Best Lines of the Republican Debate
— -- Republican presidential candidates squared off in New Hampshire one last time ahead of the state's primaries, hitting each other on everything ranging from temperament to foreign policy.
The debate, hosted by ABC News, the Independent Journal Review and WMUR in Manchester, New Hampshire included seven presidential hopefuls, welcoming back Donald Trump to the stage after he skipped out on the last GOP debate.
Here are the best lines of the debate:
ON DONALD TRUMP’S TEMPERAMENT
DONALD TRUMP: “I think I have the best temperament.”
TED CRUZ: “I am convinced, every individual standing on this stage, would make a much better commander in chief than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.”
ON BEN CARSON’S "CAMPAIGN BREAK"
TED CRUZ: “I reached him the next day and apologized," Cruz said of his campaign staff sending a note that Carson was "taking time off" from campaigning and “making a big announcement next week.”
"He asked me then, he said, Ted, would you make this apologize in public? I said, yes, I will. And I did so.”
BEN CARSON: “The bottom line is, we can see what happened, everybody can see what happened and you can make your own judgment.”
ON MARCO RUBIO USING CANNED RESPONSES
“This is what Washington, D.C. does. The drive-by shot at the beginning with incorrect and incomplete information and then the memorized 25-second speech that is exactly what his advisers game him,” Chris Christie said about GOP rival Marco Rubio.
“When the worst natural disaster in your state's history hits you, they expect you to rebuild their state which is what I’ve done," he continued. "None of that stuff happens on the floor of the United States senate. It's a fine job, I'm glad you ran for it, but it does not prepare you for president of the United States.”
Rubio fired back, “Chris, your state got hit by a massive snowstorm two weeks ago. You didn't even want to go back. They had to shame you into going back.”
Christie interjected, “There it is. There it is. The memorized 25-second speech.”
ON NORTH KOREA
DONALD TRUMP: “I think we have a president who, as a president, is totally incompetent and he doesn't know what he's doing. I think he has no idea what he's doing. And our country is going to hell.”
ON IMMIGRATION
TED CRUZ: “We’re going to build a wall. We’re going to triple the border patrol. We’re going to increase -- and actually, since Donald enjoyed that, I will simply say, I’ve got somebody in mind to build it.”
ON HEALTH CARE
DONALD TRUMP: “I think everybody on this stage would have to agree, you're not going to let people die, sitting in the middle of a street in any city in this country.”
TED CRUZ: “What should we do on health care? If I'm elected president, we will repeal every word of Obama care.”
ON EMINENT DOMAIN
JEB BUSH: “What Donald Trump did was use eminent domain to try to take the property of an elderly woman on the strip in Atlantic City.”
“Jeb wants to be a tough guy tonight. I didn't take the property,” Trump said.
Bush responded, “How tough it is to take property from an elderly woman.”
ON BEING A CONSERVATIVE
DONALD TRUMP: “I view the word conservative as a derivative of the word "conserve." We want to conserve our money. We want to conserve our wealth. We want to conserve, we want to be smart...We want to conserve our country. We want to save our country.”
ON THE ECONOMY
JEB BUSH: “ I’d like to see more millionaires. I think we need to grow more millionaires we need to create a prosperity society where people can rise up.”
ON THE WAR ON ISIS
TED CRUZ: “We should use overwhelming force, kill the enemy, and then get the heck out.”
“I want to say something about this, because I'm not here just to add beauty to the stage,” Carson quipped.
ON WATERBOARDING AND ENHANCED INTERROGATION
DONALD TRUMP: “I would bring back waterboarding and I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”
MARCO RUBIO: “Guantanamo is being emptied by this president. We should be putting people into Guantanamo, not emptying it out and we shouldn't be releasing these killers who are rejoining the battlefield.”
ON EXECUTIVE ORDERS
TED CRUZ: “I have pledged, on day one, I will rescind every single illegal and unconstitutional executive action Barack Obama has done.”
DONALD TRUMP: “You have to get people in, grab them, hug them, kiss them and get the deal done.”
JOHN KASICH: “ We have to solve problems in America by coming together, Republicans and Democrats, Americans first, party and ideology second.”
ON THE HEROIN EPIDEMIC
.@tedcruz on heroin epidemic: "This is an epidemic. We need leadership to solve it." #GOPDebate https://t.co/juLaiM5lcE
— ABC News (@ABC) February 7, 2016
ON THE POLICE
DONALD TRUMP: “The police are absolutely mistreated and misunderstood...the police in this country have done an unbelievable job of keeping law and order.”
ON WOMEN SIGNING UP FOR THE DRAFT
ON VETERANS
BEN CARSON: “You know, 14-percent decrease in the number of people applying for voluntary military service, and I think part of it is because of the way we treat our veterans. You know, we wouldn't be a free country if it wasn't for them.”
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