Donald Trump: Holding the GOP to ransome

The Republican presidential candidates met in Las Vegas Tuesday night for the last debate of 2015 and with the stakes growing increasingly high, about seven weeks out from the Iowa caucuses, the punches were flying as Bobby Cuza reports.

Tuesday’s latest Republican debate put an exclamation mark on Jeb Bush’s growing frustration with Donald Trump in the clearest sign yet that the former Florida governor is willing to be Trump’s chief critic.

Testing out the new line against Trump, Bush used the line twice against the GOP frontrunner.

Paul and Christie clashed over foreign policy during the debate with Paul insisting that Christie would be great for voters who “want World War III”.

“I don’t think he’s a serious candidate”.

He disclosed that Trump was a personal friend and concluded: “The desperation prayer of the liberals – that he will split the Republicans – will not happen: He was never going to run as an independent”.

Trump seized on Bush’s dismal standing in recent polls and largely shrugged off the criticism.

“You’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency”.

For Chris Christie, the main debate marks a moment of redemption.

Marco Rubio remains in the top tier of candidates and goes into debate night facing big expectations. “America has been betrayed we’ve been betrayed by the leadership that Barack Obama and Hillary have provided this country over the last 5 years”.

“If elected, we will hunt down and kill the terrorists”, Cruz said.

That forces each candidate to decide whether he or she stands to gain more by confronting Trump or by appeasing him.

But apart from such aberrations, the ultra-confident Trump touted his poll numbers as virtues and his past business exploits as qualifications for high office.

In light of growing rumours of a possible brokered candidate at the convention in July, Mr Trump pledged to stick with the Republican Party and not to run as an independent third party candidate if he was not ultimately declared the party nominee.

The primetime GOP debate featuring nine candidates kicked off Tuesday with heavy focus on foreign policy and terrorism.

“From our perspective, we wanted to highlight the difference between the candidates: one who is prepared, one who has a depth of knowledge for the job and one whose erratic behaviour and reckless rhetoric raises real questions”. So Hewitt turned to Rubio, who delivered a pitch-perfect jab at Trump’s lack of knowledge about nuclear defense: “First, let’s explain to people at home what the triad is – maybe a lot of people haven’t heard that terminology before”.

Trump’s call for temporarily banning Muslims from the US – a proposal roundly criticized by his rivals – dominated much of the discussion heading into the debate. But no one condemned the plan more pointedly than Bush.

Bush said his delivery of one-liners when challenged by Trump isn’t motivated by a desire to get “zingers”. “And he’d be a chaos president”. “This doesn’t do a thing to solve the problems”, Fiorina said, while Kasich noted, “It is not the way we’re going to strengthen our country”.

At the same time, Florida Sen.

“In the light of new polling released this morning and in the spirit of being as inclusive as possible, CNN has made a decision to include Sen”. The other fireworks came from Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, a contest which could move to the fore if Mr Trump’s campaign falters.

And Trump seems more than happy to engage with Bush. “And I believe I’m that guy”.

Bush: “I’m talking right now”.