Fox News tests 10 presidential candidates, but Trump is Trump
Women’s issues, NSA and Bush’s shift on Iraq take the stage
Talk of Mexico sends Trump on tirade over ‘stupid’ US leaders
Chris Christie and Rand Paul spar on government surveillance
Carly Fiorina stands apart at Republican debate’s ‘kid’s table’
11.18pm ET
We shouldn’t be surprised that #BlackLivesMatter would get short shrift in the first Republican debate, but seriously: less than one minute dedicated to the biggest social movement of our time? Just three days before the one-year anniversary of Mike Brown’s death, which began a new civil rights movement?
The moderators essentially did not address any issues of criminal justice during the #GOPDebate.
11.07pm ET
While all three moderators received much deserved praise tonight for strong questions, there was one significant omission.
Just one day after top aides to Rand Paul’s superPAC, including the campaign manager of his 2010 Senate campaign, were indicted, there was no mention on the debate stage.
11.06pm ET
Mike Huckabee. “A lot of this election is about a person who’s high in the polls, who doesn’t have an idea how to govern, whose past is full of scandals. Of course I’m talking about Hillary Clinton.” Trump shouts “thank you” from afar.
Scott Walker. “I’m a guy with a wife and two kids … one article called me ‘aggressively normal.’” He beat up some unions and won a recall election. “It wasn’t too late for Wisconsin, and it’s not too late for America.”
11.01pm ET
John Kasich goes first. He was in the military. He helped budget a federal budget while in Congress that one time. He really wants people in Ohio to feel hopeful.
Chris Christie goes second. He’s from New Jersey. His dad made ice cream at a factory. He says he put terrorists in jail after September 11. He ignores the time limit ding, and he says he really doesn’t worry about being respected.
10.56pm ET
Marco Rubio answers the question by saying that the Republican party is “blessed” to have so many good candidates when “the Democrats can’t even field one.”
Then he talks about Veterans Affairs. It’s not clear why, or even what he’s saying, but A for effort at bringing up an otherwise ignored issue.
10.54pm ET
The final question, from Facebook: “I want to know if any of them have received a word from God on what they should do and take care of first.”
“I’m blessed to receive a word from God every day,” says Ted Cruz. “I’m the son of a pastor and an evangelist.” He quotes scripture, “we should know them by their fruit,” and says that the party needs “consistent conservatives” to win the election.
10.51pm ET
And we’re back to questions about military/foreign policy.
1. How weak is the American military? Is it weaker than it’s ever been since 9/11? Since 1940? Or since 1917?
10.48pm ET
In case you missed it, Mike Huckabee’s magnanimous opinion about LGBT rights in the US military.
Huckabee on trans people: "The military is not a social experiment. The purpose of the military is to kill people and break things." Christ.
Mike Huckabee has now mentioned pimps, prostitutes and the B-52s tonight
10.46pm ET
Bret Baier asks Rand Paul about his first ever budget proposal for Congress, which cut foreign aid to Israel.
Paul says he’s for cutting aid to countries “where they burn the American flag.”
10.43pm ET
Ted Cruz is now describing some kind of pan-Iranian-Kremlin conspiracy involving a cyberattack on Pentagon computers. He’s very emphatic about it. He was an accomplished debater in college, after all.
Ben Carson mumbles his way through a question about foreign policy. Scott Walker, on his left, gives a knowing nod when Carson says “we’ve turned our back” on Israel.
10.39pm ET
Moderator Bret Baier asks Trump about prisoner swaps with the Taliban and foreign policy in general in the Middle East. “I would be so different from what we have now.”
“I would say [Obama’s] incompetent but I don’t want to do that because it’s not nice. We get Bergdahl, a traitor, and they get five of the big great leaders of them all,” he says, in reference to Sgt Bowe Bergdahl, an American held prisoner by the Taliban for years, and eventually traded for several prisoners.
10.35pm ET
The moderators ask Scott Walker about policing and police abuses, and the Wisconsin governor replies with a fairly milquetoast, if even-keeled, answer.
“It’s about training, it’s about making sure that law enforcement professionals … have the proper training particularly when it comes to use of force.”
10.31pm ET
Bush denies having called Trump “a clown”, “a buffoon”, and a swearword he tries to stop Kelly saying out loud, but he says that the mogul’s tone is “divisive”.
This pleases Trump. The billionaire says that Bush is “a true gentleman, he really is.”
