Of becoming all but unstoppable very soon. So tonight, the pressure on senators ted cruz and marco rubio, simply could not be any higher. Time running out for them to try to stop donald trump, and soon so will the delegate math. As for the backdrop, well, donald trump calling mitt romney the partys 2012 nominee a dope, his words, for questioning Donald Trumps taxes. Youve got mexicos former president , vicente fox, saying his country will not pay for any effing wall, and those are his words, as well. Youve got rubio and cruz, slamming trump in the news, which we broke first here on cnn, that the Rubio Campaign is preparing, perhaps, for a contested convention to stop either trump or cruz. It would be an understatement to say that there is a lot in play tonight and a lot at stake for the candidates on the stage tonight. Right now, lets get our chief white house correspondent, jim acosta, who is down on the debate stage for jim, what are you hearing from the campaigns, what kind of strategies should we expect from the candidates tonight . Anderson, this debate night is shaping up as Operation Take down donald trump. The gop establishment has heard the criticism. They didnt hit trump hard when they had the chance. We will see that changing tonight. The gop frontrunner will be feeling the heat from his new nearest rivals. Marco rubio and ted cruz, both are looking for a breakout moment. Rubio has stepped up his attacks on trump in recent days, saying he supports parts of obamacare. Im told by the Cruz Campaign that the texas senator has had it, had it with donald trump calling him a liar. No more taking it on the chin. This adviser says, and cruz has been more aggressive in recent days, and this adviser tells me, you will see that playing out on the stage tonight. Anderson zb anderson . And jim, speaking of attacks, donald trump fielded quite a few today. Any sense if they left a dent or may have worked in his favor. Up until now, his campaign has been dentproof. Right, you would think there would be podiums here tonight for mitt romney and vicente fox, the former mayor of mexico, but thats not the case. Donald trump has been made of teflon so far in this campaign, nothing sticks. Buts now he under siege from all sides. The last gop nominee, as you said, mitt romney, has attacked trump over his unwillingness to release his tax returns. Former romney advisers ive been talking to all day note the former Massachusetts Governor had already released his tax returns by this stage in the campaign. And one former romney aide said that mitt romney just wanted to show these candidates on the stage tonight how to hit donald trump and how to draw blood. As for the other trump side show today, that was with the former mexican president , vicente fox, who said that mexico is not going to pay for any wall, that effing wall, as you mentioned, anderson. Trump fired back on twitter, of course, saying that vicente fox owes an apology. But make no mistake, this is not a problem for donald trump, this is a gift. Its a good thing in the Republican Party right now to be attacked by the former president of mexico. Anderson . Yeah, its certainly maybe a gift for donald trump tonight. Jim acosta, thanks. I want to go next to sarah murray, who is also down on the floor here in the debate stage. Sarah, how are the candidates feeling heading into tonights debate . What are they doing to prepare . Do we know . Well, everyone has different strategies heading into debate night. And of course, this is going to be a big night for ted cruz. They know the stakes are high. They wanted to cram in a little lastminute debate prep, but this time it looked a little different than it has in the past, because in the past, rick tyler, the Communications Director that cruz fired earlier this week, plays donald trump in the mock debates. At one point, he even brought in a donald trump wig to really get everyone going. Obviously, he was not there this time around. But the cruz camp says they still feel confident going into this debate tonight. Hes home, slept in his own bed and spent some time with his family. Thats going to give him a boost, theyre hoping. As for marco rubio, he had a more lax schedule. He went to church, spent some time with his wife. Theyre being really careful not to overprepare for these debates. They do not want to have another disastrous performance like that debate in new hampshire, anderson. And donald trump, hes arrived, correct . Donald trump has made it. He is in the debate hall. His campaign is a little more tightlipped about what he does on debate days, and they dont want to ever give a hint as to what his strategy is going to be. They know theyre going to be in the crossfire, but remember, in past debates, sometimes donald trump steps back. He lets the other candidates fight it out. I dont think that marco rubio and ted cruz are going to let him get away with that strategy this time. And of course, we know that one thing that donald trump was doing today was tweeting. Anderson . No surprise there, sarah murray, thanks very much. And as we should point out, and it was just recognized here in the hall, former first lady, barbara bush, and former president george h. W. Bush are in attendance tonight. And as soon as they came in, there was everybody in the hall stood up and applauded, a standing ovation. As we wait for rnc chairman, reince priebus, to make some opening remarks tonight, im joined now by chief political analyst, Gloria Borger, and chief National Correspondent and inside politics anchor, john king. John, in terms of what these candidates need to do tonight. I mean, for marco rubio, for ted cruz, the pressure really could not be any higher. It could not be any higher. Even for john kasich, as well. We have these three candidates who say, were staying in. The