--- title: Republican Debate; Candidates Use Clinton As Punching Bag description: Candidates at the Republican debate Thursday agreed that sending shots at Democrat Hillary Clinton was good strategy. canonical: https://time.com/4199264/republican-debate-iowa-hillary-clinton/ author: Daniel White article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-29T03:11:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T19:33:23.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Republican Train Their Fire on Hillary Clinton at GOP Debate og:description: Candidates at the Republican debate Thursday agreed that sending shots at Democrat Hillary Clinton was good strategy. og:url: https://time.com/4199264/republican-debate-iowa-hillary-clinton/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf9d2a86510ee31d3/69887b25428a9e573fcd129d/republican-presidential-debate-gop-jan-28-photos-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4624 og:image:height: 2601 og:image:alt: TIMEPOL debate og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Republican Train Their Fire on Hillary Clinton at GOP Debate twitter:description: Candidates at the Republican debate Thursday agreed that sending shots at Democrat Hillary Clinton was good strategy. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf9d2a86510ee31d3/69887b25428a9e573fcd129d/republican-presidential-debate-gop-jan-28-photos-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Republicans Train Their Fire on Hillary Clinton at Iowa Debate > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times 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. ## Video: Watch The Republican Debate in Under 4 Minutes [Watch (HLS stream): Watch The Republican Debate in Under 4 Minutes](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/yAWlwSjX.m3u8) (3:34)  _Published 2016-01-29. GOP Debate-012816-v1_ by [Daniel White](https://time.com/author/daniel-white/) ## Daniel White Updated: Dec 13, 2023 7:33 PM UTCPublished: Jan 29, 2016 3:11 AM UTC  Republican presidential candidates, from left, Sen. Rand Paul, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen.Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich at the Republican presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa on Jan. 28, 2016 Republican presidential candidates, from left, Sen. Rand Paul, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen.Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich at the Republican presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa on Jan. 28, 2016 Jim Watson—AFP/Getty Images by [Daniel White](https://time.com/author/daniel-white/) ## Daniel White Updated: Dec 13, 2023 7:33 PM UTCPublished: Jan 29, 2016 3:11 AM UTC Candidates at the [Republican debate](http://time.com/4197580/republican-debate-donald-trump-iowa/) Thursday could agree on one thing: that Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton was a ripe target for repeated attacks. Without GOP front-runner [Donald Trump](http://time.com/4198601/donald-trump-veterans-event-rally-watch-live-stream-online/) there to fling insults — or be insulted in turn — the remaining candidates turned their attentions to the former Secretary of State as the biggest obstacle to the Republican Party’s chances of winning the presidency in November. Rubio quickly connected the former Secretary of State with President Obama, after Clinton proposed earlier in the week that Obama might make a good Supreme Court Justice. “Supreme Court? I don’t think so,” Rubio said. “If I’m our nominee, I will unite this party and we’ll defeat Hillary Clinton and we will turn this country around once and for all, after seven years of the disaster that is Barack Obama.” Shortly after, Bush alluded to Clinton’s email scandal in the punchline of a joke. “I released 34 years of tax returns and 300,000 e-mails in my government record,” Bush said to applause. “To get the information from Hillary Clinton, you need to get a subpoena from the FBI.” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie favorably compared himself to Clinton in terms of executive experience. “Hillary Clinton has never been responsible for those kind of decisions where they were held accountable,” Christie said. “I’ve been held accountable for six years as the governor of New Jersey and with a Democratic legislature, I’ve gotten conservative things done. That’s exactly what I’ll do as president of the United States.” Later on in the debate, the punches kept rolling on Clinton, with Rubio and Christie targeting her again. Rubio remarked that she shouldn’t be allowed to run given her record as Secretary of State — in particular, the controversy over her [private email server](http://time.com/4186530/hillary-clinton-emails-top-secret-intelligence/). “Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being the commander-in-chief of the United States,” Rubio said. “In fact, one of her first acts as president may very well be to pardon herself because Hillary Clinton stored classified information on her private server. And Hillary Clinton lied to the families of those four brave Americans who lost their life in Benghazi. And anyone who lies to the families of Americans who have died in the service of this country can never be commander-in-chief of the United States.” Christie too jabbed at the Clinton email scandal, saying he alone would be ready to take her to court. “There is no one on this stage better prepared to prosecute the case against Hillary Clinton than I am,” Christie said. “I will be ready. I will take her on, and when I take her on I guarantee you one thing, she will never get within 10 miles of the White House. The days for the Clintons in public housing are over.” ## Transcript Welcome to the seventh Republican presidential debate. I'm a maniac and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly. And Ben, you're a terrible surgeon. [ LAUGH ] Now that we've gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way. [ LAUGH ] He's an entertaining guy, he's the greatest show on earth. I have not insulted Donald personally and I don't intend to. I kind of Donald Trump, he was a little teddy bear to me. I want to thank Everyone here for showing the men and women of Iowa the respect, to show up and make the case to the people of this state and people of the country why each of us believe we would make the best Commander- in- Chief. I've been held accountable for six years of the Governor of New Jersey. And with a Democratic legislature, I've gotten conservative Things done. That is exactly what I'll do as a president of United States. The ball collection of your phone data. The invasion of your privacy did not stop one terrorist attack. I don't think you have to give up your liberty for a fall sense of security. We cannot fix these things in this country. The sole security, the boarder Balancing the budget. Getting wages to grow faster. Unless we lead as conservatives, but we also invite people in from the other party. We need people who think out of the box, and can solve problems. The last four questions have been, Rand please attack Ted. Marco please attack Ted. Chris please attack Ted. Jeb please attack Ted. It is a debate, sir. If you guys ask one more mean question I may have to leave the stage. You cannot destroy ISIS with a military that's being diminished. When I'm President we are rebuilding the U. S. military because the world is a safer and a better place. When America's the strongest military in the world. You claim it is tough talk to discuss carpet bombing. It is not tough talk. It is a different fundamental military strategy than what we've seen from Barack Obama. We need to arm directly to Kurds, embed our troops with the Iraqi military, re- engage with the Sunni tribal leaders, get the lawyers off the damn backs of the military once and for all. Arming the allies of ISIS will make the situation worse. Then what we really need to do is defeat ISIS, but if you defeat Assad, what you will wind up with is a larger and more powerful ISIS that occupies that space. If there were someplace in this country where radical Jihadists are planning to attack the United States, we will go after them wherever they are, and if we capture them alive, They are going to Guantanamo. And if you wanna defend the country, it begins with border security, and this is where I've had my disagreement with Senator Rubio. You can't be in favor of defending us against Islam, radical Islam, if you're not for border security. I will support law Law enforcement and we will stop radical terrorist attacks in this country by supporting out intelligence community and our law enforcement community. We need to stop allowing political correctness to dictate our policies. We are a nation of immigrants. As such, everyone is welcome, from any race, any country, any religion if they wanna be Americans. We are not gonna round up and deport 12 million people but we are not gonna go around handing out citizenship cards either. Nations will have to make a choice. They can do business with Iran or they can do business with America. And I am very confident that they're going to choose America before they choose the Iranian economy. If we find out they're developing a nuclear weapon and we know how to get to it We're gonna go take it out. What we need to do is make sure that the war on drugs is equal protection under the law and that we don't unfairly incarcerate another generation of young African American males. Get rid of Planned Parenthood funding for the United States of America. [ APPLAUSE ] Bernie Sanders is a socialist. I think Bernie Sanders is a good candidate for president of Sweden. Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being the Commander and Chief of the United States. 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