There was no clear victor in the final debate of the year, which illuminated the profound ideological clashes between the candidates

The deep fissures in the Republican race for the White House have been laid bare during a televised debate marked by profound ideological clashes between candidates desperate to be noticed amid the suffocating dominance of the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump.

On a night that may be remembered for Trump’s defence of a policy of deliberately killing innocent civilians if they are the family members of Islamist fighters, his rivals for the Republican nomination appeared divided on issues as fundamental as immigration, surveillance, freedom of speech and regime change abroad.



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It was a debate of repeated, one-on-one duels on the debate stage in Las Vegas, the most consequential of which occurred between Texas senator Ted Cruz and Florida senator Marco Rubio.



The two candidates, who are best poised to challenge Trump in a nomination process that begins with the Iowa caucus in just seven weeks, repeatedly locked horns over the ideological battles that have been engulfing their party for years.

It was the final Republican presidential debate of the year – and the first since the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, which prompted Trump’s incendiary proposal to ban foreign Muslims from entering the country.

None of the other eight candidates on stage supported Trump’s plan for religious discrimination at the border. But amid polls showing as many as 59% of Republicans supporting a halt on Muslims entering the country few candidates showed much appetite for taking on the former host of The Apprentice.

“I understand why they feel that way,” Rubio said of Republicans supportive for Trump’s ban on Muslims. Cruz chose similar language, saying “everyone understands why Donald has suggested what he has”.

Amid a general show of timidity toward the frontrunner, one of the exceptions was former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who stepped up to the plate to swing at Trump with uncharacteristic zeal.

Bush said the ban on Muslims was “not a serious proposal” and would alienate the very allies in the Middle East required to defeat Islamist fighters.

“Donald, you know, is great at the one-liners,” Bush added. “But he’s a chaos candidate, and he’d be a chaos president.”

It was the first of several tense bouts between Trump and Bush, who twice told the billionaire: “You’re not going to be able to insult your way to the presidency.” Another altercation occurred when Trump defended his position of intentionally killing innocent civilians who are family members of Islamic State militants – a breach of international law.

Trump invoked the September 11 terrorist attacks to justify killing family members of militants, saying it would deter future attacks. “They may not care much about their lives, but they do care, believe it or not, about their families,” he explained.

Bush hit back, insisting the real estate mogul’s proposal was “just crazy”. Trump, who tolerated him at first, eventually turned on Bush in a tart and petty exchange that scarcely rose above the level of playground taunts about whose turn it was to talk.

The fracas ended with Trump mocking Jeb’s standing in the polls. “I’m at 42 and you’re at three,” Trump said, referring at a poll this week that showed he has increased his already commanding lead. “So I’m doing better.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trump and Bush clash during the debate.

‘World War III’

The tussles between Trump, who has exceeded all expectations in this race, and Bush, who even allies concede has been underwhelming, set the tone for a debate that drew out the points of differences between the White House aspirants.

The most noteworthy divisions were between Cruz and Rubio, who are second and third respectively in most of the polls. Early on, the pair became embroiled in a detailed debate over the merits of the USA Freedom Act, the legislation that halted the bulk collection of American’s phone records disclosed by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Rubio criticised Cruz for having supported the legislation.

“I promise you the next time there is an attack on this country, the first thing people are going to want to know is why didn’t we know about it and why didn’t we stop it,” the Florida senator said.

“And the answer had better not be because we didn’t have access to records or information that would have allowed us to identify these killers before they attacked.”

Other candidates quickly became involved in the debate over privacy and national security – one that will keep fact-checkers busy for days to come.

Ohio senator John Kasich called for legislation to “solve the problem of encryption”, after claiming secure communications impeded the FBI from viewing communications between the San Bernardino shooters and other individuals they were monitoring. (No such evidence has been made public by the FBI.)

Meanwhile, Carly Fiorina touted her cooperation with the NSA when she was chief executive of Hewlett Packard, and claimed that other Silicon Valley tech firms “do not need to be forced” to cooperate with law enforcement because they will happily comply if asked. (Companies such as Apple, Facebook and Twitter, which are all resisting what they regard as undue government interference, may beg to differ.)

