The seventh Republican debate took place on January 28th in Iowa and it was sponsored by Fox News and Google. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Rand Paul were in attendance. Donald Trump was not there (probably because he's afraid of Megyn Kelly) and instead was a few blocks down the road holding a rally to benefit veterans. His lack of attendance put the spotlight on Ted Cruz, who was second behind Trump in Iowa's polls. Cruz was so hurt by being called out by the moderators and the other candidates that he threatened to leave the stage. Moderator Chris Wallace reminded him that he was at a debate.
Hillary Clinton was brought up several times. Rand Paul mentioned that Bill's "wandering eye" disqualifies her for championing women's rights, and Chris Christie wanted to prosecute her. Jeb Bush took the opportunity to say he’s proud of his family and their past work for the country, but this is about what we can do not pedigree (@Hillz? Probably.).
Call up your redneck uncle, because the plans to take on ISIS came up. Everyone agreed that how President Obama was handling things was not the right way. But the only one that had a plan was John Kasich. He wants to join forces with our allies and Arab friends to take on and beat ISIS. Then he wants to leave that area, because we have no purpose there once ISIS is gone. Cruz's plan is to hunt them down and utterly destroy them. So there's that.
Bush brought up the fact that Trump's hopes to ban Muslims was illogical. Bush thinks we should not be worried about Muslims, but terrorists. True, Jeb. He also said that you cannot categorize all Muslims into the terrorism category, because we need to unite with Muslims, who are in just as much of a threat as we are to stop ISIS. (This was one of the only times Trump's name was said. Not sure if he comes running when his name is said, but they acted like it.)
Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio got into it over immigration, calling each other out over their changed opinions on the topic. Who knew no one was allowed to change their mind?
The Flint Water Crisis came up, and Kasich said he would have been on top of it, then went on to say, “We work for the people; the people don’t work for us.” Cue the round of applause.
Faith was became a topic, and Kasich turned it into helping the mentally ill, while Rubio said he is going to let his faith influence his presidency. Ever heard of separation of church and state, Marco? On the other hand, Christie turned a question about Kim Davis and her beliefs into an issue about ISIS. Not sure how that happened.
Ultimately the debate was spent actually discussing the issues, something that hasn't happened with Trump on stage. If you missed the debate and want to catch up on it, you can watch it here.