10.30pm ET
Kelly describes Donald Trump’s long and convoluted history of political flip-flopping. She asks when he became a Republican.
“I am pro-life,” he says. “I hate the concept of abortion, I hate the concept of abortion.
10.26pm ET
Social issues – ie Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights – on the docket. Megyn Kelly asks Jeb Bush about how he joined the Bloomberg Foundation, which in part funded Planned Parenthood.
“I joined the Bloomberg Foundation because my and Bloomberg’s shared commitment to education reform,” Bush says, adding that “my record is clear.”
10.25pm ET
Hillary Clinton wants everyone to know she really, honestly isn’t watching the Republican debate. Why would she! One of them is only going to end up being her opponent. Who cares what they think or how they debate?
Perhaps she’s watching Jon Stewart’s final Daily Show instead.
Subject: I’m not watching tonight’s debate
I don’t need to.
Friend --
Right this minute, ten Republican men are on national TV, arguing over which one will do the best job of dragging our country backwards.
I’m not watching, and I don’t need to be.
Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio -- they all have the same agenda. They are out of step with the kind of country Americans want for themselves and their children.
I’m on the road tonight, but I wanted to take a moment to ask you to chip in $1 or more right now to fight for the vision you and I share:
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/gop-debate/
Thanks,
Hillary
10.21pm ET
The candidates are fielding questions about Iran, with Rand Paul rolling out Reagan on the alter.
“I’m a Reagan conservative, and Reagan did negotiate with the Soviets. But you have to negotiate from a position of strength,” he says.
10.18pm ET
You know the Republican presidential candidates are going to be in trouble in 2016 with Latino voters when their best overture to us so far is Jeb Bush’s $75 Guaca Bowle. It’s further proof that while conservatives love Mexican food, they still hate Mexicans.
10.16pm ET
Chris Wallace asks Donald Trump about how four of his companies have gone bankrupt, and how that squares with his braggadocio about being a businessman.
“I’ve taken advantage of the law of this country, like other people,” Trump says, quickly ascending to a red-faced temper. “Virtually every person that you read about” in the business pages has used those laws, he says.
10.11pm ET
Huckabee gets a question about social security and Medicare, and suggests ending Congress’ retirement program as a start to saving money for social security.
“Sixty million Americans depend on social security,” Huckabee says. “The government took it out of their check whether they wanted them to or not. Who’s fault is it that the system is screwed up, is it the recipients or is it the government?”
Huckabee was on a roll until he got the prostitutes, pimps and drug dealers
Turned on this debate for 3 minutes and Huckabee just said something about Pimps taking advantage of Social Security pic.twitter.com/VkHQzORXnZ
10.07pm ET
Chris Wallace asks Jeb Bush about the economy, and Bush revels in wonky, policy specific glory.
“You fix a convoluted tax code, you go in and replace every regulation that’s a job killer,” he says, then spinning immigration reform as another economic boon for the country. It’s the most animated he’s been all night.
10.04pm ET
On the issues, taxes-and-schools edition:
1. What is the highest number in your flat tax?
2. What is the local tax-based mechanism and voucher system by which you will destabilize and undermine education equality and public education?
Aside from Rand Paul, asking these guys to express how they differ on most policies is like having to tell them apart by their ties.
10.02pm ET
Kasich fields a question about the economy, and doesn’t much back down from his support for certain welfare programs. “It’s important that we reach out to people in the shadows.”
“That includes people in the minority community, that includes peopel who feel they don’t have the chance to move up.”
10.02pm ET
One presidential candidate seems to like Donald Trump tonight - but it’s not any of the Republicans on stage.
Democratic candidate and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders used Trump’s garbled attempt to defend his past support for single-payer healthcare for some top-notch trolling of the GOP frontrunner and to tout his advocacy for the United States to move to a European style healthcare system.
Did @realDonaldTrump just support a national single-payer health system? Well. He was right on something. #DebateWithBernie
9.57pm ET
Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush have a moment of awkward agreement after a pair of questions about education standards.
Rubio says “the problem with common core, the Department of Education like every department will never be satisfied.” He says that the government will try to “force it down the throats” of schools.
9.55pm ET
On the issues, foreign-policy edition:
1. This is for all non-Rand Paul candidates: How much invasive surveillance of Americans do you want, assuming a minimum of “very”?
2. How much war do you want, assuming a one war minimum?
Related: 2016 presidential candidates quiz: how well do you know the next leader of the free world?
