--- title: Republican Debate: Donald Trump and Jeb Bush Spar on Muslims description: Donald Trump lashed out at Jeb Bush when Bush attacked his proposal to ban Muslims from the U.S. canonical: https://time.com/4150854/republican-debate-donald-trump-jeb-bush-muslims/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-16T02:16:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:41:28.925Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump and Jeb Bush Spar on Muslim Ban at Republican Debate og:description: "Donald is great at the one-liners" og:url: https://time.com/4150854/republican-debate-donald-trump-jeb-bush-muslims/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt76c22b27afd02ec3/698875923c1639485a45b360/republican-debate-gop-presidential-016.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: US Republican Presidential debate at The Venetian Las Vegas og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump and Jeb Bush Spar on Muslim Ban at Republican Debate twitter:description: "Donald is great at the one-liners" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt76c22b27afd02ec3/698875923c1639485a45b360/republican-debate-gop-presidential-016.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump and Jeb Bush Spar on Muslim Ban at Republican Debate ## Video: Watch The CNBC GOP Debate in Less Than 4 Minutes [Watch (HLS stream): Watch The CNBC GOP Debate in Less Than 4 Minutes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8UytvMpk.m3u8) (3:46)  _Published 2015-10-29. Watch The CNBC GOP Debate in Less Than 4 Minutes_  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Dec 16, 2015 2:16 AM UTC  Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush at the Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas on Dec. 15, 2015. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush at the Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas on Dec. 15, 2015.Ruth Fremson—Press Pool  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Dec 16, 2015 2:16 AM UTC The [fifth Republican debate](http://time.com/4149585/republican-debate-vegas-ted-cruz/) got off to a contentious start when the first question pitted Donald Trump and Jeb Bush against each other on Trump’s incendiary proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States. Trump defended his proposal, saying, “We’re not talking about religion, we’re talking about security” and “our country is out of control.” He referred to migrants fleeing Syria as “tens of thousands of people with cell phones with ISIS flags on them.” Bush was then asked about his previous comments calling Trump “unhinged” on Twitter. Bush outlined his plan to defeat ISIS and said, “Donald is great at the one-liners, but he’s a chaos candidate, and he’d be a chaos president, he would not be the Commander-in-Chief we need to keep our country safe.” Trump was quick to lash out at Bush. “He said that very simply because he’s failed in his campaign, it’s been a total disaster and nobody cares,” Trump said. But Bush continued: “Banning all Muslims will make it harder for us to do exactly what we need to do, which is destroy ISIS… We need to engage with the Arab world to make this happen.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4150854/republican-debate-donald-trump-jeb-bush-muslims/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4150854/republican-debate-donald-trump-jeb-bush-muslims/"},"headline":"Donald Trump and Jeb Bush Spar on Muslim Ban at Republican Debate","datePublished":"2015-12-16T02:16:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:41:28.925Z","description":"\"Donald is great at the one-liners\"","url":"https://time.com/4150854/republican-debate-donald-trump-jeb-bush-muslims/","keywords":["Debates","2016 Election","jeb bush","Donald Trump","Republican debate"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt76c22b27afd02ec3/698875923c1639485a45b360/republican-debate-gop-presidential-016.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt76c22b27afd02ec3/698875923c1639485a45b360/republican-debate-gop-presidential-016.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US Republican Presidential debate at The Venetian Las Vegas","caption":"Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush at the Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas on Dec. 15, 2015.","creditText":"Ruth Fremson—Press Pool","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/debates/","name":"Debates"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4150854/republican-debate-donald-trump-jeb-bush-muslims/","name":"Donald Trump and Jeb Bush Spar on Muslim Ban at Republican Debate"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Watch The CNBC GOP Debate in Less Than 4 Minutes","description":"Watch The CNBC GOP Debate in Less Than 4 Minutes","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/8UytvMpk/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-10-29T03:48:44.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8UytvMpk.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4150854/republican-debate-donald-trump-jeb-bush-muslims/","duration":"PT3M46S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4150854/republican-debate-donald-trump-jeb-bush-muslims/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```