Ron DeSantis accuses Nikki Haley of supporting child “genital mutilation” at 4th GOP debate

The fourth and final Republican presidential debate featured lots of transphobia as the four second-place candidates never explained how they’ll beat former President Donald Trump. Trump is leading over all of them by 50% or more in the polls, just 40 days until the January 15, 2024 Iowa Republican primary election.

Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley sustained attacks all night from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy; they portrayed her as a corporate-owned pro-transgender shill. (In reality, she’s no trans ally.) Meanwhile, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie repeatedly stressed Trump’s unfitness for office.

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At the start of the debate, the moderators asked each candidate how they expect to beat Trump — none of them explained. DeSantis said the polls are misleading and later said he considers Trump too old to be president. Haley said, “My approach is different [from Trump]: No drama. No vendettas. No whining.” Ramaswamy said, “I can reach that next generation better than anybody else in this race.”

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Soon after, DeSantis said that Haley supports the “gender mutilation of minors” and “irreversible” puberty blockers. He added, “It’s child abuse and it’s wrong.” Genital surgeries aren’t conducted on minors, puberty blockers have been used safely on children for decades, and every major U.S. medical association considers gender-affirming care safe and essential to trans youths’ well-being.

Haley accused DeSantis of misrepresenting her record, replying, “I said that if you have to be 18 to get a tattoo, you should have to be 18 to have anything done to change your gender.”

Haley then noted that when DeSantis ran for governor in 2018, he said fighting the “[trans] bathroom wars” was not “a good use of our time.” DeSantis said that, as governor, he signed a transphobic bathroom bill while Haley, as former governor of South Carolina, didn’t. She said her constituents hadn’t requested such a bill. DeSantis replied, “I stood up for little girls — you didn’t do it,” villainizing trans people as child sex predators.

DeSantis then said that Haley was part of the “woke industrial complex” and accused her of reading George Orwell’s authoritarian dystopian novel 1984 as a “how-to manual.” The novel is about a fascist, right-wing militarized government that uses censorship, erasure, brainwashing, and torture to control its citizens’ thoughts.

When asked about improving the economy for the middle class, DeSantis said student loans and taxpayer-subsidized education funding shouldn’t be provided so that students can get a “degree in gender studies,” adding, “[Schools] should not be indulging in ideological studies.”

Haley later said that she believes trans people should use bathrooms matching the gender they were assigned at birth. She added, “Biological boys shouldn’t be playing in girls’ sports, and I will do all that I can to stop that, because it’s the women’s issue of our time.”

When Christie was asked about his past opposition to bans on gender-affirming care, Christie framed it as a parent’s rights issue, saying, “As a father of four, I believe… there’s no one who cares more about [my four kids’] success and health in life than [my wife and I] do — not some government bureaucrat.”

He then rhetorically asked, “We’re going to put my children’s health and my decisions in [congressional Republican] hands for them to make those decisions, for Joe Biden to make those decisions, for me and for my wife?… I get to make the decisions about my children.”

“Every once in a while, parents are going to make decisions that we disagree with,” Christie added. “But the minute you start to take those rights away from parents, you don’t know that slippery slope, what rights are going to be taken away next.”

Ramaswamy later said that his “North Star” is that “transgenderism is a mental health disorder,” rhetoric that matches the rabidly transphobic ideology he has embraced throughout his campaign.

Ramaswamy called Haley a fascist and accused her of embracing “identity politics” more than Vice President Kamala Harris. He called identity politics “a cancer” and a “new religion that says your gender, your race, your sexuality is your identity.”

At one point, Christie called Ramaswamy “the most obnoxious blowhard in America,” adding, “So shut up for a little while.” Ramaswamy later told Christie, “Do everybody a favor: Just walk yourself off that stage, enjoy a nice meal, and get the hell out of this race.”

Ramaswamy goes full conspiracy theorist while Christie calls out GOP cowardice

Ramaswamy leaned heavily into conspiracy theories near the end of the debate, rhetorically asking, “Why am I the only person on the stage at least who can say that January 6 now does look like it was an inside job, that the great replacement theory is not some grand right-wing conspiracy theory but a basic statement of the Democratic Party’s platform, that the 2020 election was indeed stolen by Big Tech?”

Both Fox News and former attorneys with the 2020 Trump campaign have faced billion-dollar defamation lawsuits over their inability to prove that tech companies rigged the 2020 election in favor of its winner, President Joe Biden. Conservatives have tried to absolve Trump of inciting the January 6 Capitol riots by claiming that federal agents provoked the attempted insurrection, but no evidence has substantiated this claim.

Lastly, “the great replacement theory” refers to an anti-Semitic, anti-immigration, white supremacist conspiracy theory that believes immigrants and people of color want to replace white Americans to fundamentally change the nation’s racial makeup and political culture. The theory has been cited by white supremacists as a justification for political and physical violence against Jews and non-white people.

Meanwhile, Christie continually slammed his opponents for supporting Trump. He mentioned how, in the first debate, the three others said they’d support Trump even if he was convicted of federal felonies, some of “which involve the most sensitive of our governmental secrets,” Christie noted. “We’ve had [four debates with] these three acting as if this race is between the four of us. The fifth guy, who doesn’t have the guts to show up and stand here, he’s the one who, as you just put it, is way ahead in the polls.”

“Failing to speak out against him, making excuses for him, pretending that somehow he’s a victim empowers him,” Christie said of Trump. “You want to know why those poll numbers are where they are? Because folks like these three guys on the stage make it seem like his conduct is acceptable. Let me make it clear: His conduct is unacceptable. He’s unfit and be careful of what you’re gonna get.”

“This is an angry, bitter man who now has to be back as president because he wants to exact retribution on anyone who has disagreed with him,” Christie added. “He doesn’t care for the American people — it’s Donald Trump first.”