9.53pm ET
Rand Paul may be counting his lucky surveillance cameras for Chris Christie, writes Guardian DC bureau chief Dan Roberts.
It might not have looked like at the time, but Rand Paul will be thanking Chris Christie for going head-to-head with him on the issue of balancing surveillance with national security.
The two clashed in the most heated scenes of the debate yet over Paul’s support for curtailing the National Security Agency. When Paul accused Christie in turn of getting too close to the White House and “hugging” Obama, the New Jersey governor shot back that the hugs he remembers were with the families of 9-11 victims.
9.51pm ET
Trump gets enmeshed in a question about healthcare, and his former support for singlepayer system. He delivers a typically rambling response about setting up a private system.
Moderator Bret Baier asks him about his previous support for liberal cause, and Trump says he’s supported lots of things, including campaigns of politicians on stage.
9.48pm ET
Some juicy questioning here on immigration. And guess who is screeching loudest? Donald Trump, obviously.
Trump is reminded that he has repeatedly said that the Mexican government is sending rapists and drug dealers to the US. He has even said he has evidence for this. So will he share that evidence Right Now Live On Primetime in Front of a Fox News audience, asks Chris Wallace?
Our leaders are stupid. Our politicians are stupid. And the Mexican government is much smarter, much sharper, much more cunning, and they send the bad ones over because they don’t wanna pay for them, they don’t wanna take care of them, why should they when the stupid leaders of the United States are doing it for them?
9.47pm ET
Ben Carson gets a question about whether he would bring back torture techniques used under the Bush administration, and he avoids the question. He more or less says that he would avoid “stupid wars” but let generals do their jobs.
“We want to utilize the tremendous intellect that we have in the military to win wars. And I’ve talked to a lot of the generals a lot of our advanced people and believe me, if we gave them the mission, which the commander in chief does, they will carry it out.”
9.45pm ET
Megyn Kelly asks Bush about the Iraq war, and the brother of George W Bush finally says outright that “knowing what we know now … it was a mistake. I wouldn’t have gone in.
“However for the people who did lose their lives, and who suffered because of it,” he says, the US has to finish the job in Iraq he says, without getting into details about how.
9.42pm ET
Paul slams Christie: "I don't trust Obama with our records. I know you gave him a big hug..." #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/giCfxGqyMJ
Megyn Kelly changes the subject, moving on to national security and the NSA.
9.38pm ET
Some people have compared Donald Trump to Ross Perot or Pat Buchanan but conservative pundit Mark Hemingway sees an entirely different comparison for Trump.
Donald Trump is essentially @NormMacDonald’s Burt Reynolds impression from the Celebrity Jeopardy sketch running for president.
9.37pm ET
Ted Cruz also takes an immigration question, accusing someone – likely the Obama administration, maybe his peers in Congress – of neglect. “They don’t want to enforce the immigration laws.”
“There are far too many in the Washington cartel that want to talk about amnesty,” he says.
9.36pm ET
I’m not sure what the issues here are beyond one issue, which is Donald Trump. (We’re still on immigration, which is essentially his now.)
Not only do each of these candidates want to score off him, but you can sense the Fox Machine wanting to hammer down Trump a little and demonstrate that he has to be more grateful for them.
9.35pm ET
Rubio takes a question about immigration too, with a off-hand jab at Trump’s grand vision of a wall, presumably plated with gold and emblazoned every 50 yards by massive letters spelling out “The United States, President Trump”.
“El Chapo built a tunnel under the fence and we need a solution to deal with that too,” Rubio says, alluding to the Mexican druglord famous for his efficient tunnel networks.
9.33pm ET
Drink every time Megyn Kelly smacks down a sexist!
Related: Scott Walker set to revive abortion hard line on eve of presidential bid
9.32pm ET
Wallace asks John Kasich about Donald Trump, and Kasich starts off a bit awkwardly, dodging the direct question about immigration and whether our leaders are stupid.
“Here’s the thing about Donald Trump, Donald Trump has hit a nerve in this country, people are frustrated they’re fed up, they don’t think the government is working for them. Now he’s got his solutions, some of us have other solutions.”
9.30pm ET
Trump is asked about his infamous comments about “rapists” and criminals coming across the Mexican border.
“If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t even be talking about illegal immigration,” Trump says.
9.25pm ET
Fox News is bound to make a ton of money off this process, from people buying ads and scrabbling for facetime, and it seems almost as if they’re trying to divide and cut down each candidate to extend this process. The first questions for all the lower-tier candidates boiled down to: “Why should we believe that you are not irrelevant?” And here the first question was designed to undermine Donald Trump, the network’s favorite.
