Republican undercard candidates debate over immigration, Islamic State, Kim Davis

The first CNN Republican Debate Wednesday evening featured true discourse, with candidates Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), former New York Gov. George Pataki, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.) engaging with one another on issues like immigration, the Islamic State, and the Supreme Court.

The night began with moderator Jake Tapper asking Jindal if he "violated Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment" by speaking ill of a fellow Republican. Jindal said he believes Trump isn't a Republican, and isn't serious about being president: "He'll either implode in the general election, or if God forbid he was in the White House, we wouldn't know what he would do." On immigration, Santorum called for a plan that put Americans first, with Graham replying, "In my world, Hispanics are Americans." Graham said he would deport felons, and would have people in the U.S. without documents leave, pay a fine, and then return legally. He also said he would like to see an influx of legal immigrants come to the United States to put more money into programs like Social Security: "Strom Thurmond had four kids after he was 67, if you're not willing to do that, we've got to come up with a new legal immigration system."

Pataki and Santorum clashed over Kim Davis and whether the Kentucky clerk should have been fired for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Pataki said he would have fired her because "as an elected official, you take an oath of office to obey the law, all the laws. You cannot pick and choose." Santorum made a reference to Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," adding: "We have no obligation to condone and accept unjust laws. I would argue that what the Supreme Court did is against natural law [and] it's against God's law." Graham entered the fray by saying the decision is "the law as it is right now" and turned to terrorism: "Whether you're the wedding cake baker or gay couple or Baptist preacher, radical Islam would kill you all if it could. Let's not lose sight of the big picture here."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

On the Islamic State, Graham said he has a plan to "destroy radical Islam, because it has to be. These are religious Nazis running wild, and President Obama has made one mistake after another and it has caught up to us." He said if ISIS is not defeated in the Middle East, it will make its way to the United States. Santorum said he proposes sending 10,000 troops to fight ISIS, and more if necessary. "As long as they have territorial integrity, and even expand it, they have legitimacy and much of the Muslim world to call people to join their jihad here in America as well as in Iraq and Syria. So we must take their ground."

Jindal saved much of his ire for lawmakers in Washington, saying: "I think it is time to have term limits... Let's make them live under the same rules and laws they apply to the rest of us... Let's fire all of them from their current positions." After Jindal said it was "time for Republicans to have a backbone in D.C." and stand up against Planned Parenthood, Graham responded that the government should not be shut down over funding to the group. "What you're saying and what Sen. [Ted] Cruz is saying, I am really sick of hearing," he said. Graham also said, if elected president, he would never sign a budget that included funding to Planned Parenthood.