National Security at the Republican Debate Pt. 4

On December 6th, the US Republican Party held their fourth debate for presidential hopefuls.

Participants in the debate were Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley and Chris Christie.

Disclaimer: I have made minor edits to the text below in the form of excluding banter and consolidating text when interruptions occurred. Hopefully this makes it easier to consume the thought of the candidate on each item. Candidates also tended to veer from the original question to get into other items they wished to talk about. I left those aspects in for overall context rather than selectively choose to remove certain portions.

Finally, the below is not intended as an endorsement of any position, candidate or political party. I plan to also pull out the national security discussions from Democratic and eventually the presidential debates so we can all see how the candidates feel about these specific issues.

Full transcript can be found here: https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/rnc-fourth-presidential-primary-debate-12-06-23-transcript

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Israel and Gaza

Elizabeth Vargas (moderator): How far would you go as president to secure the release of those eight American hostages and would it include sending American forces into combat?

DeSantis: We have to look out for our people when there are hostages, commander in chief, you have to do whatever you can to get them done. But the overall issue with this is this administration is trying to hobble Israel from being able to defend itself. They have a right to eliminate Hamas and win a total and complete victory so that they never have to deal with this again. Hamas wants nothing less than a second Holocaust, they would wipe off every single Jew off the map. They would destroy the state of Israel if we could. Joe Biden will say they support Israel and then they do nothing but try to kneecap them every step of the way. You should not try to direct their war effort, we should work together with them so that they can bring Hamas to heal.

Look, I served in Iraq back in the day. I’m the only one running for president that served in the military, I understand that part of the world. It’s not the best part of the world. We do have troops there that Biden is leaving basically as sitting ducks and you have the Iranians that are attacking these troops and he’s responding with basically pinpricks. If you harm an American service member, you’re going to have hell to pay when I’m president, we are not going to let our troops be sitting ducks. We also need to look at what’s the underlying problem here, Iran. Biden is doing nothing to bring Iran to account, you got to turn the screws on them, don’t let them have any oil revenue. The money they get, they send to Hamas, they send to Hezbollah and they foment jihad throughout the Middle East. So Biden has empowered Iran just like he’s empowered other adversaries. We stand with Israel, they’re our best ally in the Middle East, we have a unique relationship with them. And you will see a strong relationship when I’m the President of the United States.

Vargas to Christie: Would you send American troops in to rescue those hostages?

Christie: I would, absolutely. Absolutely. If they had a plan which showed me that we could get them out safely, you’re damn right I’d send the American Army in there to get our people home and get them home now, and I’ll answer that question directly.

Eliana Johnsons (moderator): Mr. Ramaswamy, you have said it was irresponsible for Ambassador Haley to call Hamas’ terrorist rampage an attack on America. And for her to quote rabidly shout, “Finish them.” The Hamas terror attack left dozens of Americans dead and was the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Why wouldn’t it be a good thing to finish Hamas?

Ramaswamy: Finish them was purposefully vague in a discussion that included Iran, which is what I objected to. And I think it’s as US president, you have to be responsible. What happened to Israel was dead wrong, what Hamas did was medieval. It was subhuman, it was immoral. And we have to call that out for what it is on October 7th. But to say that that was an attack on America fails a basic test. I mean, Nikki, if you can’t tell the difference between where Israel is in the US is on a map, I can have my three-year-old son show you the difference. That is irresponsible because it has major consequences because that doesn’t leave room for what actually is an attack on America. So I believe I have the strongest pro-Israel position actually on the stage, even though it’s a little bit different than the standard GOP talking points.

And it is this, the founding vision of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, the George Washington figure of Israel. What did he believe he believed that we don’t want as Israel to depend on the fleeting sympathies of the West and have our hands tied. I think Israel has an absolute right to defend itself to the fullest, without the US the UN or the EU or anybody else, second guessing their decisions as the Biden administration, guess what, is now starting to do. I think that’s a more deeply pro-Israel position than anybody else. And it keeps the actual lines of accountability clear because it is a pro-American position. And as leader of the United States of America, just as a father of two sons, my sole moral duty is to my family. As your next president, my sole moral duty is to you, the people of this country. That’s how I’m going to lead. So I’ll tell Bibi, you smoke the terrorists on your southern border, you go ahead and we’re rooting for you. We’re going to smoke the terrorists on our own southern border and that’s how I’m going to lead this country.