The first to Marco Rubio tried to get him to cut down Jeb Bush. The first for Jeb Bush tried to undermine him via his family. If this is a reality show, you could be forgiven for assuming it was being structured to prolong it.
9.24pm ET
Jeb Bush gets a question about immigration, specifically about whether he stands by a past quote: “They broke the law, but it’s not a felony, it’s an act of love, it’s an act of commitment to your family.”
Bush says he stands by the statement:
I believe that the great majority of people coming here illegally have no other option. But we have to control our border. It’s our responsibility to control who comes in.
9.21pm ET
Rand Paul gets a question about Isis and foreign policy – Paul is as dovish a Republican as has run for president in a very long time.
He seems to suggest cutting all funding and supplies to Iraq and Syrian rebels, and maybe to Saudi Arabia and other Middle East allies as well. “I’m the leading voice in America for not arming the allies of Isis,” he says.
9.19pm ET
Chis Wallace asks Chris Christie about how his state of New Jersey is doing poorly compared to much of the country’s recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.
“If you think it’s bad now you should’ve seen it when I got there,” Christie replies, before delving into various statistics.
9.18pm ET
The first Republican debate started with one of the most dramatic moments in recent American political history.
9.14pm ET
Megyn Kelly asks Trump about his history of comments disparaging women with whom he doesn’t agree, listing offensive words that he has used. Only against Rosie O’Donnell, jokes Trump.
Trump says he doesn’t have time to be polite.
9.12pm ET
Moderator Chris Wallace asks Marco Rubio why he’s qualified to lead the country without any experience in an executive position.
Rubio says he doesn’t want it to this to become a résumé contest, and boasts that he was a leader in the diverse state of Florida – well known for its erratic politics, alligators and golf courses.
9.08pm ET
Next question goes to Carson, who is criticized in the question for having made many errors on foreign policy points – knowing for instance what countries are Nato members.
“The thing that’s probably most important is having a brain,” he says, adding that he’s happy to get to those tricky facts during the course of the debate. But bad news for the brainless.
9.06pm ET
Rand Paul jumps in to criticize Trump: “He’s already hedging his bet on the Clintons, so if he doesn’t run as a Republican maybe he supports Clinton.”
Paul accuses him of buying politicians in the past, and Trump shoots back: “I’ve given his plenty of money.”
9.05pm ET
Fox News’ Bret Baeir runs through the rules: one minute for answers, 30 seconds for “follow-ups”, and otherwise it’s all at the moderators’ discretion.
He starts off with a question about whether anyone is willing to run a third-pary campaign if they don’t win the Republican nomination – Trump raises both his hands, alone, as the only person who might not endorse the eventual nominee.
9.01pm ET
The candidates take the stage #gopdebate pic.twitter.com/jn4JRI0hLu
9.00pm ET
The candidate with the highest stakes tonight may be John Kasich.
9.00pm ET
The crowd goes wild at the sight of 10 middle-aged white men wearing suits, distinguished by a diversity of haircuts. There’s a bald spot, curls, a few glossy sheens and shades of grey, and then whatever it is on Trump’s head.
Moderator Bret Baier dismisses the candidates to their podiums, observing that the having them stand next to each other for a photograph “was awkward enough”.
8.51pm ET
The candidates are taking the stage and the show – the first Republican primary debate in the quest to become president in 2016 – is about to begin!
Welcome to our live coverage of the main debate, in which billionaire Donald Trump will square off against his less wealthy, less red opponents. He lines up against Jeb Bush, the former governor with a notable name and surprisingly good Spanish; Scott Walker, the anti-union governor who never went to college and survived a recall election.
8.49pm ET
Who is Carly Fiorina? Check out her CV (and all the other candidates’), as seen by my colleague Tom McCarthy (@teemcsee).
8.45pm ET
Tired of Trump? Watch the desperate figures on the flanks, writes my colleague Paul Lewis (@paullewis) from the debate in Cleveland.
Donald Trump is centre-stage tonight, literally and metaphorically. But my top tip would be to watch out for the two governors on the wings, having only made it onto the stage by the skin of their teeth.
They have more reason, and perhaps ability, than most to make a splash. Chris Christie and John Kasich tend not to flinch when offered a chance of a confrontation; they’re smart, easily agitated, out of synch with the conservative bent of most of the candidates on state, and languishing in the polls.
