GOP Debate: Rivals Try To Take Down Trump As He Slings Insults

The GOP's 11th debate reached a fever pitch on Thursday, with Republican rivals piling on Donald Trump as he slung back insults instead.

Pressed by Fox News Channel moderators about the name-calling that has gone on between him and Marco Rubio in recent days, Trump immediately took issue with a characterization that the Florida senator had made about his "small hands."

"If they're small then something else must be small. I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee you," Trump responded, an allusion to his manhood.

While Trump apologized for referring to Rubio as a "lightweight" before, he kept knocking Rubio as "little Marco" in another not-so-veiled attack at the other man.

That set the tone for the rest of the evening so far, with Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz trying to take on Trump and stop him in anyway, even as they declined to take hits against each other.

Trump was assailed on his positions on immigration, pressed by both the moderators and his rivals in the wake of a Buzzfeed report that he had told the New York Times in an off the record conversation he was willing to moderate some of his hard-line positions.

"I'm not playing to anyone's fantasies," Trump argued. "The border is like a piece of Swiss cheese."

Trying to upend the frontrunner has reached a new urgency even in the days since this week's Super Tuesday primary contests. 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney blasted the real estate mogul as a "phony" and a "fraud" in a speech earlier today. Many party leaders and elected officials have pledged in recent days not to support Trump if he does secure the party's nomination, citing remarks Trump made over the weekend in which he didn't immediately disavow support from the Ku Klux Klan.

Trump echoed remarks he made earlier on Thursday about Romney, saying he was simply a "failed candidate" who was an "embarrassment" and only wanted "to be back in the game" by now taking shots at Trump. And he reiterated again he has disavowed the KKK and its former leader David Duke, pointing people to his tweets.

Romney didn't explicitly endorse a candidate on Thursday, and that's part of the problem in the GOP race — no leading contender to take on Trump has emerged from the remaining contenders of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson admitted this week he had no path to victory and wouldn't participate in the debate, though he hasn't explicitly ended his campaign just yet.

Rubio took on Trump forcefully in last week's debate in Houston, displaying a new fervor many hoped would boost him on Super Tuesday, the biggest primary day of the campaign. But Rubio only won in the Minnesota caucuses, though he nearly knocked off Trump in Virginia.

Instead it was Cruz who has argued this is now a two-man race, pointing to his wins in Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa and later Alaska over Trump.

Meanwhile, Kasich is banking on a strong showing in Michigan and his home state of Ohio on March 15th to boost him.

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