GOP debate takeaways: Trump-Cruz lovefest, Rubio on defense, Bush shows life

The debate in Las Vegas, Nevada, took place with less than two months before the Iowa caucuses – the crucial, first nominating event of the primary election season.

Republican Candidates on Tuesday criticized front-runner Donald Trump for proposing to ban Muslims from entering the United States and blamed him for hogging the media spotlight with his controversial comments. “We are not talking about isolation – we’re talking about security”.

Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton tweeted at the start of the debate that numerous candidates on the stage were “totally unprepared” to be commander in chief.

“I’ve gained great respect for the Republican leadership”, he said.

Dr. Ben Carson who recently dropped in the polls, asked for a moment of silence for San Bernardino victims while Jeb Bush focused on the need to rebuild the USA military to “destroy ISIS before it destroys us”.

“Right now, Donald is great at one-liners, but he’s a chaos candidate and he’d be a chaos president”, Bush said.

“Well, I feel a little bit badly about Gov. Bush, because he’s, you know, he’s having a hard time”, Trump explained.

“Donald, you’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency – that’s not going to happen”, Mr. Bush said. I thought – you want to go? “I really am, I’ll be honest”.

According to Twitter data, Trump took about 35 percent of all conversations on Twitter hash tagged #GOPdebate, while Bush took 13 percent and Cruz 11 percent.

Despite widely being seen as a poor performer during the five Republican debates, Trump has opened up a massive lead in most national opinion polls.

In an ABC News/Washington Post poll Tuesday, Trump earned 38 percent support among registered Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, a six-point climb from November.

President Obama has largely relied on airstrikes to target the militants in Iraq and Syria.

She continued to respond throughout the debate, hitting the Republican candidates on guns control, their refugee policies and planned responses to threats from terror groups like the Islamic State.

Senator Marco Rubio said President Obama has not been tough enough on ISIS. “ISIS is using the Internet better than we are using the Internet and it was our idea”, Trump said. “And why didn’t we stop it?” While many are saying that it was Donald Trump who beat everyone else as he has been doing regularly and has topped every survey thus far, other contenders’ fans believe their favored candidate beat everyone else.

Rubio accused Cruz of weakening the government’s ability to track terrorists because he voted for legislation to eliminate the National Security Agency’s bulk phone-records collection program and replace it with a more restrictive effort to keep the records in phone companies’ hands.

“He’s a very nice person”, Trump said of Bush, “but we need toughness”. “Anti-American dictators like Assad… if they go, I won’t shed a tear”, Rubio said. Cruz also leads a Fox News poll issued on Sunday with 28% to 26% for Trump. Rubio came in third with 15 percent.