Thursday night’s GOP debate turned into a four-way shootout over immigration, as Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz all traded accusations that the others have flip-flopped or supported “amnesty” for illegal immigrants.
The exchange started with Fox News airing clips of Rubio’s past statements on immigration and opposing legal status for illegal immigration, and then asking him to contrast those statements with his support for the 2013 Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform legislation.
No sooner had the Florida senator responded, however, than Jeb Bush accused him of flip-flopping. Bush backed Rubio in his support for the Gang of Eight bill, he said, which did provide for eventual legalization. But then Rubio “cut and run because it wasn’t popular among conservatives.”
Rubio shot back that Bush changed his own mind on legalization of immigration in his 2013 book, Immigration Wars.
But Bush said he “has supported a consensus approach to solving this problem wherever it came up,” mentioning his support for his brother George W. Bush’s 2007 push for immigration reform. Rubio, he repeated, “cut and run. And that’s a tragedy because now it’s harder and harder to actually solve this problem.”
Fox cut in with a video montage of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2013 statements on his amendment to Rubio’s bill, which would have provided for a path to lawful permanent resident status for illegal immigrants.
Cruz responded by invoking hardline conservatives opposed to legalization who he said backed him, including Sen. Jeff Sessions, R.-Ala. But that’s when Rand Paul cut in to take a shot at Cruz.
“What is particularly insulting, though, is that he is the king of saying, ‘You’re for amnesty.’ Everybody’s for amnesty except for Ted Cruz,” the Kentucky senator said. “But it’s a falseness, and that’s an authenticity problem.”
Cruz diverted attention back to Rubio.
“When that battle was waged, my friend Sen. Rubio chose to stand with Barack Obama and Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer and support amnesty,” Cruz said of the 2013 legislation. “And I stood alongside Jeff Sessions and Steve King, and we led the fight against amnesty.”
Rubio countered by pointing out that Cruz helped George W. Bush devise an immigration policy that involved legalization, long before 2013.
“This is the lie that Ted’s campaign is built on, and Rand touched upon it — that he’s the most conservative guy, and everyone else is a — you know, everyone else is a RINO,” Rubio said, using the acronym RINO that means “Republican In Name Only.”
Cruz ended the four-way exchange by patronizing Rubio as “very charming. He’s very smooth.”
“We both made the identical promises. But when we came to Washington, we made a different choice,” he said. “Marco made the choice to go the direction of the major donors — to support amnesty because he thought it was politically advantageous.”
