2016 Fox News Republican debate: news and updates

Donald Trump didn’t even need to attend Thursday night’s Fox News debate — the numbers make clear that the businessman had already said his piece.

When you tally up all seven Republican debates, you see that Trump has spoken more than any other candidate than Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), despite the fact that he didn’t show up for Thursday’s event.

Donald Trump’s counter-rally on Thursday night had all the trademarks of the billionaire’s presidential campaign — laments of America’s fallen status, claims of Trump’s unparalleled greatness, insults of political rivals — condensed into one evening.

We compiled seven of the Trumpiest quotes from the rally.

The wildest exchange of the Thursday night Fox News Republican debate was a free-for-all over immigration — Marco Rubio versus Jeb Bush versus Megyn Kelly versus Ted Cruz versus Rand Paul.

No one looked particularly good. But Cruz is the only one who lost.

Not too long ago, Ted Cruz looked poised to win a crucial early victory in Iowa. But his polling numbers of late have not been trending in a good direction. In new poll after new poll, Cruz seems to be falling further behind Donald Trump. And at Thursday’s GOP debate in Des Moines, he clearly hoped he could turn his fortunes around with a strong performance.

He didn’t.

The agenda of Thursday’s Fox News-hosted Republican debate, like the agenda of the Republican party itself, was pretty plainly to undermine Donald Trump. He is a threat to the party and is at war even with Fox News, so it was unsurprising that the first round of questions was explicitly designed to prompt each and every candidate to condemn the field’s frontrunner.

The very first question, which went to Ted Cruz, sent the clear message, like many that followed, that the candidates and moderators all oppose Trump: “Donald Trump has chosen not to attend this evening’s presidential debate. What message do you think that sends to the voters of Iowa?”

The last minutes of the Republican debate formed the candidates’ last chance to make an appeal to voters and sum up their message as the Iowa caucuses approach.

And so Chris Christie mentioned 9/11. Marco Rubio referenced the Bible. Jeb Bush bragged about Florida. Ted Cruz promised to repeal Obamacare.

At the Republican debate on Thursday, Sen. Rand Paul called out Sen. Ted Cruz for an attitude that has turned Cruz into one of the most disliked figures within the Republican Party.

“What is particularly insulting, though, is that he is the king of saying, ‘Oh, you’re for amnesty. Everybody’s for amnesty except for Ted Cruz.’ But it’s a falseness,” Paul said. “And that’s an authenticity problem — that everybody he knows is not as perfect as him, because we’re all for amnesty.”

The next primetime Republican presidential debate started tonight at 9 pm Eastern. It is taking place in Des Moines, Iowa and airing on the Fox News Channel. A live stream is free and available to all at FoxNews.com.

This time around, eight candidates met Fox’s polling qualifications for the primetime event. They are Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, and Rand Paul. However, Trump’s campaign decided to skip the debate because he believes moderator Megyn Kelly to be “really biased.”

Donald Trump’s campaign shocked the political world by saying Tuesday night that Trump would skip Fox News’s Thursday debate, which is the final debate before the Iowa caucuses on February 1. The billionaire argued that moderator Megyn Kelly would be “really biased” against him, and said that he had no confidence Fox News would treat him fairly — so he wouldn’t show up, and would instead “host an event in Iowa to raise money for the Veterans and Wounded Warriors.”

Is this the latest brilliant move by a candidate who seems to be able to defy the laws of political gravity? Is it an incredibly arrogant blunder that, in retrospect, will be remembered as the downfall of his campaign?