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With only four Republican candidates left on the stage, the Fox News GOP debate looked much more like a yelling match than anything resembling part of the democratic process.
GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, who won seven of the 11 states on Super Tuesday this week, spent the majority of the night fending off attacks (and serving up some of his own zingers).
Here are five key moments from the debate:
1. Size matters?
Thursday night Marco Rubio said he thinks that if any candidate "deserved" to be attacked, it's Donald Trump, because he's the one that dishes it out the most.
Last week John Oliver reminded the nation of Trump's weird insecurity about the size of his hands (Vox.com's Libby Nelson explains) and presumably what that means about the size of his penis. The joke that Trump has small hands became campaign fodder for rival Rubio who has taken every opportunity this past week to beat Trump at his own insults game.
That didn't change Thursday night as Rubio and Trump dove right into the debate with none other than a literal dick-measuring contest, prompting Trump to put up his hands and say:
"Look at those hands. Are they small hands? And he referred to my hands — if they're small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there's no problem, I guarantee."
The question of size didn't end there. Ten minutes later Trump referred to Rubio as "this little guy" when trying to defend his record of outsourcing factory work.
RUBIO: I have a policy question for you, sir. Let's see if he answers it.
TRUMP: I will. Don't worry about it, Marco. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it little Marco, I will.
RUBIO: Let's hear big Donald.
TRUMP: Don't worry about it, little Marco.
There you have it, little Marco and big Donald.
2. Trump gets gotchya'd by Fox
There is no question that Fox News was trying to keep Trump accountable tonight, having prepared multiple graphics calling out the presidential candidates flawed budget balancing math.
FOX NEWS: Mr. Trump, your proposed tax cut would add $10 trillion to the nation's debt over 10 years, even if the economy grows the way that you say it will. You make up for a good deal of that, you say, by cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.
TRUMP: Correct.
FOX NEWS: Like what, hand please be specific.
TRUMP: Department of Education. We're cutting Common Core. We're getting rid of Common Core. We're bringing education locally. Department of Environmental Protection. We are going to get rid are of it in almost every form.
We're going to have little tidbits left but we're going to take a tremendous amount out. We have various other things. If you look at the IRS. If you look at every single agency, we can cut it down and I mean really cut it down and save. The waste, fraud, and abuse is massive.
[...]
FOX NEWS: But Mr. Trump, your numbers don't add up. The Education Department, you talk about cutting, the total budget for the Education Department is $78 billion. And that includes Pell grants for low income students and aid to states for special education – I assume you wouldn't cut those things. The entire budget for the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, $8 billion. The deficit this year is $544 billion. That's more than a half trillion dollars. Your numbers don't add up, sir.
Trump tried to back up his math arguing that Medicare could save billions if drug prices were negotiated properly, but Fox News had a rebuttal for that as well.
"You say that medicare could save $300 billion a year negotiating lower drug prices. But medicare total only spends $78 billion a year on drugs. Sir, that's the facts. You are talking about saving more money on medicare," Fox News Moderator Chris Wallace said.
3. Trump is a world class businessman, according to Trump
Trump spent a lot of time defending his past political campaign contributions, Thursday night as Cruz repeatedly tried to grill the frontrunner on his previous support for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential run and Jimmy Carter's campaign.
Trump says it was all for business, and after all he is a "world class businessman," he said citing a "recent article somewhere" that he had read. What he didn't say was that he was citing himself in that article.
TRUMP: All of a sudden all I hear for is that I have been involved in Washington. I have been supporting people for many years. And these people have been politicians and they have been on both sides, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives. I have supported everybody. Because, until recently, I wasn't a politician, and I hope maybe you don't all consider me a politician right now. I hate the term politician. But I have been supporting politicians.
A recent article somewhere said Donald Trump is a world class businessman who goes out and he does get along with everybody. I've supported Democrats, and I've supported Republicans.
4. Then they all did some yoga
There was a lot of interrupting between Ted Cruz and Trump, and Rubio and Trump, and the moderators and Trump. Cruz tried to "calm" Trump's interruptions by telling him to breathe, resulting in a weird Rubio-inspired joke about yoga.
Earlier in the night, Trump defended his habit of flip-flopping on decisions by arguing for the need to be flexible as a leader and negotiator. Rubio took it a step further.
CRUZ: Donald, please, I know it's hard not to interrupt. Try.
TRUMP: It's not what you said in the op-ped.
CRUZ: Breathe, breathe, breathe.
TRUMP: I am, Ted.
CRUZ: You can do it. You can breathe. I know it's hard. I know it's hard. But just --
RUBIO: When they're done with the yoga, can I answer a question?
TRUMP: I really hope we don't see yoga on this stage.
RUBIO: He's very flexible, so you never know.
5. Rubio (sorta) endorses Trump
A question likely prompted by Mitt Romney's attempt Thursday to unite Republican voters against Trump, the last question posed to all the candidates, which almost brought a level of futility to the whole two-hour debate, was if the candidates would support Trump if he were the nominee.
FOX NEWS: It has been a long time since our last debate, seven months have transpired and an RNC pledge that all of you signed agreeing to support the party's nominee and not launch an independent run. Tonight, can you say you can support the nominee, even if it is Donald Trump.
RUBIO: I will support the Republican nominee. Because the Democrats have two people left in the race. One of them is a socialist. America doesn't want to be a socialist country. If you want to be, then move to a socialist country. The other one is under FBI investigation. And not only under FBI investigation, she lied to the families of the victims Benghazi and anyone who lies to family victims will never be the commander in chief.
All the candidates on the stage, including Trump, said they would endorse a Trump nominee. Looking down the delegate math, however, it sounds like the party will wind up supporting Trump, whether they like it or not.
