Wall Street Journal
By Patrick O’Connor, Janet Hook, Beth Reinhard
January 15, 2016
A
clash between businessman Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz that has
played out on the campaign trail in the past week boiled over Thursday
night in the sixth Republican
presidential debate.
The
two leading contenders for the GOP nomination engaged in a heated
back-and-forth about Mr. Cruz’s eligibility to run for president, the
depth of Mr. Trump’s conservatism
and their relative standing in the polls heading into the Feb. 1 Iowa
caucuses.
The
long shadow of the Trump-Cruz rivalry was a measure of how much the GOP
race has evolved since the first debate in August, when many
Republicans viewed Mr. Trump as
a short-lived sensation and Mr. Cruz as a longshot.
Now
they are the front-runners in a presidential contest that has left
party officials and establishment candidates flummoxed over how to
respond to the populist anti-Washington
anger they have mobilized. Messrs. Trump and Cruz are first and second
nationally as the preferred pick of 33% and 20% of Republican primary
voters, respectively, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News
poll.
Bitter
rivalries among the seven Republicans on stage also were laid bare as
each scrambles to shape voters’ opinions in the run-up to the Iowa
balloting.
Sen.
Marco Rubio of Florida, third in the WSJ poll, reprised his
increasingly personal feud with Mr. Cruz in the closing minutes of the
debate over immigration and national
security. Mr. Cruz ridiculed Mr. Rubio for supporting an immigration
overhaul that created a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the
country illegally.
Mr.
Rubio responded by pointing out issues on which the Texas senator has
switched positions, including crop insurance, ethanol subsidies, new
trade rules for the president
and surveillance laws. “That is not consistent conservatism, that is
political calculation,” Mr. Rubio said.
The
dispute between Messrs. Cruz and Trump shattered, once and for all, the
fragile détente between the two political outsiders. In the night’s
highest-profile exchange,
Mr. Trump charged that his rival could drag the party into a legal
fight with Democrats because he was born outside the U.S. “There’s a big
overhang, there is a big question mark on your head,” Mr. Trump said.
“You can’t do that to the party.”
A
constitutional lawyer, Mr. Cruz said the law regarding his eligibility
was clear, adding, “I’m not going to be taking legal advice from Donald
Trump.” He noted that
his rival saw no problem with his Canadian birth just a few months ago.
“The constitution has not changed…. But the poll numbers have,” Mr.
Cruz said. “I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers
are falling in Iowa.”
In
a later exchange, Mr. Cruz elaborated on his slight about Mr. Trump
representing so-called “New York values” by raising doubts about his
conservative convictions. “I
think most people know exactly what New York values are,” Mr. Cruz
said. “Everyone understands that the values in New York City are
socially liberal.”
Mr.
Trump responded by citing the resilience of New Yorkers in the wake of
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “When the World Trade Center came down I
saw something that
no place on earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely,”
he said. “That was a very insulting statement that Ted made.”
Retired
pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who briefly led the race last fall,
continued his fade, while Ohio Gov. John Kasich and former Florida Gov.
Jeb Bush largely
sought to push their messages of electability and job creation.
Mr.
Kasich highlighted his record as governor that has him in the mix in
New Hampshire. “Our wages are growing faster than the national average.
We’re running surpluses,”
he said. “We can take that message and that formula to Washington to
lift every single American to a better life.”
The
audience at times appeared to grow impatient with Mr. Trump for
attacking fellow Republicans. He received a round of boos for suggesting
Mr. Bush was “weak.” “Come
on, man,” Mr. Bush replied.
New
Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Mr. Rubio got into an edgy exchange over
Mr. Rubio’s attempts to paint Mr. Christie as a liberal ill-suited to
become the party’s presidential
nominee.
Mr.
Rubio criticized the New Jersey governor for gun-control measures, his
past donations to Planned Parenthood and his support for the educations
standards known as Common
Core. “Our next president and our Republican nominee cannot be someone
who supports those positions,” he said.
Mr.
Christie hit back, recalling that in a previous debate Mr. Rubio had
accused Mr. Bush of criticizing him only because someone had suggested
it would be politically
advantageous to him.
“It
appears the same someone has been whispering in old Marco’s ear, too,”
Mr. Christie said. He contrasted his experience as a governor with Mr.
Rubio’s time in the Senate,
where “you talk so much that nobody can ever keep up with whether what
you’re saying is accurate or not.”
Mr.
Trump and Mr. Bush, the onetime front-runner, also reprised their fight
over the former’s controversial proposal to temporarily ban Muslims
from entering the U.S.
as an antiterror measure. Asked if the widespread criticism of the
proposal had given him second thoughts, Mr. Trump said, “No. We have to
stop with political correctness.”
Mr.
Bush argued the policy would send an anti-Muslim message that would
undermine U.S. efforts to build alliances with Arab countries. “Sending
that signal makes it impossible
for us to be serious about taking out ISIS and restoring democracy in
Syria,” Mr. Bush said. “All Muslims? Seriously?”
Mr.
Cruz also came under fire early when the moderators asked him to
address his failure to report a six-figure loan from Goldman Sachs Group
Inc. to help finance his
2012 Senate bid. The Texas senator dismissed the question, first
reported in the New York Times, as an overblown attack by a newspaper he
considers biased. He cast the omission as a trivial oversight that he
plans to correct.
“I
made a paperwork error,” he said. If that is the worst that could be
leveled at him, he said, “they better go back to the well.”
The
dust-up took a lighthearted turn when Mr. Trump said he considered
adding the Texas senator to his ticket in the fall. Asked why he was
raising questions about Mr.
Cruz’s eligibility now, Mr. Trump said bluntly, “Now, he’s doing a
little bit better. He never had a chance. He’s got probably a 4 or 5%
chance.”
Mr.
Rubio interrupted the fireworks to criticize President Barack Obama. “I
hate to interrupt this episode of Court TV,” he said, to a round of
applause. “We elected a
president that doesn’t believe in the Constitution—he undermines it,”
he said. “This election has to be about reversing all of that damage.”
The
back-and-forth is a high-stakes gamble for both because they risk
alienating the other’s supporters as the voting nears. Mr. Trump, in
particular, has avoided direct
confrontations with his top rivals in previous debate, often picking on
lower-tier candidates instead.
During
the sixth Republican primary debate the GOP presidential contenders
discussed Donald Trump's proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the
U.S. and shared their
ideas about how to deal with refugees. Photo: Getty Images
The
debate began with Democrats as the prime focus of the conversation. Mr.
Cruz opened an attack on Mr. Obama for his foreign policy. Sidestepping
a question on the economy,
Mr. Cruz criticized the detention of U.S. sailors by the Iranian
government, saying, “It was heartbreaking but the good news is the next
commander-in-chief is standing on this stage.”
Mr.
Christie derided the economic picture Mr. Obama presented in his State
of the Union speech, calling it “story time with Barack Obama.”
“You
cannot give Hillary Clinton a third term of Barack Obama’s leadership,”
Mr. Christie said. Mr. Rubio also attacked Mrs. Clinton, calling her
“disqualified” for the
role. “Someone who cannot handle intelligence information appropriately
cannot be commander in chief,” he said, referring to criticism of her
handling of classified information over email as secretary of state.
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