The attacks have ignited a political debate about President Barack Obama’s campaign to defeat the Islamic State in the Middle East and the nation’s security posture in preventing attacks in the U.S.
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“You’re real tough”, said a dismissive Trump. There may not be an answer that says no one will be hurt and everybody will be happy, but there will be an answer that says only this many people will be hurt and most people will be happy.
Toward the end of the debate, Trump was asked if he would rule out a run as third-party candidate. “Donald, you’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency”, Bush fired back.
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush dismissed Mr Trump’s proposal, saying: “Donald is great at the one-liners, but he’s a chaos candidate and he’d be a chaos president”.
In the almost six months since Trump officially entered the race, his rivals have shown little appetite to check his most provocative policy positions, in many cases tacking further toward the right and supporting his position. “He has a wonderful temperament”, said Trump, laughing as he tried to explain why he called Cruz a “maniac” who should not be president a few weeks ago.
“When you have number two and number three mixing it up, that’s always good for the front-runner, ‘ he said”.
With only 47 days to go before the first nominating contest – the February 1 Iowa caucuses – Trump remains the frontrunner, according to a slew of recent polls.
Bush challenged Trump on his proposal to go after the families of ISIS, saying the policy couldn’t be taken seriously, and interrupted Trump several times after Trump denied saying ISIS wasn’t an American threat.
However, the row wasn’t enough to win Bush the top spot in the social media realm.
Trump remains the undisputed national GOP presidential front-runner. GOP party leaders have openly criticized the idea – condemnation that Trump has responded to by reopening the possibility of launching an independent bid.
CNN’s Republican debate on Tuesday night was predictably dominated by sparring among front-runner Donald Trump and his closest competitors: Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
Aside from Bush, candidates sidestepped opportunities to take on Trump, although they did not hesitate to tangle with one another.
Mr Trump said that he had “gained great respect for the Republican leadership” and that he was “totally committed” to the party.
Cruz was second at 15 per cent, followed by retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 12 per cent, Rubio at 10 per cent and Bush at 9 per cent.
“The next time there is attack on – an attack on this country, the first thing people are going to want to know is, why didn’t we know about it and why didn’t we stop it?”
Mr Rubio has accused Mr Cruz of weakening the government’s ability to track terrorists because he voted in favour of legislation to eliminate the National Security Agency’s bulk phone-records collection programme and replace it with a more restrictive effort to keep the records in phone companies’ hands.
“We need toughness”, Trump said. “We are now at a time when we need more tools, not less tools”.
Not attacking Trump is a risk of its own, and one that Cruz and Rubio seem entirely comfortable taking.
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Jones also predicted that if the race comes down to Cruz and Rubio, Cruz would prevail since he’s “beating him in Iowa and beating him in the ground game” along with “on the stage tonight”.
