Vocabulary from the Tenth Republican Debate, February 25, 2016

The Tenth Republican debate was held on February 25, 2016 at the University of Houston. This was by far the wildest debate, with candidates talking over each other all night long, the personal attacks and mud-slinging almost outnumbering the responses to substantive questions, and the moderator losing control several times. This is the last Republican debate before Super Tuesday, when a lot of states hold primaries and several candidates' fates in the race may be decided, so no one was holding anything back on this occasion. Here are 20 vocabulary words from the Tenth Republican debate.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. cronyism
    favoritism shown to friends and associates
    When you stand up to Washington, when you honor the promise you made to the men and women who elected you and say enough with the corruption, enough with the cronyism, let's actually stand for the working men and women of this country, Washington doesn't like it.
    - Senator Ted Cruz
    Senator Cruz made this statement while defending his reputation as a "Washington Outsider" while accusing Donald Trump of wanting to be liked too much.
  2. catastrophic
    extremely harmful; bringing physical or financial ruin
    I will instruct every federal agency that the persecution of religious liberty ends today. I will rip to shreds the Iranian -- catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal.
    - Sen. Cruz
  3. lobbyist
    someone who is employed to persuade how legislators vote
    And many of these people are sitting right in the audience right now -- your lobbyist and your special interest and your donors, because the audience is packed with them, and they're packed with you.
    - Donald Trump
    Mr. Trump defended himself against the attack from Mr. Cruz that he wants to be liked too much, and contributed to many campaigns on both sides of the political aisle, with this observation about lobbyists.
  4. malleable
    capable of being shaped or bent
    There's a reason Jimmy Carter said he would support Donald over me, because he said Donald is malleable, he has no fixed set of beliefs... whereas Ted Cruz is not malleable.
    - Sen. Cruz
  5. demeaning
    causing someone to lose status or the respect of others
    But it doesn't do any good to start demeaning the neighbors, because I would love to do something with regard to negotiating peace, finally, for Israel and for their neighbors.
    - Donald Trump
  6. clobber
    defeat thoroughly and conclusively in a competition or fight
    ...one of the things I was most proud of when I ran for Senate here in Texas, I earned 40 percent of the hispanic vote here in Texas.
    At the same time, Mitt Romney was getting clobbered with 27 percent of the hispanic vote nationwide.
    -Sen. Cruz
    In response to a question about the negative perception of the Republicans running for President in the Hispanic community, Senator Cruz cited his success in getting Hispanics to vote for him.
  7. landslide
    an overwhelming electoral victory
    he [Senator Ted Cruz] lost in South Carolina so badly -- that was going to be his stronghold. He said a year ago, "I can't lose South Carolina." I beat him in a landslide. Last week in Nevada, I beat him in a landslide...
    -Donald Trump
  8. mandate
    assign under an official instruction or command
    I don't agree with the mandate and the program that's in place, but I think it's unfair that these people have gone out and invested all this money into this program and we're just going to yank it away from them.
    - Sen. Rubio
    In response to an attack by Senator Cruz that he changes positions on issues all the time, Senator Rubio defended his stance on Ethanol subsidies, saying it was unfair to end the program early. He would prefer, rather, to let the current subsidies run their course and just not renew them .
  9. cesspool
    a covered cistern for waste water and sewage
    Now, let's talk about Libya. Libya didn't go down because there was some people revolution. Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power and all these other people convinced the president to undermine Gadhafi. They undermined him, and now they have created a cesspool in Libya.
    And let me just say to you -- we have ISIS beginning get -- get a foothold in Libya. We're gonna have to deal with it.
    - Governor John Kasich
    "Cesspool" is of course used here figuratively, to mean a gigantic mess.
  10. regime
    the governing authority of a political unit
    Thirdly, we need to slap even tougher sanctions on North Korea because we really don't have the toughest sanctions on North Korea. We ought to talk about arming South Korea with ballistic missile technology. And, of course, also Japan with ballistic missile technology. Because we're now starting to take a firm position. We have the attention of the Chinese. The Chinese are the best way to calm that regime down and get them in a position of where they back off.
