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US PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE Donald Trump unleashed fiery rhetoric at last night’s Republican debate after enduring a day of intense criticism by party leaders, as conservatives agonise over embracing his divisive candidacy or derailing his march to the nomination.
But despite escalated attacks against Trump by his rivals on the debate state, each one of them – Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Marco Rubio, and Ohio Governor John Kasich – acknowledged they would support the party’s eventual nominee.
With the real estate tycoon apparently on a glide path to becoming the Republican standard-bearer, some panic has set in at the prospect of Trump winning the nomination.
Other operatives and voters said it is time, for better or worse, to rally around the man leading the pack.
With the bitter rivals gathered at a pivotal moment in the campaign, the debate attacks turned deeply personal, even vulgar.
Trump made a startling if veiled reference to his genitals as he hit back against Rubio for mocking the size of Trump’s hands.
“Nobody has ever hit my hands,” Trump said as the crowd laughed and booed.
He referred to my hands. If they’re small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there is no problem.
Rubio excused his own attacks by insisting it was Trump who opened the flood gates.
“Donald Trump has basically mocked everybody with personal attacks,” Rubio said.
Trump’s remarks, likely unprecedented in a US presidential debate, appeared as the nadir of a campaign season already notable for its unruly, coarse tone.
With Trump thrown on the defensive, he lashed out multiple times, at one point hurling insults and talking over his rivals.
“You’ve defrauded the people of Florida, little Marco,” he said.
Florida votes on 15 March and is Rubio’s firewall, even though Trump leads there in polls. If he can not win his home state, Rubio will find no path to the nomination.
Kasich, who is scrambling to avoid irrelevance in the fierce nomination contest, said he hoped the race could focus on important policy issues and not the “scrums” and personal debasement on display last night.
“People say wherever I go: ‘You seem to be the adult on the stage,’” Kasich said.
With time running out to stop Trump, Mitt Romney – who ran unsuccessfully against Barack Obama in 2012 – yesterday offered up some of the harshest criticism yet, lambasting Trump as unfit to be president.
Romney said a Trump nomination would enable a Democratic victory for the party’s presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton.
“Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud,” Romney said in a speech in Utah, as he urged voters to support one of the remaining candidates.
Trump, Romney said, “is playing the American public for suckers”.
Trump wasted little time in striking back, calling Romney a “choke artist” and assailing him for “begging” for an endorsement, only to lose to Obama four years ago.
Romney still holds sway with certain elements of the party, but even Kasich downplayed the influence that the 2012 nominee would have on 2016.
“Mitt Romney is a great guy, but he doesn’t determine my strategy,” Kasich said at the debate.
Trump ’disaster’
The debate, broadcast on Fox News, took place in the largest city in Michigan, the biggest prize of the four states holding Republican primaries next Tuesday.
Whether or not Trump should carry the torch is now the crux of the GOP race, which he has dominated essentially since he jumped in eight months ago.
Cruz insisted “the stakes are too high” to let Trump be the nominee, arguing that Clinton will eat him alive ahead of the November election.
“Is this the debate you want playing out in the general election?” Cruz asked viewers, arguing that Trump’s legal problems with his closed university and his financial contributions to Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign would spell huge trouble.
“Nominating Donald would be a disaster,” Cruz said.
Trump insisted he was the only one capable of defeating Clinton.
“I have not started on Hillary yet,” Trump said.
Believe me, I will start soon.
When Fox moderators pressed Trump on some of his changing political positions on the Iraq war and admitting Syrian refugees, Trump defended his flip-flopping.
“I have a very strong core,” he insisted, “but I’ve never seen a successful person who wasn’t flexible.”
Trump proceeded to reverse a plank of his own immigration plan, saying he now supports an increase in visas for highly skilled foreign workers.
“I changed my tune,” Trump said.
“There’s a difference between flexibility, and telling people whatever you need to get them to… do,” Rubio interjected.
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Michelle O’Neill is absolutely correct in her call for this, but the North being the North; it is pretty obvious that the push from Michelle and the pushback from Arlene stems from something other than Coronavirus/public health.
@LangerDan: What about that funeral she attended not so long ago. Didn’t see much social distancing, did you? Plus did everybody there do self isolation after? Only thing she did with that statement was prove she is every bit hypocrite that she shamelessly branded to others.
@Richard Cronin: There has been more than enough hypocrisy to share around during this pandemic from many quarters. However it is important that we do not allow past hypocrisy create tunnel vision. I’d rather a hypocrite make a U-Turn than stick dogmatically to their original position. The issue here is, it makes perfect epidemiological sense to have an island wide solution to this; but the Northern parties are so entrenched in Green-Orange politics that such sound calls get proposed and opposed under a different light.
@LangerDan: so why are all the airports & harbors open? It’s not like the virus is going away anytime soon. Plus how is all this to be payed for? Most hypocrites are around for the sound bites but not for actual problem solving
@LangerDan: cash for ash foster would rather flood the place with unchecked tourists than listen to sf warning
She’s 100% right but unfortunately has undermined her own authority on Covid by attending Sinn Féin funeral that broke all common sense rules of social distancing.
@Brendan Walsh: hypocrisy in action
@Brendan Walsh: she had no choice, she was only following orders.
@John Mulligan: yaaaaawwwwwnnnn
@Richard Cronin: it is 14 days today since that funeral and as the numbers show, it was so well organised around social distancing regulations that not a single case of covid has been traced to it.
@M Bowe: actually 21 days.
@M Bowe: the west Brits are out in style
Poor Arlene. Would sooner see her people dessimated by a lethal virus than give an inch on her beloved Union.
@Toon Army: Maybe Michelle and colleagues should have thought of that before organising a mass attendance at a recent funeral.
@TL55: I don’t think they planned on a funeral??
Sinn Fein demanding internment for people entering Ireland. Detained without trial. Hilarious.
Does anyone really take this woman seriously?
@Brian Renaghan: Of course not Arlene Foster is a relic of the old era but luckily people are listening to Michelle O’Neill and taking what she says seriously.
When it came to closing and opening schools, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales took a different approach than England, so why are they insistant that they MUST now maintain the common travel area controls (or rather a lack of controls) with the rest of UK.
It really is hard to take anything from SF seriously. This type of proposal requires consensus from the executive and that is the forum for such an initiative. This solo run is just sectarian politics at its worst.
@camio55: do you even know what sectarianism is. Maybe check it out before using it!!!!!
@M Bowe: Sectarianism is a form of prejudice, discrimination, or hatred arising from attaching relations of inferiority and superiority to differences between subdivisions within a group.
Never thought I’d end up on Arlene’s side. Strange times.
Yet she went to a funeral where how many people attended? Calling for holding areas for people without due process? Congratulations you are every bit the hypocrite you shamelessly brand other politicians
@Richard Cronin: you are giving her too much credit. She doesn’t have any say in policy, she was appointed by the army council and is just a mouthpiece for them, the same as her clone in the south.
This is just an attempt by her handlers to leverage the covid crisis to suit their own agenda.
Sinner wants to stop traffic from Britain and align with Republic. Shocker
And the Republic of Ireland needs to protect itself from the spread of Covid-19 from Northern Ireland and vice-versa by limiting mass gatherings including attending IRA funerals, Michelle, Mary Lou and Pearse.
The porous border that the Unionists love could kill a lot of people !
have your say