Jeb Bush on George W. Bush: ‘My brother will help a lot’

The crosstalk overwhelmed all comers and CBS moderator John Dickerson lost all control (apart from Carson and Kasich, whose brand-management plans forbade them from joining in).

He also lobbed a few attacks of his own, specifically targeting his fellow senator and GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz with whom he has tangled in several debates. Rubio’s success in Iowa ended when he opened his mouth in New Hampshire, a small state which reminded America that Kasich was still in the race.

Here are some of the top moments and takeaways from the debate.

Saturday’s Republican presidential debate was the ideal spot for GOP candidates to try and project legal gravitas after the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He added that President Barack Obama should take a “consensus orientation” toward that nomination, but added: “There’s no doubt in my mind that Barack Obama will not have a consensus pick when he submits that person to the Senate”. “It’s called delay, delay, delay”. Trump had nothing but disdain for Bush and Marco Rubio. “Where did I support it?”

Cruz then gave McConnell the verbal equivalent of a bring-it-over-here-big-fella hug: “We have 80 years of precedent of not confirming Supreme Court justices in an election year”, Cruz, a constitutional lawyer, said, while acknowledging that the Constitution of the United States gives Obama the right to nominate anybody he wants.

Part of the formula for success, Rubio said, is responding to all attacks against him. He’s just going off what other people are telling him, and it’s false. Long time foreign affairs experts have said that Donald Trump’s views on Middle East are naïve indeed and childish.

Jeb Bush said campaigning with his brother, former President George W. Bush, tomorrow could help save his presidential campaign.

“That’s not keeping us safe”. “The World Trade Center came down…. that is not safe, Marco”, he said. But, that doesn’t mean Trump was good tonight.

It was more than just his tiff with Bush over 9/11.

Bush provoked another outburst from Trump by saying the Republican nominee should be someone “who doesn’t brag, for example, that he has been bankrupt four times”.

When Trump contradicted the Republican Party’s most cherished form of up-is-downism, the party establishment finally got its groove back and handed him arguably his worst evening of the entire campaign. He was roundly booed for it.-Actually, Trump was booed a lot, not something he’s used to. All are prominent in SC, with Bush campaign aide Brett Foster going so far as to say that George W. Bush is “the most popular Republican alive”.

But Rubio seemed to recover his footing in SC. “That’s Jeb’s special interests and lobbyists talking”.

“You are the single biggest liar”, Trump told Cruz when the Texas senator challenged him on his previous support for liberal policies.

This was apparently in response to a Cruz attack ad accusing Trump of having “a pattern of sleaze stretching back decades”, the Business Insider reported. Many GOP leaders believe both would be unelectable in November.

Overall though, Trump was thrown off his game and was on the defensive for most of the night. That’s a risky move, given that angering South Carolina’s military-oriented electorate could endanger his big lead in the polls. Rubio also effectively faced down Ted Cruz on immigration, painting Cruz as a flip-flopper and someone willing to say anything to get elected.

“It’s going to be a head-on collision”, Berry Chatas said.

“I don’t know how he knows what I said on Univision because he doesn’t speak Spanish”, Rubio shot back.

Cruz quickly responded by speaking in Spanish.

For Kasich, South Carolina is about capitalizing on his second-place finish to Trump in New Hampshire.

“This is just insane”, Kasich said, chuckling. There were plenty of heated moments and no clear victor emerged on Saturday night.

“I think we’re fixing to lose the election to Hillary Clinton if we don’t stop this”, he said. People are “sick of the negative campaigning”. It will be hard.

Trump also at one point needled Bush for the way the former governor a year ago stumbled over questions about the Iraq war. “The free market wants what it wants”.