    - Gov. Kasich
    Governor Kasich was responding to a question about how to handle North Korea. Earlier he had said he was open to the possibility of the United States replacing North Korean leader Kim-Jong Un if such an action were realistic.
  11. transparency
    the quality of being clear
    If any of you here ever get a hospital bill, it's easier to interpret the Dead Sea scrolls than to understand your hospital bill. The fact is what we need is transparency with hospitals and with the providers.
    - Gov. Kasich
    Governor Kasich was outlining his healthcare plan here, which would replace Obamacare.
  12. dynamic
    characterized by action or forcefulness of personality
    Because the country will become a dynamic economy. We'll be dynamic again. If you look at what's going on, we have the highest taxes anywhere in the world. We pay more business tax, we pay more personal tax. We have the highest taxes in the world.
    It's shutting off our economy. It's shutting off our country. We have trillions of dollars outside that we can't get in. Yes, we will do my tax plan, and it will be great. We will have a dynamic economy again.
    - Donald Trump
  13. emulate
    strive to equal or match, especially by imitating
    Well first of all, I want people to think about what kind of leader do you want and what kind of person do you want your kids to emulate. Think about that.
    - Dr. Ben Carson
  14. indigent
    poor enough to need help from others
    The people who are indigent, how do we take care of them now? Medicaid. What's the Medicaid budget? Almost $500 billion; almost 80 million people participate, which is way too many, and that will get a lot better when we fix the economy...
    -Dr. Carson
    Dr. Carson was here providing a sketch of his healthcare plan.
  15. exodus
    a journey by a large group to escape from a hostile environment
    And, the problem with Puerto Rico is it's economy is not growing. It has a massive exodus of professionals and others that are leaving to my home state of Florida, and all over the country.
    They're coming to the mainland from Puerto Rico because the economy there is not growing, it's too expensive to do business there. The tax rate is too high. The government regulations are too extensive.
    - Sen. Rubio
  16. reiterate
    say, state, or perform again
    But, again, I just want to reiterate...I think it's fine, it's an important point that you raise and we discuss on immigration. This is a big issue for Texas, a huge issue for the country.
    But I also think that if you're going to claim that you're the only one that lifted this into the campaign, that you [Donald Trump] acknowledge that... you're only person on this stage that has ever been fined for hiring people to work on your projects illegally.
    - Sen. Rubio
    Senator Rubio attacked Donald Trump on the issue of immigration by accusing him of being so against illegal immigration on the one hand, while having a history of hiring illegal labor on the other hand.
  17. inviolate
    treated as if holy and kept free from violation or criticism
    But when it comes to the religious institutions, they are inviolate in my mind, and I would fight for those religious institutions.
    -Gov. Kasich
    Governor Kasich used this word in response to a question about the Supreme Court and whether the issue of protecting religious liberty would be of the utmost importance to him when choosing a Supreme Court nominee.
  18. omnibus
    providing for many things at once
    One thing I'd like to add to what the Governor [ Kasich] 's saying, I think that we are now in a position -- are $19 trillion dollars because of the horrible omnibus budget that was approved six weeks ago, it's going to be $21 trillion dollars. We can no longer defend all of these countries, Japan, Germany, South Korea.
    - Donald Trump
  19. zealot
    a fervent and even militant proponent of something
    Your [Donald Trump] answer on religious liberty..."you can't have one of these crazy zealots that actually believes in it, you gotta be willing to cut a deal."
    - Sen. Cruz
    Senator Cruz is rewording and interpreting Donald Trump's answer to the question about protecting religious liberty and Supreme Court nominees. Trump's answer included an attack on Cruz for standing up for his beliefs but, from Trump's point of view, getting very little done.
  20. convene
    call together
    The president of the United States should be convening a meeting, should have convened a meeting with Apple and our security forces. And then you know what you do when you're the president? You lock the door and you say you're not coming out until you reach an agreement that both gives the security people what they need and protects the rights of Americans.
    - Gov. Kasich
    Governor Kasich was asked about the conflict between Apple and the Government over access to a cell phone related to the San Bernardino attacks, which has now ended up in court. Governor Kasich has a different solution in mind.
Created on Thu Feb 25 23:19:12 EST 2016 (updated Fri Feb 26 07:58:05 EST 2016)

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