CBS Republican Debate: Live Coverage

An analysis by the Tampa Bay Tribune’s political director went point by point through Jeb Bush’s legacy as governor of Florida. Among the points it explores: how impressive Bush’s job creation numbers were (no better than the four preceding Florida governors’) and a rise in debt during his tenure from $15 billion to $23 billion.

Everyone has his or her own view of who wins or loses a debate. We’ll have our final debate grades later on, but to me Bush has greatly improved in his one-on-ones with Trump. He clearly has gotten under Trump’s skin a number of times, and he even got a chance to talk about what at least in a 30-second sound-bite is a successful record as governor of Florida.

Donald Trump has said several times in the last couple of minutes that he has not gone bankrupt. It’s hard to determine upon what razor’s edge of semantics Trump is treading, but he has filed for bankruptcy on four separate occasions; they were all Chapter 11 reorganizations, which he has spun to the service of his deal-making message — he was just bending the law of the land to his best business interest, he says.