Republican debate: Donald Trump still focus of campaign after sprawling fight – as it happened

We’re going to close out our live coverage of the debates, but you can read a summary of the main event here, a summary of the consolation debate here, and a story on the debate, by the Guardian’s DC bureau chief Dan Roberts, here.

Donald Trump was a crowd favorite at Red State Gathering, an annual conservative conference in Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday, but that doesn’t mean he’s the candidate that these GOP activists plan on voting for.

Trump drew oohs and aahs for all of his one-liners and braggadocio but there was underlying skepticism that he really was the type of conservative that the GOP needs.

Martha Moore, who came to the event from Boerne, Texas, told the Guardian that while she thought Trump was “saying a lot of things that need to be said”, she didn’t trust his conservative bona fides. “I can’t really imagine us voting for him.”

Her husband Pat was more of a Trump fan, however. He liked the real estate mogul because “he doesn’t back down”. But he had real concerns about Trump’s past support for “single-payer healthcare and other liberal things”.

Perhaps the ultimate nightmare for Democrats was personified by a Trump fan named Pam Alayon. A Puerto-Rican American mother from Atlanta, Alayon had never voted but became engaged in politics by Trump’s candidacy. She had always thought all politicians were equally corrupt. In her mind, Trump was different: “He doesn’t give a shit.”

But after watching the debate, she had become far more skeptical about Trump’s candidacy. “He kept on repeating the same things,” she said. Instead, she was far more intrigued by Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz now. She felt they had more polish and answered questions in more appropriate ways. And even if some of the attraction of Trump had worn away, his candidacy had insured she would vote for the first time in her life this year. The real estate mogul had been the political version of “a gateway drug”.

-Ben Jacobs

The twist that all the Republican hopefuls for presisent [sic] have been dreading. John Kasich will be devastated.

This also at last suggests that Clinton really wasn’t watching the debate, as she emailed supporters earlier in the night to say. Or if she was it was with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, whose political acumen (and likely donation dollars) will no doubt carry her to the White House. Or the West House. One of them, at minimum.

• The 10 leading Republican candidates for their party’s nomination for president bickered and bantered but avoided any clear humiliations at the first debate of the 2016 race. With Donald Trump center stage, the candidates fought for airtime and occasionally with each other, especially over immigration and surveillance.
• Senator Marco Rubio may have had the strongest performance, hammering out talking points while avoiding squabbles or getting mired in moderators’ questions.
• Senator Rand Paul and governor Chris Christie were the most combative candidates, fighting at length over foreign aid and NSA surveillance powers – Paul to limit them, Christie to expand them. Paul also battled with Trump, accusing the billionaire of “buying politicians”.
• Trump defended some of his controversial ideas, including the theory that Mexico actively sends criminals across the border to the United States because our leaders are “stupid” and take care of the illegal immigrants. He proposed a wall “with a beautiful door”.
• The billionaire also refused to say he would not run as a third-party candidate should the Republican party not nominate him for president. He lived up to his brash reputation at times, but was also civil toward some rivals, calling Bush a “gentleman” and mostly making broad comments about how America “can’t win anymore”.
• Bush spoke at length and with energy about immigration, education and energy reform, but occasionally faltered and struggled to distinguish himself. Scott Walker also gave a relatively lackluster performance, mostly reciting memorized lines and a handful of quips.
• Ohio governor John Kasich managed from to edge into Jeb Bush’s spotlight as the candidate for moderate Republicans. He argued in favor of support programs for “people in the shadows”.
• Former governor Mike Huckabee and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson gave meandering performances, alternately railing about transgender people in the military, the dangers of a nuclear Iran, and the evils of abortion.
• Nearly all the candidates avoided confrontation with the mercurial Trump, who did not shy from lashing out at Paul or the moderators. Kasich played the diplomat when asked about with Trump’s inflammatory remarks about immigration, saying the billionaire had “tapped a nerve” – most of the other candidates seemed to agree.

Google has released its search data from during the debate, and the winner is … the same man who’s been winning search traffic for weeks, Donald Trump.

The most searched for candidates between 9-11pm ET:

1. Donald Trump
2. Ben Carson
3. Ted Cruz
4. Jeb Bush
5. Marco Rubio
6. John Kasich
7. Rand Paul
   
8. Chris Christie
9. Scott Walker
10. Mike Huckabee

The trove of data also reveals that most Americans wanted to know how old or tall Jeb Bush is, how old Ben Carson is (and who is he, and is he running for president), and how much does Chris Christie weigh.

7 Aug 201523.18 EDT

Steven W Thrasher

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?

