Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley traded barbs during Wednesday evening\u2019s GOP presidential primary debate over their past positions on bathroom access for transgender people, with both candidates launching accusations against one another on the issue.<\/p>\n
The tense exchange between the GOP presidential hopefuls came during the fourth Republican presidential primary debate, which was held on the campus of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, after DeSantis claimed Haley \u2018killed\u2019 a bill during her term as governor of South Carolina that would have prevented biological males from using female restrooms.<\/p>\n
\u2018You know, they had a bill to say that men shouldn\u2019t go into girls\u2019 bathrooms and she killed that bill, and she brags that she killed that bill. Even to this day she brags that,\u2019 DeSantis claimed during the event. \u2018I don\u2019t think men should be going into little girls\u2019 bathrooms. I think it\u2019s wrong.\u2019<\/p>\n
In response, Haley accused the Florida governor of lying about the matter.<\/p>\n
\u2018First of all, Ron has continued to lie because he\u2019s losing,\u2019 Haley said.<\/p>\n
\u2018That\u2019s not a lie. You said it on tape,\u2019 DeSantis interjected.<\/p>\n
\u2018You are lying,\u2019 she quipped. \u2018I will say, when I was governor, 10 years ago when the bathroom situation came up, we had maybe a handful of kids that were dealing with an issue.\u2019<\/p>\n
Explaining her positioning on the issue at the time during Wednesday\u2019s debate, Haley said she believed there wasn\u2019t a \u2018need to bring government into\u2019 the situation and insisted that boys should \u2018go into boys\u2019 bathrooms and girls go into girls\u2019 bathrooms.\u2019<\/p>\n
Recognizing that the \u2018issue has exploded\u2019 from what it was during her tenure as governor, Haley said she believed at the time that anyone who had an issue with that policy should \u2018use a private bathroom.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018This shows how hypocritical Ron continues to be,\u2019 she added. \u2018When he was running for governor and they asked him about that he said he didn\u2019t think bathroom bills were a good use of his time. You can go look that up.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I signed a bathroom bill in Florida, so that\u2019s obviously not true,\u2019 he responded.<\/p>\n
\u2018The idea that you would say I was against it \u2013\u2019 Haley said before being cut off.<\/p>\n
\u2018I signed it, you didn\u2019t,\u2019 DeSantis told Haley. \u2018You killed it, I signed it. I stood up for little girls, you didn\u2019t do it.\u2019<\/p>\n
DeSantis also claimed he had spoken with South Carolina legislators from the time who told him that the reason the measure was raised was because boys were going into girls\u2019 bathrooms in some Palmetto State schools.<\/p>\n
\u2018There was this going on,\u2019 he said. \u2018I was actually just in South Carolina. Some of the legislators told me at the time there were boys going into the girls\u2019 bathroom. That\u2019s the whole reason why they did it.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018No, no, no, no, no,\u2019 Haley interjected.<\/p>\n
\u2018And so they say when she does that explanation that that doesn\u2019t hold water,\u2019 he added. \u2018This is the upstate of South Carolina. I signed the bill. I protected the girls. She did not do it. I know that.\u2019<\/p>\n
Haley strongly rejected DeSantis\u2019 premise, saying that South Carolina officials \u2018never allowed that to happen\u2019 and that it wasn\u2019t as big of an issue at the time.<\/p>\n
\u2018You are not going to talk about my state like that because I will tell you for a fact South Carolinians never allowed that to happen and we did not have that issue at the time,\u2019 she said. \u2018What I have always said is boys go into a boys\u2019 bathroom, girls go into a girls\u2019 bathroom.\u2026 But I also say that biological boys shouldn\u2019t be playing in girls\u2019 sports and I will do everything I can to stop that because it\u2019s the women\u2019s issue of our time.\u2019<\/p>\n
Attempting to simmer the conversation, the three debate moderators told the candidates they were moving on, but not before DeSantis said, \u2018I actually get this stuff done.\u2019<\/p>\n
Though DeSantis was correct in concluding that the bill went nowhere and Haley had criticized it, the South Carolina measure, which would have applied to public and school restrooms, never made it to Haley\u2019s desk because it didn\u2019t make it out of committee.<\/p>\n
In 2016, Haley said she didn\u2019t believe it was \u2018necessary\u2019 at the time to pass a bill forcing individuals in the state to use a bathroom that aligned with their sex.<\/p>\n
Discussing the same bill during a 2022 appearance on Fox News Channel, Haley said she \u2018strong-armed\u2019 the bill and insisted that they weren\u2019t \u2018gonna have that in South Carolina\u2019 because she believed schools should work directly with parents on the issue.<\/p>\n
But Haley\u2019s point about DeSantis\u2019 past support for certain bathroom bills also stands, though he ultimately signed into law a measure in May 2023 that prevents transgender people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity in public schools, universities, government buildings and prisons.<\/p>\n
Prior to that action, however, DeSantis insisted that bathroom issues were not a top concern of his in 2018.<\/p>\n
Asked by moderator Frank Luntz during a GOP gubernatorial forum whether he would support or oppose a law that would allow a transgender person to pick the bathroom that they choose, DeSantis responded, \u2018I would not pass a law. I would leave it as it is and stay out of that.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Obviously, I\u2019d have to read the bill, but I think getting into the bathroom wars \u2013 I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a good use of our time,\u2019 he added at the time.<\/p>\n\n
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley traded barbs during Wednesday evening\u2019s GOP presidential primary debate over their past positions on bathroom access for transgender people, with both candidates launching accusations against one another on the issue. The tense exchange between the GOP presidential hopefuls came during the fourth Republican presidential <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12667,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}