Tonight, at the last Republican debate before the Super Tuesday primaries, Donald Trump may have found himself missing Jeb Bush, who had been his main antagonist for months but pulled out after doing badly in South Carolina. He may have been pining for “low energy” Jeb when he found himself up against Bush’s former protegé, the now fired up Florida senator Marco Rubio.

Reports earlier this week indicated that Rubio would stay above the fray. Those reports were wrong. Rubio went after Trump the whole evening, beginning by attacking him as a hypocrite on immigration. Rubio brought up the fact that undocumented Polish workers helped build Trump Tower. Trump hit back by citing 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, you liar.”

Rubio countered by suggesting people were already Googling the answers for themselves. “Look it up: ‘Trump Polish workers,’ you’ll see a million dollars [fined] for hiring illegal workers on one of his projects.”

When Trump responded with attacks on his personal finances, Rubio quickly suggested that if Trump hadn’t inherited $200 million from his father, he would be “selling watches on the street in Manhattan.”

Conservative Fears

Before the debate, some conservatives voiced concern that Rubio and Texas senator Ted Cruz would go after each other and fail to address the problem of Trump, who many fear has a direct path to the nomination. Their fears were allayed when Cruz jumped into the fray, pulling some jujitsu when he turned a question intended to get him to attack Rubio into an opportunity to agree with his colleague that Trump is insincere on immigration and exploiting it for political gain.

“I really find it amazing that Donald believes that he is the one who discovered the issue of illegal immigration,” Cruz said. “In 2013, when I was fighting against the Gang of Eight amnesty bill, where was Donald? He was firing Dennis Rodman on ‘Celebrity Apprentice.’”

Trump responded by telling Cruz that no one in the Senate got along with him. “You don’t have the endorsement of one Republican senator and you work with these people. You should be ashamed of yourself,” Trump said.

Cruz deftly turned this attack into a contrast between himself and the Donald. “I actually think Donald is right. He is promising if he’s elected he will go and cut deals in Washington. And he’s right. He has supported — he has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats. Anyone who really cared about illegal immigration wouldn’t be hiring illegal immigrants.”

“And Donald, if you want to be liked in Washington, that’s not a good attribute for a president.”

Trump’s Lack of Command

After Cruz knocked Trump for his cronyism, Rubio went to work on Trump’s lack of command over policy questions. He called attention to Trump repeatedly saying he would replace Obamacare by eliminating the “lines” around states, seemingly a reference to allowing health insurance to be sold across state lines.

Rubio decided tonight not to let Trump’s vague assertion slide. “What else is a part of your health care plan?”

“When you get rid of the lines, that brings in competition,” Trump said.

“Now he’s repeating himself,” Rubio responded.

“I don’t repeat myself. Here’s the guy who repeats himself,” Trump said, referring to Rubio. “I watched him repeat himself five times four weeks ago.”

Rubio shot back: “I saw you repeat yourself five times five seconds ago!”

Rubio also accused Trump of reciting the same vague points on the campaign trail, ticking them off in amusement: “Everyone’s dumb, he’s going to make America great again, he’s gonna win win win, he’s winning in the polls, and the lines around the state. Every night.”

CNN’s Dana Bash cut in to ask whether Trump had any more to add.

“No, there’s nothing to add. What’s to add?” Trump said.

Trump did not appear ready for the senatorial tag team and resorted to name-calling. “This guy is a choke artist, and this guy is a liar,” he said of Rubio and Cruz, respectively. At another point, he called Cruz a “basket case.”

The Questions Conservatives Want Answered

CNN’s moderators noticeably ignored times when Trump attacked Cruz and Rubio, pivoting instead to ask meaningless questions of Ben Carson and John Kasich, who didn’t make much of an impression. In contrast, conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt was focused on getting to the heart of the matter on religious liberty.

Hewitt began by asking Ted Cruz if he trusted Donald Trump to nominate conservative judges. “For voters that care about life or marriage or religious liberty or the Second Amendment,” Cruz said, “they’re asking the question: Who do you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, will nominate principled constitutionalists to the court? I give you my word, every justice I nominate will vigorously defend the Bill of Rights for my children and for yours.”

Cruz put a finer point on it after Trump went after him for supporting Justice John Roberts. “It’s interesting now that Donald promises that he will appoint justices who will defend religious liberty, but this is a man who, for 40 years, has given money to Jimmy Carter, to Joe Biden, to Hillary Clinton, to Chuck Schumer, to Harry Reid,” Cruz said. “Nobody who supports far-left liberal Democrats who are fighting for judicial activists can possibly care about having principled constitutionalists on the court.”

Not to be outdone, Rubio pointed out that “very recently [Trump] was still defending Planned Parenthood. He says he’s not going to take sides in the Palestinians versus Israel. These are concerning things.”

Trump’s response on Planned Parenthood was not exactly reassuring. “I’m pro-life. I’m totally against abortion, having to do with Planned Parenthood,” Trump began. “But millions and millions of women — cervical cancer, breast cancer — are helped by Planned Parenthood.”

Trump must not know that Planned Parenthood doesn’t do mammograms. Given his next statement, someone probably told him and he decided not to listen.

“So you can say whatever you want, but they have millions of women going through Planned Parenthood that are helped greatly,” Trump continued. “And I wouldn’t fund it, I would defund it because of the abortion factor. … But millions of women are helped by Planned Parenthood.”

Weakest Candidate

Hewitt’s concern for the issue of religious liberty led him to ask every candidate the same question, which enabled Kasich to distinguish himself as the weakest candidate on the issue. “I’ve always favored traditional marriage, but, look, the court has ruled and I’ve moved on,” he explained. “If you’re in the business of commerce, conduct commerce.”

Ben Carson was also on the stage, and his best moment was asking for someone to “please attack me” so he could get more time to speak.

When asked how he would evaluate a potential Supreme Court appointee’s record, Carson responded: “The fruit salad of their life, is what I would look at.” And the Internet rejoiced.

Thursday night’s debate set up the candidates for next week’s high stakes Super Tuesday election, which should reveal whether Rubio and Cruz can stop Donald Trump.