Donald Trump in CBS GOP S.C. Debate

On Abortion: Planned Parenthood does great work on women's health

Sen. Ted CRUZ: For most of his life, Trump's policies have been liberal. For most of his life, he has described himself as pro-choice and a supporter of partial birth abortion. Today, he supports federal tax payer funding for Planned Parenthood. I disagree with him on that.

TRUMP: You are the biggest liar. Today, we had robo-calls saying. "Donald Trump is not going to run in South Carolina," -- where I'm leading by a lot." I'm not going to vote for Ted Cruz. This guy will say anything, nasty guy. Now I know why he doesn't have one endorsement from any of his colleagues.

CRUZ: You said, "Planned Parenthood does wonderful things and we should not defund it."

TRUMP: It does do wonderful things but not as it relates to abortion. There are wonderful things having to do with women's health, but not when it comes to abortion.

Source: 2016 CBS Republican primary debate in South Carolina Feb 13, 2016

On Environment: Eminent domain is something you need very strongly

Q: You say you don't agree with all conservative ideas; which ones don't you agree with?

TRUMP: Well, I think these people always hit me with eminent domain, and frankly, I'm not in love with eminent domain. But eminent domain is something you need very strongly. When Jeb Bush said, "You used eminent domain privately for a parking lot." It wasn't for a parking lot. The state of New Jersey went to build a very large tower that was going to employ thousands of people--a big job in terms of economic development. I got hit very hard: it's private, it's private eminent domain. You understand that [Jeb and George Bush] took over a stadium in Texas, and they used private eminent domain.

BUSH: You should not use eminent domain for private purposes. A baseball stadium or a parking lot.is very different. All of that is proper use of eminent domain. Not to take an elderly woman's home to build a parking lot so that high-rollers can come from New York City to build casinos in Atlantic City.

Source: 2016 CBS Republican primary debate in South Carolina Feb 13, 2016

On Foreign Policy: Figure out who our allies are

Q: What three questions do you ask your national security experts?

TRUMP: What we want to do, when we want to do it, and how hard do we want to hit? We are going to have to hit hard to knock out ISIS. We're going to have to learn who our allies are. We have allies, we have no idea who they are in Syria. Do we want to stay that route, or do we want to go and make something with Russia?

Source: 2016 CBS Republican primary debate in South Carolina Feb 13, 2016

On Foreign Policy: Iran deal is one of the worst I've ever seen

Sen. Ted CRUZ: If you look at the threats facing this country, the single gravest threat, national security threat, is the threat of a nuclear Iran. That's why I've pledged on day one to rip to shreds this Iranian nuclear deal.

TRUMP: The Iran deal is one of the worst deals I have ever seen negotiated in my entire life. It's a disgrace that this country negotiated that deal.

Source: 2016 CBS Republican primary debate in South Carolina Feb 13, 2016

On Free Trade: Trade pacts are no good for us and no good for our workers

Carrier (US air conditioning company) is moving to Mexico. I would go to Carrier and say, "You're going to lay off 1,400 people. You're going to make air conditioners in Mexico, and you're trying to get them across our border with no tax." I'm going to tell them that we're going to tax you when those air conditioners come. So stay where you are or build in the United States because we are killing ourselves with trade pacts that are no good for us and no good for our workers. Source: 2016 CBS Republican primary debate in South Carolina Feb 13, 2016

On Government Reform: Delay, delay, delay on Supreme Court appointment

Q: The death of Justice Antonin Scalia leaves a vacancy on the Supreme Court. You've said that the President shouldn't nominate anyone in the rest of his term to replace Justice Scalia. If you were President, and had a chance with 11 months left to go in your term, wouldn't it be an abdication not to name a conservative justice with the rest of your term?

TRUMP: If I were President now I would certainly want to try and nominate a justice. Frankly, I'm absolutely sure that President Obama will try and do it. I hope that our Senate is going to be able to do something about it.

Q: So, just to be clear on this, you're OK with the President nominating somebody?

TRUMP: think he's going to do it whether or I'm OK with it or not. I think it's up to [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell, and everybody else to stop it. It's called delay, delay, delay.

