Trump goes on defensive over immigration and his business record after senators team up in desperate bid to halt his march towards GOP nomination

Donald Trump faced a barrage of attacks from rivals Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz on Thursday night during a Republican presidential debate that was at times nasty and crude but offered few moments that looked likely to reset a race that remains Trump’s to lose.



The two senators ganged up for a second time in a row on the brash billionaire over his immigration stance, business record and overall temperament, but Trump swatted them away by condescendingly branding them “Little Marco” and “Lying Ted”.

In return, his rivals treated Trump like a belligerent child. At one point Cruz chastised his rival: “Count to 10, Donald. Count to 10.”

The debate in Detroit was, in many ways, emblematic of the Republican party’s core struggle, with time running short for the party establishment to blunt Trump’s path to the nomination.

The tone of schoolyard taunts rather than substantive discussion was set no more than 10 minutes after the candidates took the stage at the Fox Theatre, with Trump referencing the size of his genitalia during an exchange with Rubio over his hands.

Responding to personal attacks Rubio recently made on the campaign trail, in which the Florida senator mocked his opponent as having small hands, Trump held out his arms and exclaimed: “Look at those hands. Are those small?”

He went on to note that Rubio had used his hands as part of a metaphor for other parts of his body, an argument Trump dismissed: “I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee.”

It marked the bleak beginning to an evening that vacillated between a shouting match with occasional discussion of more meaningful affairs, such as the hiring of foreign workers and the war against the Islamic State. Much of the debate focused on Trump, as the presumptive nominee, and the lawsuits against his now-defunct eponymous university as well as his sincerity on immigration.

Yet for all the viciousness and personal attacks, all the Republicans agreed to support whoever eventually becomes the nominee and fights the general election in November.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trump and Rubio spar over lawsuit against Trump University

Florida senator Marco Rubio, whose campaign had pushed the “#nevertrump” hashtag and attacked Trump as “a con artist”, firmly committed for the first time to support the real estate mogul if – as seems likely – he becomes the Republican party’s nominee. The Florida senator said of the two Democratic alternatives Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, “one is a socialist and the other is under investigation”, a reference to the ongoing controversy over the former secretary of state’s private email server. Both Ohio governor John Kasich and Texas senator Ted Cruz agreed with Rubio that they would back Trump if he was the nominee.

Rubio’s campaign later sought to downplay the significance of the senator’s pledge to support Trump if he were the nominee, insisting such a scenario simply wouldn’t become a reality.

“We continue to believe Donald Trump will not be the nominee,” Todd Harris, a senior advisor to Rubio, told the Guardian in the “spin room”.

“If Santa Claus were to appear in my house tonight, I would welcome him in and give him some milk and cookies. But it’s probably not going to happen.”

The only interruption to the bickering were sporadic interventions by Ohio governor John Kasich, who in the absence of Jeb Bush assumed the role of party elder. But his repeated attempts to stay above the fray rung largely incongruous throughout the event, despite his being joined by Cruz who appealed to the audience at home: “Is this the debate you want playing out in the general election?”

While not as aggressive as Rubio in his attacks on Trump, Cruz did, however, team up with his Senate colleague to portray the reality TV star as essentially putting on a show on his signature issue: immigration and border security.

The two senators repeatedly criticized Trump over reports that he had said he was “flexible” on the issue of illegal immigration during an off-the-record discussion with the New York Times.

The frontrunner, who has made building a wall along the Mexican border and making Mexico pay for it a cornerstone of his campaign, insisted it was unfair to reveal what was discussed in an off-the-record setting.

“I think being off the record is a very important thing. I think it’s a very, very powerful thing,” said Trump, who has forcefully called for new libel laws to sue media companies.

But the businessman made clear there was room for compromise in a future Trump administration. “I will say, though, in terms of immigration – and almost anything else – there always has to be some, you know, tug and pull and deal,” Trump said. “I’ve never seen a very successful person who wasn’t flexible ... You have to be flexible, because you learn.”

Fox News’s moderators gave Trump’s policy positions even more scrutiny than in the past. Chris Wallace displayed a graphic which showed the frontrunner’s fuzzy math on his proposals to reduce the federal budget and Megyn Kelly quizzed him on his flip flops on increasing H-1B visas for highly educated workers.

“I’m changing. I’m changing,” the frontrunner told Kelly in response. “We need highly skilled people in this country, and if we can’t do it, we’ll get them in.”

The statement not only contradicted a policy paper on his website, which states an increase in the visas “would decimate women and minorities”, but also the long held policy positions of Senator Jeff Sessions, who was named on Thursday as the chairman of Trump’s National Security Campaign Advisory Commission.

Despite their best efforts, it remained unclear whether either Rubio or Cruz had managed to create a dent in Trump’s candidacy. They at times faded into the background, and in other moments struck a patronising tone.

“Breathe, breathe, breathe,” Cruz told Trump at one point. “I know it’s hard.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ted Cruz repeatedly tells Donald Trump to ‘breathe’

Rubio appeared to get beneath Trump’s skin with his relentless takedown of Trump University, highlighting the stories of students who he said had been victims of a scam, and a preference for foreign workers over Americans.

“You’re making your clothes overseas, and you’re hiring your workers overseas,” Rubio said.

A visibly angry Trump charged back by belittling his opponent, referring to Rubio as “this little guy” and dubbing him an absentee senator – but seldom responding to the essence of the charge.

A brief respite to the back-and-forth arrived roughly 90 minutes into the debate, with local questions pertaining to the water crisis in Flint and Detroit’s bankruptcy. But this resembled more lip service than a nuanced discussion of the problems plaguing the minority communities living outside the halls of the debate.

Rubio, when asked why Republican candidates had devoted no time to Flint’s lead-contaminated water crisis, expressed dismay that Democrats had “politicized” the issue and commended Michigan Republican governor Rick Snyder’s response.

“He took responsibility for what happened,” Rubio said.

Dozens of protesters outside the arena disagreed, marching with signs that read: “Flint lives matter.”

And Clinton responded swiftly on Twitter:

Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) It's not "politicizing" to say that what's happening with the poisoned water in Flint is an emergency and a moral outrage. #GOPdebate

Trump also faced scrutiny over his foreign policy record. He cited conspiracy theories about 9/11 while insisting that the military would obey any orders he gave to torture terrorists in US custody. “They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse me. Believe me,” the Republican frontrunner said.



And, with Trump winning 11 of the first 15 states and leading in polls in most of the upcoming contests, it looks increasingly likely he may be in the position to give those orders.