
