Here’s what GOP candidates have said about one another and the issues since the last debate

If you missed the first Republican presidential debate last month, not to worry. The second go-round on Wednesday is shaping up to be even more contentious and, dare we say it, entertaining.

One candidate in particular will be in the crosshairs.

Since the first debate in Cleveland, front-runner Donald Trump has taken shots at several of the other candidates – Carly Fiorina, Rand Paul and Ben Carson among them – who have signaled that they’re ready to fire back on the debate stage.

“I don’t think Ben has the energy,” Trump said over the weekend at a rally in Iowa.

“Ben is a nice man, but when you’re negotiating against China and you’re negotiating against these Japanese guys that are going to come against you in waves, and they think we’re all a bunch of jerks ’cause our leaders are so stupid and so incompetent and so inept, we need people that are really smart, that have tremendous deal-making skills and that have great, great energy.”

Here’s a quick look at what the candidates have been saying about one another – and more importantly issues such as immigration, Planned Parenthood and now-infamous Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis – since the last debate.

Did someone say something about building a wall between the United States and Canada?

The main debate starts at 7 p.m. and will be shown on CNN.

Donald Trump

1. “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president. I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not s’posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?” Trump to Rolling Stone about Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlitt-Packard.

He said later he wasn’t referring to Fiorina’s looks. “I’m talking about persona,” he told anyone who would listen.

2. “It will when it’s appropriate. I will know more about it than you know, and believe me, it won’t take me long ... I will be so good at the military, your head will spin.” Trump to conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, who asked questions about foreign affairs that Trump couldn’t answer. Trump accused Hewitt of asking “gotcha” questions.

3. “You have to go with it. The decision’s been made, and that is the law of the land.” Trump on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” about Davis.

Carly Fiorina

1. “Ladies, look at this face. This is the face of a 61-year-old woman. I am proud of every year and every wrinkle.” Fiorina’s response to Trump’s insult as she addressed the National Federation of Republican women in Arizona. She turned her words into a campaign ad aimed at women voters.

2. “It’s interesting how many politicians go to Washington promising change. Governors have done it, senators have done it. Not a one of them has actually changed a thing. I will respectfully say that being a politician doesn’t seem to work very well either with the legislature.” Fiorina to a crowd in New Hampshire about how her time as CEO of Hewlett-Packard makes her uniquely qualified for the presidency.

3. “When you are a government employee as opposed to say, an employee of another kind of organization, then in essence, you are agreeing to act as an arm of the government. And, while I disagree with this court’s decision, their actions are clear. And so I think in this particular case, this woman now needs to make a decision ... Is she prepared to continue to work for the government, be paid for by the government in which case she needs to execute the government’s will, or does she feel so strongly about this that she wants to severe her employment with the government and go seek employment elsewhere where her religious liberties would be paramount over her duties as as government employee.” Fiorina on Davis.

Jeb Bush

1. “I would build a wall between the United States and Iran, and make Mexico pay for it!” Bush doing a Trump impersonation on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

2. “I’m proud that my children and grandchildren are Hispanic.” Bush, in Spanish, in a new campaign video called “Todos Somos Americanos” – “We Are All Americans.”

3. Davis “is sworn to uphold the law and it seems to me there ought to be common ground, there ought to be big enough space for her to act on her conscience and for, now that the law is the law of the land, for a gay couple to be married in whatever jurisdiction that is.” Bush to supporters at a town hall event in New Hampshire.

Scott Walker

1. “@HillaryClinton Actually, we’re protecting the American worker from being forced to support candidates like you.” Walker’s tweet on Monday to Hillary Clinton, who tweeted that the anti-union governor’s “attacks on unions and workers’ rights aren’t leadership – they’re bullying.”

2. “Some people have asked us about that in New Hampshire. They raised some very legitimate concerns, including some law enforcement folks that brought that up to me at one of our town hall meetings about a week and a half ago. So that is a legitimate issue for us to look at.” Walker on “Meet the Press” suggesting that it is just as “legitimate” to discuss building a wall separating the United States from Canada as it is talking about a wall on the Mexico border. He later clarified he was talking about beefing up federal patrols.

3. “It’s a balance that you’ve got to have in America between the laws that are out there, but ultimately ensuring the Constitution is upheld. I read that the Constitution is very clear, that people have the freedom of religion. That means you have the freedom to practice your religious beliefs out there.” Walker to radio host Laura Ingraham on whether Davis should be forced to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

Ben Carson

1. “I haven’t heard it, I haven’t seen it. You know, one of my favorite, Proverbs 22:4, it says: ‘By humility and the fear of the Lord, are riches and honor and life.’ And that’s a very big part of who I am. Humility, and fear of the Lord. I don’t get that impression with him. Maybe I’m wrong.” Carson last week talking about Trump’s faith. He later apologized.

