Republican debate again marked by anti-trans tropes, as DeSantis claims Disney is 'transing' kids

Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate wasn’t as rife with anti-transgender rhetoric as previous ones, probably because there were fewer candidates to spew it. But the participants did get off some zingers, including a claim that Disney is “involved in transing kids.”

Only Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (she’s also a former ambassador to the United Nations) qualified, as determined by support in polls, for the debate held at Drake University in Des Moines — well, Donald Trump did as well, but as usual, he chose not to take part and held his own event instead.

Dana Bash, who moderated the debate on CNN along with colleague Jake Tapper, asked DeSantis about his feud with Disney, Florida’s largest private employer, over its criticism of the state’s “don’t say gay” law, which bans instruction dealing with sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools. She wondered how the state’s actions against Disney, which included assertion of control over some Disney property, squared with the traditional conservative view that government power should be limited and corporations largely left alone.

“The proper role of government, if it means anything, is to protect our kids,” he said. “And I’ve stood for the innocence of our kids. It is wrong to sexualize the curriculum. … It’s wrong to tell a kindergartener, like Disney wanted to do, that you can change your gender or tell a third-grader that you’re born in the wrong body.”

That’s all a ridiculous exaggeration of what an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum looks like — and of Disney's position — but DeSantis went on to criticize Haley for inviting Disney to South Carolina “even though they were involved in transing kids.” “Transing,” by the way, is not a word.

He said Haley is part of the “corporatist element” of the Republican Party. He vowed to “not bow down to woke corporations,” then added, “Nikki Haley will cave to the woke mob every time.”

Haley went on to assert her own anti-trans credentials, including her opposition to inclusive restrooms, trans girls’ participation in female sports, and gender-affirming care for minors.

DeSantis then criticized her for killing a bill, when she was governor, that he said “would protect girls from men going into the bathroom,” which is how he characterized restroom access for trans people. She said the bill in question came up 10 years ago, when “only a handful of kids had that issue.”

Tapper asked DeSantis if he’d support taking Florida’s education standards, which also limit instruction on racism, nationwide. At first he didn’t answer but returned to typical right-wing tropes such as opposition to teachers’ unions and promotion of school “choice” — subsidies to private schools.

Regarding curriculum, he said, “It’s wrong to have pornographic materials in fourth and fifth grade” (again, a ridiculous exaggeration of what’s available to students), but he said he wouldn’t nationalize curriculum standards. He did call for national school choice and for abolishing the federal Department of Education, a conservative talking point since the 1980s.

Haley said she’d fought for school choice her entire career but called for empowering states to control education.

The rest of the debate was more of what’s been seen in previous ones — arguments over who’d be toughest on China, who’d be best at keeping undocumented immigrants out of the U.S., who’d do the most to lower taxes, who’s most opposed to President Biden’s embrace of renewable energy, and who is sufficiently “pro-life.”

Trump has criticized DeSantis for signing a bill into law that banned most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, and DeSantis recently said Trump isn’t pro-life, which Bash brought up. DeSantis said the former president’s criticism “has given a gift to the left to weaponize that against pro-lifers.” He also said Haley is “confused” on the abortion issue, as she’s said women shouldn’t be sent to jail for having abortions. No one is proposing that, so she’s “using the language of the left to attack pro-lifers” and needlessly scaring people, he said.

Haley pointed out that a bill has been introduced in South Carolina that would criminalize people who have abortions. (Indeed, that’s happened in several states.) But she said she is “unapologetically pro-life.” Both called for compassion for those waith problematic pregnancies, although, it should be noted, they and their party have never been strong on government assistance to people in difficult situations.

Both denounced Trump for not being on the debate stage (DeSantis also critiqued him for not saying whether he believes “a man can become a woman”), and Haley delivered some of the strongest criticism from any Republican yet on the riots of January 6, 2021. Contrary to what Trump and the rioters contended, Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election fair and square, she said.

The debate saw the two trade personal insults, or what they see as insults. DeSantis noted that Haley said she was motivated to go into politics by the example of Hillary Clinton, and he mentioned his recent debate with California Gov. Gavin Newsom and said Haley may be more liberal than Newsom. He even criticized her for having expressed sympathy for George Floyd and his family after Floyd was killed by police in 2020. Haley, for her part, frequently referred to a website her campaign started called DeSantisLies.com.

Trump was at another venue in Des Moines, the Iowa Events Center, holding a town hall hosted by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum of Fox News. He indulged in his usual rhetoric against Biden and his son Hunter, saying among other things that Biden’s “weak” presidency was partially responsible for the wars in Ukraine and Iraq. He also said Biden’s administration has led to “chaos at the border” and “chaos in the military,” and claimed the latter is “going woke.”

Trump, who remains far ahead in Republican presidential polls, said he’s decided who his running mate will be but declined to reveal the name. MacCallum joked about it being former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who’s gone from being a Trump acolyte to a strong Trump critic, and dropped out of the presidential race Wednesday. Trump said that’s not going to happen.

The first votes in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination will be cast Monday in the Iowa caucuses.