GREENVILLE, South Carolina — Donald Trump dismissed South Carolina’s senior Republican senator and attacked the most recent Republican president, George W. Bush, saying he would reject the Bush era’s foreign policy and turn the page for the GOP as the presidential candidates squared off for a debate Saturday in South Carolina.
Meanwhile the two senators in the debate, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, feverishly feuded over who was less truthful in their stance on illegal immigration, with the two men, each of Cuban descent, accusing the other of supporting a plan to legalize most of those in the country without permission right now.
At one point Mr. Rubio seemed to question Mr. Cruz’s Hispanic credentials, saying “he doesn’t speak Spanish.”
South Carolina’s primary, looming Feb. 20, is traditionally hard-fought, but as the attacks grew more heated Saturday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich pleaded for the entire field to ditch negative ads and try to run a positive campaign.
“I think we’re fixing to lose the election to Hillary Clinton if we don’t stop this,” he said.
The attacks began with Mr. Trump, who took square aim at the Bush family that produced the last two GOP presidents.
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Braving waves of boos from the audience, Mr. Trump said George W. Bush, brother of current candidate Jeb Bush, held responsibility because he was in office during the attacks on the World Trade Center. Mr. Trump said “hundreds” of his friends were among the more than 2,700 people who died in the attack.
And Mr. Trump said invading Iraq in 2003 was a mistake that cost the country trillions of dollars.
“They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction and there were none,” Mr. Trump said. They knew there were none.”
Jeb Bush has turned to his famous family to try to rescue his struggling presidential bid, and will campaign with his brother in Charleston on Monday.
He said he felt he “won the lottery” by being born into his famous family, called his father, former President George H.W. Bush “the greatest man alive,” and defended his brother’s decision-making during two terms in the White House.
“While Donald Trump was building a TV reality show, my brother was building a security apparatus to keep us safe,” Mr. Bush said.
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When Mr. Trump questioned the Bush administration record, he was met with choruses of boos from the crowd — which only provoked Mr. Trump more. He dismissed the criticism, saying it was coming from the special interests who are backing Mr. Bush’s bid with tens of millions of dollars.
“I only tell the truth, lobbyists,” Mr. Trump said.
The move to attack the Bush family was an interesting gamble in South Carolina, where George W. Bush remains popular among GOP voters. Likewise Mr. Trump dismissed the state’s senior senator, former presidential candidate Lindsey Graham, who is now backing Jeb Bush.
The fight over the Bush legacy erupted as the candidates debated foreign policy.
Mr. Kasich was fed up with the whole exchange.
“This is just crazy. this is just nuts. Geez, oh man,” he said.
Mr. Rubio weighed in, saying George W. Bush was better than the alternative.
“I thank God, all the time, that it was George W. Bush in the White House on 9-11 and not Al Gore,” Mr. Rubio said.
Minutes later, Jeb Bush lashed out at Mr. Kasich over the Ohio governor’s record, saying he expanded Medicaid under President Obama’s health law when Republicans should have been trying to fight Obamacare. And Mr. Bush said Mr. Kasich earned a poor grade from the libertarian-leaning think tank Cato Institute, which grades governors on their fiscal performance and gave Mr. Kasich a “D” in the most recent ranking.
’You know who expanded Medicaid five times?” Mr. Kasich countered. “Ronald Reagan.”
At one point one of the moderators asked Mr. Kasich about the expanding cost of his Medicaid expansion, and Mr. Kasich denied that, saying it was saving money. In fact, Ohio officials say the Medicaid expansion is indeed $2 billion over budget — but the rest of the program that existed pre-Obamacare is coming in less than anticipated, so overall the program’s costs are less than projected.
On immigration, Mr. Rubio continued to distance himself from his 2013 bill which he wrote as part of the “Gang of Eight” senators that would have granted citizenship rights to most illegal immigrants. Mr. Rubio said he has learned that voters want the border secured first and want stiffer enforcement at worksites.
“Only after all that is in place, then we’ll see what the American people are willing to support,” he said.
Mr. Cruz said Mr. Rubio doesn’t deserve a do-over, saying when the critical time came in 2013, Mr. Rubio was for “amnesty.”
“Marco right now supports citizenship for 12 million people here illegally,” Mr. Cruz said. “Marco has a long record when it comes to amnesty.”
Mr. Rubio countered that Mr. Cruz supported a lesser plan that still would have legalized illegal immigrants, but would have denied them eventual citizenship.
The exchange grew particularly heated after Mr. Cruz said Mr. Rubio promised on Spanish-language network Univision that he would not overturn Mr. Obama’s executive action granting so-called Dreamers an amnesty from deportation.
“I don’t know how he knows what I said on Univision because he doesn’t speak Spanish,” Mr. Rubio said.
Mr. Cruz then interjected in Spanish.
Amid the bitter battles, the candidates did find agreement on how to handle the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, saying that Mr. Obama should not try to name a replacement.
Mr. Kasich said he blamed the partisan divisions in the country for making it impossible for Mr. Obama to successfully name someone. Mr. Kasich said if Mr. Obama chose a consensus nominee, that would be acceptable — but he doubted the president would do that, so he said the decision should be put off.
“I believe the president should not move forward, and I think we ought to let the next president decide,” he said.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, said Mr. Obama is free to do what he wants, but Senate Republicans must block his pick.
“It’s up to Mitch McConnell and everybody else to stop it,” said Mr. Trump. “It’s called delay, delay, delay.”
But Mr. Cruz did strike a discordant note on the issue, predicting that Mr. Trump would betray Republicans in his court picks.
“If Donald Trump is president, he will appoint liberals,” Mr. Cruz said.
Mr. Trump seemed to feed into that perception when he said Planned Parenthood did good things for women’s health — with the exception of abortion.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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