Nikki Haley in Fifth GOP presidential primary debate

On Abortion: Respect women instead of demonizing with fear or judgement

HALEY: I am unapologetically pro-life. These fellows don't know how to talk about abortion. The Democrats put fear in women on abortion and Republicans have used judgment. This is too personal of an issue to put fear or judgment. Our goal should be: "How do we save as many babies as possible and support as many moms as possible?" That's what we're going to focus on doing. We're not going to demonize this issue anymore. We're not going to play politics with this issue anymore. We're going to treat it like the respectful issue that it is.

DESANTIS: When she says "pro-lifers need to stop talking about throwing women in jail," that's a trope. No one I've ever met thinks that.

HALEY: You keep saying, "where is anybody talking about putting a woman in jail or giving her the death penalty?" South Carolina. There is legislation right now that would put a woman in jail if she got an abortion. That's why I say that.

On Civil Rights: Everybody associates the Civil War with slavery

HALEY: If you grow up in South Carolina, literally in second and third grade, you learn about slavery. You grow up and you have -- you know, I had Black friends growing up. It is a very talked-about thing. We have a big history in South Carolina when it comes to, you know, slavery, when it comes to all the things that happened with the Civil War, all that. I was thinking past slavery and talking about the lesson that we would learn going forward. I shouldn't have done that. I should have said 'slavery.' But in my mind, that's a given, that everybody associates the Civil War with slavery.

On Crime: Law and order in our cities by empowering law enforcement

HALEY: What I would do is, first of all, defund sanctuary cities. It's hugely important that we do that. That's where we're seeing a lot of crime. But the second thing is, our law enforcement is demoralized right now. Because if they go and they arrest someone for having a stolen gun, it's demoralizing when they go through all that effort, put their lives at risk, and then you turn around and let that criminal go the very next day. Prosecutors need to prosecute according to the law and we've got to start holding them accountable. When we bring law and order back to our cities, then that's when they'll be safe. You don't do it by defunding the police, and you don't do it by just praising the police. You do it by having their backs. We have to get these stolen guns and drugs off the street. And the only way we can do that is when we empower law enforcement.

On Education: Teach kids how to build: apprenticeships & vo-tech

DESANTIS: Nikki said she wants parents to decide on education. She campaigned for governor saying she was going to do school choice, to give private scholarships to low-income families. When she was governor, she never did it. She caved to the teachers union.

On Education: Let parents parent and let teachers teach

HALEY: I have fought for school choice in my entire career because I think parents know their children best, and I think we should always do that. We wanted school choice. I had a Republican legislature that wouldn't do it. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it across the country. But we've got to get these programs down to the state level. We've got to let the focus be on teachers. Teachers right now have to be the guidance counselors, the pastors, the nurses and everything in between. That's not what teachers want. Teachers want to do what they were taught to do. And that means math, science, reading, history, English, arts. That's it. Schools can't be all things to all kids. They need to let the parents parent. They need to let teachers teach.

On Energy & Oil: Not smart to mandate electric cars too by 2035

HALEY: Everybody wants to have clean air, clean water. But how do we do that? The first thing is, you don't deal in extremes. The second thing is, we'll roll back all of Biden's green subsidies because they're misplaced. Rather than putting anything towards innovation--nuclear fusion and other things that reduce emissions--[Democrats want] everybody to drive an electric car by 2035. That's not even smart. By the way, Ron [DeSantis] took Biden's stimulus money and did charging stations all throughout Florida. I wouldn't have taken the stimulus money. But what that does is basically, we don't have the infrastructure. Not just charging stations--electric vehicles are heavy. Our roads and bridges wouldn't be able to handle that if we did that because they're heavy in weight. Not to mention 70% of the batteries in electric cars are made in China. If we're going to do it, innovate it, transition and do it the right way, not in extremes.

On Families & Children: No gender transformations until age 18, like no tattoos

DESANTIS: It's wrong to tell a kindergartner, like Disney wanted to do, that you can change your gender. So I stood up against it. Most corporate Republicans would have caved. Now, Nikki Haley sided with Disney. She invited them to South Carolina, even though they were involved in transing kids. She is representative of this corporatist element of the party.

HALEY: I have never said anything related to the transgender stuff he says. I have always fought to protect kids. I have always said that boys need to go into boys' bathrooms, girls need to go into girls' bathrooms, that we shouldn't have any gender transitions before the age of 18. Just like we don't have tattoos before the age of 18, we shouldn't have gender transformation or puberty blockers. But I will tell you that Disney has been woke for a long time. We are not woke in South Carolina. I will always invite businesses to come to South Carolina.

On Foreign Policy: Dictators always say what they're going to do

HALEY: I don't think we should give cash to any country, friend or foe, because you can't follow it. You can't hold it accountable. I don't think we need to put troops on the ground. But, dictators always say what they're going to do. China said they were going to take Hong Kong. They did. Russia said they were going to invade Ukraine. We watched it. China says Taiwan is next. We better believe them. Russia said once they take Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics are next. Those are NATO countries, and that puts America at war. This is about preventing war. It's always been about preventing war. If we support Ukraine, that's only 3.5% of our defense budget. Biden and no one else is telling the American people the truth about that.

