The gloves came off in last night’s Republican debate, the last, as Super Tuesday looms on the horizon for the contenders for the Republican nomination to the GOP ticket, as presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio shed his gloves and came out swinging at front-runner and businessman, Donald Trump.

After the opening remarks, civility was discarded as the conversation turned to immigration. Rubio came out and traded the first barbs with Trump, pointing out that Trump had hired people from other countries to fill jobs in the state of Florida instead of hiring U.S. citizens. But, Trump responded, saying, “I’ve hired in various parts of Florida during the absolute prime season, like Palm Beach and other locations, you could not get help. It’s the up season. People didn’t want to have part-time jobs.”

Rubio shot back with “I think people in Florida would be surprised, because, in fact, the article that was today, they interviewed a number of people that would have been willing to do those jobs, if you would have been willing to hire them to do it.”

Rubio continued, pointing out the case of reported illegal hiring of Polish workers that demolished the buildings on the property where the Trump Tower currently stands, saying, “You hired some workers from Poland…” He was quickly cut off by Trump, who said, “No, no, I’m the only one on the stage that’s hired people. You haven’t hired anybody. Trump went on to say, “And by the way, I’ve hired — and by the way, I’ve hired tens of thousands of people over at my job. You’ve hired nobody.” Trump then made a comment about Rubio’s credit card problems before calling Rubio a liar.[xyz-ihs snippet=”adsense-body-ad”]

Rubio continued to push on the subject, saying, “He hired workers from Poland, and he had to pay a million dollars or so in a judgement.” Which Trump immediately replied, “That’s wrong. That’s wrong. Totally wrong!”

Rubio responded with, “That’s a fact. People can look it up. I’m sure people are Googling it right now. Look it up. “Trump Polish workers,” you’ll see a million dollars for hiring illegal workers on one of his projects. He did it.”

Then Trump repeated himself saying, “I’ve hired tens of thousands of people over my lifetime. Tens of thousands…” Rubio shot back, “Many from other countries instead of hiring Americans.” To that Trump said, “Be quiet. Just be quiet. Let me talk. I’ve hired tens of thousands of people. He brings up something from 30 years ago, it worked out very well. Everybody was happy.”

Rubio said, “You paid a million dollars.”

Wolf Blitzer then posed a question to Republican candidate and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, asking, “Senator Cruz, you say you want to deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants, but you never want to allow them to come back to the United States. What would happen to the children who are U.S.- born citizens whose parent will be deported under your plan?”

Cruz replied, “Well, existing law provides that those who are deported cannot come back here legally. U.S. citizens can come back. That’s existing law.” Then anxious to land a blow himself on the front-runner Donald Trump, who leading in the race, had center stage between Rubio and Cruz, continued with, “When I ran for Senate here in the state of Texas, I ran promising to lead the fight against amnesty, promising to fight to build a wall. And in 2013, when I was fight against the “gang of eight” amnesty bill, where was Donald? He was firing Dennis Rodman on “Celebrity Apprentice.” Continuing, Cruz stated, “If you look at the eight members of the Gang of Eight, Donald gave over $50,000 to three Democrats and two Republicans. And when you’re funding open border politicians, you shouldn’t be surprised when they fight for open borders.”

In his defense to Cruz’s remark, Trump said, “I’ve had an amazing relationship with politicians — with politicians both Democrat, Republican, because I was a businessman. As one magazine said, he’s a world-class businessman; he was friendly with everybody. I got along with everybody.”

Blitzer then turned the questions to first Governor Kasich, asking him, “Governor Kasich, the idea — you’ve said this, and I want to quote you now: “The idea that we’re going to deport all these people is ludicrous and everybody knows it.” Those are your words. Should people be allowed to break the law just because it’s not feasible to stop them?

Kasich defended his position, bringing up the 41st president, George Bush, as well as former President Ronald Reagan, and their strategy of a path to legalization, before saying, The answer is you complete the border. You let people know that once it’s done, you don’t have a right to come in. If you come in, we don’t want any excuse. You’re going to go back. But I favor a guest worker program. I think it’s practical. And I think for the 11 million or 11.5 million Americans — the illegals that are here, if they have not committed a crime since they’ve been here, I’d make them pay a fine, some back taxes, maybe some community service. And at the end, I’d give them a path to legalization, but not a path to citizenship.”

