ANALYSIS — Five Republican presidential candidates used two hours of network airtime Wednesday to spar with each other over entitlement programs and military aid to Ukraine, but the missing front-runner for the party’s nomination was not far from their minds.
“Everybody wants to talk about President Trump,” former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said, noting that the man who made her ambassador to the United Nations was the “right president at the right time.” Seven years later, however, she said he is not, and that he has gotten “weak in the knees” on crucial issues like supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called Donald Trump a “different guy” than he was in 2016, and slammed Trump’s electoral record as the head of the GOP, which has seen disappointment in successive elections, including on Tuesday in state races in Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia. “He said Republicans were going to get tired of winning,” DeSantis said. “Well, we saw last night, I’m sick of Republicans losing. “
