How Donald Trump Dominated Social Media During No-Show Debate

Voting kicks off in the 2016 campaign on Monday.

Donald Trump still got the first round of criticism from the other candidates, but the group quickly moved on to Cruz. “It turns out that Donald Trump can dominate a debate even if he doesn’t show up on stage”, wrote Susan Page.

The policy-heavy event in Des Moines offered a glimpse of what the Republican contest might have been without the unpredictable (that’s one way to put it) billionaire businessman. The network rejected this. He boycotted the debate and held his own event.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who are behind Trump in the nationwide and Iowa polls and hope for surprise finishes here, were repeatedly confronted with pointed questions about their views and Senate votes on providing citizenship or legal status to immigrants who are in the country illegally. He opened the debate with a pretty spot-on impression of the property mogul’s frequent insults of his opponents. “I’m a maniac and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly”. “And Ben (Carson), you’re a bad surgeon”.

Colbert showed a clip from 2011 of Trump telling Kelly that she’s “done a great job” which was followed by Trump saying on Thursday he has “zero respect for Megyn Kelly”. A favorite mainstream Republicans, Rubio could surge if candidates supporting similar hopefuls, such as Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, and Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, see them as sinking. In March 2012, “Hillary Clinton, I think, is a terrific woman”.

Cruz has claimed those values include a pro-choice statement Trump to “Meet the Press” in 1999.

He attacked Cruz throughout his speech in Nashua, New Hampshire, including on the issue of whether Cruz is eligible to run for the presidency. “When you’re treated badly, you have to stick up for your rights”, Mr Trump said.

Trump chose not to attend the debate because he said he was unfairly singled out in a previous debate by Kelly.

“This way we made our point”, Trump added.