On Free Trade: Take back land that China bought; trade with friends instead

HALEY: China is our number one national security threat. I fought them every single day at the U.N. The first thing we have to do is we have to make sure we stop selling them any land and we take back the land they already purchased. We need to go to our universities and we say, "you either take Chinese money or you take American money but the days of taking both are over." We need to stop all of the technologies that are going to China. Biden approved 70% of them. Trump approved even more than that. We have to tell them we're going to end all normal trade relations with them until they stop murdering Americans with fentanyl. But the biggest thing, [for] China in terms of trade, we will move that trade to where we have friends. We will go and build partnerships, India, Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Australia, Israel. We will go and move that trade over.

On Government Reform: Take many federal programs and send them to the states

And then we're going to go and take as many federal programs as we can and send them down to the states. That will reduce the size of the federal government, but it will empower people on the ground. Think health care. Think welfare. Think education -- if we started doing that.

On Gun Control: For school shootings: more mental health; more security

We have to secure our schools the same ways that we secure our airports and our courthouses. And that means we make sure that we have whatever we need to, to make sure nothing comes through bullet-wise or otherwise. We need to have a security officer at the front of every school. We need to have one point of entry, no side or rear entries. And then, we need to make sure that we have someone on staff, a mental health counselor that does nothing but look to see which kids may be in crisis.

On Health Care: Mental health crisis is a cancer; need services & insurance

HALEY: Well, I think we saw it exacerbated by COVID. One in three people right now suffer from mental health issues, but if treated, they can live a perfectly normal life. The problem is we don't have enough mental health therapists. We don't have enough mental health treatment centers. We don't have enough addiction centers. And if you happen to be lucky enough to get one of those three, insurance doesn't cover it.

Q: What would you do to fix it?

HALEY: We need to have more Telehealth, so that people can get the mental health care they need right when they need it. We need to have mental health counselors in schools so they can identify when a child has a problem. But right now, we've got to get access to care. And that's why I want to move those federal programs down to the state level, because states know they need more mental health support.

On Immigration: Border crossers are families, not criminals: but e-Verify

Q [to HALEY]: Gov. DeSantis and also Donald Trump are attacking you for that comment in 2015 in which you said undocumented immigrants should not be called "criminals." The full context is you said, We don't need to talk about them as criminals. They're not. They're families that want a better life, and they're desperate to get here." Do you still feel that way?

HALEY: When I was governor, we passed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country. In passing that toughest illegal immigration law in the country, we passed E-Verify, which I want to take national, which is where businesses have to prove that the people they hire are in this country legally. I passed it within six months of being governor. Ron didn't pass it for five years. He only waited to pass it when he decided to run for president.

On Immigration: Admit immigrants on merit, not on random quotas

On Principles & Values: Pardon Trump: he was the right President at the right time

For me, it's not about guilt or innocence. It's about what's in the best interest for the country. And I don't think our country will move forward with an 80-year -old president sitting in jail that allows our country to continue to be divided. I think pardoning Trump and moving on is in the best interest of our country if we're going to heal and if we're going to get back together, and get out of the chaos.

On Principles & Values: Show people how you're similar, not how you're different

On Social Security: Adjust retirement age to 70 for younger workers in their 20s

HALEY: DeSantis voted to raise the retirement age to 73. When I said the retirement age was too low--and you can go to DeSantisLies.com--I said it's too low, if we're going to look at those in their 20s. We have to go and start looking at what we can do to get out of this. We want to make sure that everybody who was promised gets it.

Q: Just a clarification: should voters in their 20s plan on having to work until they're 70?

HALEY: They should plan on their retirement age being increased, yes. We're going to change it to reflect more of what life expectancy should be.

DeSantisLies.com: "LIE: DeSantis falsely claims Haley wants to raise the retirement age for retirees.

TRUTH: Haley has ONLY called for adjusting the retirement age for younger workers in their twenties.

On Tax Reform: Let's make the small business tax cuts permanent

On War & Peace: Support Israel to eliminate Hamas once and for all

DESANTIS: When Gov. Haley was at the U.N., she supported the idea of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. The problem with that is the Palestinian Arabs don't recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. Under no circumstances as president am I going to pressure Israel to risk their security to do a so called two-state solution. She was wrong when she embraced that.

HALEY: When I was at the United Nations, I fought every day for Israel. I said a two-state solution wasn't something that was possible because Israel would always come to the table and the Palestinians wouldn't. But right now, we have to make sure that Israel has the support that it needs. There should be three things. Give Israel whatever it wants to get the job done. Two, eliminate Hamas once and for all. And three, do whatever it takes to bring the hostages home.

On War & Peace: There wouldn't be Hamas without Iran

HALEY: When it comes to Iran, what we have to understand, there would be no Hamas without Iran. There would not be Houthis without Iran. There wouldn't be Hezbollah without Iran. And when you look at the strikes that are happening in Iraq and Syria, that is because of Iran. They're pulling the puppet strings. We've had over 130 strikes on our men and women in Iraq and Syria is unconscionable. We're supposed to have their backs.

DESANTIS: After the attacks against Israel, anyone with half a brain knows Iran is behind this. They fund Hamas. They fund Hezbollah. We did a special session of the legislature down in Florida. We expanded sanctions against Iran.