It was 10:36pm on the East Coast by the time Megyn Kelly (who had been asking good questions most of the evening) posed one of the most awkward questions of the night. She directed her single debate topic on race and policing toward Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, asking him if it was a movement of our time, but really framing it around what to do when policing gets out of hand.

Kelly addressed the question just to one man, and right before the commercial break – unlike many other sprawling topics from the debate, which were directed to really more candidates, with hopes of invoking the 30-second rebuttal.

Walker answered, predictably, that bad cops should face consequences, but that most cops are good. The governor dodged racism entirely.

And then, Fox News cut to commercial, playing a trailer for the Straight Outta Compton movie in at least one market.

Later on, the last question before closing statements was about race relations, and was addressed to Ben Carson. Again, it was only given to one person – the only black man on stage – and the debate moved on quickly after he dismissed the role of black skin in American society.

So the pressing question of how Black Lives Matter was given less than two minutes, and was clearly not of much importance to the Republican Party. It still isn’t.

—Steven W Thrasher

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.

While Paul’s campaign claimed prosecutors were politically motivated, he has yet to address the substance of the charges. Tonight would have been a good time to bring it up and moderators didn’t.

-Ben Jacobs

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.”

Jeb Bush. “We’re at the verge at the greatest time alive.” Immigration is broken but could be an economic driver. Embrace the energy revolution. “We can restore America’s leadership in the world so that everybody has the chance to rise up. I humbly urge you to vote whenever you get the chance to vote.”

Donald Trump. “Our country is in serious trouble We don’t win anymore.” We don’t beat China or Mexico or Japan, those countries make so many cards. “We don’t do anything right. Our military has to be strengthened.” Trump.

And it’s over. Even the moderators seem surprised. The candidates’ families shuffle onto stage, then slowly leave it.

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.

Rand Paul. I’m a different kind of Republican. He filibustered for 10-and-a-half hours to defend “your right to be left alone”. He went to Ferguson and Baltimore because he wants Republicans to be “bigger and better”.

Marco Rubio. His parents were born poor on Cuba, his father was a bartender. Let’s expand the American dream, everybody, and make a “new American century” while we’re at it.

Ted Cruz. “The first hting I intend to do is rescind every illegal action taken by Barack Obama.” The second thing he’ll do in office is investigate and prosecute Planned Parenthood. Then he’ll defend religious liberty. Then he’ll tear up the Iran deal, and then he’ll move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Ben Carson. “I’m the only one to separate Siamese twins.” He’s going to “pick up the baton of freedom.”

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.

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.

Thankfully he does not describe his fruit.

John Kasich gets the same question, and meanders a bit – his father was a mailman, we’ve really got to unite communities over this policing issue – before landing on a declaration about how God “wants America to be strong, he wants America to succeed.”

Scott Walker get sacramental: “I’m certainly an imperfect man, and it’s only by the blood of Jesus Christ that I’ve been redeemed from my sins.”

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?

2. Which war must come first? In Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Russia, China, Isisland or all of the above?

3. How would you strengthen the US military? Planes, boats, troops, missiles, sharks with frickin’ lasers?

4. [finally! this question] Israel, yeah? Or very yeah?

-Jeb Lund

In case you missed it, Mike Huckabee’s magnanimous opinion about LGBT rights in the US military.

My colleague Ben Jacobs is keeping score.

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.”

“Israel’s not one of those, but even Binyamin Netanyahu said they’re going to be stronger when they’re independent. We shouldn’t borrow money from China to send it anywhere.”

He says that “out of your surplus you can help your allies.”

“We cannot give away money we don’t have. We do not project power from bankruptcy court. We’re borrowing a million dollars a minute, it’s got to stop somewhere.”

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.

Walker gets a question about Ukraine and Russian president Vladimir Putin. He gets in a quip about how Russian and Chinese hackers “probably know more about Hillary Clinton’s email server than do members of Congress.”

He looks proud of that one. Then he gets to the question.

“I would say weapons to Ukraine, I would work with Nato to get forces on the eastern border of Poland,” and he would even throw in a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Back to the USSR for Walker.

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.

Leaders in Washington are “incompetent”, he says. A woman screams. “I agree,” Trump says.

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.”

He does appear to support prosecution in some cases, though, saying that “for the very few who don’t” follow the rules of the US, “there are consequences to show that we treat everyone the same in America.”

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.”

But he defends his tone, saying it’s necessary to talk tough when “you have people that are cutting Christians’ heads of, and when you have a world and a border where in so many places it’s almost medieval times.”