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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Tom McCarthy

Republican debate in Texas: 11 things we learned

Republican Presidential Candidates
Rivals Rubio, Trump and and Cruz observe the singing of the national anthem before the Republican presidential debate at the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston on Thursday. Photograph: Pool/Getty Images

The 10th Republican debate of the 2016 race for the White House is in the can. Here’s what happened:

  • Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz threw as many punches as they could at frontrunner Donald Trump, who was standing between them. He dismissed them, argued with them, insulted them and generally gave as good as he got.
  • Rubio got under Trump’s skin, by demanding that he describe his plan for health insurance reform beyond creating a national market. Trump said: “You’ll have competition. It’ll be beautiful.” But he could not say more.
Trump attacked by Rubio and Cruz over immigration at Republican debate
  • Pressed by a moderator to describe his health plan in any depth, Trump fumed: “No! There’s nothing to add. What is to add? What is to add?”
  • “Now he’s repeating himself!” said Rubio, lampooning Trump’s rhetorical default mode: “Everyone’s dumb. He’s gonna make America great again, we’re gonna win win win, and the lines around the states” will go away.
  • Cruz joined in the attack on Trump, saying that while he, Cruz, was fighting immigration reform in Congress, “Where was Donald? He was firing Dennis Rodman on Celebrity Apprentice.”
  • Trump called Cruz a “basketcase” and a “liar” and he called Rubio a “choke artist.”
  • Rubio dumped his opposition research file on Trump, saying he hired foreign workers ahead of Americans, defrauded students at a university bearing his name, made his ties and suits in Mexico and China and drove companies to bankruptcy.
  • Trump said he couldn’t release his tax returns because he was being audited and his lawyers wouldn’t let him release them.
  • Trump dismissed polls that showed him performing miserably among Hispanic voters. “I currently employ thousands of Hispanics, and over the years I have employed tens of thousands of Hispanics. They’re incredible people.”
  • Ohio governor John Kasich made repeated calls for greater seriousness of purpose as Dr Ben Carson called for greater time for himself to speak.
  • Trump entered the debate with very strong polling numbers in upcoming Super Tuesday states, and if anything happened onstage tonight capable of eroding the kinds of purported leads you see below … we didn’t recognize it.
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