8.36pm ET
Say, who wants to watch Donald Trump shave someone’s head? The man is Vince McMahon of WWE wrestling. A wrestler backed by Trump beat a wrestler backed by McMahon, meaning Trump got to pick up the clippers and shave his opponent. But who’ll be getting their head shaved tonight!?
8.24pm ET
Fiorina flourished, Trump may yet live up to his name and Bush could catch fire like the Biblical shrubbery of lore – a turn that would no doubt lock up the evangelical vote. But the debates have one true winner, writes my colleague Sam Thielman, and the winner is Fox News.
Fox News is an incredibly profitable piece of cable real estate. Networks get paid by cable companies per subscriber per month (a little piece of your cable bill goes to every channel you get, in other words), and the industry average is $0.25. Fox News gets fully a dollar more than that. It’s expected to rise to $1.50.
The only network that makes more from cable companies is ESPN.
The company often culls the most popular names on talk radio for its coterie of commentators and with the very rare exception (Glenn Beck’s toxic implosion, for example), those commentators are savvy enough to parlay those deals, which can reach into the millions of dollars a year, into further book deals and speaking gigs.
The network, in fact, is a big deal for its gigantic parent company, and tonight’s debate is a huge deal for Fox News. 21st Century Fox’s CFO, John Nallen, even mentioned it on the company’s earnings call, saying that investors could rest easy when it came to ad revenue given upward trends there and “probably a massive viewership coming in the next day [that would be today] to that network.”
8.16pm ET
Speaking of the former secretary of state and Democratic frontrunner, everyone had a lot to say about Clinton tonight. The Atlantic’s Molly Ball counted.
Number of words the candidates used for their “2-word answers”: PATAKI: 9 FIORINA: 4 SANTORUM: 3 PERRY: 3 JINDAL: 4 GRAHAM: 11 GILMORE: 6
8.08pm ET
Out in Los Angeles, Hillary Clinton “has no plans to watch tonight’s debate”, according to NBC News’ Kristen Welker.
Her campaign on the other hand can’t get enough of the Republicans, tweets Buzzfeed’s Ruby Cramer.
More posters from inside @HillaryClinton debate press room pic.twitter.com/1aIWIwc3tH
8.03pm ET
Graham also answers a question for the comedian who has gratified liberal Americans for more than a decade by assailing Republican hypocrisy (and whose last show airs tonight), the New York Times’ Jonathan Martin tweets.
Lindsey G parting words for Jon Stewart: "Don't let the door hit ya in the ass"
7.52pm ET
Lindsey Graham is still in the spin room, spinning away.
He bashes far-right conservatives – wonder if he has anyone in mind – to the Wall Street Journal: “My fear is that we will nominate somebody that can’t grow this party.”
Asked why she compared herself to Margaret Thatcher, Fiorina compared herself to Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama
7.44pm ET
We’ve heard a lot about Donald Trump in the last few weeks. But you can always get to know someone better. To that end I’ve been
enjoying
reading Donald Trump’s 2005 opus “Think Like a Billionaire”. It’s a rip-roaring, seat-of-your-pants whirl through the life and mind of a man who may or may not have been a billionaire when he wrote it. (It’s also now available for $0.01 online, so he could afford approximately 1 trillion copies).
It turns out Trump will offer advice on almost anything. Some real chapter titles: “How to be married”; “How to make good friends”; “How to balance work and romance”; “How to dress and groom for work”. (God help anyone who has followed this guidance).
Donald Trump on "the best shampoo". From 2004's Think Like a Billionaire cc @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/b9v4be9NLA
7.39pm ET
Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal and Rick Santorum are having dinner together, according to the Wall Street Journal and Time magazine, thus fulfilling the dream of exactly no one who has ever been asked about whom they would invite to a dinner party if they could invite anyone in the world.
Perry, Jindal, Santorum, and Graham are all having dinner together at 9pm tonight. Organized by Perry camp. All 7 were invited.
7.28pm ET
Happy Gilmore
The consensus among pundits after the first debate on Thursday night was that former HP executive Carly Fiorina was the big winner. Fiorina gave a polished impressive performance that drew national attention to her underdog candidacy. She wasn’t the only to do well. Other pundits thought Rick Perry and Lindsey Graham also turned in solid performances and were able to stay on message.
But none of those candidate were the true winner. That was former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore.
