Right-wing buddies no more.
Canadian-born Texas Senator Ted Cruz and New York's bombastic billionaire Donald Trump savaged each other Thursday night as the battle to be the Republican presidential candidate turned ugly with bitter, personal attacks.
"I guess the bromance is over," Mr. Trump said in the "spin room" after the debate. During it, Mr. Trump questioned Mr. Cruz's eligibility to be president.
"Who the hell knows if you can even serve?" said Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly raised in recent days the issue of Mr. Cruz's birth abroad. Mr. Trump once backed a similar "birther" campaign, with a $1-million (U.S.) reward, questioning President Barack Obama's legitimacy to hold the nation's highest office because, Mr. Trump alleged, Mr. Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii as he claimed.
Mr. Cruz, born to an American mother and a Cuban father in Alberta, renounced his Canadian citizenship last year and has always maintained he – like several other Republican presidential nominees in previous decades – met the untested Constitutional requirement that the president be "native born."
"The facts and the law here are really quite clear," retorted Mr. Cruz, a Harvard-trained lawyer who served as a clerk to a Supreme Court Justice before entering politics. "Under long-standing U.S. law, the child of a U.S. citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen… That's why John McCain, even though he was born in Panama, was eligible to run for president, and…that's why George Romney, Mitt's dad, was eligible to run for president, even though he was born in Mexico." He accused Mr. Trump of only resurrecting the issue because he had lost the lead in Iowa, the first state to vote.
Mr. Trump, unrepentant, admitted as much: "It's true. Hey, look, he never had a chance. Now, he's doing better," in the polls.
Turning to Mr. Cruz, he said: "There's a big question mark on your head," and said the Tea Party favourite should seek a declaratory judgment to put the issue to rest.
Mr. Cruz acidly reminded Mr. Trump that he had called the birth brouhaha a non-issue as recently as four months ago. "Since September, the Constitution hasn't changed, but the poll numbers have," Mr. Cruz said.
As boos and catcalls rose from factions in the Republican audience at the latest debate in South Carolina, the two, who until last night had treated each other with cordiality even as they sought to become the champion of the party's right-wing, slugged it out.
"I've spent my entire life defending the Constitution before the U.S. Supreme Court," Mr. Cruz said: "And I'll tell you, I'm not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump."
It was only the first of multiple rounds of nastiness between the two.
Mr. Cruz accused Mr. Trump, the property magnate and former TV reality star, of having "New York values" – meaning "socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro-gay-marriage, [with a] focus around money and the media," which, he said, were incompatible with the Christian conservatism at the heart of the Republican Party.
Mr. Trump defended himself and Gotham, evoking the memories of New Yorkers working in common cause after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"We rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers," Mr. Trump said in a rare moment of sentimentality. "And I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made."
The Trump-Cruz slugfest largely eclipsed the rest of the two-hour debate in a newly-narrowed – at least by Fox Business Network – field with only seven candidates remaining on the main stage.
With Carly Fiorina, the former high-tech executive and only woman running to be the Republican nominee, demoted to the undercard debate with other also-rans, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, and Rand Paul refusing to participate after being relegated to the secondary session, the main stage had only seven candidates.
Two contests are emerging. There's a battle on the right for the grassroots, Tea Party, evangelical wing of the party, with Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz running neck and neck, at least in the crucial first caucuses in Iowa on Feb. 1. Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon whose campaign is in free fall, is also seeking right-wing support.
Meanwhile, the four other so-called mainstream or establishment candidates – former Florida governor Jeb Bush, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Ohio Governor John Kasich and Florida Senator Marco Rubio – are engaged in a struggle to emerge as the centrist alternative.
That battle, too, is turning nasty.
"You already had your chance, Marco, and you blew it," Mr. Christie said as he slammed the Floridian for being part of a Congress that "consorted with Barack Obama to steal from social security."
Mr. Trump was asked if he regretted his call to ban all Muslims from entering the United States: "No," he responded flatly, to a mixed reception of boos and applause. Every other candidate backed him, albeit with some hedging, except Mr. Bush.
"All Muslims? Seriously? What kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world?" said Mr. Bush, who is seeking to follow his brother and father to the White House. Asked if he still regarded Mr. Trump's comments as "unhinged," he replied: "Yeah, they are unhinged."
A Google snap poll showed 37 per cent support of responders believed Mr. Trump won the debate, followed by Mr. Cruz with 27 per cent and Mr. Rubio with 12 per cent.
Despite the in-fighting, the Republicans vying for their party's nomination saved some of their most vicious comments for Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic presidential candidate.
"She wouldn't just be a disaster; Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being commander in chief of the United States," said Mr. Rubio. "Someone who cannot handle intelligence information appropriately cannot be commander in chief and someone who lies to the families of those four victims in Benghazi can never be president of the United States. Ever."
And Mr. Christie said another Clinton presidency, this one with the former First Lady in charge, would "lead to even greater war in this world. And remember this: After Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have had nearly eight years, we have fewer democracies in the world than we had when they started."