The debate was shaken by the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia hours before the candidates took the stage.
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In their debate last night, the Republican candidates insisted that President Barack Obama step aside and let his successor nominate Scalia’s replacement instead, a position the White House vigorously opposed.
Rubio, seeking a breakout moment after fizzling in New Hampshire, said Obama should not move to fill Scalia’s seat, noting lame duck presidents in their final year in office have not had a Supreme Court nominee confirmed for decades.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said that he doesn’t blame former President George W. Bush for the 9/11 attacks, but was still highly critical of the former president’s decision to pursue the war in Iraq.
“It’s called delay, delay, delay”.
Rubio needs at least a strong finish in SC to maintain his overall goal – be the last candidate standing between Trump and the Republican presidential nomination.
Rubio, speaking on a variety of Sunday shows, said the Texas senator has developed a bad habit of saying things that are not true; Cruz says he is the most consistent conservative in the Republican race.
Trump and Jeb Bush have always been rivals in this campaign and in debates they often spar, but tonight Bush earned his exclamation point, taking on the real estate mogul.
After a Saturday debate in SC that saw Donald Trump bombarded with heavy booing, polls show that the NY billionaire and reality TV personality has not only maintained his massive lead in the state, he actually expanded his dominant polling margin.
“You are the single biggest liar”, Trump said of Cruz. “A big, fat mistake”, Trump said.
“I am sick and exhausted of him going after my family”, Bush said.
John Kasich, who placed an impressive second in New Hampshire, has sought to keep his head above water in the more conservative, more evangelical SC.
“I would like the President just for once to put the country first”, Kasich said. If he wins in OH and MI, donors will start kicking in to his campaign and (some) anti-Trumpers will rally to him.
“Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said that allowing approval of another Obama nominee would amount to Republicans giving up control of the Supreme Court for a generation. We have literally a four-four tie”, said Bush backer Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor and Homeland Security secretary under George W. Bush.
After Iowa and New Hampshire, the race has now moved to SC before the 20 February primary.
Cruz on Saturday night repeated his argument that Rubio backed a bipartisan Senate effort on immigration reform that was tantamount to offering illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. “He had the gall to go after my mother”, Bush said, reminding the audience that Trump had criticised his 90-year-old mother, Barbara Bush, wife of former President George HW Bush.
In one of the most-talked-about moments, Rubio claimed opponent Ted Cruz couldn’t speak Spanish. Mr Kasich argued that his decision was a good deal for the state in the long run.
Trump lashed back, saying it was under Bush’s watch that the World Trade Centre was attacked on September 11, 2001. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
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Cruz won the Iowa caucuses in part because of his support among Christian conservatives, who comprised 65 percent of the GOP electorate in the 2012 SC primary.
