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Republican debate: Trump, Cruz, Rubio and Kasich get unusually serious – live Republican debate live: Trump suggests '20,000-30,000' troops needed to fight Isis
(35 minutes later)
2.38am GMT 3.15am GMT
02:38 03:15
Jeb Lund Rubio clocks Trump on the Cuba question. He rattles down the list of anti-Castro grievances and is applauded absolutely wildly.
Guardian writer Jeb Lund is in Miami. Cruz gets the question. Would you break diplomatic relations with Cuba? “Yes I would,” Cruz says.
It’s a testament to Donald Trump’s force in the Republican primary that we’re even having a discussion about whether free trade is anything other than always good. In 2012, the moderators would have asked each candidate about trade in a debate in, say, Ohio or Pennsylvania, not somewhere like Miami, and then it would have been forgotten. Now, the idea of protectionist tariffs is such a winner with working class white people flocking to Trump that all of these guys have to utter some kind of performative nonsense. Then Cruz says the question illustrates “a real difference between us” on foreign policy. Trump, Cruz says, supports the “same basic trajectory” of policy as Obama and Clinton have established.
KASICH: My family was once blue collar, so we should have free trade but also fair trade. This makes no sense. Trump says again, “we would not do the deal unless it would be a very good deal for us.” Then he skips to Iran. Deal, deal, deal. How many times has Trump said “deal”?
CRUZ: I will create taxes to keep industry here. This is certainly a lie and almost certainly impossible. 3.12am GMT
RUBIO: Flowers from Colombia are good because it created millio – er, hundreds of jobs. We shouldn’t have free trade, because it’s bad, because other countries have tariffs. We need to negotiate away those tariffs, so we can have free trade. 03:12
TRUMP: [cheshire grin] Guardian Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts:
2.35am GMT I wonder how different the nomination race might have been if every GOP debate had been a civilised discussion of policy issues like this?
02:35 I think part of the reason why this debate feels more substantive is they have longer to answer. Size of the field led to race to the bottom
Trump gives voice to the unity imperative. “We’re all in this together,” he says. “So far I cannot believe how civil it’s been up here.” 3.11am GMT
He’s right. The night is unrecognizable from previous outings. Downright genteel. 03:11
2.34am GMT Trump has said that opening Cuba is fine. “I want a much better deal with Cuba,” he now says. He lapses into his riff about “we don’t make any good deals.”
02:34 “I do agree that something should take place. After 50 years it’s enough time folks. But we have to make a good deal here.”
Cruz is on about inflation, and in his tax plan. “The answer can’t just be, wave a magic wand and say, problem go away. You have to understand the problems, you have to have real solutions.” 3.10am GMT
He says Hillary Clinton just asserts she would solve problems but that’s a typical “liberal” thing to say. 03:10
The comparison to a certain someone standing next to him is unmissable. Next question is about Obama’s trip later this month to Cuba. The question goes to Rubio, on why the United States must not engage further with Cuba.
Then Cruz draws a contrast between himself and “Clinton,” ie Trump. Rubio says that the US changes allow money to flow to the Castro regime “and nothing will change for the Cuban people. ... In fact things are worse, than they were before this opening.”
“The less government, the more freedom. The fewer bureaucrats the more prosperity.” Rubio says the only result of “the opening” is the Cuban government has more sources than money.
Then the first real attack of the debate so far: Cruz hits Trump over writing checks to Democrats. Big huge applause line for Rubio, as he blasts the Cuban regime.
“If you have a candidate who has been funding liberal Democrats and funding the Washington establishment...” Cruz says, it’s very hard to assert that you will clean the stables of the capital. 3.10am GMT
2.32am GMT 03:10
02:32
Megan Carpentier
On Trump’s statement that his companies use H1B visas, that’s true – but most of them come through his Trump Model Management business (and mostly did so in 2011). Model Alexia Palmer has been suing the agency since 2014 for failing to pay her the salary listed on the H1B application.
Another big user of H1B visas is youngest son Eric, who is responsible for seven H1B applications as part of Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing. Trump wine is manufactured in Virginia; it is not, however, manufactured by Trump Industries.
It also apparently sucks.
2.30am GMT
02:30
Lucia GravesLucia Graves
Guardian columnist Lucia Graves is watching the proceedings. The state of the anti-Trump coalition is strong. One of the questions going into tonight was whether candidates would uphold a relatively fragile and informal truce to band together in attacking Trump and not one another. For Rubio, facing down the prospect of a highly embarrassing end in his home state of Florida next week, it’s a valid concern.
