--- title: Republican Debate; Megyn Kelly Invokes A Rubio/Cruz Showdown description: Fox News pulled a trick out of their bag Thursday at the Republican debate. canonical: https://time.com/4199310/megyn-kelly-ted-cruz-marco-rubio-debate/ author: Daniel White article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-29T04:24:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:41:56.076Z article:section: Politics og:title: How Megyn Kelly Engineered a Cruz/Rubio Showdown og:description: This one new technique had the senators facing off og:url: https://time.com/4199310/megyn-kelly-ted-cruz-marco-rubio-debate/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f17ff5abbd33a41/69887b2f2dce0143a09e7919/republican-presidential-debate-gop-jan-28-photos-13.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3726 og:image:height: 2096 og:image:alt: US-VOTE-REPUBLICANS-DEBATE og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Megyn Kelly Engineered a Cruz/Rubio Showdown twitter:description: This one new technique had the senators facing off twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f17ff5abbd33a41/69887b2f2dce0143a09e7919/republican-presidential-debate-gop-jan-28-photos-13.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Here's the Obvious Innovation That Fox News Brought to the Debate > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### 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 Jan 29, 2016 4:24 AM UTC  Republican Presidential candidates Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Senator Ted Cruz during the Republican presidential debate Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in Des Moines, Iowa. Republican Presidential candidates Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Senator Ted Cruz during the Republican presidential debate Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in Des Moines, Iowa. Jim Watson—AFP/Getty Images by [Daniel White](https://time.com/author/daniel-white/) ## Daniel White Jan 29, 2016 4:24 AM UTC Fox News pulled a new debate trick out of their bag Thursday at the Republican debate. Moderators confronted Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz with old clips of themselves to highlight their positions on immigration, a new tactic in this series of Republican debates. This approach may be what moderator Megyn Kelly was referring to in an interview with TIME talking about her debate preparations to [prevent candidates from blowing off questions](http://time.com/4196506/republican-debate-donald-trump-megyn-kelly-fox-news/)—and it worked well, culminating in a big showdown between the two rising stars. Rubio was the first to receive the playback treatment, showing clips from Rubio’s 2010 run for Senate, where he said opposed amnesty for immigrants already in the country. Kelly then turned the clock t0 Rubio’s co-sponsorship of the “Gang of Eight” bill that proposed granting a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Rubio responded in high spirits, saying that his support for a path to citizenship wasn’t the same thing as amnesty. “What I’ve always said is that this issue needs to be solved. They’ve been talking about this issue for 30 years and nothing ever happens,” Rubio said. “We are not going to round up and deport 12 million people, but we’re not going to go around handing out citizenship cards either.” After a back-and-forth between Rubio and Jeb Bush about the futility of continuing talking about immigration reform without first stemming the tide of illegals coming across the border, Cruz was subject to his own playback. The Texas senator was shown on the Senate floor trying to get an amendment added to the same bill Rubio co-sponsored. Cruz has said that amendment was designed to kill the bill, but Kelly argued that wasn’t how it sounded at the time. Cruz countered that his push for the amendment, which would make those in America illegally ineligible for citizenship, was important for defeating the bill. “We can solve immigration. We just heard an argument back and forth that we can’t solve immigration,” Cruz said. “We have the tools in federal law to do this now. We can build the fence, we can triple the border patrol, we can end sanctuary cities by cutting off funding to them, we can end welfare for those here illegally—and what is missing is the political will because too many Democrats and, sadly, too many Republicans don’t want to solve this problem. If I am elected president, we will secure the border and we will end illegal immigration.” In response Rubio attacked, calling his second-place rival out for pandering to the crowd. “This is the lie that Ted’s campaign is built on,” Rubio said. “That he’s the most conservative guy, and everyone else is a \[Republican in name only\]. The truth is, Ted, throughout this campaign you’ve been willing to say or do anything to get votes.” Cruz fired back, saying that the two senators each won their seats on a promise to fight against amnesty, but only Cruz had kept his word. “We both made the identical promises, but when we came to Washington we made a different choice,” Cruz said. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4199310/megyn-kelly-ted-cruz-marco-rubio-debate/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4199310/megyn-kelly-ted-cruz-marco-rubio-debate/"},"headline":"Here's the Obvious Innovation That Fox News Brought to the Debate","datePublished":"2016-01-29T04:24:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:41:56.076Z","description":"It caused a showdown between Cruz and Rubio","url":"https://time.com/4199310/megyn-kelly-ted-cruz-marco-rubio-debate/","keywords":["Debates","2016 Election","Sen. 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