LAS VEGAS-In a presidential race reshaped by national security concerns, Republican front-runner Donald Trump defended his provocative call for banning Muslims from the United States on Tuesday as the candidates debated their plans for fighting Islamic State militants and keeping Americans secure.
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The national security focus yielded heated exchanges between Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio who clashed on surveillance and immigration policy.
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Cruz (Tex.) said at the debate that he has never supported legalization for undocumented immigrants and, “I do not intend to support legalization”, drawing a distinction with Rubio, who supports a path to citizenship.
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Cruz argued that his vote helped “reform how we target bad guys” by allowing the government to search more phone numbers.
Cruz responded: “You would carpet bomb where Isis is, not a city, but the location of the troops”.
After the debate, Cruz campaign chairman Chad Sweet told reporters that Cruz “unequivocally does not support legalization”.
“Here’s what we learned in 2013”, Rubio said.
Trump then mocked Bush’s attacks on him and said that Bush “said it just the way his pollster told him to say it”.
The confrontation revealed a split in the establishment over the issue and the trouble that could come as the two candidates proceed in the election.
Trump nonetheless had a warning for Cruz after declining to go after him on the debate stage: “You better not attack”. Asked specifically about his Gang of Eight immigration push of a few years ago, Rubio used his mastery of the pivot to discuss his family and personal experience. “If my amendment were adopted, this bill would pass”, Cruz also said. I guarantee that he was the only candidate who knows that Wednesday is the Bill of Rights’ birthday.
Before the debate, Rubio’s camp had already taken aim at Cruz, saying that he supports “legalizing people that are illegally in the country”.
Trump was dismissive of Bush’s blows during and after the debate, saying his opponent was only trying to pull up his numbers and chalked it up as simply a political tactic.
After promising not to leave the party, now Trump’s calling for unity.
Case in point: After Carson talked about the urgent need to modernize our aging nuclear forces on land, in the air and at sea, Hugh Hewitt asked Trump about the nation’s “nuclear triad”.
“He’s the weakest of all the candidates on immigration”. At the time, many conservative Latinos were being lobbied and pressured by HAPI members, including Mr. Cruz, to support McCain’s bill.
This is no small thing. He noted that while Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucus in 2012 and Huckabee won the Iowa caucus in 2008, neither won the eventual Republican nomination.
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“It’ll be a lovely wall because some day they’ll name it after me”, he said, adding that the fence needs to be as high as the ceiling of the airplane hangar where he gave his speech.
