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Fox News GOP debate: ‘This election cannot be a resume competition’

CLEVELAND–The people have spoken, and Fox News is listening. The cable news channel aired the first 2016 presidential debate on Thursday, and the top 10 p...
GOP Fox News debate lineup

CLEVELAND–The people have spoken, and Fox News is listening.

The cable news channel aired the first 2016 presidential debate on Thursday, and the top 10 polling Republican candidates were invited to participate. The other candidates faced off earlier in the night in a so-called “happy hour” debate.

The candidates who were featured in the debate include: real estate magnate Donald Trump; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson; Texas Sen. Ted Cruz; Florida Sen. Marco Rubio; Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

The night started on an interesting note. The first question asked for candidates to raise their hands if they couldn’t pledge not to rally behind the eventual Republican candidate, and couldn’t pledge not to then run as a third-party candidate if not chosen. Only Trump raised his hand and said “I will not make the pledge at this time.”

Marco Rubio took an early stab at his possible Democrat competition, but it almost came out as a compliment: “This election cannot be a resume competition” because if it is, he said, Hillary will win.

Jeb Bush was pleased with his record, saying “They call me ‘Veto’ Corleone because I’ve vetoed 2,500 separate line items in the budget.”

One zinger came from the moderators table. “You’ve called women you don’t like pigs, dogs and disgusting animals on your Twitter account,” Megyn Kelly said to Trump, asking how he’d respond. “I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct,” Trump said.

Walker started the debate on Planned Parenthood, a topic everyone knew would be raised. He too was proud of his record: “I defunded Planned Parenthood more than four years ago, long before any of these videos came out.”

Huckabee followed up, saying abortion should be fought with the Fifth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment because babies become people at conception, and should have rights. In regards to abortion laws, he continued to say the “Supreme Court is not the supreme being.” He ended is diatribe on Planned Parenthood and abortion by saying we need to  “Protect children instead of rip up their body parts and sell them like they’re parts to a Buick.”

Trump too was proud of his contributions. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even be talking about illegal immigration,” he said, because he brought the topic to the forefront with his comments on Mexicans a few weeks back. He said that he believes we should build a wall on our border, but “I don’t mind having a big beautiful door in that wall so that people can come into this country legally, but we need to build a wall.”

Kasich commented on one of the other men on the stage, but it shouldn’t be taken at face-value. “Here’s the thing about Donald Trump: Donald Trump is hitting a nerve with people in this country.” He went on to say that Trump’s tone is the most offensive part, but that he speaks his mind.

Paul commented on illegal immigration too, saying that while a fence isn’t the only solution. “We do need a fence, but the problem is if El Chapo builds a tunnel under the fence, we need to be able to deal with that too,” referring to the Mexican gang leader who escaped prison recently.

Walker defended his shift in believes on illegal immigration, saying he listened to the American people and heard what they had to say. One point he emphasized, though, is that he firmly believes there should not be an amnesty program.

Paul and Christie sparred for a bit on the NSA and need for warrants. “I want to collect more records from terrorists, but less records from innocent Americans,” Paul said. Eventually, he screamed that Christie misunderstands the Bill of Rights, which is why he agrees with parts of the Patriot Act.

Cruz fit in a dig against Obama, which was a popular tactic on the stage, essentially saying we aren’t doing enough to defeat ISIS. “We need a commander-in-chief that speaks the truth. We will not defeat ISIS so long as we have a president unwilling to utter the words ‘radical Islamic terrorist.'”

While Bush said that the Iraq War “was a mistake,” and that he “wouldn’t have gone in” knowing what we do today, he still found blame for his brother’s successor in the White House: “When Barack Obama became president, he left Iraq, and when he left it was done for. ISIS was created because of the void that we left.”

Huckabee also commented on ISIS and terrorism, and agreed that the Obama administration didn’t handle it properly. He said, “We will bring death to America. When someone points a gun to your head, by God, you ought to take them seriously, and we need to take them seriously.

Ben Carson was asked for his opinion on waterboarding, and while he avoided directly answering, he did say that he doesn’t think we should broadcast how we interrogate terrorists. He also made a general statement on today’s political climate, echoing one of Donald Trump’s favorite concepts: “We’ve gotten into the mindset of fighting politically correct wars. There is not such a thing as a politically correct war,” he said.

Trump defended his background on being against the Iraq War, saying he was the only one on the stage who said it would destabilize the Middle East.

Rand Paul wasn’t done fighting after his tiff with Chris Christie; he later went back-and-forth with Donald Trump, who had a quip ready to go: “You’re having a hard time tonight,” he said to the Kentucky senator.

Trump was ready with soundbites for the media to pick up. In recent days it’s been widely reported that he’s donated money to Hillary Clinton’s campaigns , as well as other Democrats’ runs, in the past, but he made it into a joke, saying it was all just a way to get political and other favors from politicians. The joke was on him though, because while he said that the favor he asked Clinton for was for him to attend his wedding, her spokeswoman later said Clinton would have attended his nuptials even if he didn’t contribute to her campaign.

The hits on Hillary weren’t done, and Scott Walker added his hat into the mix: “Everywhere in the world Hillary Clinton touched is more messed up,” he said of the former secretary of state.

While some policy was discussed, with many saying that there is no place in the federal government for education, a lot of the night was spent with the candidates spouting rehearsed soundbites that they knew would resonate with their bases.

Kasich said, “America is a miracle country, and we have to restore the sense that the miracle will apply to each and every one of you.”

Walker said, “People, not the government, create jobs, and the best thing we can do is get the government out of the way.”

Bush added, “We’re going to win when we unite people.”

Rubio commented that while God has “blessed the Republican party with some very good candidates,  the Democrats can’t even find one.”

Carson used his profession as a neurosurgeon as a description for the overall problem in America. He said that all the other candidates had listed their previous accomplishments, things that set them apart from the crowd. Carson said that he’s the only one on the stage to “take out half a brain,” but he made it relevant by adding, “Though if you went to Washington you’d think someone had beat me to it.”

Some policy points made include that Trump is emphatically pro-life, Carson believes in a proportional tax system, and Rubio thinks that for the economy to improve and help small businesses we need to repeal Dodd Frank.

Here are some other quotes that hit hard with the audience:

Trump, commenting on others putting down his style: “We don’t have time for tone, we have to go out and get the job done.”

Kasich on how he would reconcile his beliefs on gay marriage if his daughter said she was gay: “I just went to a wedding of a friend of mine who happens to be gay. Just because someone doesn’t think the way I do doesn’t mean I can’t care about them or can’t love them.” He said he’d “love my daughters no matter what they do.”

Paul also commented on gay marriage, but made it a broader concept about religious beliefs in general: “When the government tries to invade the church, to enforce it’s own opinion on marriage, that’s when it’s time to resist.”

Trump gave the audience some investing advice, saying : “If Iran was a stock, you folks should go out and buy it because it will quadruple.”

Huckabee commented on the recent policy change in the military’s health insurance to allow transgender servicemembers to get a sex-change operation: “The military is not a social experiment. The purpose of the military is to kill people and break things.” He followed up asking how paying for sex-change surgery makes our military safer.

Rubio moved from war to veterans, saying “When I’m president of the Untied States, we’re going to have a VA that cares more about our veterans and less about the bureaucrats who work at the VA.”

Lastly, Carson, the only black candidate, spoke about race issues in america: “When I go into the operating room, actually operating on the thing that makes them who they are [the brain], the skin doesn’t make them who they are, the hair doesn’t make them who they are, and it’s time for us to move”  forward.

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