2. “Until we seal our borders everything else is irrelevant. ... But let’s say we get them sealed, because certainly in a Carson administration that would be done within the first year. You also turn off the spigot that dispenses the goodies, so that people don’t have any incentive to come here. Then those who are here, we have to recognize that we can’t just round them up, but we can give them an opportunity to register. I would give them a six-month period. If they register, and if they have a pristine record, they haven’t been causing problems, I would give them an opportunity to become guest workers — not citizens, not voting people, not people who get goodies. I think that would be a fair way to do it.” Carson shared his immigration plan on “Face the Nation” over the weekend.

3. “You make $10 billion, you pay a billion. You make $10, you pay one (dollar).” Carson explaining his 10 percent flat tax plan based on tithing.

Ted Cruz

1. “I give you my solid word that every justice I put on the Supreme Court will be a jurist committed to following the Constitution and not acting as a philosopher king imposing his or her will on the American people.” Cruz bashing Supreme Court justices who legalized same-sex marriage and did not strike down “Obamacare.”

2. “Any commander-in-chief worthy of defending this nation should be prepared to stand up on Jan. 20, 2017 and rip to shreds this catastrophic deal.” Cruz, appearing last week at a Washington rally with Trump, on the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran.

3. “This is not America.” Cruz’s statement when Davis was jailed in Kentucky.

Marco Rubio

1. “I honestly think we don’t need a Department of Education.” The Florida senator last week during a town hall meeting in Nevada.

2. “Look, I don’t have anything against Florida State. I think there has to be a school where people that can’t get into Florida can go to college. And that’s why we have Florida State.” Rubio, a Florida grad, smack-talking about FSU in an Iowa radio interview, which led to this from FSU president John Thrasher: “He’s a nice kid. I’m sure he’s frustrated by his low standing in the polls, which I believe could be a reflection of where he got his education.”

3. “While the clerk’s office has a governmental duty to carry out the law, there should be a way to protect the religious freedom and conscience rights of individuals working in the office.” Rubio on Davis.

Mike Huckabee

1. “Are they really escaping tyranny, are they escaping poverty, or are they really just coming because we’ve got cable TV?” Arkansas’ former governor telling conservatives in St. Louis over the weekend why they should be skeptical of letting more Syrian refugees into the country.

2. “... the Dred Scott decision of 1857 still remains to this day the law of the land which says that black people aren’t fully human. Does anybody still follow the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision?” Huckabee’s historically incorrect statement while defending Davis. That Supreme Court ruling, which concluded no black person, free or slave, could be a full citizen of the United States, was overturned by the 14th amendment.

3. “Lock me up if you think that’s how freedom is best served, because folks, I am willing to spend the next eight years in the White House leading this country but I want you to know, I’m willing to spend the next eight years in jail.” Huckabee standing next to Davis last week.

John Kasich

1. “When you shut the government down, people don’t like it. And you shouldn’t shut it down unless you have a great chance of success.” On conservatives’ talk to force defunding of Planned Parenthood by shutting down the government. Kasich believes the group should be defunded but sees it as a losing battle as long as President Obama is in office.

2. “I’ve been preparing for debates for 30 years. The most important thing for me is to just be relaxed and have some fun up there. In some ways it’s an unfair way to pick somebody to be president. I’m not sure Harry Truman would do well in the debates, but it’s what we have.” Kasich on Wednesday night’s debate.

3. “We have bigger fish to fry in terms of the whole issue of faith.” Kasich, who supports “traditional marriage,” telling Fox News that he’s worried that the Davis case will alienate people from religion.

Chris Christie

1. “Look, I’ve watched this Jeb Bush-Donald Trump food fight. Let me clue them in on something: Nobody cares.” Christie expressing frustration to Fox News host Megyn Kelly over the attention Trump and Bush are getting.

2. “You have absolutely no idea! You have no idea, as you sit here today, that he did anything wrong, nor does anybody else… Stop reading the newspapers.” Christie hitting back at “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd who asked what the “Bridgegate” controversy surrounding people who work for him – including David Wildstein of the Port Authority – says about his judgment.

3. “People have a right to practice their religion. Now, I’ve said what I would do with this woman is to move her to another job where this is not an objection for her. Because you have to follow the law. And the law has to be these licenses have to be issued.” On the Davis case.

Rand Paul

1. “The media continues to reinforce a celebrity that really doesn’t have qualifications for office and in fact would alarm me if he were in charge of our nuclear weapons ... And there is a danger that if we continue to laud so much attention on basically someone whose level of discourse is that of junior high, I think there’s a problem, there’s a great risk for the country.” Paul to Politico about front-runner Trump.

2. “When I saw all of those undercover videos ... I vowed to do everything I could to strip them of every last dime of taxpayer dollars.” Paul, announcing that he’s sent out an email asking more than 100,000 Christian pastors “to help mobilize the grassroots pressure it’s going to take to force the Senate to strip Planned Parenthood” of taxpayer funding.

3. “A lot of people have talked about this for years — why not just privatize marriage? Have it in the churches, and people will just go to definition they agree with. But people won’t be forced to acknowledge a definition they don’t agree with.” Paul, concerned about Davis being jailed, said the legalization of same-sex marriage threatened to make her a “martyr.”

This story was originally published September 15, 2015 at 1:46 PM with the headline "Here’s what GOP candidates have said about one another and the issues since the last debate."