Did someone put something in the water this debate? The candidates’ answers have been uncommonly substantive and focused on policy. Trump, in particular, appears intent on having a more mature debate this time around, as evidenced by his opening statement, which sounded uncommonly prepared. So far the truce is intact, with Rubio going after Trump for his claim that Islam, broadly defined, hates America. ‘He says what people wish they can say,’ Rubio said of Trump. ‘The problem is presidents can’t just say what they want, it has consequences here and around the world.’
After a news cycle that has focused on the anger and violence present at his rallies, Trump argued that people are voting for him out of ‘enthusiasm’ and ‘love’. It’s an intelligent, if defensive, tack to take. And his first response to a question on trade was similarly well-marshalled – if arrogant – focusing on his superior bona fides on the subject as a businessman. Trump countered with his favorite go-tos: the specter of 9/11 and the notion that Rubio was simply being ‘politically correct’.
After a GOP debate that resorted to petty name-calling and Trump literally talking about his penis size, the new tone he seems to be cultivating tonight is a welcome reprieve. It makes you wonder what the race would look like if debates had looked like this all along – maybe Jeb! would still be on stage. But Rubio punched back: ‘I’m not interested in being politically correct – I’m interested in being correct,’ he quipped, before explaining how not all Muslims have been radicalized.
The point here goes firmly to Rubio – and to every other candidate trying to beat Trump, which is to say, everyone on stage.
3.08am GMT
03:08
Rubio takes a question on veterans benefits. He says more people in the veterans administration need to be held accountable and fired. “No one’s been disciplined, no one’s been demoted.” He promises as president to fire bad VA employees.
Kasich takes a question about cutting VA spending as an effort to balance the budget. “My initial impression is no,” he says. Then he says all veterans need health care, the guarantee of a home, and job training.
3.06am GMT
03:06
Trump suggests force of '20,000-30,000' needed to fight Islamic State
Cruz takes a question about Syria and the fight against the Islamic state. He zeroes in on rules of engagement, blaming the president for making the rules too strict. “I think that it is wrong, it is immoral.”
Kasich reminds the crowd that he spent 18 years on the armed services committee. “We absolutely have to win this with a coalition,” Kasich says. “It’s gotta be shock and awe, in the military speak... and we will wipe them out... and let the regional powers redraw the map if that’s the only choice.”
Trump is asked how many troops are needed to finish the job.
“I would listen to the generals, but I am hearing numbers of 20-30,000,” he says.
3.03am GMT
03:03
Mona Chalabi
More from our US data editor…
As the candidates debated what percentage of Muslims are radicalized, I got to thinking about how pollsters makes the same assumptions as political candidates.
Research from Pew in 2009 found that there was “little support for terrorism among Muslim Americans” because 78% of Muslims American respondents said they believed suicide bombings could never be justified. However, the results were asterisked with the statement “asked of Muslims only”.
This is problematic. When only one minority is asked to explain themselves, their proclivity towards evil is hard to judge – we just don’t know whether that number would be higher or lower for the US population as a whole.
3.02am GMT
03:02
Kasich is asked whether he agrees with the Israeli government that Palestinians are inciting violence?
“There’s no question,” Kasich says. Then he invites Miamians to imagine living under an Iron Dome missile defense system.
He says long-term security is not likely in the region and conflict response and defense must be the priorities.
3.01am GMT
03:01
Megan Carpentier
A list of current Trump properties and projects in majority Muslim countries, where, by Trump’s reckoning, they hate us ... but not enough to not patronize his businesses.
In 2014, Trump’s company announced a project in Azerbaijan – the Trump International Hotel & Tower Baku. The project disappeared from the company’s website in late 2015 after Mother Jones began making inquiries. The deal was reportedly negotiated with an infamous oligarch.
3.01am GMT
03:01
Cruz accuses Trump of “the moral relativism president Obama has.”
The answer is not to say all Muslims hate us, Cruz says.
Then Rubio jumps in to batter Trump a bit on Israel.
“The policy Donald has outlined, I don’t know if he realizes, is an anti-Israel policy,” says Rubio, never one to be outrun for pro-Isreal bona fides.
Rubio’s rationale is that there is no Palestinian side to negotiate with and so negotiations are a mirage.
Rubio is cheered robustly by the home-town crowd.
2.58am GMT
02:58
Trump is pushed by Cruz for saying he, Trump, hoped to be an honest broker in the Middle East conflict.
Trump says he’s the most pro-Israel candidate on stage. He’s booed a bit for that – the first booing of the night.
“I happen to have a son-in-law and a daughter that are Jewish, OK?” Trump says.
