As the flamboyant Donald Trump boycotted a crucial Republican debate on Thursday night, his fried-turned-foe Ted Cruz became the punching bag for attacks by other rivals amid a lively speculation on how the bizarre episode would play out on Monday when Iowa kicks off the presidential primaries.
If some pundits felt it was a risky act on Trump’s part to skip the debate and host a parallel event, others believe it might well turn out to be a masterstroke for the Republican front-runner by avoiding a clash with immediate challenger Cruz and the rest on the stage in Des Moines.
True enough, Cruz became the principal target at the debate while Trump went about announcing triumphantly at his own event a few miles away that he has raised $6 million for US military veterans who, he keeps alleging, are being treated worse than illegal immigrants by the Obama administration.
At the debate, hosted by Fox News, Cruz faced the fury of two fellow Senators, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, on the sensitive issue of illegal immigration by projecting himself as the most conservative Senator and the only one to have steadfastly opposed to an “amnesty” prescription.
“This is the lie that Ted’s campaign is built on,” Rubio said, accusing Cruz of being “willing to say and do anything in order to get votes”. Stating that he too used to talk about bringing illegal immigrants out of the shadows, Rubio told Cruz: “Now, you want to trump Trump on immigration.” Paul, too, jumped in to comment that Cruz had an “authenticity problem”.