Intro:
The top polling Republican candidates for President of the United States faced off in a debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday night. The war against Da'esh took center stage, as all nine discussed American national security in their fifth debate together. Lorna Shaddick was listening.
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Script:
As viewers got ready for Tuesday night's debate at the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas, they were primed for a showdown…between frontrunner Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who's been catching up with him in the polls and shares his right-wing fan base.
Once the debate got started, Mr Trump WAS on the defensive, but it was former Florida governor Jeb Bush taking him on most forcefully, especially over that recent call to bar Muslims from entering the US:
SOT: Jeb Bush, Republican Presidential Candidate
Donald, you know, is great at -- at the one-liners, but he's a chaos candidate. And he'd be a chaos president. He would not be the commander in chief we need to keep our country safe.
SOT - Donald Trump, Republican Presidential Candidate
Jeb doesn't really believe I'm unhinged, he said that very simply because he has failed in this campaign, it's been a total disaster.
This was the first debate since the terror attacks in Paris and California, and the candidates squared off how they would deal with immigration, surveillance and fighting Da'esh on its home turf. For Ted Cruz, the answer was simple - more airstrikes.
SOT: Ted Cruz, Republican Presidential Candidate
You would carpet bomb where ISIS is, not a city, but the location of the troops. You use air power directed, and you have embedded special forces to direct the air power. But the object isn't to level the city, the object is to kill the ISIS terrorists.
But he came to sometimes testy verbal blows with Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who's vying for his status as the alternative-to-Trump, over whether to support the bulk collection of Americans' phone records, and over budget cuts:
SOT: Marco Rubio, Republican Presidential Candidate, in response to Cruz's military voting record
Three times he voted against the Defence Authorisation Act, which is a bill that funds the troops, that also by the way funds the Iron Dome, and other important programmes, and I have to assume that if you vote against it in the Senate, you would also veto it as president.
Some argue this debate isn't so significant as it's during the holiday season, when voters aren't watching. But midranking candidates like Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina need all the airtime they can get if they're to have a breakthrough moment before the end of the year.