Debate Takeaways: Rubio shaken, Trump not stirred

Trump is back on stage after boycotting the last GOP debate over a dispute with Fox News.

Christie came out strong against Sen.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who are vying with Mr Rubio for support from establishment Republicans in New Hampshire, compared Mr Rubio’s experience in the Senate to that of President Barack Obama, who also was a first-term senator when he was elected. He then lost that caucus to Sen.

The Cruz campaign called and sent messages to Iowa precinct captains on Monday saying that Carson was suspending his campaign and telling them that they should encourage people to caucus for Cruz instead.

Christie. Kasich and Rubio all answered a question about veterans health care. “They are looking to our clarity of vision and our strength of resolve”, Cruz said, using that as a predicate to slamming President Barack Obama.

Trump said he would “bring back waterboarding and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding”.

A clearly rattled Rubio responded by delivering the same line about Obama not once, but twice. Kasich has placed much of his White House hopes on New Hampshire, where he held his 100th town hall event on Friday.

“There it is, there it is – the memorized 25-second speech. There it is, everybody”. After a disappointing showing in Iowa, he took time off the campaign trail and hasn’t been a major presence in New Hampshire. “Rubio. I think after last night, that’s over”, Christie told CNN. And that’s no small feat with the tough-talking Trump at center stage.

He said that “the experience is not just what you did but how it worked out”.

“The question was, did he fight for his legislation”. Then he twisted the knife: “That’s not what leadership is”.

Republican U.S. presidential candidate businessman Donald Trump speaks during the Republican U.S. presidential candidates debate sponsored by ABC News at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire February 6, 2016.

Donald Trump took the rare step of criticizing the audience at hand at the Republican debate in New Hampshire on Saturday night. Mr. Cruz ducked when asked if he stood by his earlier criticism of Mr. Trump’s temperament and his assertion that Mr. Trump might use nuclear weapons, even against a friendly country like Denmark. Cruz dodged, saying everyone on the stage would be better leader of the USA military than Obama and Democratic contenders Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

Trump noted that Cruz did not want to take him on.

But Mr Trump said eminent domain was “a good thing” and was necessary to building roads, bridges, schools and hospitals.

Jeb Bush attacks Donald Trump over property acquisitions to build casinos in Atlantic City.

That moment was measured by Twitter as one of the top social moments of the night.

The Republican candidates are facing off in the season’s eighth presidential debate, this time in the home of the nation’s first primary on Tuesday.

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson is fighting to avoid joining that group.

Carson said Saturday that the actions of Cruz’s campaign were an example of “Washington ethics” as he tried to portray himself and not Cruz as a true outsider candidate.