he s the only one. who has had the courage to go after donald trump by name. yeah. desantis didn t have the courage to do it. right. nikki haley. they re all sort of low-key still trump fans while they re running. he s the only one who did it. he is a significant player here. and the fact is that the danger he s calling out is the same danger that joe biden is calling out. that esper is calling out. that s exactly true. he has a lot of company among republicans or people who consider themselves conservative republicans. it was not two trumpers and more to moderate republicans and independents, there were a few moments where he sort of exposed maybe what he was talking on a therapist coach, right? yeah. which was basically looking back on his decision to endorse trump. and that message was to nikki haley and ron desantis and maybe doug burgum. he didn t just endorse him, jen. he led his transition team. he was a supporter of his. he knew what he was.
right? they need to be energizesed, turn out and care what this election means for them. that s a big challenge. but a lot are not tuned in quite yet. they re not. and you know what, it s all funny and fun and games until the person he s talking about sending seal team 6 to kill is you. and i mean, i m just keeping it real. republicans said you can hit people with their car if they re protesting. desantis said that. they re stealing women s bodily rights. do you think that really you re going to be protected from trump if he can kill people? come on, y all. wake up. jen psaki, michael steele. we can do this all day. accusations are flying fast and furious as the u.n. s highest legal body prepares to hear south africa s case accusing israel of committing genocide in gaza. we re back after this. ommitting genocide in gaza we re back after this.
vitali are both on the ground in iowa. i m glad to see them inside and not out in the elements. susan del percio is a republican strategist and msnbc political analyst. great to have you all here. susan, did desantis and haley move the needle at all last night? i actually don t think they did. it was a better performance probably for desantis, one on one. i think nikki haley does better when there was a group on the stage, but i still think nikki haley has the momentum and desantis didn t do anything that will really help him, i think, on caucus night. as a matter of fact, i still think that nikki haley can come in at number two in iowa. so i haven t seen any official counting ali, but generally you want to see does one of my soundbites get like a lot of play and make me look good. i would argue just watching our coverage last night that the most play went to chris christie and his hot mic comments
my panel is here with me. scott jennings, let me start with you and kind of get your overall takeaway of let s just start with the debate. you know, my initial reaction was sort of centered on ramaswamy, because of, you know, how much he dominated the attention after the debate. but after 24 hours of thinking about it, i really think desantis actually may have come out as the winner. he made no mistakes, advanced himself on a couple of big-time answers, especially early on. his opening statement indicting the biden economy. so i think desantis did himself some good. i think nikki haley kid herself some good. i was glad to see mike pence turn in a feisty performance. and on net, i m just not sure the schick of ramaswamy will play that well over time. is there anybody on that debate stage that will concern you as a democrat? all of them concern me. as an opponent.
our nominee, this is really going to be a difficult process moving forward for the general election and they re looking at all of these candidates, and i agree 100% with scott s assessment of the candidates out there. desantis got out there without the cuts and bruises that he anticipated. ramaswamy was trump-lite. but nikki haley showed many people that she not only has the foreign policy experience, she has the nuance and the appropriate response on abortion, which is a critical issue for the republican primary, but also would be palatable in a general election. but this was an opportunity for any one of those candidates to distinguish themselves, grab the momentum, seize the narrative, and none of them really did. they had this moment wut donald trump there, and the big pieces that really came out of the debate were this moment when none of them could really be sure will they should raise their hand or not about whether they would support donald trump if he was convicted. let s