We knew to expect a verbal firefight and last night’s debate did not disappoint: Trump, Rubio and Cruz showed up for battle, unleashing their full rhetorical arsenals. Though there were five candidates on stage, only the big three had a real stake in the outcome tonight, and they grappled as only political combatants with everything on the line could.
For Trump, it was a matter of holding ground in the face of an onslaught. He had to fight a two-front war on that stage, with attacks flying at him from all sides. For Rubio and Cruz, the strategy was offense, as it was time to call in their reserves and make one unified charge against a Trump campaign that has turned into an election juggernaut.
The three-way race was really a two-on-one, with Trump standing center stage between a salvo of Rubio and Cruz takedowns. In truth, they had no other option. Super Tuesday is days away, and it could be the last hope for any candidate to stop Trump from locking up the GOP nomination. Either Cruz or Rubio — or both — had to establish in the minds of millions of Americans watching that Trump is no longer the alpha dog of the GOP race. The two senators had a mission, and it was to cut the larger-than-life Donald down to size.
Senators’ different attacks
Rubio’s tone of attack against Trump was often more personal than policy based. From the onset, he impugned Trump’s credibility, record and truthfulness. Rubio pointed out that Trump, real estate magnate (and heir), has a history of hiring undocumented workers, and even accused him of paying a $1 million fine as a result.
For a candidate like Trump — who boasts about building a barrier on our southern border that will be so magnificent, it will bear his own name — a history of hiring workers here illegally seems like the height of hypocrisy.
Perhaps taking a trick from the Donald himself, Rubio took a generally dismissive tone towards the GOP frontrunner. When Trump tried to get snide, Rubio gave the same back in kind. When Trump tried to talk over him, Rubio smiled and yapped right back. Over the course of the night, Rubio seemed to have stumbled onto the one thing that could be kryptonite for Trump: mockery.
Cruz, on the other hand, focused his assault more on Trump’s flip-flopping positions and counterfeit “conservatism.” Cruz hammered home that Trump expresses support for single payer health care as well as the health services Planned Parenthood provides for women.
He pushed Trump into a corner on the health care issue, forcing Trump to dodge the question “do you support socialized medicine?” with an irrelevant digression about not allowing people to “die in the streets.” It was the prosecutor up against the real estate developer, and the prosecutor won.
Some Trumpian moments
But Trump certainly managed to have (in the eyes of his supporters, at a minimum) some winning Trumpian moments. Well aware of the dynamic at this stage of the race, he gamely batted away Rubio and Cruz time and again over the course of the night, and even tussled with two of the moderators.
He appeared flustered, but not flummoxed, and managed to land a few memorable one liners. Perhaps the most classic moment of all was Trump stating he does not believe anything Telemundo says — to a Telemundo reporter.
For those who support the Donald’s brash, unapologetic antics and Herculean swagger, there was plenty to cheer in his talk about winning against China and forcing Mexico to build an even taller wall. For the rest of the Republican Party, the Trump campaign’s durability will continue to be a source of befuddlement and angst. All the hopes of the GOP establishment — and the conservative movement, such as it is — rest on Rubio and Cruz.
As the votes are cast in many states across the country this Tuesday, we will have a much better sense of whether this last debate had any measurable effect. It may go down in the books as the last stand of Rubio and Cruz, or the moment that the seemingly invincible candidacy of Donald Trump ceased to be.
Either way, it was a throwdown well worth the watching.