Another night, another debate, and just like the last four or five, the performance of the major players has not changed.
Ted Cruz had a fantastic debate. He stayed on message, he continued to give the most substantive answers of any candidate, and he made Donald Trump look foolish without stooping to his level.
Marco Rubio looked tired. He engaged Trump on his many scandals, including Trump University, but it was clear that this campaign has taken a toll on him. Rubio knows his chance at winning the nomination is effectively done, and it showed last night.
Even though he finished behind Ben Carson in at least 6 states on Super Tuesday, John Kasich keeps soldiering on, hoping to pull enough votes away from other candidates to give the nomination to Trump. Ironically, the one candidate he is hurting the most is the establishment favorite, Rubio. Kasich has not won a single state, and will not win a single state.
And then we come to Trump.
Donald Trump is doing his best to prove his claim that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any votes. Trump declared on the debate stage that he has now officially changed his position on immigration when it comes to H1-B visas. This is the same program that allowed Disney to fire 500 American IT workers and then force them to train their foreign replacements. While his website called for cutting back on this program, Trump now supports the program and says we should increase it. I wonder what Sen. Jeff Sessions thinks of that? Didn’t he write Trump’s immigration policy?
It’s not like Sessions shouldn’t have seen this betrayal coming. After all, Trump was bragging about hiring immigrants instead of Americans at his hotels at the last debate, because Americans are just too lazy and wimpy to work in the heat. A claim he repeated in this latest debate. He also all but admitted he told the New York Times that he has no intention of following through on his campaign promises, and they have it on tape, but he won’t let them release the tape. In all honesty he doesn’t have to. He stood on the stage and told every one of his supporters that he’s going to double cross them. Remember, “you have to be flexible.”
So now Sen. Sessions gets to join Chris Christie standing behind Trump at his press conferences, with his own thousand yard stare. Another broken man, regretting his choice.
I have to admit that his complete reversal of yet another of his immigration policies last night was not the most shocking thing he said. What shocked me the most was when he declared that he would order the United States Military to commit war crimes by ordering the targeting of the families of enemy fighters. That’s right, Trump wants to order our Armed Forces to deliberately target innocent, non-combatant women and children. When pressed on the issue by the moderators about whether our soldiers would refuse to obey such an order, Trump brazenly declared, “they won’t refuse an order from me.”
Think about that for a second. I know a lot of you think Trump is the answer to all of your problems with the establishment and the corruption in Washington, but just….think about that for a second. The man you support for President wants to force our sons and daughters to kill women and children. Leaders don’t say that kind of thing. Tyrants do.
I wonder what the brave heroes of Benghazi think about that pronouncement from the candidate they have endorsed? I wonder what all our Marines, Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen think of that? I wonder what all of our veterans running around wearing “Make America Great Again” hats think of that? They need to change that slogan to now say, “War Crimes For Everyone!”
The Trump supporters in the remaining states need to think long and hard about the kind of man they want to lead the country. I don’t know how many times Trump has to directly tell his supporters, “I’m lying to you,” like he did last night before it sticks. Maybe last night was it.
We’ll see.
