The big GOP debate

Asked at the CNN/Facebook Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas if he is committed to running as a Republican, Trump said: “I really am”.

Meanwhile, Florida Senator Marco Rubio will be working to pitch himself as the favoured alternative to both men in the main debate – capable of capturing both the Republican establishment voters and those who crave a so-called “outsider”.

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

And Trump, by the way, promised anew he’d stick with the GOP.

After winning the last debate of 2015, Trump is not just the frontrunner.

Cruz and Rubio also split on whether the turmoil in the Middle East would ease if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was removed from power.

Mr Cruz insisted the new law gives the government more access to mobile phones and other technology that terrorists are more likely to use – a contention Mr Rubio disputed.

As before, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul jumped in to retort that he is “completely wrong”. Rubio dismissed that plan by saying that doing so “is not to lead at all”.

More broadly, Rubio’s campaign is eager to cast Cruz, who prides himself on being a conservative “truth-teller”, as a politically expedient flip-flopper who is willing to say whatever is necessary to win an election.

“What I told Sheldon through his people is that I’d love their support”. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio clashed over USA military intervention, government spying on Americans’ communications and immigration Tuesday night, as front-runner Donald Trump defended his provocative call for banning Muslims from the United States. “But he’s a chaos candidate, and he’d be a chaos president”. There is nothing Graham loves more than issuing apocalyptic warnings about foreign policy, and the cable news networks are always willing to lend an eager ear.

The Trump-Bush acrimony simmered throughout the debate, with Bush later telling Trump he can’t “insult your way to the presidency”, and Trump once again reminding Bush that his poll numbers have plummeted while Trump is leading. When a moderator asked the candidate about questions he raised in a closed-door donor meeting about Trump’s judgment, Cruz went back into Mr. Nice Guy mode.

“Donald Trump has done the one single thing you can not do: declare war on Islam itself”, said Graham, who advocates sending 10,000 U.S. troops to Syria and Iraq to help Arab allies defeat the Islamic State group.

“If you’re in favor of World War II, you have your candidate”, Paul responded and went to make a mention of “someone who might shut down a bridge”. The network’s politics reporter, Tal Kopan, will host the televised pre-debate coverage on Tuesday.

That said, Cruz and Trump’s views on Islamic immigration don’t actually differ too dramatically in practice. That is not a serious kind of candidate. “We are not any safer for the bulk collection of all Americans’ records; in fact I think we are less safe”. That can lead our country to safety and security. He said he wasn’t seeking to discriminate against Muslims. “He said that very simply because he has failed in this campaign. ‘All horse thieves are Democrats, but not all Democrats are horse thieves.”‘ said Cruz. He promoted his own legislation as more appropriate and narrowly focused. Singling out all Muslims will make it more hard for the United States to form a coalition with Muslims also opposed to the Islamic State.

However, it was the threat of IS that dominated the first debate.

Republicans have seven debates scheduled by March 2016. “I’m totally committed to the Republican Party”, he said. But the candidate has shown little appetite for publicly engaging Trump.

Perhaps Trump’s rally on Monday evening was a useful warmup.