Haley punched back at Ramaswamy after he compared her to former Vice President Dick Cheney "in three-inch heels."

"I'd first like to say: They're five-inch heels, and I don't wear them unless you can run in them. The second thing that I will say is: I wear heels -- they're not for a fashion statement, they're for ammunition."

-ABC News' Tal Axelrod

“We had Floridians that were over there after the attack,” DeSantis said. “He left them stranded they couldn't get flights out.”

That’s at odds with official State Department reports.

Reuters reported on Oct. 16 that the State Department had offered more than 4,000 seats on government-chartered transport to U.S. citizens and their immediate family. CNN put the figure higher, at nearly 5,000 seats. But both outlets reported that many of those transports left less than half full, the government said.

-Analysis by Aaron Sharockman of PolitiFact

Christie, asked why he should lead the party rather than Trump, largely focused on the global challenges the U.S. is facing, including the Israel-Gaza war and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"Tonight, we need to decide which president is going to be the one to tackle the big issues. Who's going to make this country look once again, not just inward, but look outward at the world and say, 'America is the country, the indispensable nation, that makes this a safer world'?" Christie said. "And in a safer world, American innovation, American hard work has always been the thing that has driven our country to greater things. I'm going to be the president who will do those big things."

On Trump, Christie said at the end of his answer, "Anybody who's gonna be spending the next year and a half of their life focusing on keeping themselves out of jail and courtrooms cannot lead this party." (Trump denies wrongdoing.)

-ABC News' Alexandra Hutzler

Ramaswamy took a swipe at the media, claiming that it was "corrupt" and had played up a "hoax" about Trump's relationship with Russia, an apparent reference to the Department of Justice's investigation of the Trump campaign's ties with Russian nationals. He even tried to ask the moderators to answer for this. Ramaswamy essentially took a page out of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's 2012 debate approach. In the 2012 Republican primary, Gingrich regularly attacked the "elite media" during his debate appearances, and he ended up surging in the polls at two different points in the campaign, even managing to win the South Carolina and Georgia (his home state) primaries.

--Analysis by Geoffrey Skelley of 538

The candidates took on TikTok, arguing that the enormously popular if controversial social media app should be banned in the U.S.

Trump "talked tough about TikTok, I heard him do it many times, but when it came down to it, he did not ban them when he could have and should have," Christie said. "In my first week as president, we would ban TikTok."

"I think that China's the top threat we face. They've been very effective at infiltrating different parts of our society," Desantis, the father of three young kids, said. "These kids get these devices, and they have a mind of their own."

Ramaswamy, who has waffled on TikTok usage, targeted Haley's daughter's use of the app, drawing some boos, which he played down as coming from Haley supporters.

"We have to ban any U.S. company actually transferring U.S. data to the Chinese," Ramaswamy added. "Even U.S. companies in Silicon Valley are doing it."

"What we should do is ban TikTok, period," Scott said.

-ABC News' Tal Axelrod