Source: 2016 CBS Republican primary debate in South Carolina Feb 13, 2016

On Government Reform: I would build consensus, not use Executive Orders

Q: You promised that if Ford were to move a factory to Mexico, you would stop it or threaten them with a 35 percent tax or tariff on every car sold. Based on your understanding of the presidency, where do you derive that power?

TRUMP: I would build consensus with Congress. I don't like the idea of using executive orders like our president. I would build consensus, but consensus means hard work. You have to get them into the Oval Office and get them all together, and you have to make deals.

Source: 2016 CBS Republican primary debate in South Carolina Feb 13, 2016

On Homeland Security: How did W keep us safe? WTC came down during his watch

Sen. Marco RUBIO: I thank God it was George W. Bush in the White House on 9/11 and not Al Gore. He kept us safe.

TRUMP: How did he keep us safe when the World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush? He kept us safe? That is not "safe," Marco. That is not safe.

RUBIO: The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn't kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him.

TRUMP: George Bush had the chance, also, and he didn't listen to the advice of his CIA.

Source: 2016 CBS Republican primary debate in South Carolina Feb 13, 2016

On Jobs: Bring jobs back from China, Mexico, Japan, and Vietnam

I'm going to bring jobs back from China, Mexico Japan, Vietnam. They are taking our jobs. They are taking our wealth. We have $2.5 trillion offshore. We're going to bring that money back. You take a look at what happened just this week, China bought the Chicago Stock Exchange. Nabisco and Ford, they're all moving out. We have an economy that last quarter didn't grow. We have to make our economy grow again. Source: 2016 CBS Republican primary debate in South Carolina Feb 13, 2016

On Principles & Values: We should have impeached George W. Bush for Iraq War lies

Q: In 2008, talking about President George W. Bush's conduct of the war, you said you were surprised that Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi didn't try to impeach him: You added, "which personally I think would have been a wonderful thing." When you were asked what you meant by that and you said: "For the war; he lied, he got us into the war with lies." Do you still believe President Bush should have been impeached.

TRUMP: Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake. The war in Iraq, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, we don't even have it. Iran has taken over Iraq. Obviously, it was a mistake. George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East.

Q: So you still think he should be impeached?

TRUMP: You call it whatever you want. I want to tell you, they lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. And they knew there were none.

Source: 2016 CBS Republican primary debate in South Carolina Feb 13, 2016

On Social Security: I will save Social Security with more jobs, less waste

I'm going to save Social Security. You have tremendous waste, fraud and abuse. We have in Social Security thousands of people over 106 years old. You know they don't exist. There's tremendous waste, fraud and abuse, and we're going to get it. But we're not going to hurt the people who have been paying into Social Security their whole life and then all of a sudden they're supposed to get less. We're bringing jobs back. Source: 2016 CBS Republican primary debate in South Carolina Feb 13, 2016

On War & Peace: We've spent $5T in the Mideast and gotten nothing

Gov. Jeb BUSH: Donald Trump wants to accommodate Russia. Russia is not taking out ISIS. They're attacking our team, the team that we've been training and the team that we've been supporting. It is absolutely ludicrous to suggest that Russia could be a positive partner in this. I would restore the military; the sequester needs to be reversed.

Q [to Trump]: You said that you could get along very well with Vladimir Putin. You did say let Russia take care of ISIS.

TRUMP: Jeb is so wrong. You fight ISIS first. You have to knock 'em out. You decide what to do after, you can't fight two wars at one time. If you listen to him, that's why we've been in the Middle East for 15 years, and we haven't won anything. We've spent $5 trillion dollars in the Middle East with thinking like that. We've spent $5 trillion dollars; we have to rebuild our country. We have to rebuild our infrastructure. you listen to that you're going to be there for another 15 years. You'll end up with world war three.

Source: 2016 CBS Republican primary debate in South Carolina Feb 13, 2016

The above quotations are from CBS News Republican Debate at The Peace Center in Greenville, South Carolina Moderated by John Dickerson. Click here for main summary page. Click here for a profile of Donald Trump. Click here for Donald Trump on all issues.
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Page last updated: Dec 08, 2018