--- title: Republican Debate: Candidates Target Hillary Clinton description: The Republican candidates traded barbs at the debate Thursday night, but there was one person they all ganged up on: Hillary Clinton. canonical: https://time.com/4181955/republican-debate-hillary-clinton-attacks/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-15T03:58:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:41:27.353Z article:section: Politics og:title: GOP Candidates Target Hillary Clinton at Republican Debate og:description: "Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being Commander in Chief of the United States" og:url: https://time.com/4181955/republican-debate-hillary-clinton-attacks/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf1c9b45e956af7fe/69887950a988ca22a36b6239/gettyimages-473979902.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Hillary Clinton Campigns In Iowa, Meeting With Small Business Owners og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: GOP Candidates Target Hillary Clinton at Republican Debate twitter:description: "Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being Commander in Chief of the United States" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf1c9b45e956af7fe/69887950a988ca22a36b6239/gettyimages-473979902.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # GOP Candidates Target Hillary Clinton at Republican Debate > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=55c99a0c-e4ce-4752-8b61-f1823462f7d6&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: FOX January GOP Debate in Under 4 minutes [Watch (HLS stream): FOX January GOP Debate in Under 4 minutes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/43Jv4tOR.m3u8) (3:59)  _Published 2016-01-15. GOP DEBATE 011416: The FOX January GOP Debate in Under 4 minutes_  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Jan 15, 2016 3:58 AM UTC GOP DEBATE 011416: The FOX January GOP Debate in Under 4 minutes  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Jan 15, 2016 3:58 AM UTC The Republican candidates traded barbs at the debate Thursday night, but there was one person they all ganged up on: Hillary Clinton. Bashing Clinton while still in the primary season has long been a tactic of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at debates, and Donald Trump has been targeting her more [during his rallies](http://time.com/4164417/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-attacks/?xid=tcoshare), but Thursday night the other candidates joined in. With less than 20 days until the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses, it shows that whichever of the seven candidates on the main stage wins the primary, it’s going to be a bruising fight in the general. “If I’m the nominee, she won’t get within 10 miles of the White House,” Christie said of the former Secretary of State. He also continually tied her to President Obama as complicit the current situation in the Middle East. “If you are going to leave this to Hilary Clinton, the person who gave us this foreign policy, the architect of it… Hillary Clinton cannot be president, it will lead to even greater war in this world,” he said. “In her first 100 days… She might be going back and forth between the White House and the court house. We need to stop that,” said former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, later saying that “everybody on this stage is better than Hillary Clinton.” **Read More**: [Donald Trump Ties Hillary Clinton to Bill Cosby, Anthony Weiner in Instagram Post](http://time.com/4171454/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-bill-cosby-anthony-weiner/) “Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being Commander in Chief of the United States,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, saying she couldn’t handle “sensitive intelligence information” and “lied” to family members of Benghazi victims. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson was asked whether it was fair to attack Clinton on her husband’s sexual history, and he said it was fair to examine any past president’s record, whether he was married to a current candidate or not. Clinton had some words of her own for the candidates, tweeting during the debate: > [](https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/687828875821355009) > [](https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/687829391674597376) ## Transcript [00:00] [ MUSIC ] The next Commander in Chief [00:05] is standing on this stage. On Tuesday night I watched story [00:08] time with Barack Obama and I gotta tell you, it sounded like [00:12] everything in the world was going amazing... Hillary [00:15] Clinton would be a national security disaster. She wouldn't [00:18] just be a disaster. Hilary Clinton is disqualified from being [00:21] Commander and Chief of the United States. Well Maria, [00:24] thank you for passing on that hit piece on the front page of [00:26] the New York Times. [ APPLAUSE ] And the entire New [00:29] York Times attack is that I disclosed that loan on one [00:33] filing with the United States Senate that was a public filing, [00:36] but it was not on a second filing with the FEC. Both of those [00:39] filings were public. Ted Cruz And yes I made a paper work [00:42] error disclosing it on one piece of paper instead of the other [00:45] but if that's the best hit the New York Times has got they [00:49] better go back to the well. On the issue of citizenship [00:51] Donald I'm not going to use your mother's birth [00:55] against you. Donald Trump >> In the last three polls I'm [00:57] beating you so you shouldn't misrepresent how well your [01:01] doing. I win I choose him as my vice presidential [01:05] candidate and the Democrats sue because we can't take [01:09] him along for the ride. I hate to interrupt this episode of [01:11] Court Tv [ LAUGH ] but the real. I like Chris Christie, but we [01:15] can not have a president of the United States that supports [01:18] common core. We cannot afford to have a president of the [01:21] United States that supports gun control [ APPLAUSE ] [01:23] South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is out of the race [01:26] but he joins us tonight in the audience Is [01:31] this America anymore? Do we still have standards? [01:35] You know, we have a war on virtually everything. Race [01:38] wars. gender wars, income wars. Every [01:42] war you can imagine, we have people at each other's [01:45] throats. And our strength is actually in our unity. I also want [01:49] to recognize the people in that church that showed the [01:53] grace of God, and the grace of forgiveness, and the mercy [01:55] they showed. [ APPLAUSE ] i don't know if any of us [02:00] could've done what they did, one after another, within 48 [02:02] hours of that tragedy taking place. The guns don't pull the [02:06] trigger, it's the people that pull the trigger [ APPLAUSE ] [02:08] And we have to find out what is going on. The Second [02:11] Amendment is not an option, because criminals don't buy [02:13] their guns from a gun show. And let me tell you, ISIS and [02:16] terrorists do not get their guns from a gun show. This [02:19] [ APPLAUSE ] Everyone understands that the values [02:23] in New York City are socially liberal, are pro- abortion, are [02:27] pro gay marriage, focus around money and the media. Not [02:32] a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I'm [02:36] just saying. [ LAUGH ] When the World Trade Center came [02:39] down I saw something that no place on [02:44] Earth could've handled more beautifully, more humanly [02:47] than New York and everybody in the world watched and [02:51] everybody in the world loved New York and loved New [02:54] Yorker's and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting [02:57] statement that Ted made. [ APPLAUSE ] I said from the [03:00] beginning That we should take no Syrian refugees of any [03:04] kind. If we do not know who you are and we do not know [03:07] why you are coming, when I am President, you are not [03:09] getting into the United States of America. [ APPLAUSE ] [03:11] This was a question on entitlements [ CROSSTALK ]. [03:12] [ APPLAUSE ] Oh, I'll ask the entitlement question [03:14] [ CROSSTALK ]. And the reason. No, you're. Already had [03:16] your chance, Mark, and you blew it. But here's the thing. If I [03:19] become President, I couldn't care less about my company. [03:23] It's peanuts. I have Ivanka and Eric and Don sitting there. [03:27] Run the company, kids. Have a good time. I'm gonna do it [03:29] for America. [ APPLAUSE ] I saw you on the Senate floor [03:32] flip your vote on crop insurance cuz they told you it would [03:34] help you in Iowa. And last week, we all saw you flip your [03:37] vote on ethanol in Iowa. [ APPLAUSE ] Iowa, for the same [03:40] reason. That is not consistent conservatism. That is political [03:43] calculation. This last back- and- forth between two sen -, [03:47] two back bench senators. You know, it explains why we [03:50] have the mess in Washington, D. C. We need a president [03:53] that will fix our immigration laws and stick with it, not bend [03:57] with the wind. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4181955/republican-debate-hillary-clinton-attacks/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4181955/republican-debate-hillary-clinton-attacks/"},"headline":"GOP Candidates Target Hillary Clinton at Republican Debate","datePublished":"2016-01-15T03:58:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-05T08:41:27.353Z","description":"\"Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being Commander in Chief of the United States\"","url":"https://time.com/4181955/republican-debate-hillary-clinton-attacks/","keywords":["2016 Election","2016 Election"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf1c9b45e956af7fe/69887950a988ca22a36b6239/gettyimages-473979902.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/bltf1c9b45e956af7fe/69887950a988ca22a36b6239/gettyimages-473979902.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Hillary Clinton Campigns In Iowa, Meeting With Small Business Owners","caption":"Hillary Clinton was the subject of criticism at the Republican presidential debate on Thursday.","creditText":"Scott Olson—Getty Images","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":"https://time.com/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4181955/republican-debate-hillary-clinton-attacks/","name":"GOP Candidates Target Hillary Clinton at Republican Debate"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"FOX January GOP Debate in Under 4 minutes","description":"GOP DEBATE 011416: The FOX January GOP Debate in Under 4 minutes","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/43Jv4tOR/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-01-15T05:22:12.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/43Jv4tOR.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4181955/republican-debate-hillary-clinton-attacks/","duration":"PT3M59S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4181955/republican-debate-hillary-clinton-attacks/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```