Quote:
Republican debate: Trump was garbled, incoherent – but dominant
His rivals scored points but Trump overshadowed the debate, not with ideas for the presidency, but with his defence of views on immigration and women
Donald Trump, the unexpected frontrunner in the race for the Republican nomination for president, plunged headfirst into the primary’s first televised debate on Thursday, causing an instant splash that was remarkable even by his own standards.
The billionaire celebrity, who has a clear lead in the polls, electrified the debate from the start, declaring “politicians are stupid” and implying he was prepared to abandon the Republican party altogether to launch his own, independent candidacy.
Combative, outlandish, at times barely coherent, Trump lived up to the hype, although he became gradually quieter as the two-hour debate dragged on into policy areas where he had little or nothing of substance to contribute.
It was a good night for the Florida senator Marco Rubio and Wisconsin’s governor, Scott Walker, who emerged unscathed with polished performances. Jeb Bush, the establishment favourite, also made it through the ordeal, dealing better than he has in the past with thorny questions about his family name.
It was a less successful debate for the Kentucky senator Rand Paul, who capped a disastrous few days for his campaign with a series of scrappy exchanges with rival candidates in which he came off the worst.
But the debate will be remembered for Trump, whose dramatic spectacle came with the very first question, when the Fox News moderator, Bret Baier, asked if there was anyone unwilling to pledge support for the eventual Republican victor – and promise not to run as a third-party candidate.
For a moment, no one moved. Then Trump raised his hand, to gasps from the audience.
“You’re standing on a Republican primary debate stage,” Baier said, as the crowd erupted in boos and cheers. “Experts say an independent run would almost certainly hand the race over to Democrats and likely another Clinton?”
Trump was unapologetic, although his explanation was garbled.
“I have to respect the person that, if it’s not me, the person that wins – if I do win, and I’m leading by quite a bit, that’s what I want to do,” he said. “I can totally make that pledge. If I’m the nominee, I will pledge I will not run as an independent. I am discussing it with everybody, but I’m, you know, talking about a lot of leverage.”
The thrust of this appeared to be that the Republican frontrunner was prepared to stand as independent, a move that could scupper the party’s chances in 2016.
Minutes after the debate had finished, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, which runs the nomination process, was backstage trying to persuade reporters that Trump hadn’t really meant it.
“You can’t win an election against Hillary Clinton unless you’re running as a Republican,” he said. “Donald Trump gets that, so do we too, and I think all of this is going to work out just fine.”
Priebus’s face told a different story. He’s overseeing a chaotic and unpredictable primary; one of the few certainties is that while the Republican establishment may not think Trump will win the nomination, they do fear him, and with good reason.
For the most part, the candidates lined up on either side of Trump chose not to challenge him, leaving it instead to the three Fox News moderators, who took up the challenge with aplomb.
They grilled him over failed businesses, his vague, contradictory policies and his long history of shifting political views and loyalties.
One particularly arresting exchange came when moderator Megyn Kelly confronted him over past comments about women he variously referred to as “fat pigs”, “dogs”, “slobs” and “disgusting animals”.
The billionaire interrupted, saying those insults were only directed at Rosie O’Donnell, a comedian with whom he has clashed in the past.
Kelly disputed that, and gave further examples of offensive comments Trump had made to women.
The businessman batted away the complaint, said the country had become too politically correct and shot a veiled threat at Kelly.
“What I say is what I say. And honestly Megyn, if you don’t like it, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me.”
In the hours and days ahead, campaign managers will be poring over polling and focus group data, desperate to discover whether the former host of The Apprentice will suffer from this bizarre debate performance.
None of the candidates explicitly endorsed a legal path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants
The alternative, of course, is that Trump continues to defy the laws of political gravity, rising further in the polls, where he enjoys double-digit leads over his nearest rivals, Bush and Walker.
Trump’s opening fracas may have made for gripping television, but it was the unseemly start to a primetime TV debate that Republican party leaders had dreaded, overshadowing policy discussions over the Iran nuclear deal, immigration, healthcare and the economy.
On those issues and more, the candidates mostly agreed, although on several topics they revealed how far the GOP’s centre of political gravity is from that of America’s wider electorate.
None of the candidates explicitly endorsed a legal path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants in the country, for example, although several have in the past.
Instead, the immigration discussion focused on border protection. Asked to provide evidence for his incendiary claim about the Mexican government was sending “criminals” and “rapists” into the US, Trump first demurred, and then suggested he had heard it from the Border Patrol.
“Our politicians are stupid,” he said. “And the Mexican government is much smarter, much sharper, much more cunning.”