establishment wants to have one alternative to trump. The establishment prefer it be rubio. They would accept casic. They dont like cruz. You have these three candidates who are struggling. Donald trump is three in one. Lets start there. And hes favored in ten of the 11 states that vote next on tuesday. Donald trump is in the drivers seat. This has his nomination to lose. And in part because these candidates left and all the others who were on the debate stage before him, so underestimated him at the top of the campaign, at the beginning of the campaign, they thought he was going to implode. So the they didnt go after him. Now they go after him out of desperation. And its a really fascinating dynamic. Gloria, do rubio and cruz have sort of a temporary detente between them in order to go after donald trump . Well, well have to see if they can walk and chew gum at the same time. Because, i think what were going to see from rubio is, he hasnt really been attacking trump. He started a little bit this week. But he has to go after trump. He has to let the voters out there know that he can stand next to trump and go toetotoe. But he still has ted cruz out there. And thats a problem for him. So, i think theyre going to have to do both. But i would look for each of them to try and go after trump. Hes going to get incoming the from all sides. And by the way, i even think, and this is going out on a limb, but i spoke with a kasich adviser, i think even john kasich might go after trump a little bit on the issues. Theres ted cruz invoked the alamo today. For him, texas is obviously incredibly important. Theres this monmouth poll now showing him with a big lead in the state of texas, but he cant take that for granted. No one should take anything for granted. Ted cruz needs a victory. He did win iowa, but ted cruz won the next three. Ted cruz makes the case he is the only candidate whos beaten donald trump. Thats a fact. But trump has won the next three since then and won the next two quite divisively, South Carolina and nevada. So cruz needs to win. In an odd way, its an interesting dynamic. Donald trump almost wants ted cruz to win texas. If donald trump can win everything else, if cruz wins texas, hell stay in the race. If youre marco rubio, you might want to try to knock ted cruz down some tonight. Its an odd game of pool and chess, but if youre marco rubio, you want cruz to lose texas. So rubios not going to win texas. So then do you want to if you take cruz down if youre marco rubio, you actually want donald trump to have a great next tuesday, so that cruz is gone when you get to florida, the tuesday after two tuesdays after that. Thats the problem for marco rubio. Its, you know, theyre all in this game now where theyre so far behind, theyre trying come up with these fantasy football scores to come back. Even if cruz does win the state of texas, still the path forward, it doesnt really necessarily change the path forward. And thats why if i were trump, i would want trump to win. Its poerproportional. So let cruz win a little bit, and then let him get some delegates, and keep him in the race, keep rubio in the race. And that way, you dont need to get to 50 . You can keep winning, and you dont have to look over your shoulder very much. And this could be over much sooner than a lot of people earlier had thought it would be. Mathematically, no, it takes a while to get to a majority, 1283 delegates, but go back to prior campaigns. When george w. Bush in 2000, mccain beat him in new hampshire, bush recovered in South Carolina, and it was over. It was psychologically, it was over. He had to prove it in the next couple of contests. You know, mitt romney lost South Carolina to Newt Gingrich last time, but rebounded by winning florida and a bunch of other states, and it was over. You knew it was going to go on a little bit. Santorum ended up winning a few states, but you knew it was over. If trump were to win everything on super tuesday, just sweep every he would only have, at most, every delegate, 55 of the delegates. He wouldnt be there. So, theres still a race. Theres still a race. But hes leading almost everywhere. Yeah. Hes a little behind in texas with cruz. Cruz has a healthy lead in texas. We can assume, lets assume, although we have a few days. Lets assume that cruz wins his home state. Trumps ahead everywhere else. You have to change its not just about winning look, for survival purposes, for fundraising purposes, cruz needs to win a state, kasich needs to win ohio if he waits that long. Thats for fundraising and survival purposes. But to change the fundamental dynamic of the race, they need something much bigger than that, which is why if youre going to find an achilles heel in donald trump, if he has one, that stage tonight is the best opportunity before a boat load of states vote. And yet, every debate in which candidates have said, if he has a bad debate, perhaps that will be a stumble. Have been if hes had a debate that hasnt been his best, it hasnt seemed to matter. His supporters are solid. If you look at all of our exit polls, they decided a long time ago, theyre with him. No matter what. Whats interesting is, the late deciders tend to break towards marco rubio, so if rubio has a good performance tonight, this is really important to him. I think in a way its more important to marco rubio than donald trump. Because donald trump isnt going to lose his solid core of supporters. They are with him, they decided months ago, and theyll be with him no matter what. We just the audience was just listening to the head of the university of houston. Right now, the chairman of the Republican National committee, reince priebus, is coming out. Were going to take his comments right here. Lets listen in. I want to thank you for being here. You all make this happen. Youre not just the volunteers, the folks that pay the bills, and everything in between, whats happening here tonight, these folks are competing to see who the nominee is going to be for our party. Theyre going to join our party. Its an honor to be here to put on another debate. Weve got great partners at cnn. Obviously, the university of houston. Its an honor to be with mrs. Bush and president bush. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. Obviously, with the president s accomplishments, you may remember, he was also chairman of the rnc. Mr. President , how would you like to be president of the rnc now . Fun times. Thank you, sir. A Competent National party is for everybody. It doesnt matter who youre for in this audience. Do we have to have a Competent National party, that has its act together on the ground, that has its data operations sound, a party that knows how to turn out voters and message to them better. Theres nothing controversial about that at all. Our commitment to you is to have a Republican National committee thats ready for whoever the nominee is, that they can plug into something much better than it was in 2012. Thats what weve built, thats what were going to continue to do. And were going to do it to win, not just for our party, but obviously, for our country. So god bless you and thank you for joining us tonight. [ cheers and applause ] well, just ahead as we count down to the debate, more on marco rubio and ted cruz, taking aim at donald trump. Theyre using phrases like loud, rattled, out of control, their words, even comparing him to p. T. Barnum. The question is, will it work . More, ahead. Im savin you five hundred coming soon from progressive, its savin u, the new hit single from the dizzcounts. Cash money the Biggest Discount and understand. The dizzcounts. Safe driver, paperless, paidinfull, multicar and joey fatone. Savin you five hundred im savin you five hundred we have autotune, right . Oh, yeah. Thats a hit all yeah choose, choose, choose. But at bedtime. Why settle for this . Enter sleep number and the ultimate sleep number event going on now. Sleepiq technology tells you how well you slept and what adjustments you can make. You like the bed soft. Hes more hardcore. So your sleep goes from good to great to wow only at a sleep number store, all beds on sale. Right now find our c2 Queen Mattress starting at only 599. 99. Know better sleep with sleep number. Welcome back here to the university of houston. We are now in the final runup to the debate. Were expecting to see senators ted cruz and marco rubio take dead aim at the frontrunner, donald trump. Over the past few days, we may have already gotten a preview. Take a look. It cant just be about electing the loudest person in the room, because that alone will not solve the problem. Wow, it sounds like donald is really getting worried and getting scared. Every day he tosses out a new insult. The more rattled he gets, the more he loses control. And the more engages in personal attacks. We cant be fooled by p. T. Barnum. The time for the clowns and the acrobats and the dancing bears has passed. With me again is john king and Gloria Borger and i want to bring in our political commentators, former cruz Communications Director, amanda carpenter, and former Reagan White House political director, jeffrey lord, who supports donald trump. When you heard the former president of mexico, vicente fox, using an epithet about donald trump, about him not paying for Donald Trumps wall on the mexico border, about some of the other comments he made about donald trump, did you just smile and think, that is the greatest gift donald trump could have received today . That is exactly right, anderson. I mean, i suspect somebody in the Trump Campaign is already looping that, over and over and over again to be played repeatedly. I mean, what greater gift could there possibly be had, other than being attacked by mitt romney . Amanda, if you were ted cruz tonight or marco rubio, do you try to score points on Donald Trumps taxes . Do you try to go after donald trump or even talk about Donald Trumps record . Or do you continue kind of aiming fire at each other . The thing thats really tricky this late in the game is that you really have to define donald trump as a person. Before previously, earlier debates may have been the time to go after him on smaller, ticky tacky issues. But right now with super tuesday right around the corner, i think you have to go right at Donald Trumps credibility possibly as a commander in chief, which is a tricky thing to do. It has to do with his character, his temperament. Can he use some of these smaller issues, like his tax returns, that hes not being upfront or disclosing things, that he might be hiding something to get there, possibly . But its going to be tricky, thats why the stakes in this debate have so high. Anderson, i just think that go ahead. I think at this point, after all of these debates and the results that have come in, in iowa, new hampshire, South Carolina, nevada, boy, what more is there to be said here . I think people are really enthuse about him, and i think theyre making up their minds pretty fast. Well, john, to that point, its not as if donald trump is an unknown actor. I mean im not using the word actor in any snide way. That hes not an unknown candidate in this. Hes not some candidate that has just emerged. People know who donald trump is. Whether you like him or not, you know who he is. And its like a celebrity they think they know him, even if they dont know him. And he has this rare mix. Hes a reality tv star, but hes also a celebrity businessman before that. Hes everywhere in our life. Hes in our politics, hes in our pop culture, and he has this platform. And the mistake the other candidates made is that they didnt take him seriously early