DeSantis: Americans were killed in that attack. And so if you looked at this terrorist attack and the number of Americans, this would be one of the top 10 terrorist attacks in American history. So our own people were killed in that attack. And I think it’s absolutely appropriate to point that out and to say that we’re in this together and we are going to work with Israel so that these people are brought to justice.

Iran and Ukraine

Johnsons: You said in last month’s debate that by contrast to the Biden administration’s approach to Iran, you would, “Punch them once and punch them hard.” Were you saying that it’s time to bomb Iran?

Haley: No, I was not saying it’s time to bomb Iran. But I will tell you, I dealt with Iran every day when I was at the United Nations and they only respond to strength. What they don’t respond to is when you weaken the sanctions like they did on Iran that allowed China to send them billions to fill their proxies, what they don’t respond to is when you give $6 billion for five hostages, that only makes them want more hostages. What they don’t respond to is when they do 140 strikes on our men and women in Syria and Iraq and we do nothing but just some small shots back. You’ve got to punch them, you’ve got to punch them hard and let them know that, that’s the only way they’re going to respond. So the way you do that is you go after their infrastructure in Syria and Iraq where they’re hitting our soldiers. That’s what you do, and then that’s when they’ll back off.

The problem is you have to see that all of these are related. If you look at the fact Russia was losing that war with Ukraine, Putin had hit rock bottom, they had raised the draft age to 65, he was getting drones and missiles, drones from Iran, missiles from North Korea. And so what happened when he hit rock bottom, all of a sudden his other friend Iran, Hamas goes and invades Israel and butchers those people on Putin’s birthday. There is no one happier right now than Putin because all of the attention America had on Ukraine suddenly went to Israel. And that’s what they were hoping is going to happen. We need to make sure that we have full clarity that there is a reason again that Taiwanese want to help Ukrainians because they know if Ukraine wins, China won’t invade Taiwan. There’s a reason the Ukrainians want to help Israelis because they know that if Iran wins, Russia wins, these are all connected. But what wins all of that is a strong America, not a weak America, and that’s what Joe Biden’s given us.

Ramaswamy: I want to say one thing about the tie to Ukraine, if I may. So foreign policy experience is not the same as foreign policy wisdom. I want everybody at home to note that I was the first person to say we need a reasonable peace deal in Ukraine. Now, a lot of the neocons are quietly coming along to that position with the exceptions of Nikki Haley and Joe Biden who still support this, what I believe is pointless war in Ukraine. And I think those with foreign policy experience, one thing that Joe Biden and Nikki Haley have in common is that neither of them could even state for you three provinces in Eastern Ukraine that they want to send our troops to actually fight for. Look at that. This is what I want people to understand. I mean she has no idea what the hell the names of those provinces are, but she wants to send our sons and daughters and our troops and our military equipment to go fight it.

So reject this myth that they’ve been selling you, that somebody had a cup of coffee stint at the UN and then makes eight million bucks after has real foreign policy experience. It takes an outsider to see this through. Look at the blank expression, she doesn’t know the names of the provinces that she wants to actually fight for.

Christie: Let me just say something here. His reasonable peace deal in Ukraine, he made it clear, give them all the land they’ve already stolen. Promise Putin, you’ll never put Ukraine in Russia and then trust Putin not to have a relationship with China.

Military to the Southern Border

Vargas: Governor DeSantis, I’d like to start with you. You have pledged to send the military to the southern border on day one of your administration with orders to shoot, “Stone cold dead anyone illegally entering with a backpack that you believe contains fentanyl.” Critics have called this a shoot first ask questions later policy that would amount to extrajudicial killing. You are a former military lawyer. Why do you think this idea of yours would be legal?

DeSantis: The drug cartels are invading our country and they are killing our citizens by the tens of thousands every year. We had a situation in Florida, there was an 18-month-old baby that was crawling on the floor of an Airbnb rental, there was fentanyl residue on the carpet and the baby died. Is this acceptable in this country? I know the elites in DC, they don’t care. They don’t care that fentanyl is ravaging your community. They don’t care that illegal aliens are ravaging our community and overwhelming our community. The commander in chief not only has a right, you have a responsibility to fight back against these people.

It means you’re going to categorize them as foreign terrorist organizations and we will identify… Just like we would anywhere. When I was in Iraq, Al-Qaeda wasn’t wearing a uniform. You’d see anyone walking down the street, they all had man dresses on. You didn’t know if someone had a bomb, an IED attached or not. And so, you had to make a judgment based on intelligence, based on positive identification, but we’re going to be able to get the intelligence on these cartel people. And here’s the thing, if we had a wall across the southern border, which I support, this would not have happened.

