In a presidential race reshaped by national security concerns, Republican front-runner Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his provocative call for banning Muslims from the US, as the candidates debated their plans for fighting Islamic State militants and keeping Americans secure.
Struggling former Florida governor Jeb Bush found his footing in trying to discredit Trump’s qualifications for the White House, chiding the brash billionaire for trying to “insult your way to the presidency.”
Tuesday night’s debate was the first for Republicans since the attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 and San Bernardino, California, on Dec. 2, which heightened fears of terrorism in the US.
Photo: AFP
The debate comes at a time when Texas Senator Ted Cruz is on the rise, challenging Trump’s months-long lead in Iowa, whose Feb. 1 caucuses lead off the state-by-state nominating contests.
Cruz is trying to pitch himself as a more electable alternative to Trump, but some Republican leaders believe his hard-line conservative positions and prickly demeanor would put him at a disadvantage in the race against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio has also entered the top tier in the crowded field by seeking to straddle the divide between his party’s establishment and more conservative wings.
Trump’s call for temporarily banning Muslims from the US dominated much of the discussion. He said he was not seeking to discriminate against Muslims.
“We are not talking about isolation; we’re talking about security,” he said. “We are not talking about religion, we are talking about security.”
Bush dismissed the proposal as unserious, saying: “Donald is great at the one-liners, but he’s a chaos candidate and he’d be a chaos president.”
In a moment that might help ease anxiety among Republican leaders, Trump pledged he would not seek to run as an independent.
Trump was largely spared from criticism by Cruz and Rubio, who said they understood why he had raised the idea of banning Muslims.
Instead, the two first-term senators — both Cuban Americans in their 40s — engaged in lengthy exchanges over their differences on national security and immigration.
Rubio defended his support for eventually providing a pathway to citizenship for some people in the US illegally, an unpopular position within the Republican Party. Rubio was a coauthor of comprehensive bipartisan Senate legislation in 2013 that would have created that pathway, but he has since said the nation’s immigration crisis must be addressed in piecemeal fashion, with legalization only an option after the US-Mexico border is secured.
Seeking to draw a sharp contrast with Rubio, Cruz went further than he has previously in opposing legalization for people in the US illegally.
“I have never supported legalization and I do not intend to support legalization,” Cruz said.
Rubio positioned himself as the hawk on national security, defending US efforts to oust dictators like Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the Middle East. He also accused Cruz of weakening the government’s ability to track terrorists because he voted in favor of 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.
Cruz said his vote helped “reform how we target bad guys” by allowing the government to search more phone numbers to uncover terrorists.
The senators also displayed differences in their strategies for targeting the Islamic State. Cruz called for using “overwhelming air power” to destroy the extremist group, while Rubio said airstrikes would have to be supplemented by ground troops, including US special operations forces.
The debate’s focus on national security was a detriment for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who has struggled on complex international matters.
Other participants in the debate were former business executive Carly Fiorina, Ohio Governor John Kasich and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.
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