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First Read: Trump Nonetheless On Top — & Getting Stronger

The party’s hawkish foreign policy establishment will side with Rubio, who’s promising everything, while others who fear getting bogged down in an extended overseas nation-building effort may find Cruz more preferable.

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“Today, Israel stands on the front lines of our civilisational struggle against radical, apocalyptic Islam”.

Roughly four in 10 Republicans think Trump is the candidate “who would be most effective at solving the country’s problems…and could best handle the responsibilities of being commander-in-chief”.

Trump “repeatedly invoked stereotypes about Jews and money” in the speech, BuzzFeed noted, pointing to Trump statements, like “Is there anyone in this room who doesn’t negotiate deals?” “They may not be, and I understand that, and I’m OK with that”.

“Not the speech you thought you were going to hear, right?”

All the GOP candidates are speaking at the forum on Thursday.

“You know, I’ve got to say FDR and JFK and Ronald Reagan were spinning in their graves to hear an American president say he doesn’t believe in American leadership or American winning”, the GOP hopeful said, explaining he would “borrow a page from Ronald Reagan in the Cold War” when fighting radical Islamic terrorism.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz took the stage at the presidential forum hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition and called for a moment of silence for the victims of the San Bernardino shootings. Investigators there have not yet identified a specific motive for Wednesday’s shooting, which 14 people dead and many more wounded, but Cruz anxious aloud that the attack was an act of “Islamic terrorism”.

“This horrific murder underscores that we are at a time of war”, Cruz told the crowd in downtown Washington.

“Whether or not the current administration realises or wishes to acknowledge it”, Mr Cruz continued. “If you don’t have the humility to know what you don’t know, you’re going to be a frightful president”, he said. The longer this goes without clarifying as a de facto two person race, the the more likely it is that Trump will win the nomination. “Don’t forget that he says these things as part of a campaign in which, certainly, he is funding himself but there are candidates who have many wealthy Jews supporting them and there is a kind of intra-Republican debate going on”. Indeed, the GOP presidential field’s most prominent isolationist – Kentucky Sen. He nearly single-handedly propped up former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s 2012 presidential bid and was widely criticized for prolonging an ugly primary season.

“There’s something going on with him that we don’t know about”, Trump said cryptically.

Numerous candidates have been eager to portray themselves as close to Adelson.

A majority of respondents who said they backed Trump agreed that “thousands of Arabs in New Jersey celebrated the attacks of 9/11”, said they were “in favor of a national database of Muslims” and backed “a ban specifically on assault weapons for Muslims”, even though a majority opposed a universal assault weapons ban. Eight years ago, Mike Huckabee had a Trump-sized lead over John McCain; a year later, Huckabee was looking for work as a television host. “We have a very good relationship”. Rubio took issue with those comments on Thursday.

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“I will put the peace process in perspective”, Rubio said. “Let me be crystal clear: there is no moral equivalence between Israel and its enemies”.

Is Anita Alvarez losing her Hispanic political base?