on, and as gloria noted earlier, trumps support, the cement is drying. His core supporters are tight with him. And hes just proved in nevada he can grow a little bit. Even if he goes back to being in the mid30s, as long as tuscaloosa four or five candidates in the race, thats fine for him. And in these early states, they can rack up the delegates. What mitt romney did, mitt romney knew he would get rid of for that. He did it anyway. Because hes frustrated. Hes essentially saying, hey, guys, let me teach you how to throw a punch punch. Youve let this gone too far. You shouldnt be waiting a couple of days before super tuesday, where you might fall so hopelessly behind you cant catch up. Its interesting, so many people have tried to define donald trump and hes resisted all efforts. Nikki haley said, hes the angry guy, and he said, i am angry. Ill be the angry candidate. Others have tried to say, hes a flipflopper. He said, look, i was playing the game that ive played the game, i know how not to be vulnerable to anybody else whos trying to game me. Even on taxes, hes inoculated himself by saying, look, i try to pay the lowest tax rate i can possibly pay. Which is not you know, mitt romney had some problems on that front, because his tax rate was lower, because it was investment income. So i think in many ways, what amanda was talking about, the character, the temperament, all those i think its been thrown at him. Maybe they can figure out a way to do it differently this time, but i think theyve been throwing it at him, and nothing has really stuck before. The question i had is whether trump is going to try to sit on his lead or whether he is going to respond in kind, or which i assume he will, or throw punches of his own this time. And jeffrey, the other question which gloria has raised and john has raised is, how aggressively does donald trump compete in texas . Does he, in fact, just strategically, is there an advantage for him to have ted cruz win in texas, so that ted cruz stays in the race and keeps the field divided . You know, its sort of an automatic win for donald trump. If ted cruz wins in texas, hes the senator from texas. Of course he should win texas. Marco rubio should carry florida. John kasich should carry ohio. If you cant carry your own state, youre not going to be much use as a president ial candidate outside of your state. Amanda, as we mentioned, cruz leading in texas. Trump, though, leading in virginia, leading in florida, other key states, in march. If you were cruz, do you focus all your time and all your resources in texas over the next few days . Because as jeffrey just said, if he wins, some people say, okay, well, he should have won this state, or do you try to make gains elsewhere . Sure. Texas clearly has always, before donald trump started doing so well, was always a key part of ted cruzs march for a southern strategy. This was a map that was built really for ted cruz, nobody anticipated what donald trump is going to do. Clearly, cruz is going to make a play there. Hes made no bones about it. He said, next week is very important for the campaign. The thing thats important for tonight and march 1st is building momentum, to stop the donald trump chase. So clearly, if something can happen tonight to make donald trump seem less inevitable going into super tuesday, that certainly puts the wind at cruzs back. For john kasich, for ben carson, i mean, what is the path forward for them . For kasich, it just seems, try to hold on until you get to ohio, michigan, some of these other states. Theres not a state on the map that ben carson has a prayer of winning. So ben carson is staying in the race for ben carsons reasons, to build his identity, to build a movement, maybe, to build the conversation in conservative circles after the race. Kasich staying in to try to say, they keep telling me to get out, marco rubio hasnt won a state, why are you telling me to get out. Well see what happens on march 15th. The interesting point is, this all plays out, were talking about this candidate chess is, what happened to the Republican Party. Most of these candidates, and all the big money in the Republican Party that could have funded super pac ads from the beginning against donald trump, theyre afraid of him. Where are the millions of dollars being spent against donald trump. Where are the attack ads, in a consistent, coherent way against donald trump. Theres a hostile takeover of the Republican Party, by donald trump, hes succeeding. Hes about to take over this party that doesnt like him and doesnt want him, and they havent really done much to fight it. Remember early on in this race, they got a pledge from donald trump, not to run as an independent. Right. Now, it looks like donald trump is going to be their nominee, and maybe someone else can mount an independent bid. Funny how things work in politics. Its amazing, what has happened in the last several months. An extraordinary transition, what we are seeing, and no doubt, extraordinary, tonight we are going to see, in just a few minutes from here, i want to thank john king, Gloria Borger, i want to thank our commentators, amanda commenter, and jeffrey lord. So much to watch for over the next several hours. We are going to be on after the Republican Debate. Well talk much more about the cnn Republican Debate which begins right after this short break. A models hair is the ultimate test for care. 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In the heart of texas, the final gop debate before a primary night blockbuster. On to super tuesday i need your votes. Voters in nearly a dozen states could tip the scales of the republican race, just five days from now. If youre not going to vote for me, do not vote. Tonight, the republican candidates in a hardhitting clash of ideas, appealing to voters all a