Even though the debate was missing its brazen front-runner, the night wasn’t without some jabs—and a fair share of small business sticking points, too.
Donald Trump has proven he isn’t the type to run from a fight—well, except if it’s against Fox News’ Megyn Kelly.
The current GOP front-runner boycotted the seventh Republican debate after Fox News mocked his request to remove Kelly as one of the event’s moderators. Instead, Trump spent his evening hosting a rally for veterans at Drake University, just 5 minutes away from the debate.
“They can’t toy with me like they toy with everyone else,” Trump declared.
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His absence left seven candidates to duke it out: Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, John Kasich, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and Rand Paul. Two others seeking the GOP nomination, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, joined Trump’s rally.
The debate, perhaps naturally, began with a few jabs toward “the elephant not in the room.” Rubio called Trump the “greatest show on earth,” while Cruz began the night imitating the businessman.
“Let me say, I’m a maniac, and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly, and Ben, you’re a terrible surgeon,” the Texas senator said. “Now that we’ve gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way….”
Jokes aside, the candidates—some more than others—did manage to touch on some major small business issues.
Carson vowed to reduce regulations. “I’m very much against the government being involved in every aspect of our lives, you know? Last year there was an additional 81,000 pages of government regulations. If you stack that up it would be a three-story building. This is absolutely absurd,” Carson said.
Cruz laid out his plans to reform healthcare. Cruz said his three-step healthcare plan would increase competition, empower patients and prevent the government from interfering.
“Number one, we should allow people to purchase health insurance across state lines. That will create a true 50-state national marketplace, which will drive down the cost of low-cost, catastrophic health insurance. Number two, we should expand health savings accounts so people can save in a tax-advantaged way for more routine healthcare needs. And number three, we should work to de-link health insurance from employment so if you lose your job, your health insurance goes with you, and it is personal, portable and affordable,” Cruz said.
Bush touts his track record of enacting a smaller government. “I have a proven record, a record of accomplishment, a record of cutting taxes, of shrinking the government, of reforming education, of challenging the status quo, eliminating career civil service protections, shrinking the government workforce by 11 percent, of leading the nation in job growth. That’s the record of accomplishment that should be taken to Hillary Clinton, who has no record of accomplishment,” Bush said.
Trump, however, stays on top. Somehow Cruz “managed to lose to the man who wasn’t even there,” according to Slate writer Jim Newell.
“Cruz had his worst debate at a time when polls suggest he’s fallen well behind Trump in Iowa,” Newell wrote. “Instead of commanding the stage and hammering the absent front-runner, Cruz turned in a sloppy performance consisting of flat jokes, whining to the moderators, whining to the moderators as a set up for flat jokes, and taking substantive poundings from his rivals—and from Fox News itself.”
Despite Trump’s absence from the mainstream debate, he was the most-searched candidate before and after the debate and his tweet about his fundraiser’s success was the most retweeted message of the night, USA Today reported.
photo credit: Gage Skidmore
*Note: This news coverage does not equate to an endorsement of any candidate by NFIB.
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