US: GOP candidates attack Clinton, media in third debate

WASHINGTON

Republicans preferred to take on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton rather than one another in the third primary debate at the University of Colorado in Boulder Wednesday evening.

Hosted by CNBC, the debate titled "Your Money Your Vote" at the Coors Events Center was billed to focus on economic policy, but candidates unlike previous debates also attacked Clinton and the mainstream media for its alleged support to the Democratic candidate.

Republican candidates' rage at Clinton came as her polls numbers consolidated after Vice President Joe Biden announced last week that he would not run for president.

“The Democrats have the ultimate Super PAC: it’s called the mainstream media,” Florida Senator Marco Rubio said which drew considerable applause.

“Last week, Hillary Clinton went before a committee. She admitted… ‘Hey, this attack on Benghazi was caused by al Qaeda-like elements'… and yet the mainstream media is going around saying it was the greatest week of Hillary Clinton’s campaign," he added. "It was the week she got exposed as a liar.”

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina also tore into Clinton for the status of women under the Obama administration.

“It’s the height of hypocrisy for Mrs. Clinton to talk about being the first woman president when every single policy she espouses and every single policy of President Obama has been demonstrably bad for women," she said.

"Ninety-two percent of jobs lost during Barack Obama’s first term belong to women,” she added. "Three million women have fallen into poverty under this administration.”

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee went said that [Donald] Trump would be a better president than Clinton.

“Let me tell you Donald Trump will be a better president every day of the week and twice on Sunday rather than Hillary Clinton,” the former TV commentator said.

Republican candidates were also highly critical of the CNBC moderators, accusing them of being part of the mainstream media that Rubio complained about.

Ted Cruz snapped at the moderators for not asking substantive questions.

“The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media,” Cruz said. “This is not a cage match... How about talking about the substantive issues people care about?”

“And nobody watching at home believes that any of the moderators have any intention of voting in a Republican primary,” he added.

Trump also described the questions posed by CNBC moderators Becky Quick, John Harwood, and Carl Quintanilla as "nasty and ridiculous."

The candidates were also asked about their weaknesses, to which Trump responded that he trusts people very easily while Bush explained his weakness was being "impatient" and Fiorina described herself as "less smiling".

As the campaigns have a long way to go the current Republican race heated up between the real estate mogul Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

Longtime front-runner Donald Trump lost his lead for the first time in Tuesday's CBS/New York Times national poll to Carson who receives support from 26 percent of Republican primary voters against Trump’s 22 percent.

The two candidates hold almost half of the Republican votes while the rest of the candidates are still in single-digit territory.