We need to build a wall across the southern border. I’ll get it done and I’ll make for… Mexico is supposed to pay for it, remember. Here’s how you do that. I’m going to have fees on remittances from foreign workers when they send the money back to foreign countries, we’re going to tax it, and we’re going to build the wall with that. So yes, you should have had that, but we don’t have it, I’m going to build it, but we have to lean in on this problem. I am not going to sit there and allow mothers to lose more kids because of fentanyl overdose. I am not going to sit there and let sex trafficking go unabated or human trafficking go unabated. There’s going to be a new sheriff in town and these drug cartels better buckle up.

Future Issues: Taiwan and China

Johnsons: Which of the threats facing our country do you worry could blindside us?

Haley: What worries me and what keeps me up at night is what happens between now and election day while Joe Biden’s in office. That’s what worries me more than anything else, but I’ll tell you that America right now is acting like it’s September 10th. We better remember what September 12th felt like because it only takes one. And whether you’re looking at open borders that are allowing people to come in, Iran knows the easiest way to get to America is through the southern border, and we’re not doing anything to stop it. 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, whether it’s we need to stop all foreign lobbying that’s happening to members of Congress, and we need to start America again. Until we do that, we are going to be at threats. We’ve got to look at, Iran, China and Russia want to destroy the West. We have to start acting strong again. We’ve got to start protecting Americans. Right now, Americans don’t feel protected, and we’re not doing anything to strengthen it. So, Joe Biden continues to be a problem, that’ll change on election day.

Megyn Kelly (moderator): if China invades Taiwan, would you send American troops, as President Biden’s has said he would do?

DeSantis: We will be able to deter that from happening. I think that’s the important thing, we need a strategy of denial so that we’re deterring Xi’s ambitions. It’s going to work. Taiwan’s an ally. We have longstanding American policy, and you know how that’s done, and we will follow that. But here’s the thing, Taiwan is important, not just because of semiconductors. It’s important because if China’s able to break out of this first island chain, they’re going to be able to dominate commerce in the entire Indo-Pacific. They will use that to export authoritarianism all around the world, including here in the United States.

Ramaswamy: I think the next U.S. president needs to be crystal clear that at least for the foreseeable future, the U.S. will absolutely defend Taiwan, and it is with that clarity that we actually achieve deterrence. But I have a broader strategy than that. We need to get onside in our relationship with India, take it to the next level. India has to be able to block the Andaman Sea, which is where China gets most of its Middle Eastern oil supplies. That’s critical.

I also do believe the Second Amendment is a critical way of preventing foreign autocrats from being able to, “It’s worked in America, why wouldn’t it work in Taiwan?” So, it is part of a broader strategy, but I do think that we need to be specific about our deterrence strategy or else Xi Jinping is just encroaching by the day.

And the reason why we’re not doing it for China, I want to be crystal clear, is because we’re scared. Why are we scared? Because we depend on them for our modern way of life. Why do we depend on them for our modern way of life? It’s because Nikki Haley’s latest friends like Larry Fink have created co-mingled economies with BlackRock, Tellan, Exxon and Chevron. They can’t drill here while being a shareholder of PetroChina, not applying those same constraints in China. So, it is our economic dependence on China that makes us scared. If that were a Russian spy balloon, we’d have shot it down in an instant. If that were a Russian spy base in Cuba, we’d be actually going hard on them instead of turning the other way as we are with China. So, it comes back down to that economic dependence. We cannot depend on them for our pharmaceuticals, our semiconductors, and people have been lied to for a long time.

Haley: I mean, when it comes to China and Taiwan, the one way that we keep China from going into Taiwan is, one, make sure that we win in Ukraine, that we protect our friends, but also let China know that there’ll be hell to pay if they go into Taiwan. They need to know that there is going to be a force that’s going to go against them and they need to know it’s not just going to be the United States. That is why we need to build our partnerships with India, with South Korea, with Japan, with the Philippines, with Australia. We need to start pulling that alliance together.

Christie: Once again, I want to play the role of actually answering your question, which is if China went after Taiwan, you’re absolutely right, I would, as president, have us go militarily and defend them. Secondly, I’m not afraid based upon those economic relationships to do that because these economic relationships mean nothing. Nothing. If what’s going to happen is that China is going to come and act in that region of the world however they see fit. It’s not right.