‘DeSantis Won Tonight’: CNN’s Jennings Says Haley ‘Cratered’ But DeSantis ‘Settled Down’ At GOP Debate

CNN’s Scott Jennings declared Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis the winner of the Republican Presidential Primary Debate on Wednesday over his opponent, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.

During the CNN post-debate analysis, Jennings argued that both candidates made themselves look “small” in the first several minutes as they bashed one another. But, he said, eventually DeSantis was able to pull it together for the remainder of the debate while Haley remained “rattled” throughout.

And he and the other CNN panelists were not big fans of her repeatedly (14 times by their count) flogging her DeSantis Lies website.

“I think DeSantis won tonight,” he said. “I think the first 12 or 15 minutes didn’t help either of them. I thought the initial squabbles made them both look fairly small, frankly. But I think DeSantis settled down as the night went on.”

“And Haley,” he said, referring to comments from David Axelrod, “continued to be rattled.”

When he brought up her repetition of the website he got broad agreement from the other panelists.

“I think Haley drastically overplayed her hand on this website business,” he said. “I think it hurt, I think it cratered her throughout the night, and it sounded like someone to me, the more she went to that well, like someone who couldn’t defend their own record. I mean, it became this crutch.”

“It was like a rhetorical sandwich board,” he said after other panelists voiced their agreement. “And it didn’t — I think the more she went to it, the more annoying, frankly, it seemed throughout the night.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.