welcome to cnn s special coverage of tonight s town hall with republican presidential candidate nikki haley. i m dana bash, alongside kite l kaitlan collins. you are looking at center stage where less than an hour from now, nikki haley, a former governor of south carolina and the former u.s. ambassador to the united nations will take the stage to make her case for why americans should send her to the white house in 2024. she ll be answering questions from a live audience that is filled with voters who will participate in the republican caucuses, and also from tonight s moderator jake tapper. it is still very early in this race, but as of now, haley stands at 6%, trailing her boss donald trump and ron desantis by double-digits. in the 2024 republican field is only growing with mike pence and chris christie both expected to jump in the race this week. it has been a very busy few days in iowa, where most of the republican field spent the weekend.
she has been doing so much more so with the florida governor ron desantis, who of course is someone she must compete with to get the chance to go one-on-one with donald trump. but future all the talk of the polls and things, as you know, dana, our conversations with voters here, people have remarkably open minds. these republican activists who are just beginning to size up this field, they are really truly measuring these candidates. so their open minds i think are instruct alternative all of us as we watch this race here. they certainly want to hear specifics from her. and tonight she ll hear and take questions from voters themselves her in des moines. it is the iowa way, jeff, as you know, better than anybody to size up the candidates. and they have an expectation to do it the old-fashioned way, as you described at the gij beginn of your report. thanks, jeff. kaitlan? we have a very busy week as the voters in iowa are going to have a lot more candidates to be evaluating. the gop
of trumpx but is not the toxic nature of him. and the key is you can t out-trump trump. you can t be more insulting than he is. you have to go after him head-on on policy. as you note, he was there two days last week. all of you stand by. dana, we re watching to see what all of this shapes up to look like for this race and to hear more from nikki haley on her views on these key issue. we sure are. on the break, you have to ask alice about covering her and governor huckabee back this the mid 2000s in iowa. she knows what she is talking about. she really did all that thanks. and as we wait for our cnn town hall, more on tonight s breaking news, u.s. fighter jets scrambled in response to an aircraft that ultimately crashed in southwest virginia. the military aircraft caused a sonic boom heard across the washington region, alarming many.
talking about transgenderism and transgenders in sports. which she talks about quite a bit. that s her policy. she hasn t asserted another policy other than that. and you ask what ron desantis policy is about a foreign policy. well, i want to take the woke out of the military? what s your economic policy? i want to take the woke out of our large corporations and businesses. when you think about that, donald trump s policies are completely backwards, but ironically enough, he is the only one articulating any policy whatsoever. go ahead, i m sorry. i was just saying. you look openly frustrated. that tells you the problem and the level of debate that we re having. now go, david. look, first of all, when i heard desantis speak, i m thinking i wonder how many people in on the highways and byways of iowa are talking about cultural marxism. zero. this is his problem. he is a very clinical guy who
people in iowa right now are looking at this as a level playing field. they re open to alternatives. they re open to listening to donald trump. these candidates, it would be helpful if donald trump did as well, go to these roast and rides. having been there, you have to go to the pizza ranch. you have to go to the machine shed. you to go to the iowa state fair. you have talk to these people. keep in mind nikki haley might not be getting all of this national attention like trump and desantis is, but what she s doing, and what these other candidates are doing and the smart thing, they re burning the shoe leather. they re going out talking to people, meeting and greeting, getting local media coverage, which is extremely important. getting the cover of des moines register, getting that local coverage. and winning people over one by one. and she s working it hard. desantis is going to be doing that certainly as well. tim scott. but it s too early to count any people out right now they re ou