UpdatedUpdated
at 2.32am GMT at 3.03am GMT
2.30am GMT 2.58am GMT
02:30 02:58
Rubio: Trump's 'numbers don't add up' Trump pushed on targeting terror suspects' families
CNN moderator Dana Bash points out to Trump that studies have found that waste in social security amounts to like $3bn, whereas budget overruns amount to $150bn. So you can’t satisfy the latter by eliminating the former. Trump is asked about his prescription to “take out the families of terrorists”. How does he square that with Geneva Convention proscriptions against killing civilians?
Trump gives a non sequitur answer about North Korea and US defense protections for Japan and elsewhere. Trump brings up waterboarding. We can’t – but they can drown people in “big steel cages.”
Rubio gently prods Trump: “We have to obey the laws, but we have to expand those laws, because we have to be able to fight on somewhat of an equal footing.. or we’ll be a bunch of suckers and they are laughing at us,” Trump says.
“The numbers don’t add up,” Rubio says. Eliminating fraud is a drop in the bucket. “The numbers don’t add up.” Rubio’s asked if he would target families of terrorist suspects.
Trump declines to reply. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump says. He says the government does not negotiate with big Pharma. Or with defense contractors. He is asserting possession of a magic anti-waste wand that in a snap corrects the Pentagon and HHS budgets. “No, of course not,” he says. It’s not smart policy, he says. Instead intelligence agencies should find terrorists and a rebuilt military should do the same.
2.26am GMT Rubio says terror suspects are “not gonna have a right to remain silent” but they’ll go to the prison at Guantanamo.
02:26 Cruz agrees he would not kill terrorist suspects’ families.
Trump is asked about his opposition to social security reform. How would he stop the system from going bankrupt? “No of course not, we’ve never targeted innocent civilians and we’re not going to start now,” Cruz says, in the fashion of CIA director John Brennan, who has said the US drone programs have resulted in no civilian casualties.
“The Democrats are doing nothing with social security,” Trump says. “I will do everything within my power not to touch social security,” he says. 2.52am GMT
Getting rid of waste and corruption would solve the debt issue, Trump asserts. 02:52
“It’s my absolute intention to leave social security the way that it is,” he says. Kasich says he does not believe that “Islam hates us.” He recapitulates Rubio’s point that the USA needs Muslim partners to combat “radical Islam.”
Then he starts to riff or rant about China and “our jobs our gone” and “make America great again.” Kasich says radical Islam is an enemy of “other Muslims.”
2.24am GMT
02:24
Rubio is riffing on social security. He calls for delayed retirement to 68 years old. And for means testing for benefits. “These are not unreasonable changes to ask.”
He says for his generation the retirement age would be 68. But his children would retire at 70. “The people who are on it now, we don’t have to change it at all.”
He’s talking at once to the Republican fiscal hawks and the retired voters in Florida.
2.21am GMT
02:21
“Common core is a disaster,” Cruz says. As president, he says, he will order the department of education to end common core, the federal prescriptions for educational curricula, “that day.”
For good measure Cruz would “abolish the department of education.” He talks way through the 1:15 buzzer by getting started on school choice.
2.20am GMT
02:20
Kasich has called opposition to Common Core “Hysteria.” Does he stand by that?
Kasich says he’s into what works. He talks in detail about the Ohio model, by which local school boards set the standards. “We need to start connecting [kids] to the real world” with vocational education starting in seventh grade, he says.
Mentoring programs. Local control. High state standards. That’s Kasich’s recipe for educational success.
2.18am GMT
02:18
Trump says education has been “taken over by the bureaucrats in Washington” and they are not interested in what’s happening in Miami or Florida.
2.17am GMT
02:17
Trump announces Carson endorsement
This is a bran-flakes dry debate so far, in comparison with the sloppy recents.
Then Trump drops an exciting point:
“I was with Dr Ben Carson today, who is endorsing me by the way tomorrow morning.”
2.16am GMT
02:16
Cruz jumps in. He’s asked how many new permanent legal immigrants and guest workers should be in the United States. Instead of answering, he talks about punishing sanctuary cities and attacks the Democrats.
“We need instead leadership that works for the working men and women of this country,” Cruz says.
Rubio says he is “grateful every day that America welcomed” his father, but 60 years later, the primary criteria for bringing someone from abroad should be what skills do you have, what can you contribute.
2.14am GMT
02:14
Trump takes the H1-B question. “That’s something that I frankly use, and we shouldn’t be allowed to use, it’s very bad for workers.”
But, “I’m a businessman, and we have to do what we have to do.”
There’s a smattering of applause for Trump’s this-is-terrible-but-the-profit-motive-ties-my-hands argument.
Trump makes the bell with a full 95-second response.