On Thursday night, the top seven Republican candidates took the stage for the 9pm primetime portion of the Fox Business Republican debate in South Carolina. The remaining three candidates appeared in an earlier undercard debate during the 6pm hour. Rand Paul didn’t make the primetime stage and refused to participate in the early debate so he did not participate in this event. The complete video of each debate is available below.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Fox Business Republican Debate
North Charleston Coliseum in North Charleston, South Carolina
Primetime Debate
Moderators: Maria Bartiromo and Neil Cavuto
Candidates: Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Carson, Christie, Bush, Kasich
Transcript: Washington Post
Here is the primetime debate video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeqe_XKWs3o
Report from Fox Business:
Rather than attacking one another, the top seven candidates participating in the FOX Business Network’s presidential debate Thursday in North Charleston, S.C., focused most of their ire on the man they hope to replace – President Barack Obama — and the candidate they hope to defeat in November – Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Notwithstanding a long deviation by sparring front-runners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz over whether the Canadian-born Cruz is even eligible to run for president, the candidates (for the most part) attacked eight years Obama’s economic and foreign policies and repeatedly described Clinton as unfit to hold the office.
Contrasting their views against the optimistic depiction offered Tuesday by Obama in his State of the Union address, the candidates conveyed a starkly different vision of where America stands economically at home and its stature with allies and enemies alike overseas — and it wasn’t pretty.
All the candidates agreed Obama has failed to raise the standard of living for most Americans, has hurt business through high taxes and over-regulation, he has failed to control illegal immigration, failed to fight terrorism abroad and at home and has been weak on China, allowing the world’s second largest economy to use anti-competitive practices to undermine U.S. businesses.
“Our next president has to be someone who will fix the damage done to America by Obama,” said Florida Senator Marco Rubio.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie chimed in a short time later, “Hillary Clinton cannot be the next president.”
Each candidate showed strength in certain areas. Jeb Bush and John Kasich had a decent night, though I don’t think it’s going to change much for them. Marco Rubio had some strong points, though he took a lot of fire. Chris Christie stood out and had several strong answers. Ben Carson was mostly an afterthought and did not command much of the conversation. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump avoided mutual destruction but it will be interesting to see where the polls land following their feisty opening exchange. More analysis to come.
Undercard Debate
Moderators: Trish Regan and Sandra Smith
Candidates: Fiorina, Huckabee, Santorum
Transcript: Washington Post
Here is the undercard debate video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNje9HD1ifQ
Report on undercard debate from the OCRegister:
The Republican “undercard” debate Thursday night concluded with all three candidates promising that they’d be the best to take on the Democratic front-runner – glossing over, for the moment, the seven other Republicans they’d have to beat first.
“You cannot wait to see the debate between me and Hillary Clinton. You would pay to see that fight,” said former tech executive Carly Fiorina. Fiorina then cast herself as a stand-in for women everywhere, saying she’d been told to accept less than the best her whole life – and would not stand by while the United States was told to do the same with Clinton.
“Citizens, it is time,” Fiorina said, echoing – consciously or unconsciously – the “Saturday Night Live” parody of Clinton herself. “We must take our country back”
The undercard debate was decent in that each candidate had a large amount of time to go more in depth. I think Rand Paul did himself a disservice by not showing up. His voice was lost tonight during the broadcast but also during the post-debate interviews and coverage. As a result, I think he’s going to hurt his standing overall.
