Republican debate live updates: Christie says Trump is biggest issue in the race
With voting set to start in the 2024 Republican primary in less than six weeks, four of the top candidates have again taken the stage for a debate — this time on Wednesday night in Tuscaloosa, Alabama — and the ongoing event has already been fiery.
Hosted by NewsNation and moderated by Elizabeth Vargas, Megyn Kelly and Eliana Johnson, the debate features Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. The primary’s front-runner, former President Donald Trump, continues to skip the debates despite criticism from his rivals. He’s fundraising in Florida.
ABC News and the analysts at 538 are live-blogging every major moment and highlight from the debate. PolitiFact will make real-time fact checks of key statements.
Latest Developments
Dec 6, 9:49 PM
Ramaswamy, Christie say they’d defend Taiwan if invaded; Haley, DeSantis less clear
Ramswamy defended his position that the US should arm the Taiwanese people with AR-15s, despite a Taiwanese zero-gun policy, and added the US should “for the foreseeable future” promise to defend the island from China, which claims it as its own.
He drew contrast with DeSantis, who hewed closer to the strategic ambiguity which animates America’s deterrence posture. Haley said the US must continue to defend Ukraine as a signal to Beijing that it can’t attack Taiwan and said the US should not depend on China for national security.
Christie said he would engage militarily if Taiwan was invaded by China’s People’s Liberation Army.
-ABC News’ Chris Boccia
Dec 6, 9:53 PM
‘America right now is acting like it’s Sept. 10’: Haley
Asked what threats she worries could blindside the U.S. amid what federal officials have called a heightened threat level during the Israel-Hamas war, Haley focused on “foreign infiltration.”
“America right now is acting like it’s Sept. 10. We better remember what Sept. 12 felt like, because it only takes one,” she said.
“We’ve got to get the foreign infiltration out of our country — whether it’s in our schools, whether it’s on our social media, we need to stop all foreign lobbying that’s happening to members of Congress, and we need to start securing America again,” she continued.
-ABC News’ Meredith Deliso
Dec 6, 9:51 PM
Ramaswamy levels another personal attack on Haley to more boos
Ramaswamy again trained his ire toward Haley, with whom he has feuded across the debates this year, saying she was “woke” and “had a corruption problem.” Ramaswamy raised a notepad which had the message “NIKKI=CORRUPT.” A chorus of boos filled the venue.
The entrepreneur said Haley would “send your kids to die so she can buy a bigger house.”
Given the chance to respond, Haley said only, “No. It’s not worth my time to respond to him.”
– ABC News’ Chris Boccia
Vivek Ramaswamy holds up a handwritten sign referring to fellow candidate Nikki Haley as he speaks during the fourth Republican candidates’ debate of the 2024 presidential campaign at the University of Alabama on Dec. 6, 2023 in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Dec 6, 9:44 PM
The U.S. Postal Service is actually very popular
In that question, Tom Fitton just pointed out, incredulously, that the U.S. Postal Service is more popular than the FBI. But this actually isn’t surprising — the Postal Service is quite popular! According to a 2023 poll from the Pew Research Center, 77% of Americans have a favorable view of the Postal Service. It’s the second-most popular federal agency, after the National Park Service.
-Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of 538
Dec 6, 9:44 PM
Fact-check: Ramaswamy’s false, outdated claim on transgenderism as ‘disorder’
PolitiFact rated Ramaswamy’s claim false after he introduced it at the second primary debate.
Truth-o-meter showing “false.”
In the past, the medical community used to view the experience of being transgender as a “disorder,” but they no longer agree on that categorization. In the last decade, diagnostic manuals published by the World Health Organization and American Psychiatric Association contained updated language to clarify that being transgender is not a mental illness.
Experts told us that persistent gender dysphoria can cause other mental health issues, but it is not itself a mental health disorder.
-Analysis by Katie Sanders of PolitiFact
Dec 6, 9:42 PM
Christie offers different view on gender-affirming care for trans kinds
As the debate turned to bans on gender-affirming medical treatments for minors, Christie offered a different view than the three other candidates on stage.
He said it should be a parent’s decision, not the decision of the government.
“We should empower parents to be teaching values that they believe in their homes without government telling them what those values should be,” he said. “Yet we want to take other parental rights away. I’m sorry, but as a father of four, I believe there is no one who loves my children more than me. There is no one who loves my children more than my wife. There is no one who cares more about their success in health, in life than we do, not some government bureaucrat.”
Christie added: “This is not something I favor. I think it is a very, very dangerous thing to do. But that’s my opinion as a parent. I get to make the decisions about my children, not anybody else.”
Other candidates dove straight into their opposition to gender-affirming care for minors.
DeSantis said, “You do not have the right to abuse your kids.” Ramaswamy said his view is that “transgenderism is a mental health disorder,” which fact-checkers have challenged.
-ABC News’ Alexandra Hutzler
Dec 6, 9:41 PM
DeSantis says Trump’s age is an issue but won’t call him unfit
“Father time is undefeated,” DeSantis told the debate audience twice, raising doubts over Trump’s age, at 77 years old, amid intervening attacks from Christie that he avoided the original question.
“He’s afraid to answer … this is the problem with my three colleagues,” Christie said. “They’re afraid to offend.” DeSantis wouldn’t respond to repeated questions by Christie and the moderators on the former president’s fitness for office.
“I’ll concede you’re fit, Ron,” Christie said. “You’re a new generation.”
– ABC News’ Chris Boccia
Dec 6, 9:40 PM
Christie on Trump: ‘Be careful of what you’ll get’ with another term
Addressing Trump’s comments in an interview on Tuesday referring to himself as a “dictator” but only on “Day 1,” Christie called the former president an “angry, bitter man who now wants to be back as president because he wants to exact retribution on anyone who has disagreed with him.”
“Do I think he was kidding when he said was a dictator? All you have to do is look at the history,” he said. “That’s why failing to speak out against him, making excuses for him, pretending that somehow he’s a victim empowers him.”
Christie — who Trump has dismissed as a failure both as a governor and candidate — charged that the other hopefuls on stage “make it seem like his conduct is acceptable” because they said they would still support him if he was convicted of federal felonies, which Trump denies.
“Let me make it clear: His conduct is unacceptable,” Christie said. “He’s unfit.”
Christie warned to “be careful of what you’ll get.”
“He will only be his own retribution. He doesn’t care for the American people. It is Donald Trump first,” he said, eliciting some boos from the crowd.
-ABC News’ Meredith Deliso
Dec 6, 9:22 PM
Fact-check: Banking experts knock idea of ‘central bank digital currency’
Banking experts told PolitiFact that DeSantis’ claim about President Joe Biden pushing a “central bank digital currency” was dubious. Even if the system were technically feasible, current U.S. laws would not permit the kinds of monetary surveillance and control that DeSantis described, they told PolitiFact in April. The Federal Reserve is studying the possibility of creating a digital currency. But DeSantis’ remarks overstate the likelihood that such a system is possible, much less likely, to emerge in the United States — for a variety of technical, legal and political reasons, experts told us.
-Analysis by Katie Sanders of PolitiFact
Dec 6, 9:12 PM
The Muslim ban was unpopular
The moderators asked a question about Trump’s 2017 executive order barring immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries. That order led to nationwide protests and was highly divisive: 53% of Americans in a CNN/ORC poll said they opposed it at the time, while 47% said they supported it.
-Analysis by Nathaniel Rakich of 538
Click here to read the rest of the blog.