Second GOP Debate: The Summary You Need to Read
What’s the Gist?
On Sept. 16, CNN hosted the second Republican presidential debate in none other than the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. It clocked in at nearly 3 hours and hosted 11 players:
Jeb Bush (former Florida governor), Ben Carson (neurosurgeon), Chris Christie (governor of New Jersey), Ted Cruz (junior senator from Texas), Carly Fiorina (former CEO of Hewlett-Packard), Mike Huckabee (Christian minister and former Arkansas governor), John Kasich (governor of Ohio and former U.S. congressman), Rand Paul (junior senator from Kentucky), Marco Rubio (junior senator from Florida), Donald Trump (real estate mogul and reality TV star), and Scott Walker (governor of Wisconsin).
The candidates, standing an arm’s length away from one another, were placed in a cage match of jabbing and policy defending. In case you missed the broadcast, left halfway through or tuned out completely, we compiled some highlights for you.
Foreign policy: Candidates meet on Iran
Much of the debate was spent on how the U.S. would interact with the world.
The big subject most of the stage seemed to agree on?
Iran and the nuclear agreement signed earlier this year. (Supported by the U.S., Iran and five other countries, the agreement would limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifted sanctions.)
Cruz led the charge against President Barack Obama’s deal onstage, declaring he would “rip to shreds” the deal if elected president. Fiorina said she’d make support for Israel a priority, then hang additional sanctions over Iran unless its leaders agree to inspections on any government and military infrastructures at any time.
Kasich was the lone voice not actively combating the deal. He called it a “bad deal,” but said if he were to inherit the deal as president, he would work with it and “slap the sanctions back” on Iran if it violates the terms of the deal.
Read on Gistory.co: Iran and United States Reach Agreement Over Nuclear Deal
Anything else other than Iran?
Yep, Syria and Russia.
A more divided foreign policy issue was how to deal with Syria and Russia’s recent troop buildup in the war-torn country. Trump called the war there “a mess,” and said he would let the Islamic State militants and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime fight until one side is beaten.
Rubio, who once called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “gangster,” established himself a tough guy on U.S. foreign policy by accusing the Russian leader of “exploiting a vacuum that this (Obama’s) administration has left in the Middle East.”
Fiorina said she would not talk to Putin at all, and would instead focus on increasing U.S. military spending and rebuilding a missile defense system in Poland to project American power in the former Soviet bloc.
During the discussion around the U.S. involvement in Syria, Paul, a longtime libertarian and isolationist, said he believes taking out the Assad regime would allow the Islamic State to seize power in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and that interventions can backfire. He later blasted former President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
Immigration: To deport or not?
Trump, who has proposed to build a huge wall at the southern U.S. border and threatened to deport 11 million immigrants, did not take the spotlight in the immigration discussion. It was the more mildly spoken Carson.
Carson proposed bolstering border security to keep undocumented workers out and only allowing in guest workers to work in the agriculture industry. Why? He does not think enough American workers want those jobs.
When asked about Trump’s proposals, Christie backed the idea of building a wall and placing heavier security at the border. However, to deport 11 million people over two years under current border control infrastructures is “an undertaking that almost none of us can accomplish,” he said. He also said he would use drones, fingerprint identification and federal agencies like the FBI to guard the border.
“To build a wall and deport people — half a million a month — would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, destroy community life, tear families apart,” Bush said, bashing Trump’s plans.
In the past, Bush has vocally supported creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, which Trump railed against.
Both Cruz and Rubio are sons of Cuban migrants and offered slightly different opinions. Cruz discouraged amnesty to people already in the U.S. and staunchly opposed Obama’s decision to allow those immigrants to stay. Rubio said he would introduce an immigration system wherein people would be allowed into the States based on “what you can contribute economically, not whether or not you simply have a relative living here.”
Cruz, Trump and Walker are vocally against birthright citizenship.
What about economics?
Two big things: flat taxes and minimum wage.
Across the board, slashing taxes was the general consensus, but the method differed.
Paul, who declared to take a chainsaw to the U.S. tax code, said the tax system has caused American companies to move overseas and proposed his 14.5 percent flat tax as the solution. Dubbing progressive taxes as “socialism,” Carson also proposed a flat tax of 10 percent that he equated to “tithing.”
One candidate proposed a progressive tax: Trump.
He has said billionaires (himself included) earn more money but are still taxed less than other earners. Both he and Bush backed taxes on these high-earning “hedge fund guys,” a move Huckabee opposed. “Why should we tax producers?” the former governor asked.
On minimum wage, Carson said rates could “possibly” be increased and that he would meet both employer and labor advocates to figure out a middle ground. Walker, who is known for fighting labor unions in his home state, said he would rather focus on providing better job training than on raising wages.
What if I don’t care about foreign policy and economics?
There’s abortion, with candidates taking on Planned Parenthood.
Fiorina pointed to the video of Planned Parenthood personnel allegedly harvesting organs from a fetus, in a drive to fuel opposition to the group. However, a post-debate analysis on CNN concluded that the particular part of the footage was edited in and there was no proof the people in the video were Planned Parenthood staff.
Former Florida governor Bush and current Wisconsin governor Walker both vied for the title of the most pro-life governor.
Bush boasted how he defunded the non-profit organization and instead used state funds to support crisis pregnancy centers. But Walker wasn’t to be outdone. “I defunded PP in a blue state,” he said. “I think the bigger issue is we should be able to do this nationally.”
Read on Gistory: Here’s How the GOP Candidates Differ on Climate Change
What else is there besides abortion, economics and foreign policy?
There’s the war on drugs.
Paul distinguished himself on the issue of federal drug laws, stating he believes the federal government has overcriminalized drug use. He proposed focusing rehabilitation instead.
The war on drugs has “had a racial outcome and [is] really something that’s been damaging to our inner cities.” Rand Paul
Fiorina supported increased rehabilitation and shared the story of her stepdaughter, who died of drug overdose.
“We are misleading young people when we tell them smoking weed is just like drinking beer,” Fiorina said.
“I very much hope that I am the only person on this stage who can say this, but I know there are millions of Americans out there who will say the same thing: My husband, Frank, and I buried a child to drug addiction.”
Contributed by @CoveySon