John Kasich, who as the governor of Ohio had the benefit of a home crowd, concurred. “Donald Trump is hitting a nerve in this country,” he said. “He is. He’s hitting a nerve. People are frustrated. They’re fed up.”
Women’s rights take a back seat
On the vexed question of abortion, which broadly divides the country, the all-male line-up of candidates adopted the extremist language that has in the past harmed GOP’s reputation among women.
Walker, for example, did not dispute that he would make abortion illegal even in the case of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother, a position out of step with 83% of Americans. “I’m pro-life,” he said with a shrug. Rubio also suggested he was against abortion even in exceptional circumstance, an apparent U-turn on his earlier policy.
“Let me go further,” Rubio added. “Future generations will look back at this history of our country and call us barbarians for murdering millions of babies who we never gave them a chance to live.”
The issue of women’s reproductive rights has been resuscitated in the Republican base in recent weeks after an undercover sting captured employees of Planned Parenthood, which offers a range of women’s health services, discussing the sale of fetal body parts following abortions.
Mike Huckabee, the Christian evangelical former governor of Arkansas, said it was time to “change the policy to be pro-life and protect children instead of rip up their body parts and sell them like they’re parts to a Buick”.
The three Fox News moderators did not ask a single question about arguably the greatest challenge facing the next incumbent of the White House: climate change.
Foreign policy, however, featured heavily in the debate, allowing hawks like the Texan senator Ted Cruz to portray themselves as a tough commander-in-chief.
“We’ve seen the consequences of the Obama-Clinton foreign policy,” Cruz lamented. “Radical Islam is on the rise, Iran’s on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon, China is waging cyber warfare against America.”
Bush, who has generated huge amounts of cash but not much grassroots enthusiasm, dealt better than he has in the past with a question about his family name – and his brother’s disastrous war in Iraq.
“Knowing what we know now, with faulty intelligence, and not having security be the first priority when we invaded, it was a mistake,” he said, with a simplicity that has until now evaded him. “I wouldn’t have gone in.”
National security also sparked the standout clash of the night, when Paul, the libertarian who did most in the Senate to end the bulk collection of phone records in the wake of the disclosures from the whistleblower Edward Snowden, collided with Chris Christie, the pugnacious New Jersey governor.
When Paul lost himself in a meandering answer in which he referred to the fourth amendment, John Adams, war of independence and Bill of Rights, Christie charged at him like a bull to a red flag.
“That’s a completely ridiculous answer,” Christie interjected. “Listen, senator, you know, when you’re sitting in a subcommittee, just blowing hot air about this, you can say things like that.”
Paul retaliated by mocking Christie for embracing Barack Obama after hurricane Sandy. “I don’t trust President Obama with our records,” Paul said. “I know you gave him a big hug, and if you want to give him a big hug again, go right ahead.”
It was an exchange that would not have been out of place in a schoolyard, and did not reflect well on either candidate. But Paul probably came off the worst, and was further humiliated when he tried to cut off Trump later in the debate with a misguided critique of his healthcare policy.
“I don’t think you heard me,” Trump said. “You’re having a hard time tonight.”
Another lacklustre poor-performer was Ben Carson, a world-renowned neurosurgeon whose best line came when he touted his medical accomplishments. “I’m the only one to separate siamese twins,” he said. “The only one to take out half of a brain – although if you go to Washington, you would think that someone had beat me to it.”
Carly Fiorina shines from the second tier
Interestingly, the candidate who arguably had the best night wasn’t even on the stage. Carly Fiorina, a business executive who is the only woman in the Republican field, was relegated to a second debate hosted by Fox News two hours before the main event.
Composed and spirited, Fiorina was the only candidate on Thursday to really lay into Trump, exploiting the fact he wasn’t on the stage to hit back.
“Did any of you get a phone call from Bill Clinton? I didn’t,” she said, touching on the recent revelation that Trump consulted the former Democratic president before entering the race. “Maybe it’s because I hadn’t given money to his foundation or donated to his wife’s Senate campaign.”
Hillary Clinton, of course, was the other woman who made a strong impression on the debate, despite her absence from the stage. She was mentioned 20 times, as candidates lined up to take shots at the presumptive Democratic nominee.
It was a somewhat awkward process for Trump, who has long courted the Clintons and donated to the former secretary of state’s Senate campaign fund.
“I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give,” Trump explained, summing up Washington’s corrupt political system in a few pithy statements. “When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, they are there for me.”
Asked what, precisely, he got in return for his donation to the former first lady, Trump replied with trademark candour. “With Hillary Clinton, I said be at my wedding, and she came to my wedding.”
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
