The five remaining GOP candidates met in Houston for the last Republican debate before the Super Tuesday primary contests on March 1st. The event was held at the University of Houston and sponsored by CNN and Telemundo, with Wolf Blitzer as moderator. Immigration and border security was the lead off topic and the conversation quickly became heated.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
CNN/Telemundo Republican Debate
Location: Houston, TX
Candidates: Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, Carson
Moderator: Wolf Blitzer
Transcript: Washington Post
Here is the full debate video:
My apologies for video quality, Telemundo is removing every copy on YouTube and basically holding the debate video under lock and key.
Report from Yahoo News:
After weeks of holding his fire on Donald Trump, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio tore into the Republican presidential frontrunner at Thursday’s GOP debate, going after Trump’s position on immigration and targeting Trump’s key argument for his candidacy: his business record.
In a strikingly aggressive attack that was quickly followed up by opposition emails from his campaign, Rubio went after Trump for his companies’ bankruptcies; his management of Trump University, which is the subject of a federal lawsuit; and his use of undocumented and foreign workers in his properties in New York and Florida.
“You’re only person on this stage that has ever been fined for hiring people to work on your projects illegally,” Rubio said, referring to a decades-old lawsuit against Trump over his use of Polish immigrants in the construction of Trump Tower in New York.
“No, I’m the only one on the stage that’s hired people,” Trump shot back. “You haven’t hired anybody.”
For several seconds, Rubio and Trump talked over one another — with the Florida senator at one point urging viewers to “Google Trump Polish workers.” In response, Trump called Rubio “a liar.” “Just be quiet,” Trump finally said.
At times this debate was frustrating to watch due to the numerous instances of candidates yelling over each other. Very frequently it seemed like the attacks of Cruz and Rubio against Trump were lost in the over-talking. However, that being said, Rubio finally opened his guns toward Trump as did Cruz. There was little interaction between Cruz and Rubio, most of their ire was directed entirely at Trump. Ben Carson and John Kasich were basically footnotes on the evening, or maybe bookends is a better description as they received few questions and fractions of talk time compared to the top three contenders. Very heated debate, very fiery exchanges, but will it tilt the scales against Trump next Tuesday? I’m eagerly awaiting some new polling, perhaps out by Sunday to give us an idea of how this debate will be received by voters.