7.22pm ET
“There is one particular rule that, more than any other, could shape this debate – and perhaps limit the appetite of anyone considering aiming a barb at Donald Trump,” writes my colleague Paul Lewis (@paullewis), reporting from Cleveland.
If one candidate refers to another, the latter will have a chance to defend themselves with a rebuttal, the duration of which is at the moderator’s discretion.
That means that the candidate who gets mentioned the most (Trump, for example) could end up with the most airtime. It is a catch that could also dissuade the frontrunner in the polls from taking aim at any of his rivals.
Karl Rove, George W Bush’s svengali, mentioned this in a recent discussion with Fox News host Chris Wallace, who will be moderating tonight’s debate. “In politics, the counterpunch is often times more powerful than the punch,” Rove said.
That said, he believes the debate is far more unpredictable than a general election debate, where the rules are “much more tightly scripted”. The power, really, is in the hands of the candidates, and the three Fox News moderators: Wallace, Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier.
“They can decide who to pose questions to, they can decide which candidates get a chance to respond, giving more time and opportunity for some candidates versus others,” McKinney said.
7.07pm ET
Fiorina wins the coveted “most-searched-for” award, Google reveals, which may actually mean something for candidates desperate for voters to learn their names.
7.04pm ET
After the debate, the candidates stroll off into what’s called the “spin room”, where they talk to reporters and apparently declare victory.
Graham’s campaign manager, for instance, released a statement saying he “was the clear winner in today’s ‘happy hour’ debate. He is ready to be commander-in-chief on day one.”
Fiorina complains about debate rules w/o saying they should be changed; Says people like her when they hear her. pic.twitter.com/eM3YSheGAO
Perry muttering "done, done, done!" as he navigates his way out of spin room through pesky reporters
6.44pm ET
And with that the kids’ table debate of poorly polling candidates ends, and the men and woman depart the mostly empty arena.
6.40pm ET
In the 2008 Democratic race Barack Obama described Hillary Clinton as “likeable enough”, our hosts tell us. So what two words would this lot use to describe her?
The key here is two words. TWO WORDS. Say it in two words, you schlubs! Suffice to say, no one uses two words. We hear: “Not the change we need”; “professional politician that can’t be trusted”; “divisive and with no vision at all”.
6.25pm ET
Look at this picture of the audience:
I know politicians have major egos, but it has to be pretty crushing to look out and see this audience. (NYT photo). pic.twitter.com/0FRHs7g7Or
6.23pm ET
Graham delivers a surprisingly demur statement, urging cooperation and civility, of all things. “We’re becoming Greece if we don’t work together,” he warns.
He says he’ll help find compromises, “doing the hard things that should’ve been done a very long time ago.”
6.21pm ET
“Planned Parenthood had better hope Hillary Clinton wins this election.”
6.18pm ET
In his closing statement, Rick Perry waxes nostalgic for his happy days as governor of Texas, and eventually veers into a third-person self-glorification: “Nobody’s done it like Rick Perry’s done it over the last decade.”
Santorum opens his closing statement by boasting about his fertility (or at least his decades of rejecting birth control): “I have seven children and bringing them into this world if you’re not optimistic about the future of this country.”
"immigration without assimilation is an invasion," says @BobbyJindal
6.13pm ET
The moderators ask the candidates how they would inspire Americans. Fiorina says “the potential of this nation and too many Americans is being crushed by the weight, the power, the cost, the ineptitude, the corruption of the federal government.”
“Only someone who will challenge the status quo of Washington DC will restore this nation.”
6.08pm ET
Taking stabs at rapid-fire statements, nearly all the candidates say they’d undo lots of things that Obama has done – from the nuclear deal with Iran to executive actions on immigration and so on.
Perry talks about immigration and Iran, Graham about restoring the “gutted” spying powers of the NSA. Santorum says, apropos nothing in particular, that he would “make sure that people of faith are not being harassed and prosecuted by the federal government.”
6.05pm ET
Lindsey Graham handles the question with a bit of rhetorical horror: “I don’t think it’s a war on women for all of us as Americans sto stand up and stop harvesting organs from little babies.”
He suggests putting the money given to Planned Parenthood into women’s health funds, and again says we must not “harvest the organs of the unborn.”
6.01pm ET
Reproductive rights! Pataki gets the question, as the only pro-choice candidate running for the Republican nomination.
The moderators throw in a jab about how no pro-choice candidate has won the primary in decades.
What you won't usually hear at R debate: Pataki says Roe v Wade is settled law and "I don't think we should continue to try to change it."
