Sen. Marco Rubio clarified his view on the 11 million immigrants, who are in the United States illegally. Rand Paul of Kentucky, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, Sen. Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich clashed over immigration.
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As he has in other recent debates, Trump seemed to fade from the spotlight at times.
Here are a few other takeaways from the Milwaukee matchup.
The former Florida governor took advantage of a policy-focused debate to detail positions on the economy and immigration.
“Anywhere I go in New Hampshire we have thousands and thousands of people, and I say it’s like a movement”, Trump said.
That controversial program – Operation Wetback – resulted in the roundup and deportation in the 1950s of 1.5 million people, many of them legal American citizens, and dropping them off by the busload in remote areas along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We have got to do something to compete with the rest of the world”, Trump said. He asked, “Are you sympathetic to the protesters’ cause, since a $15 wage works out to about $31,000 a year?” While it could have been by design of each candidate or the fact that the topics were simply less firework-worthy, many pundits are asserting that this debate turned out much better for the debaters and the viewing public.
“If Putin wants to go and knock the hell out of ISIS, I am all for it, 100%, and I can’t understand how anybody would be against it”, Mr Trump said during the fourth Republican presidential debate. “And it would tear communities apart”, he said, adding, “They’re doing high-fives in the Clinton campaign right now when they hear this”.
Bush suggested allowing undocumented immigrants to pay a fine and create a path to citizenship. The topic was economic issues, budgets, taxes … you know, like, money and stuff.
For his part, Santorum touted his conservative record in Congress and noted that he won a Senate seat twice in the Democratic-leaning state of Pennsylvania. “Can you be a conservative and be liberal in military spending?”
Rubio’s top moment was perhaps his response to Sen. Stated Rubio of the video: “I know it makes for an absorbing Vine video, yet it really was not anything of meaning”.
Cruz interjected that there’s a way to “split the difference”.
“I’m in”, Christie told The Associated Press before he headed into a packed town hall meeting in Bettendorf, Iowa. “Try not defending it”.
Both Cruz and Rubio had a good night.
“I built an unbelievable company worth billions and billions of dollars”, Trump said.
Tuesday’s event had at least 10 million viewers, according to early Nielsen ratings data, nearly as big an audience as the more established CNBC drew for its GOP debate last month.
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Jeb Bush needed a standout performance after slumping polls, but he didn’t get one, scoring the best point on an issue that his base hates. “Hillary Clinton is running so far to the left to try to catch up to her socialist opponent Bernie Sanders, it’s hard to even see her anymore”.
