In Miami, NBC News hosted the most sober and restrained of the three Republican presidential debates thus far. Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie feuded and found common ground over a variety of topics, including border security, abortion access and social security reforms. But there was drama nonetheless, particularly between Haley and Ramaswamy, who the former UN ambassador at one point called “scum”. Donald Trump, who has an overwhelming lead among polls for the nomination, once again skipped the get-together, and reportedly will not attend the fourth debate set for next month in Alabama.

Here’s a recap of some of the biggest moments:

• DeSantis again called for gunning down drug traffickers who cross into the US over the southern border with Mexico.

• Christie accused TikTok of “polluting the minds of American young people all throughout this country”, and said he would ban it on his first day in the White House.

• Scott warned of “terrorist sleeper cells” in America, while demanding more accountability for aid to Ukraine.

• Ramaswamy called for Joe Biden to drop his re-election campaign, and accused him of not really being the president.

• Haley said Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping would love to see Ramaswamy in the White House. She did not mean it as a compliment.

The manager of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign Julie Chavez Rodriguez released a statement lumping the five Republicans who participated in tonight’s debate with Donald Trump, saying there is no daylight between their policies:

Normally, after you lose, you take a moment to reflect and course correct. But in Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican Party, apparently you double down on the same extreme agenda that was soundly rejected last night in elections across the country. That’s what we witnessed tonight: the entire Republican field once again embracing Donald Trump’s losing and extreme MAGA agenda of banning abortion, cutting Social Security and Medicare, and rigging the economy for the ultra-wealthy at the expense of working Americans. In fact, the only thing that the American people agree with these MAGA Republicans on is that their extreme agenda has left them reeling as ‘a party of losers.’

A year from now, Americans will face a clear choice — between President Biden, who is focused on the issues impacting you, and MAGA Republicans, whose policy platform is to make things worse for you by taking away your freedoms. We’ll spend the next year making sure every American knows just that.

Donald Trump did not attend tonight’s debate of Republican presidential candidates, nor the two that came before it, and CBS News reports he will not participate in the fourth debate set for next month:

That debate is set for 6 December in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

As the debate concluded, Vivek Ramaswamy leveled an attack on Joe Biden, arguing he isn’t really the president and demanding he end his re-election campaign.

“I also want to close with one message to the Democrat Party: End this farce that Joe Biden is going to be your nominee. We know he’s not even the president of the United States – he’s a puppet for the managerial class,” Ramaswamy said.

“So have the guts to step up and be honest about who you’re actually going to put up, so we can have an honest debate. Biden should step aside and end his candidacy now, so we can see whether it’s Newsom or Michelle Obama or whoever else.”

Tonight’s debate is taking place in the wake of yesterday’s election, where Republican attempts to curb abortion were turned down by voters in Ohio and Virginia. Indeed, the GOP has been on a losing streak at the ballot box on the issue ever since Roe v Wade was struck down in June 2022, and in response to a question on her abortion policy, Nikki Haley called for something of a ceasefire.

“What I’ll tell you is, as much as I’m pro-life, I don’t judge anyone for being pro-choice, and I don’t want them to judge me for being pro-life. So when we’re looking at this, there are some states that are going more on the pro-life side, I welcome that. There are some states that are going more on the pro-choice side. I wish that wasn’t the case, but the people decided,” Haley said.

She also noted the long odds any nationwide abortion restriction would face getting through Congress and signed by the president, and concluded by appealing for politicians to back off the issue:

So let’s find consensus. Let’s agree on … how we can ban late-term abortions. Let’s make sure we encourage adoptions and good quality adoptions. Let’s make sure we make contraception accessible. Let’s make sure that none of these state laws put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty for getting an abortion. Let’s focus on how to save as many babies as we can, and support as many moms as we can and stop judgment. We don’t need to divide America over this issue anymore.

Like many Republicans, Vivek Ramaswamy said he wanted to build a wall on the southern border. But he didn’t stop there.

Ramaswamy says he also wants to build a wall on the northern border with Canada, arguing it’s also a source of fentanyl trafficking. From his remarks:

What we need to do is stop using our military to protect somebody else’s border halfway around the world, when we’re short right here at home.

Get serious about protecting this border and then the other thing that hasn’t been discussed as the northern border, I’m the only candidate on this stage, as far as I’m aware, who has actually visited the northern border. There was enough fentanyl that was captured just on the northern border last year to kill 3 million Americans. So we got to just skate to where the puck is going, not just where the puck is. Don’t just build the wall, build both walls.

Ron DeSantis once again proposed hardline, legally dubious methods to improve security on the US border with Mexico, including shooting drug smugglers “stone cold dead”.

He had made a similar remark at a previous debate, and repeated it just now:

I’ll build a wall, but we’re going to designate the cartels to be foreign terrorist organizations or something similar to that. And we’re going to authorize the use of deadly force. We’re going to have maritime operations to interdict precursor chemicals going into Mexico, but I’ll tell you this, if someone in the drug cartels is sneaking fentanyl across the border, when I’m president, that’s going to be the last thing they do. We’re going to shoot him stone cold dead.

The debaters are debating again, and one thing’s for sure: the salvoes between Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley notwithstanding, this faceoff is a much more sober affair than the previous two.

The candidates were asked how they would handle border security and fentanyl smuggled across the border. Tim Scott responded first, and called for deploying technology to secure the border.

We should close our southern border. For $10 billion, we can close our southern border. For an additional $5 billion, we could use the currently available military technology to surveil our southern border to stop fentanyl from crossing our border.

It just gets worse and worse between Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy. When it came the entrepreneur’s turn to talk about his policy on TikTok, Ramaswamy referred to Haley and said, “In the last debate, she made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time, so you might want to take care of your family first.”

Haley shot back. “Leave my daughter out of your voice,” she said. And as Ramaswamy went on, she dismissed him, saying “you are just scum.”

The debate has resumed with the first question about TikTok, the much-maligned social media network that’s owned by a Chinese firm and beloved by many young people.

“Let me say this: TikTok is not only spyware, it is polluting the minds of American young people all throughout this country, and they’re doing it intentionally,” Chris Christie said. “In my first week as president, we would ban TikTok.”