Then Blitzer turned to Dr. Carson, and querying him on his criticism of mass deportation to which Carson replied, “I believe in liberty and justice for all. I think everything that we do should be fair. And I’ve already described — you know, how we can secure the border. We need to secure all the borders, because it’s not just people coming in from South America and Mexico, but there are terrorists who want to destroy us, who are getting across our borders fairly easily. And we have to stop that. But in terms of the people who are here already, after we — after we stop the illegal immigration, we need to be reasonable. And I would give them a six-month period in which to get registered as a guest worker, assuming that they have an acceptable record. They have to pay a back-tax penalty, have to pay taxes going forward, but they don’t have to live underground anymore. And I think they do not become American citizens, they do not vote.”

As Kasich and Carson replied to their questions, Trump looked visibly bored and Kasich and Carson’s responses were largely ignored by the three top contenders.

Then the  questions turned back to Trump with Blitzer bringing up the subject of the construction of a wall between Mexico and the U.S. and Trump’s previous statements that he would have Mexico pay for it. He then said, The spokesperson for the current president of Mexico says that will never happen. The last two presidents of Mexico say that will never happen. In fact, the former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox — he said today, and I’m quoting him — he said, “I’m not going to pay for that,” quote, “effing wall.”

Then Blitzer continued, asking Trump, So if you don’t get an actual check from the Mexican government for $8 billion or $10 billion or $12 billion, whatever it will cost, how are you going to make them pay for the wall?” Trump’s response? “I will, and the wall just got 10 feet taller, believe me.” Saying he saw the statement on tv, Trump added, “This guy used a filthy, disgusting word on television, and he should be ashamed of himself, and he should apologize, OK?” Making this statement in spite of the fact that he himself has made many statements with as colorful language in the past.

Rubio stated as Trump finished his comments on trade wars with Mexico, “A couple points. If he builds the wall the way he built Trump Towers, he’ll be using illegal immigrant labor to do it. The second…” Trump interrupted, saying, “What a cute sound bite.” Rubio added, “But it — no, it’s not a sound bite. It’s a fact. Again, go online and Google it. Donald Trump, Polish workers. You’ll see it.The second thing, about the trade war — I don’t understand, because your ties and the clothes you make is made in Mexico and in China. So you’re gonna be starting a trade war against your own ties and your own suits?”

The schoolyard verbal tussle continued as Trump continually pointed out that Rubio didn’t know a thing about business and lost at everything, calling Rubio “a lousy businessman.”

In response, Rubio brought up Trump’s four bankruptcies and Trump University, quickly jabbing at Trump, saying, Well, I don’t know anything about bankrupting four companies. You’ve bankrupted..” Ignoring Trump’s attempts to interrupt, Rubio then said, I don’t know anything about starting a university, and that was a fake university. There are people who borrowed $36,000…to go to Trump University, and they’re suing now…$36,000 to go to a university…that’s a fake school….and you know what they got? They got to take a picture with a cardboard cutout of Donald Trump…”

Trumps reply? “I’ve won most of the lawsuits.”

“Here’s a guy — here’s a guy that buys a house for $179,000, he sells it to a lobbyist who’s probably here for $380,000 and then legislation is passed.” Trump said to the audience. Continuing, ” You tell me about this guy. This is what we’re going to have as president.”

Rubio came back with, Here’s a guy that inherited $200 million. If he hadn’t inherited $200 million, you know where Donald Trump would be right now? Selling watches in Manhattan.”

Trump at times threw insults at his two rivals.  At one point in the debate, Trump, said as he pointed at Rubio and Cruz, “This guy’s a choke artist. And this guy’s a liar.”

While there also was a lot of meat in the continuing debate that spanned the Hispanic vote, the selection of a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia, religious liberty, abortion and health care, the main takeaway from last night’s debate was the continued efforts by Rubio to put Trump on the defensive and slash at the massive support that Trump seems to have with the American voters.

Trump has had an easy ride up until last night, but Rubio finally took off the gloves and came out hard against Trump, and Rubio it seems, came out as the winner of the Thursday debate, but is it too late with a slew of major primaries just days away?[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adversal-468×60″]

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