NPR
By Ron Elving
January 15, 2016
Donald
Trump did not dominate the sixth debate among the most prominent
Republican candidates for president, but he may have been its prime
beneficiary.
Trump
held his own through an evening of challenges from the FOX Business
Network moderators and from six rivals with him on stage. There were
plenty of slings and arrows
all around, yet Trump did nothing to discourage his fans while watching
his main rivals carve each other up. He even had a moment of thoughtful
connection while defending his "New York values."
Sens.
Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio slammed each other's records and impugned each
other's integrity for one lengthy segment of the debate's final hour,
going mano-a-mano in
a blood-letting that may not help either in the long run.
The
debate lasted nearly 2 1/2 hours, testing the seven men who still have
significant standing in national or early-state polls. They were making
their last best-televised
appeal until they meet in Iowa to debate just days before the caucuses
in that state kick off the actual voting season on Feb. 1. Thursday's
debate was held in Charleston, S.C., in the state that will hold its own
early primary on Feb. 20.
The
event was held before a large, lively crowd, like most of the other
Republican debates, and featured considerable cheering and even catcalls
and boos. At first the
crowd seemed to be behind Cruz in his duel with Trump, but it later
seemed to be with Rubio when he went after Cruz.
Cruz
was the man on camera most often through the evening. The hardliner
from Texas showed a bit of why he has made few friends in the Senate yet
become a hero to millions
of conservatives. Cruz was on the spot early because Trump has recently
questioned whether Cruz's Canadian birth met the "natural born citizen"
qualification cited in the Constitution.
Relying
on his mother's U.S. citizenship, Cruz usually dismisses such questions
as a "nonissue" or a matter of "settled law." But in this debate he
raised a competing
theory instead, saying "the more extreme conspiracy theorists" thought
someone had to be born in the U.S. to parents who were also both born in
the U.S. (a standard raised by very few and never applied to
presidential candidates in the past). Cruz pointed
out that neither he, nor rival Marco Rubio, nor even Trump himself
could meet that strenuous a test. (Trump's mother was born in Scotland.)
But
by so doing, Cruz eluded the real question of whether he needed to have
been born in the actual United States in order to be legally elected
president. And once that
issue had been raised by FOX Business Network anchor Maria Bartiromo,
Trump was more than willing to respond to Cruz's attempts to sidestep
it. "That wouldn't work," he said. "I was born here. Big difference."
This
was not the only clash between the two men who are leading in Iowa
polls as well as in national soundings of the GOP. The moderators also
raised Cruz's recent remarks
about Trump having "New York values," which had been an applause line
for him on the hustings. Cruz spoke of "socially liberal" New York as a
city obsessed with "media and money."
Trump
came back, not with his characteristic aggression or bluster, but with a
measured answer about the values by which his native state and city had
rebounded from the
attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. He said New Yorkers in those days and months
earned the admiration of the world.
Later,
talking to reporters in what is called the "spin room," Trump said, "I
guess the bromance is over," a reference to his falling out with Cruz
after the two observed
an uneasy truce in the earlier debates. Cruz had refused to join other
candidates' efforts to take down the national front-runner, and Trump
had returned the favor by holding his fire. But as Cruz has moved up,
and moved ahead in Iowa, Trump has countered
with the questions about Cruz's birthright eligibility.
"The Constitution hasn't changed," Cruz quipped. "But the poll numbers have."
Rubio,
pouncing on Cruz much later in the debate, unleashed a flurry of
attacks on a range of issues. Cruz had harkened back to Rubio's 2013
bill overhauling the immigration
laws — a bill Cruz has called "amnesty for illegals." Rubio noted
several issues on which Cruz had changed his views or his stance,
including the availability of green cards and legal status for
immigrants in the country illegally, Trade Promotion Authority
for President Obama, military spending levels and even the status of
whistleblower Edward Snowden.
"He
called Snowden a public servant," Rubio said. "When I'm president if we
can get our hands on him, Snowden will be prosecuted as a traitor."
Cruz
had a chance to rebut what he called "at least 11 attacks" from Rubio
and said at least half of them were "clearly false." But he spent his
time primarily on answering
the assertion he had favored lower military spending.
Also
going after Rubio was Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey, who at
one point said he was going to answer a given issue because "you had
your chance Marco and you
blew it." Christie also reprised a popular thrust he had made in
earlier debates by referring to the Washington way of debating issues on
the floor of the Senate, contrasting it with a governor's obligation to
actually govern.
Rubio
had nettled Christie earlier by referring to issues on which he had
supported Obama and for him "sending a check to Planned Parenthood" —
the women's health organization
that has been a target for the Republican candidates because it
provides abortions. Christie flatly denied sending any money to Planned
Parenthood, causing Twitter to come alive with reporters and others
saying they had proof Christie did so in the 1990s.
In
response to a question from moderator Neil Cavuto about a 45 percent
tariff on Chinese goods entering the U.S., Trump said the quotation was
wrong. "It's The New York
Times, said Trump, "they are always wrong."
Cruz
had earlier denounced The Times for its "hit piece" on the loan he
received from the investment bank of Goldman Sachs at favorable terms to
finance his bid for the
U.S. Senate in 2012. Cruz's wife, Heidi, worked for the bank at the
time, and he has said they used their own retirement accounts to pay for
the campaign. Cruz called it "a paperwork error" that he reported the
loan properly in one disclosure form but not
another.
Jeb
Bush, the former governor of Florida, found several opportunities to
assert himself, especially on the question of immigration. He went after
Trump's proposed exclusion
of all Muslims, saying it made it impossible to recruit and retain
allies in the international coalition against ISIS. In fact, he said, he
made the case ISIS is trying to make against the U.S. Bush had earlier
called Trump's suggestion "unhinged," and he
stood by that on Thursday night.
Less
noteworthy than in any debate since the campaign began was Ben Carson,
the neurosurgeon who surged to the upper ranks in the polls in the fall.
Since the terror attacks
in Paris on Nov. 13, however, as the campaign focus shifted to national
security, Carson has faded. Recent turmoil in his campaign has included
the resignation of his finance director, which was announced the day of
the debate. The moderators turned to him
last in the questioning sequence and Carson made a joke about needing
to be awakened.
Also
somewhat marginalized was John Kasich who, like Christie, barely made
the statistical cut to participate on the main stage. Four others who
did not make the cut were
invited to an earlier debate in the same location. Three participated:
Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Carly Fiorina. A fourth, Rand Paul,
declined the invitation.
Kasich
was given regular questions by the moderators but was not engaged by
the other candidates as much as Trump, Cruz, Rubio and Christie. That
meant he could not get
response time, or get involved in the back-and-forth that animated the
evening. He spent his camera time reciting his accomplishments as a
member of the House and as governor of Ohio since 2010.
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