And Then There Were 5: The Republicans Debate In Texas

Donald Trump is an outsized presence in any GOP debate. But lately, it's not just his personality that's making big headlines — it's his lead in the Republican presidential race. And the debate tonight started with Sen. Marco Rubio taking dead aim at the real estate mogul. Here are the biggest takeaways from tonight's debate.

1. Marco Rubio takes aim at Trump

One of the big questions since Trump has taken the lead has been when Rubio would go on the attack. As it turns out, he did tonight. The debate started with a question about candidates' positions on undocumented immigrants.

Rubio took the opportunity to take a swing at Trump for the fact that undocumented Polish workers helped build Trump Tower.

Trump swung back by touting his business experience.

"I'm the only one on this stage who's hired people," Trump countered, to loud applause. He later added, "You haven't hired one person in your life."

Rubio dug in against Trump in a few other areas: the fact that four of Trump's companies have declared bankruptcy, as well as trump's inheritance. If Trump hadn't inherited millions of dollars from his father, Rubio said, he'd be "selling watches in Manhattan." And when Rubio was later able to claim that Trump was repeating himself (the source of Rubio's woes in a past debate), he was rewarded with wild applause.

2. Can the GOP win Latinos?

The Republican party knows that appealing to the Latino community is key to winning in 2016. And so moderator Maria Celeste Arraras asked Cruz if he and Rubio, both of whom are Latino, should be doing more to reaching out to Latino voters. Both of them focused on the economy as the best way to do that.

Cruz said he would make sure that "everyone who is struggling in the Hispanic community and beyond will have a fair and even shake at the American dream."

Rubio said that it's all about the free market.

"I'm going to tell you that the most powerful sentiment in the hispanic community, as it is in every immigrant community, is the burning desire to leave your children better off than yourself, and you can only do that through free enterprise," Rubio said.

Arraras then asked Trump about a Telemundo poll that showed the overwhelming majority of Hispanics view him negatively. This led to an exchange in which Trump said, "I don't believe anything Telemundo says," and then, minutes later, "I love them. I love them."

But more importantly, it gave more context to the fact that, according to entrance polls, Trump won Hispanics in the Nevada caucuses this week. Those polls, as the Washington Post's Janell Ross points out, come from a small sample (and therefore have a wide margin of error), and only represent a small fraction of Nevada's Latino population, which tends to vote heavily Democratic.

Still, Trump insisted that he would bring some of those voters across party lines in a general election.

"I'm just telling you that I will do really well with Hispanics. I will do better than anybody on this stage," he said. He added, "But I'm telling you also, I'm bringing people, Democrats over and I'm bringing independents over, and we're building a much bigger, much stronger Republican Party."

3. Kasich claims the moderate lane

The debate kicked off with Trump and Cruz taking hard lines on immigration — Trump said he'd deport undocumented immigrants but let the "good ones" back in. Cruz praised Arizona's tough immigration laws. Rubio added that he'd "secure the border" first.

When Ohio Gov. John Kasich got his chance to talk, he took a softer tone.

"I don't think we're going to tear families apart. I don't think we're going to ride around in people's neighborhoods and grab people out of their homes. I don't think — first of all, I don't think it's practical and I don't think it reflects America."

With the race largely being cast as a three-man competition these days, this is one way the Ohio governor is differentiating himself: a more moderate stance on many issues. When the topic of religious liberty came up again later, Kasich said that the Supreme Court has ruled on same-sex marriage and that he has "moved on."

"If you're in the business of commerce, conduct commerce. That's my view," he said. "And if you don't agree with their lifestyle, say a prayer for them when they leave and hope that they change their behavior."

4. Wolf Blitzer fact-checks Trump on his tax plan

Wolf Blitzer asked Trump to explain how his tax plan would work. That plan would slash federal revenues by a stunning $9.5 trillion over 10 years, according to the Tax Policy Center, a left-leaning tax policy think tank.

Trump said a "dynamic economy" would help pay for his tax plan. However, the right-leaning Tax Foundation found that even with dynamic scoring (that is, taking into account potential economic effects), Trump's plan would cost $10.1 trillion over 10 years (with static scoring, they found it would be around $12 trillion).

Trump responded that he would "get rid of so many different things," like the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency.

But Blitzer was ready with numbers, pointing out that cutting those two offices would barely begin to pay for Trump's tax plan.

Trump responded, but without specifics, saying he would "cut many of the agencies" and "balance our budget."

The question of what to cut is a key one not only for Trump but for his competitors, as many of the candidates' tax plans have the potential to cut revenues by trillions of dollars.

5. This.

Yes, Rubio went after Trump. But that's not the half of it. It was a night for fighting, with candidates throwing jabs in every direction to see what landed. Here's a minute from what may have been the most chaotic exchange of the evening.

6. It was the Trump show.

By NPR's count, Trump got by far the most talking time, with more than half an hour. The next-closest candidate, Cruz, was more than 10 minutes behind him.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit NPR.