On Jan 15, seven Republican presidential candidates took to the stage for their first GOP debate of 2016. This debate was slightly different because it was hosted by Fox News Network rather than CNN. Not all candidates were pleased with how the debate turned; Ben Carson complained that the debate’s format had to be changed since the debate was meant to familiarize the candidates with the public yet it turned into a comedy show where candidates fought back and forth. However, the debate was not a walk in the park for candidate, Donald Trump due to candidate, Ted Cruz repeatedly questioning Trump on decisions and actions he has made in the past. The overall focus of the debate was on the two top candidates Trump and Cruz and less focus was given to retired neurosurgeon, Ben Carson.

Trump controlled the stage and with his ability to efficiently answer questions in a way that riled up the crowd and offered plenty of comedic facial expressions to get a few laughs from the audience. Cruz wanted to steal Trump’s spotlight by criticizing him with this statement: “Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan,” implying that Trump is not a good candidate for the conservative Republican party. Trump took Cruz’s accusation as an opportunity to gain the crowd’s favor and said that the conservatives had “rebuilt Manhattan” after the 9/11 attacks. Cruz’s statement was not only offensive to Trump but to all people who identify as a conservative in New York.

Some argue that Cruz also happened to make many good points and that he was the star of the show. Cruz and Trump are known to be relatively good friends off the debate stage so the audience was a little shocked to see how they were arguing back and forth. Trump made a remark regarding Cruz’s birthplace of Canada and insisted that he was not qualified to run for presidency since all presidential candidates must be a natural born citizen. However, Cruz did responded by sarcastically saying “I’m glad we’re focusing on the important topics of the evening,” and even brought up a law which says that the child of a US citizen born abroad is a natural-born citizen which dismissed Trump’s claim completely.

“The whole debate was basically Cruz trying to make Trump look like a terrible candidate and it got redundant,” freshman Lorena Gonzalez said.

Despite Cruz’s fierce attempts to make Trump look bad, Trump still held first place not only in this debate but also in the polls and he is projected to do very well in the next debate.