5.55pm ET
Santorum, a loud and roundly mocked opponent of gay rights, is asked about the historic supreme court decision this year to legalize same-sex marriage around the US.
The one-time senator gets angry. “This is a rogue supreme court,” he says.
5.52pm ET
Iran questions! The first to Perry, about whether the US should align itself with Iran or Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other countries who have funded violent groups aroun the Middle East.
Easy peasy, Perry says: “the side that keeps Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, that’s the side that we need to be on, and that’s the side of most of the Middle East.”
5.51pm ET
Lindsey Graham normally cracks a joke every other sentence. Tonight, the three-term South Carolina senator is coming across as far more monotone and sober than usual. It feels like he’s been coached to seem far more of a generic politician than the Senate’s king of one liners.
The candidate who makes cracks about being willing to show up to bar mitzvahs on the campaign trail and is a fixture on Sunday shows seems uncomfortable and awkward on stage tonight. Even his attack lines on Bill Clinton lost their edge. A line that referenced Graham’s fluency in “Clinton-speak” which was used to reference Monica Lewinsky in the New Hampshire forum Monday tonight had the edge taken off it on Thursday.
5.51pm ET
It’s important to remember that while those of us covering these folks have heard all their zingers a half-dozen times already, most people watching this debate – and the main event – have not.
So, for example, as groan-worthy as it is for political beat reporters to hear Lindsey Graham say that he’s learned how to speak Clinton over the last 20 years and words mean whatever they want and that Bill decides what “the meaning of ‘is’ is”, it’s still a pretty good zinger for the target audience.
5.44pm ET
Trying to get the candidates to answer questions is like drawing blood from the proverbial stone, the moderators are finding.
Jindal finally answers a yes-or-no question when one of the moderators simply tells him he failed to answer it in the time he had. (Jindal says he wouldn’t expand Medicaid anywhere, unlike Ohio governor John Kasich.)
5.43pm ET
FYI Senator Lindsey Graham is standing on a box right now #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/GtIzZyc8fm
Lindsey Graham took a shot at the “I’m not a scientist” crowd that constitutes most Republican presidential candidates.
You can trust me to do the following – that when I get on the stage with Hillary Clinton, we won’t be debating about the science, but about the solutions.
In her world, cap-and-trade would dominate. That will destroy the economy in the name of helping the environment. In my world we’ll focus on energy independence and a clean environment. When it comes to fossil fuels, we’re going to find more here and use less. Over time we’re going to become energy independent.
She’s not going to build a Keystone pipeline. I will.
5.41pm ET
Graham is asked about the economy: “I think Americans are dying to work, you just need to give them a chance.”
He then turns the whole the answer into a diatribe against Hillary Clinton, saying if Americans want work, “don’t vote for Hillary Clinton, you’re not going to get it. She’s not going to rebuild Obamacare and replace it, I will. She’s not going to build the Keystone pipeline, I will.”
5.34pm ET
Santorum is asked about immigration. He spatters out a rambling, fairly insubstantial answer about his Italian immigrant father, about reform, and about how“we’re going to be different.”
Perry doesn’t want to hear it. “Here’s the interesting position on this. Americans are tired of hearing” about immigration, he says.
5.28pm ET
Asked about cybersecurity and the balance of national security and privacy, Fiorina for her part says: “I do not believe we have to wholesale destroy every American citizens’ privacy.”
She then recommends closer cooperation between the government and private tech companies – suggestions that sound awfully close to recent pitches from the Obama administration.
5.28pm ET
It’s worth noting that, even though the moderators’ questions are playing to the candidates’ schtick a bit more now (“Governor Jindal, Senator Graham, tell us about Islamic terror and why it’s bad”), the first battery was, essentially, “Tell us why you’re not forgettable.”
Or as Matt Pearce of the LA Times put it:
FOX NEWS REPUBLICAN DEBATE MODERATOR: You're terrible. Why are you terrible? CANDIDATE: We can make America great again.
5.27pm ET
Pataki also takes a question about fighting terrorism. He opens by comparing radical preaching to ”shouting fire in a crowded theater” and says that “that is not protected speech”. (Not the best example.)
He says he would “shut down” preaching in prisons or mosques if it encouraged “violence against Americans”.
5.21pm ET
A bit of context for the attention paid to “the elephant not in the room”, as a Fox moderator put it.
