13 Takeaways From GOP Candidate Forum on Faith, Family

Republican presidential candidates gathered for a discussion board Friday night, solely livestreamed by The Daily Signal.

The 2023 Presidential Thanksgiving FAMiLY Forum in Des Moines, Iowa featured Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Here are among the highlights from their dialog.

1. The Privilege of Having Two Parents

The candidates had been requested learn how to restore the values of marriage for the following technology and make household central once more.

Ramaswamy mentioned that it wasn’t simply going to be “one silver bullet” that turns issues round. He mentioned that a part of the issue is that the federal government pays folks more cash “not to have a man in the house,” as part of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society packages.

What we have to start with is to cease paying folks to not begin a nuclear household, he mentioned, whereas calling the nuclear household unit “the greatest form of governance known to mankind.”

Ramaswamy mentioned that folks ask him if he grew up in privilege. His mother and father had been immigrants with little cash, however he mentioned he did have the privilege of getting two mother and father in the home who centered on training and instilling a perception in God.

“I think it’s perfectly right for us, for whoever is the next president of the United States to want to set an example so that every kid in this country can enjoy that same privilege and I don’t think we should apologize for it,” he mentioned.

2. Black Lives Matter Riots

“We didn’t have [BLM riots] in Florida because I called out the National Guard and said it’s not going to happen in my state,” mentioned DeSantis.

3. ‘America’s Not Racist, We’re Blessed’

Haley mentioned she was alarmed concerning the “national self loathing that has taken over our country, the idea that they say America’s bad or rotten or racist.”

“America’s not racist, we’re blessed, the former South Carolina governor continued. “Our kids need to know to love America. They need to be saying the Pledge of Allegiance when they start school every day.”

4. ‘You Have a Right to Go to Church’

DeSantis spoke concerning the COVID-19 lockdowns and addressed what he would do throughout a future, comparable disaster.

The Florida governor mentioned that he might be trusted in a disaster as a result of he did “what was right” throughout the pandemic.

(*13*) he mentioned, referring to the previous director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

DeSantis mentioned that although all these folks and teams had been flawed, he and the few state governors who received it proper had been “getting lambasted by the Left, by the media, and even by a lot of Republicans.”

“People like Fauci were telling people not to go to church,” he mentioned. “I had some local governments that were not trying to not let people go to church so I immediately did an executive order that said ‘you have a right to go to church, you have the right to worship, and government can’t infringe on your right to worship.”

He mentioned that it’s “easy to lead when the wind is at your back. The question is that when you are leading into the teeth of the media machine, the bureaucracy, the Left, all these different things, are you going to be willing to stand strong or are you going to fold your tent?”

5. Ramaswamy Shares What His Hindu Faith Means to Him

Ramaswamy welcomed a query about his Hindu religion, referring to it as an “elephant in the room.”

“I’m Hindu. I believe there’s one true God. I believe God put each of us here for a purpose. My faith teaches me that we have a duty, a moral duty to realize that purpose, that we’re God’s instruments,” the entrepreneur mentioned.

He continued:

My mother and father taught me household is the basis. Respect your mother and father. Marriage is sacred. Abstinence earlier than marriage is the means to go. Adultery is flawed. Marriage is between a man and a girl.

Divorce is not simply some desire you choose for. That when you get married, you get married earlier than God. And you make an oath to God and you make an oath to your household. 

That the good issues in life contain a sacrifice. That there’s extra to life than the aimless passage of time. We’re right here for a objective.

He additionally mentioned he believed the United States was “founded on Judeo-Christian values.”

“They’re values that I deeply share, not as a pastor, but as a president,” Ramaswamy mentioned. “I think it’s my responsibility to make faith and family and hard work and patriotism, but faith included, cool again in this country for the next generation.”

6. DeSantis: My Kids Will Bring Homework, Not Cocaine, to White House

Alluding to the cocaine discovered earlier this yr within the White House, the Florida Republican pledged it wouldn’t happen if he was elected.

“My wife and I will raise our kids in the White House,” mentioned DeSantis. “I can tell you with [them being ages] 6, 5, and 3, the only thing they’re going to be bringing back to the White House is homework, not cocaine. Don’t worry about that.”

7. From Welfare to Work

Haley talked about how she moved folks from welfare to work as governor of South Carolina.

