Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Jeb Bush engaged in an angry clash on Saturday over the Iraq war in a raucous dispute over the conflict launched by Bush’s brother, former President George W. Bush.
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At this point, Trump and Sen. Cruz said Trump has backed liberal policies for most of his life, saying, “You shouldn’t be flexible on core principles”.
“A big, fat mistake”, said Trump, noting that the September 11, 2001, attacks had also occurred on Bush’s watch. The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush. We can make mistakes, but that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq.
“I am sick and exhausted of him going after my family”, said Bush, a former Florida governor.
“I know so many numerous people in the audience”, Trump said as the crowd booed a question about whether he still believes former President Bush should have been impeached.
Bush’s rejoinder drew an endorsement from Sen. Marco Rubio to run for re-election in Florida? His father and brother won previous SC primaries, and Jeb Bush hopes this year’s contest will vault him back into the top tier of race.
“How did he keep us safe?” “The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn’t kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him”. “That is not safe”.
Trump shot back, “Give me a break”.
Jeb continued talking about his family, saying that his mother is the strongest woman he knows.
When Trump contradicted the Republican Party’s most cherished form of up-is-downism, the party establishment finally got its groove back and handed him arguably his worst evening of the entire campaign.
“You have to knock out ISIS”.
JOHN KASICH: “I love these blue-collar Democrats because they’re going to vote for us come next fall, promise you that”. “There were no weapons of mass destruction”.
“The problem in the past is we’ve appointed people thinking we can get them through the Senate because they didn’t have a record, and the problem is that sometimes we’re surprised”, Bush said.
Marco Rubio hailed Scalia as “one of the great justices of the history of this republic”, lauding the late Justice for consistently defending the “original meaning of the Constitution”.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich was a surprise in second in the poll at 15 percent, his best showing in a S.C. poll.
“This is just nuts”, Kasich interjected.
“These attacks, some of them are personal”.
Kasich, again able to rise above most — though not all – of the sharpest exchanges of the night, essentially agreed: “We’re fixing to lose this election to Hillary Clinton unless we stop this”.
The six remaining members of the 2016 Republican presidential field are debating tonight in Greenville, South Carolina, just a week before that state’s important GOP primary.
The two candidates with victories so far – Trump in New Hampshire and Cruz in Iowa – have been engaged in an increasingly bitter duel in recent days and they took it to a new level Saturday. If Rubio does well next Saturday then it will prove that a week in politics is truly a lifetime. From his first answer, Rubio sought to project strength and command of the issues, speaking in detail about foreign policy challenges in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
A group of students from Wofford College, Clemson University, The Citadel and the University of SC was backing retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
BEN CARSON: “Thank you for including me in the debate”.
Scalia, the longest serving justice at 30 years and the leading conservative voice on the Supreme Court, died in his sleep Saturday while visiting Texas.
Trump called Scalia’s death a “tremendous blow to conservatism”.
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The candidates realized that, for the first time in this campaign, a Supreme Court vacancy was not just an abstract possibility but a reality. The former Florida governor said there should be “consensus orientation on that nomination” _ but added that he didn’t expect Obama would pick a candidate in that vein. “It’s called delay, delay, delay”, he said.
