“I would certainly try and nominate a justice”, said Trump. An uncompromising conservative, Cruz urged voters to consider who among the Republican candidates would nominate the most ideologically pure justices.
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Bush gets thirteen percent, followed by Rubio (12.5 percent), OH governor John Kasich (8.5 percent) and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson (5 percent).
He reiterated a controversial criticism of the former president that he’s made before, that the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City show he didn’t keep the country safe. His death and the subject of who will replace him immediately become major topics of conversation in the debate and in the broader campaign.
Moderator John Dickerson brought the issue up after first calling for a moment of silence to recognize Scalia’s passing.
Carson placed fourth in the Iowa caucuses but he slipped in New Hampshire, winning only about two percent of the vote.
Adding to the testy atmosphere Saturday, Trump issued a statement accusing the Republican National Committee of “illegally” putting out a fundraising notice using his name before withdrawing it “at my insistence”.
Trump said Bush was lying to say that Trump had gone bankrupt in his business dealings.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders 65 percent to 27 percent.
Trump notes that 9/11 happened on Bush’s watch: “That’s not safe”.
But the consensus at the GOP debate on CBS News was short lived. He had a large lead over Jeb Bush and John Kasich nationally before Tuesday and in SC in January, the last time its GOP voters were polled.
Trump once again stood at the middle of the stage. These are not things-even if some of them are true!-that you say among South Carolina Republicans.
The state is home to more than 400,000 veterans and some 38,000 active duty military members, according to recent estimates.
Marco Rubio says security has to be dealt with before consideration of any legal status for migrants. So aside from saying something appalling and untrue and unjust, what Trump did would seem politically suicidal, no?
Let us go down the list of complaints, candidate by candidate.
One of the latest ads aimed at Trump focuses on the businessman’s support for eminent domain – a practice in which the government seizes private property that many conservatives are not fond of.
On the campaign trail – and on social media – however, it’s a different story. He stumbled badly in a debate days before that vote.
Rubio also has reason hope for a strong showing here.
JEB BUSH: “The great majority of people that come to this country come because they have no other choice”. That means the situation in SC is even more precarious for Bush, because if people change their minds on the voting block, he’s not their first choice.
His attack on George W. Bush was met with loud boos from the crowd in Greenville, S.C. a state where the former president still remains very popular and provoked a strong defense of his brother from Jeb Bush.
Bush jumps in to bash Trump for comparing himself “to one of my heroes”, Ronald Reagan.
But the candidates spent much of the two-hour debate arguing and exchanging insults.
Cruz used the topic to launch into a campaign speech based on what he sees as his ability – unique, he said, among the GOP candidates – to pick solid conservative jurists.
Mr Trump’s broadside was a response to cutting new ads shown by the Cruz campaign in SC.
On Friday, Trump took to Twitter to vent at Cruz: “If @tedcruz doesn’t clean up his act, stop cheating, & doing negative ads, I have standing to sue him for not being a natural born citizen”.
For Kasich, South Carolina is an uphill battle.
Thanks to the withdrawals of Republican candidates in the wake of Iowa and New Hampshire, the Greenville debate features the smallest field for any Republican event this election season. It continued that practice for months. He played into that characterization when he repeated the same practiced line multiple times under pressure from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, contributing to his fifth place finish in the New Hampshire primary.
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Mr Trump was the only Republican to bypass SC on Friday, redirecting his typically unconventional campaign to Florida, where he was holding a rally in Tampa.