Trump's not even in this debate and he's the top target #GOPDebate pic.twitter.com/bO8HWO9fBy
5.21pm ET
Independent Journal Review, a sort of rightwing Upworthy or Buzzfeed, has been getting some great access to Republican candidates. First they filmed Lindsay Graham destroying his Donald-Trump-compromised cell phone. Then they brought us Ted Cruz cooking “machine gun bacon”. Now, they bring us the pre-debate rituals of the GOP hopefuls.
5.21pm ET
The moderators toss out a question about Isis and the threat of international terrorism. Jindal dodges it and accuses the president of betraying America with incorrect nomenclature. He says he, at least, will call Isis a group of “Islamic terror”.
Lindsey Graham is willing to go much, much further. He calls for ground troops in Iraq, and says that as president he would be willing to wage war for as long as necessary and at whatever cost in order to destroy Isis.
5.20pm ET
As I wrote earlier this week, all these candidates have so little time given the structure of these debates that nobody has much room or even incentive to get away from their stump speeches.
And it appears – at least heading into this first medical-catheter ad break – that Fox’s moderators are playing to the candidates’ strengths and the core of their stumps.
Related: The secret to gaffe-free Republican debates: limit their speaking time | Jeb Lund
5.17pm ET
Asked about Donald Trump, Rick Perry dives into a long diatribe about how the billionaire uses “his celebrity rather than his conservatism”.
Perry turns his answer into one about immigration – the issue that in part rocketed Trump to the top of the polls.
5.12pm ET
Asked about “new blood” in politics by the moderators, New York governor George Pataki offers an astoundingly milquetoast speech about bringing people together. In retrospect, it’s not clear whether he said an actual sentence at all.
Then former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore introduces himself, forgettably.
5.10pm ET
5.10pm ET
South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham fields a question about climate change with a slow, rather awkward response – he’s visibly nervous, despite innumerable performances on cable shows and several happy ripostes to Donald Trump in recent weeks.
As for the question, Graham says that Hillary Clinton will “destroy the economy” with her ideas about climate change. “In her world, cap and trade will dominate,” he says. “When it comes to fossil fuels, we will find more here and use less.”
5.07pm ET
A question to Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal notes that he’s floundering in the polls.
Jindal doesn’t deny it, and rattles off an answer thanking the Fox News host for being kind enough to let him on camera.
5.06pm ET
The next question is for Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett Packard.
“I think to be commander-in-chief in the 21st century requires someone who understands how the economy works,” she says, mixing up the president’s military authorities with the office’s few powers over the economy.
5.03pm ET
First question goes to Rick Perry, asking him why voters should trust him when, four years ago, he couldn’t remember the name of a government agency he wanted to abolish.
After those four years of looking back and being prepared, the preparation to be the most powerful individual in the world requires an extraordinary amount of work. Not just having been the governor of the 12th largest economy in the world.
5.02pm ET
The candidates are making statements just by how they arrive, and it’s very exciting. Trump, naturally, has his own plane, the TRUMP plane. Carly Fiorina has the one she shipped tens of thousands of jobs overseas with. Rand Paul is arriving in a train made of Rearden steel. Rick Santorum is pulling up to the front in a buckboard driven by Foster Freiss. And Ted Cruz is descending in a beautiful, fanciful blimp made of sewn-together Constitutions and inflated by him delivering just one speech into it. It was about America. That’s what it’s about tonight, folks, it’s about America.
Seriously, though, the Trump jet is perfect.
5.01pm ET
Live in the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, the seven candidates who failed to make it into the main debate are at their podiums and smiling painfully into the glare of camera lights as the Fox moderators introduce them.
Each will have a minute to answer a question and 30-second rebuttal opportunities.
4.51pm ET
A spokesperson for Kentucky senator Rand Paul has found a bit of distinctive flair lying around a Cleveland hotel. My colleague Paul Lewis suspects that someone might get fired for the slip up…
Someone left their closing statement for tonight's @FoxNews debate in the hotel printer.Can you guess who?@LaCivitaC pic.twitter.com/p6rWhnFGAU
4.40pm ET
Welcome to our live coverage of the first debates in the race to become the 2016 Republican nominee for president. Donald Trump will stand center stage at the main event in Cleveland next to Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and seven other Republicans eager to look good in front of American voters – or at least eager to avoid humiliating mistakes, awkward moments and the wrath of a certain billionaire.
The debate, scheduled by Fox News for 9pm ET, will follow an early debate for the candidates who failed to break into the top 10 of national polls – the kids’ table contenders of the primary election so far.
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