“The focus was, how do we lift up everybody? How do we do something so that we can move them to a better place?” she recalled

“We had thousands of people on welfare. And so I would take that person who would be sitting on the couch, and I would match them up with a business. And I told my businesses, if you will take this person and train them, I will pay for them for X number of weeks. And after that, you decide if you want to hire them. We moved 35,000.”

9. Hold China ‘Accountable’

Ramaswamy signaled he would take an aggressive strategy to China. “We cannot depend on an enemy for our modern way of life,” he mentioned.

If he had the chance to sit down throughout from Chinese President Xi Jinping, it might be “a very different meeting than the one [President Joe] Biden had” earlier this week.

“You won’t buy land in this country,” Ramaswamy mentioned he would inform Xi. “You won’t donate to universities in this country. We won’t actually even be in the WTO [World Trade organization] anymore.”

“We will hold you accountable using every financial lever we have for unleashing that man-made virus on the world, or else we can expect even worse in the future,” he added.

10. The Problem of China

Haley spoke concerning the concern of how we take care of a rising China. She talked about that they’re an authoritarian regime that doesn’t share our values.

The former U.N. ambassador mentioned that meals safety is a large concern, as a result of many American meals are despatched to China. 

“What we will focus on is having that move over to our friends, have that go to India, have that go to our other allies, so that our farmers never feel beholden to an enemy,” she mentioned.

Haley mentioned that we shouldn’t be dependent on China in any sense.

“If they pulled the rug out from under us tomorrow, would we be ready?” she requested.

She mentioned this implies we must be dominant in relation to vitality, however be certain that we aren’t dependent on the Chinese regime earlier than one thing occurs. Right now we have now a “perfect opportunity” to coordinate with different international locations to change into collectively much less dependent on China, she mentioned.

11. Western Civilization Came From Holy Land

DeSantis, who visited Israel in April, famous the impression visiting the nation had had on him.

“It will change you when you walk in the footsteps of where Jesus walked,” he mentioned. “You can walk in the different way. My son came with us. He loves David and Goliath. We literally were in Israel in April. You can go to the valley where David fought Goliath. So it all comes to life.And it’s all something that’s very meaningful. And I think it just carries with it a significance that is unlike any place I’ve ever been to.”

DeSantis additionally mentioned how western civilization got here from the Holy Land.

12. Losing Children

Both Ramaswamy and DeSantis shared private tales of shedding a baby to miscarriage—and of their pleasure of later having a wholesome youngster who was born.

“Unfortunately, we lost that first baby and, it was a tough thing because this is something that we had so much hopes for, so much aspirations,”recalled DeSantis.

“But yeah, we just kept the faith. We just kept praying. We knew that there would be a path that God would lead us on. And, lo and behold, short time after, we did it, and we had our first baby girl.”

Ramaswamy shared that whereas he and his spouse, Apoorva, hadn’t meant to get pregnant on the time, they quickly began rejoicing about their new youngster.

“We wrote a letter to our child, what we wanted to impart, what were the stories from our parents and our grandparents we wanted to tell,” he mentioned.

“About three and a half months in, Apoorva, one day she woke up—She’s bleeding. She had a miscarriage. We lost our first child, and that was the loss of a life.”

Later, the couple feared they had been experiencing one other miscarriage.

“I get the call that we dreaded. Apoorva was on the phone. She’s crying. She’s bleeding. And we lost our child in a miscarriage,” Ramaswamy recalled, earlier than detailing the difficulty the couple confronted getting a health care provider’s appointment.

“And so the next day I was waiting for a call. She goes in for the doctor’s appointment. I get the call. She’s crying. I’m getting ready to console her. And she said they found a heartbeat.”

“That was our son, Karthik. And [he] was alive, right? It’s this guy right here,” mentioned Ramaswamy as his son joined him on stage.

13. America More United Than Media Shows

Ramaswamy additionally argued that his expertise campaigning had proven him that there was much less division within the United States than reported.

“I don’t think we’re nearly as divided as the media teaches us that we are, right? If you turn on the social media apps on your phone, or you watch cable television on a given night, sure, you’re led to believe that we’re divided. And I think the way we call the bluff on that national division is all of us starting to speak openly again.”

“There’s a gap between what people are willing to say in private and what they’re willing to say in public,” he continued. “I think that’s the measure of our country’s health. How big is that gap?”

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