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With an eye on the millions of voters who favor an alternative to Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, the four other GOP candidates engaged in an angry slugfest at the fourth and final scheduled Republican debate.
Name-calling and insults at one point threatened to overtake the debate stage, which has been culled considerably since more than a dozen people declared they were running for the Republican nomination.
Only four candidates made the cutoff for the fourth debate, and the reduced size of the group seemed to intensify the insults. Mr. Trump, as has been his practice, skipped the event, citing his enormous lead.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, fought on the debate stage for the number-two position while biotech tycoon Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie also participated.
They attacked each other viciously over U.S. foreign policy and on personalities.
SEE ALSO: Winners and losers in the fourth GOP presidential debate
At one point Mr. Christie told Mr. Ramaswamy to “shut up for a while” and called him “the most obnoxious blowhard in America.”
Mr. Ramaswamy told Mr. Christie he ought to leave the debate stage, “get a nice meal and get out of this race.”
Mr. DeSantis, still the leader of the second-tier pack, and Ms. Haley, who among all candidates has the strongest momentum and is now nipping at Mr. DeSantis’ heels in Iowa, each made the case as the best candidate to take on President Biden in November.
Mr. DeSantis came out swinging against Ms. Haley, arguing she is too moderate to be the GOP nominee and pointing to her opposition to legislation blocking children from obtaining sex change operations.
“She caves, any time the left comes after her.” Mr. DeSantis said, touting his state’s law banning sex-change operations on minors.
“She said the law shouldn’t get involved in that. If you’re somebody that’s going to be the president of the United States and you can’t stand up against child abuse, how are you going to be able to stand up for anything?” he said.
SEE ALSO: Chris Christie says he ‘had enough’ of Vivek Ramaswamy’s ‘garbage’ during debate
Mr. Ramaswamy criticized Ms. Haley for serving on the board of Boeing Corp. and accepting donations from Wall Street donors, including the “woke” CEO of BlackRock, Larry Fink.
He later called Ms. Haley corrupt and inauthentic for, among other things, going by her English-sounding middle name (Nikki) rather than her Indian-sounding first name (Nimarata).
Ms. Haley, when asked by moderators if she wanted to respond, replied: “It’s not worth my time to respond to him.”
However, Ms. Haley did defend her 10 months on the board of Boeing, one of the largest employers in South Carolina, where she served as governor.
Ms. Haley said her on-stage rivals are “just jealous” of her donors and “wish they were supporting them.”
Mr. Christie defended his candidacy after moderator Megyn Kelly asked why he remained in the race despite low poll numbers in New Hampshire.
The former New Jersey governor, a one-time ally of Mr. Trump who has since turned against him, said he’s still running in order to warn voters about the former president, who he believes must be stopped from becoming the GOP nominee.
“I’m in this race because the truth needs to be spoken,” Mr. Christie said. “He is unfit.”
The group battled over U.S. policy on Israel, Ukraine and Iran.
Mr. Ramaswamy defended his opposition to U.S. involvement in foreign wars, framing his GOP opponents as uninformed and eager to send U.S. forces into “pointless” endless wars.
He said neither Ms. Haley nor Mr. Christie know the names of the foreign provinces they want to spend billions of dollars and send thousands of Americans to defend.
He aimed most of his animus at Ms. Haley.
“You can put lipstick on a Dick Cheney, and it’s still a fascist neocon,” Mr. Ramaswamy said.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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