Donald Trump's Finest Moment
The Republican frontrunner offered a stirring defense of New York, breaking from his usual form on a night when so much else seemed all too familiar.
In a debate filled with barbs, put-downs, interruptions, and insults, Donald Trump didn’t separate himself from the rest of the field by being more combative or more outrageous—although at moments, he was clearly trying. Trump, instead, set himself apart by delivering a ringing defense of the “New York values” that Senator Ted Cruz accused him of embodying. “New York is a great place,” he said. “It's got great people, it's got loving people, wonderful people. When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York.” His tone turned somber:
And the people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death, and even the smell of death—nobody understood it. And it was with us for months, the smell, the air. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers.
It was Trump’s best moment of the campaign: a stirring tribute to a cosmopolitan city, and an invocation of national unity, beating back a crude attempt to divide Americans against each other.
What preceded it was less inspiring. Trump stood by his contention that Ted Cruz may not be a “native-born citizen,” and therefore may be ineligible for the presidency. Cruz hotly disputed that, and the weight of the scholarly consensus is firmly on his side. It was vintage Trump: blustering, insinuating, and flat-out fabricating. And it helped make the defense of New York that followed seem even more unusual.
That exchange also stood out because so much of the other drama on the stage Thursday night seemed so familiar. Ben Carson affably flubbed his foreign-policy questions; John Kasich emphasized his record in Ohio and tried to look more serious than his rivals; Jeb Bush delivered solid points in a style that robbed them of most of their impact; Chris Christie talked up his record as a prosecutor while brazenly denying other things he’s done; and Cruz sparred repeatedly with Marco Rubio.
With just a few weeks left before Iowa voters head to the caucuses, almost all of the candidates came to North Charleston, South Carolina, looking to shake things up. For the most part, that failed to happen.
But Ted Cruz, who’s clinging to a narrow lead in Iowa, didn’t just take hits from Trump. The fiercest attack of the night came from Rubio, who rattled off a detailed list of specific stands on which he accused the Texas senator of reversing himself, branding him a cynical opportunist, not a consistent conservative. “I appreciate your dumping your oppo-research folder on the debate stage,” Cruz smirked.
“No, it’s your record,” Rubio shot back.
The debate also featured a war over trade wars. Trump was pressed to defend past comments supportive of slapping retaliatory tariffs on Chinese imports. Instead of backing away from tariffs, he stressed the need for a firm response to the rising power. Economists across the country held their heads, and his rivals gleefully pounced. But as they took turns explaining the economic theory of why tariffs ultimately hurt consumers, Trump simply insisted that he’d be tough enough to make the Chinese crumble. By Friday, there will likely be dozens of columns explaining the downsides of tariffs; whether any of them will dissuade Trump supporters from believing that he alone has the resolve to right America’s trade deficit with China is another matter entirely.
It’s equally fair to wonder whether any of these performances will alter the trajectory of the race. Trump was closing in on Cruz in Iowa even before the debate, and riding high in the national polls. Marco Rubio turned in another superb performance on the stage, but his past skill as a debater has never brought him the surge of support that he needs to challenge the frontrunners. Ben Carson’s fading campaign will continue to fade. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and John Kasich are still jockeying for establishment support.
One thing that was different on Thursday night was the audience, generously salted with members of the Republican National Committee, in town for their winter meeting. The presence of the literal Republican establishment didn’t restrain candidates from touting their outsider credentials. But it did reflect the tensions roiling the party, as parts of the crowd cheered loudly for Trump, as others booed.
But if RNC Chair Reince Preibus was worried, he didn’t let it show. “It’s clear we’ve got the most well-qualified and diverse field of candidates from any party in history,” he tweeted afterwards. The field may be yuuge, but the candidates are the best. The head of the Republican establishment adopting the argot of Trump seemed a perfect end to the night.
