And only two GOP debates remain before voters take over in February with the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.
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“In the first question of the Republican debate, candidates were forced to respond to our calls for $15 and union rights, because there’s a growing understanding in America that $15 an hour is what American workers everywhere need to survive and support our families”, said Williamson, a McDonald’s employee in Milwaukee and a Fight For $15 member. Chief among them: immigration.
After weeks of personal sniping, the Republican presidential candidates clashed sharply over immigration and other policies at their debate on Tuesday, with Ohio Governor John R. Kasich and former Florida governor Jeb Bush trying to gain political momentum by heaping scorn on Mr Donald Trump’s plan to deport unauthorised immigrants. “We all know you can’t pick them up and ship them… back across the border”, he said. “It’s a silly argument”, Kasich fired off during the debate. Bush also attacked Trump, saying mass deportation would tear communities apart.
“If they want to become American citizens and they want to have voting rights, then they should have to do the same thing as anybody else”, Carson said. And I always say the wall, we’re going to build the wall.
Ted Cruz came to Trump’s defense. When you combine that with Cruz’s statement against illegal immigration, you see how Cruz is angling himself for a future showdown with Rubio. Monday, a federal appeals court ruled against President Barack Obama’s plan that would protect about 5 million people in this country from deportation, many children brought to the United States illegally by their parents.
“There were a few elbows”. Asked if he was anxious about those questions, Mr Carson drew strong applause from the audience by criticising the news media as biased against him.
Ahead of Tuesday’s debates, co-moderator Maria Bartiromo said: “This is an opportunity for us to make sure the world knows what the Fox Business Network is”.
Arguably, the debate was more substantive than previous debates and that was partly due to the manner in which the moderators handled the questions to the candidates, but there were plenty of fireworks between the candidates.
The format of longer answers and rebuttals arguably helped Bush the most, allowing him to explain his policy positions that don’t fit into a debate sound-bite. He was pounced on by his fellow candidates for his stance on immigration reform.
Whether the debate did anything to sort and separate the field isn’t all that clear.
All of that still needs to play out and with Trump and Carson around, we may be getting ahead of ourselves. (Politico ran a story claiming Carson “fabricated” a scholarship offer from West Point, but the memoir acknowledges that he didn’t apply to the school, and “scholarship” is the school’s common term for its tuition-free offers of admission.) Carson is less deft when it comes to policy, but policy is not at the core of his appeal-rather, it is his status as an inspirational figure.
At the debate, real estate mogul Donald Trump said he believes taxes and wages are too high.
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Rubio and Cruz reinforced their claim to be the most natural debaters on the stage. That’s not much different than the 14 million viewers who watched the CNBC debate. Much of the focus after the debate remains on the mainstage performances of the candidates who are polling higher. “Can you be conservative and be liberal on military spending?”
