“She was naturalized. Now Donald, on the issue of citizenship Donald, I’m not going to use your mother’s birth against you”.
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Later, Cuomo said of Cruz that “If he had any class he would apologize”. And I recognize that Donald is dismayed that his poll numbers are falling in Iowa.
He urged Mr Cruz, who is a lawyer, to ask a court to put the question to rest.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz picked on the brief detention of U.S sailors by Iran to drive home the point about American decline and weakness but spent considerable time undermining each other.
During one heated clash, Cruz tried to raise doubts about Trump’s legitimacy as a Republican candidate.
“Donald Trump is very opinionated, which doesn’t make it easy for him during the debate”. Indeed, for the first time Trump floated the idea of taking Cruz as his vice president.
Cuomo was responding to the Texas senator’s quip that Trump “embodies NY values”.
But anger seemed to be all over the stage at the North Charleston Coliseum in the swing state of SC, as hopefuls such as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and US Senator Marco Rubio from Florida squabbled among themselves.
Trump, renewing his concerns for the Canadian-born Cruz’s natural born citizen status at the Fox Business debate.
Cruz – who is still marginally behind in the opinion polls – then drew his rival’s ire by criticising “New York values”, referring to Trump’s brand of conservatism reflected the more liberal leanings of the Big Apple, where he lives.
“That was a very insulting statement that Ted made”, Trump said.
“No place on earth could have handled that more beautifully, more humanely than New York”, Mr Trump said. Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? While the moderators provided an opportunity for Trump to soften his anti-refugee position, the frontrunner doubled down, saying asylum-seekers from that part of the globe “could be the great Trojan Horse” who “are going to do great, great destruction”.
“Under that theory, not only would I be disqualified, Marco Rubio would be disqualified, Bobby Jindal would be disqualified and interestingly enough, Donald J. Trump would be disqualified”, Cruz said.
Cruz accused Obama of painting a rosy picture of the country’s economic situation while working Americans are being “left behind”.
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On the economy and national security, the candidates offered a sharp contrast to the optimistic portrait of the nation President Barack Obama outlined in his State of the Union address earlier this week, warning that sticking with Democrats in the November election could have dire consequences.
