There have been no higher stakes on a Republican debate stage in the 2016 campaign for president than there were Saturday night. Seven GOP Republican hopefuls faced off just three days before a make-or-break New Hampshire primary that some of them are not likely to survive.
Here are some key moments during the debate--
Waterboarding and torture
Ted Cruz embraced the notion Saturday that waterboarding is not torture and suggested he’d bring it back in a limited way. “Under the definition of torture, no it’s not,” he said. “Under the law, torture is excruciating pain that is equivalent to losing organs or systems.” Cruz said waterboarding can be effective in high-level interrogations. “Bad things happen when enhanced interrogation at lower levels,” he said. Trump said he’d consider a more robust form of interrogation techniques. “I’d bring back waterboarding and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding,” he said. Rubio, on the other hand, said candidates shouldn’t be discussing techniques in a “widespread way.” “It allows terrorists and others to practice how to evade us,” he said.
Christie and Rubio brawl
Chris Christie had a mission when moderators gave him an opening to criticise Rubio: to knock him off balance. Rubio had just called out Christie for presiding over nine credit downgrades in New Jersey and pivoted to a talking-point-laden speech criticising Barack Obama. Then Christie got hot. “That’s what Washington, DC does,” he said, glowering toward Rubio, accusing him of making a poorly sourced attack and then relying on a “memorised 25-second speech his advisers gave him.” “See, Marco, the thing is this, when you’re president of the United States, when you’re a governor, they expect you to plow the snow ... to rebuild their state, which is what I’ve done. None of that happens on the floor of the US Senate.” Rubio struck back, nicking Christie for waffling before he decided to head back to New Jersey from the campaign trail to handle an impending blizzard that pummeled the East Coast. “They had to shame you into going back,” he said. Rubio accused Christie of having to be dragged back to New Jersey under pressure to handle the storm. Christie retorted, “Is that one of the skills you get as a United States senator? ESP?”
TrumpCare
Donald Trump’s health care policies have been hard to pin down but on Saturday, he embraced a relatively standard GOP plan: allowing people to purchase health plans across state lines and rely on health savings account. He also said his plan would be “free enterprise.” But he adds a twist -- his plan, which he has yet to detail, would ensure that no one is left “dying on the street” without coverage. “There will be a certain number of people that will be on the street dying. As a Republican I don’t want that to happen,” he said. “We’re going to take care of people dying on the street ... You’re not gonna let people die sitting in the middle of a street in any city in this country.”
Trump twists the knife on Cruz
After Cruz mentioned his Iowa win during his closing statement, Trump delivered a sucker punch.
“That’s because you got Ben Carson’s votes,” he said, referencing the false rumor spread by Cruz’s team. Cruz had no chance to respond to the barb, which came just after CNN issued a blistering statement accusing Cruz of misleading voters about its reporting on Carson’s decision to take a day off the campaign trail.