Trump, on the other hand, did not show much interest in the finer points of privacy, encryption and internet freedom, instead advancing a vague notion that parts of the internet could somehow be “closed”. He declined to be drawn on specifics on what that would mean, saying only that he would want “brilliant people from Silicon Valley and other places” to figure out a way to impede Islamic State’s use of the internet

“You talk freedom of speech. You talk freedom of anything you want,” he said. “I don’t want them using our internet to take our young, impressionable youth.”

Libertarian senator Rand Paul was left aghast at what he portrayed as multiple assaults on constitutional rights from his fellow Republicans.

The Kentucky senator took rivals to task over the the wisdom of seeking to depose dictators such as the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad, and the logic of shooting down Russian fighter jets found to be intruding over any future no-fly zone over Syria.

It was the New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, who is predicating his bona fides as a tough, no-nonsense commander-in-chief, who said that he would not flinch when faced with errant Russian fighter jet in the region.

“Yes, we would shoot down the planes of Russian pilots if in fact they were stupid enough to think that this president was the same feckless weakling that the president we have in the Oval Office is right now,” Christie said.

Paul responded that any such move would be “reckless”. “It’s a recipe for World War III,” the senator said. “If you’re in favour of World War III, you have your candidate.”

‘Fireman and arsonist’

The end of the debate, hosted at the Venetian, an Italian-themed casino resort owned by Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, and billed as a wide-ranging discussion of national security in its broadest terms, focused mostly on issues of defence.

The CNN moderators did not ask a single question about the historic global accord reached in Paris on Saturday to avert the most catastrophic effects of climate change – which Barack Obama and many other leaders around the world regard an issue of national security.

Neither did they ask about gun control, despite the recent spate of mass shootings.

Immigration, however, was discussed extensively, and was the source of the most significant standoff between Cruz and Rubio. The two senators, both staunch conservatives elected on the back of Tea Party support, are vying for the position as Trump’s chief challenger.

Both are sons of Cuban immigrants but are on opposing ends of the Republican spectrum on the vexed issue of immigration reform. Rubio’s achilles heel in the race is his failed attempt to pass comprehensive reform through the Senate two years ago, and his continued – albeit heavily caveated – support for a path that would enable some undocumented migrants to one day become US citizens.

It has put him at odds with the majority of his party – and at loggerheads with Cruz who, like Trump, is making an unforgiving stance on immigration a cornerstone of his campaign.

When Rubio tried to downplay the differences between the two candidates, Cruz responded with a sharp retort. “For Marco to suggest our record’s the same is like likening the fireman and the arsonist because they are both at the scene of the fire,” he said.

Cruz added the battle against the Islamic state “isn’t just in Iraq and Syria, it’s in Kennedy airport and the Rio Grande” and accused Rubio of being on the side of the “massive amnesty plan” pushed by Obama and other Democrats.

Yet for all his debating skills, Cruz also found himself cornered by Rubio. After weeks of ducking questions from reporters over whether he would countenance granting undocumented immigrants any form of legal status, Cruz was finally pressed to take a position when his rival asked him whether he would rule it out. “I have never supported legalisation, and I do not intend to support legalisation,” he said.

The argument was concluded when the moderator intervened and asked Trump which of the candidates – Cruz or Rubio – he sided with. The frontrunner looked momentarily flummoxed. “I have a very hardline position,” he answered, declining to take sides. It was an apt response after a night when, despite all of the fighting talk from Republican hopefuls, there was no clear victor.

Neither was there an obvious loser, although the retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who has watched his support base collapse in recent weeks, struggled to make an impression.

Carson opened the night with a moment of silence for victims of the San Bernardino that lasted all of five seconds, responded to his very first question by complaining he wasn’t being given enough airtime – and then declined a request to contribute to the debate over surveillance.

“I think you have to ask them about that,” Carson answered when CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer invited him to intervene in a discussion over reform of the NSA. “I don’t want to get in between them. Let them fight.”