Republican presidential hopefuls Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush all took on the "elephant not in the room," as moderator Megyn Kelly called it, at Thursday's Fox News debate.
"Let me say, I'm a maniac and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat, and ugly," Cruz said when asked about Trump's absence. "And Ben, you're a terrible surgeon. Now that we've gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way…."
Kelly asked Cruz why he had praised Trump early in the campaign, only to describe him as the "voice of the Washington cartel" now that Trump is hitting him.
"If Donald engages in insults or anybody else, I don't intend to reciprocate," Cruz said, but added, "There's a difference between going into the mud with ad hominems. Policy and vision and record should be the meat of politics."
"I kind of miss Donald Trump. He was a little teddy bear to me," joked Bush, who has seen a brunt of attacks from Trump, who has called him "low energy."
"Everybody else was in the Witness Protection Program when I went after him on behalf of what the Republican cause should be," Bush said.
Rubio sought to move things to the issues.
"It's not about Donald Trump," Rubio said. "He's the Greatest Show on Earth. But this campaign is about the greatest country in the world and a president who has systematically destroyed many of the things that made America special."
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