and ron desantis said last night. he is not willing to debate, and he is not willing to get on the stage and answer questions, and he is in mar-a-lago, and so, yes, show up and debate. he is basically making a mockery of this whole process by not showing up and answering people s questions. he doesn t think that he needs t to. reporter: and so they are clearly trying to make the case to the iowa voters that donald trump is not putting in as many hours or answering questions that the voters have, and of course, he has spent quite a bit of time here in iowa and back again tomorrow for events and events throughout the weekend, but those are trump big rallies and not meeting the voters one-on-one or taking questions from the voters and the question is if any of it matters. he has a commanding race, but it is the race to be the trump alternative and ron desantis and nikki haley are in a furious scramble. and 11 days to go and the
extreme like died or murdered somebody, and this is the only thing that would make them not vote for him and one of the other candidates and everyone in the group was more or less for donald trump, and they more or less believed that donald trump would be the nominee coming out of iowa. and so, jackie kucinich, you are hearing something that sara said there that, yes, he is maybe fighting for second place, but ron desantis is maybe fighting for his political future here. there is the time s article that came out talking about hospice care and you want to keep the patient comfortable, and how much does he need to be concerned about what happens to him even if he does not win the nomination? yeah, you don t want quotes like that particularly if you are running for president and a couple of week before iowa, but certainly, john, ron desantis has positioned himself particularly coming into the race as the next big thing when it comes to republican politics. he wanted to be the leader
all right. 11 days and counting until iowa, and we are now just hours away from back-to-back town halls with governor ron desantis and nikki haley, but are they vying for just second place? donald trump asking the supreme court to review the ruling that removed him from the ballot in colorado, and how quickly could that happen? and several negotiators are getting closer to a deal on the border, but it is on a road to potentially nowhere. what the gop is insisting that has to be included that the dems probably won t go for. i m sara sidner with john berman and kate is off. this is cnn news central. all right. so nikki haley and ron desantis will be back-to-back town halls in iowa, and as you know, there is something called the caucus about to happen there, and have both of them been making the
the party, the uk is ses sor to donald trump, and it just has not worked out that way for him. so going forward, if you do lose, yes, we have seen people run for president again later, but it is just, really, he has put so much on this, and particularly in iowa, he has spent so much time, and so much money, and presented this monstrosity of the campaign apparatus going in that it is somewhere that he absolutely has to come in second, like sara said, just to keep going forward. and frankly to keep his reputation intact within the republican party. sara, you said that you have been doing focus groups, and this is going to be the town halls will have questions from the iowa voter, and what are some of the questions that actually matter to the republican voter right now? well, on ron desantis, when i was listening to the iowa voters, one thing that seemed like ron desantis had given up
and the stakes are that ron desantis if he comes in third in iowa, his political career maybe not totally over, but it is going to be in a deep freeze coma. if nikki haley comes in second place, then it is going to open up what is the narrowest of paths to go into new hampshire with some momentum and that is a state that is tailor-made, and maybe the only state tailor-made for someone other than trump to prevail or at least get close to trump, and that would allow her to go into her home state of south carolina with some wind at her back, but however, south carolina is not as friendly as you d think to the previous governor and still much more of a trump state. i don t actually see a path for either of them, but they are fighting for second place, because trump is so dominating the race and continues to dominate. in fact, i did a focus group with the iowa voters this week, and i asked them if there is anything that would turn them off of donald trump, and one said, well, if he did some