Story highlights
Donald Trump defended his campaign manager
All three candidates backed away from their pledge to support the GOP nominee
The three remaining Republican presidential candidates renewed their pitches to Wisconsin voters Tuesday night during a CNN town hall event ahead of next week’s crucial primary vote.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich took questions at a gathering hosted by CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Here are a few of the most memorable lines. (For the blow-by-blow, check out the CNN live blog.)
Ted Cruz
On whether Donald Trump should fire campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who has been charged with simple battery of a reporter: “It shouldn’t be complicated that members of the campaign staff should not be physically assaulting the press.”
Accusing Trump of planting a National Enquirer report that he had multiple affairs: “The story, on its face, quoted one person: Roger Stone. Roger Stone has been Donald Trump’s chief political adviser. He planned and ran his presidential campaign and he’s been his hatchet man – he’s spent 40 years as a hatchet man. But not only that, the head of the National Enquirer, a guy named David Pecker, is good friends with Donald Trump.”
READ: All three GOP candidates back off pledge to support GOP nominee
Explaining what he meant by calling for police to “patrol and secure” Muslim neighborhoods in the aftermath of the Brussels attack: “What it means is that we target the enemy. Now, there is a difference between Islam and Islamism. Islamism is a political and theocratic philosophy that commands its adherence to wage violent jihad, to murder or to forcibly convert all infidels. By infidels, they mean every one of the rest of us.”
On whether he’d back Trump if his rival won the nomination: “I’m not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and my family … I think nominating Donald Trump would be an absolute trainwreck, I think it would hand the general election to Hillary Clinton.”
On his preferred snacks: “Between cookies and cheese, you could have a great party there.”
Donald Trump
On whether he’d support a GOP nominee that wasn’t him: “No, I don’t anymore. … (Cruz) was essentially saying the same thing.”
On why he is defending campaign manager Corey Lewandowski despite his being charged with grabbing reporter: “I would have loved to have fired him. It would have been much easier than talking to you about this all night long … I don’t want to ruin (Lewandowski’s) life.”
On the potential danger posed by the reporter: “She had a pen in her hand, which Secret Service is not liking because they don’t know what it is, whether it’s a little bomb …”
On an earlier misstatement by Cruz: “His home state is not Florida. His home state is Texas – it may be Canada. But to the best of my knowledge it’s Texas.”
On global nuclear proliferation: “It’s going to happen anyway.”
On an image he retweeted of his wife next to Cruz’s, who was caught in an unflattering pose: “I thought it was a nice picture of Heidi.”
On his counterterrorism plans: “I think we have to be extremely vigilant in those areas, I think we need to look seriously at the mosques. Lots of things are happening in the mosques. You look at what’s going on in Paris where mosques are being closed, OK, and have to look very, very seriously.”
Describing the social media reaction, post-terror attack, to his calling Brussels a “hellhole”: “On Twitter and all over the place, they’re saying, ‘Trump was right, Trump was right!’ “
On when he can recall saying he was sorry: “I apologized to my mother years ago for using foul language.”
John Kasich
On his adviser John Weaver’s social media habits: “Sometimes he gets a little tweet-happy – and I don’t like that.”
On whether he’d have fired Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski: “Of course I would.”
On his choice of rhetoric: “I can say all kinds of things to get people stirred up, but leaders don’t do that.”
Making himself the third of three to step back from the GOP loyalty pledge: “All of us shouldn’t even have answered that question.”
On a CNN report his campaign is seeking to coordinate with the Cruz campaign in an effort to upend Trump: “No, no, I’m not involved in all the process stuff. Campaigns always talk, there’s always ways they do it. But I’m not in the middle of that. I haven’t seen Ted since the last debate, so I’m not involved in that.”