Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump may have outscored his fellow candidates in talk-time during Thursday night’s GOP primary debate, but Republican strategist and CBS News contributor Frank Luntz said he saw the “destruction of a candidacy”. Josh Robin filed the following report.
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About 1,000 grassroots activists packed a ballroom in an Atlanta hotel to watch the Republican debate, and they went home thrilled with the performance.
It started with the first question.
The nine other Republicans sharing the stage with Trump turned on one another at times but largely avoided direct challenges to the combative real estate mogul. In the early hours of Friday morning, he also republished a tweet that referred to Kelly as a “bimbo”. “I would say it’s pretty unprofessional, but we will live with it”. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time. “It’s him, but he’s in this environment where we’re used to things being very serious and sober and then you mix in this combustible element, and I think it shows the power of live television”. But the questions to me were not nice. It varied. Later on Twitter, he said Kelly “really bombed”.
“And for people that want to just tune him out, they’re making a mistake”, Kasich said.
It was evident that Fox was there to bolster Bush up, and tear Trump down. “Their actions are insidious and not in line with viewers or the American people as Mr. Trump won, according to three independent polls”.
Buying politcians is a charge Trump doesn’t deny. Many of them strongly criticized Hillary Clinton.
On CNN, Trump called the questions “ridiculous”, called her “off-base”, and said, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes”. “You know why? She had no choice”.
Paul also entered a verbal joust with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie over his attempts to defund the NSA. The topic: the constitutionalty of terrorism raids.
PAUL: Use the Fourth Amendment!
On NBC, Rubio said there would be other opportunities to get attention.
“I don’t know if it was the RNC, or Fox, or whoever, but it certainly appeared to look like an organized attack”, Cohen said.
It was a debate marked by conversations about immigration, abortion, and foreign policy-especially about Iran.
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Republican candidates have about six months to differentiate themselves in the polls until the Iowa caucuses, and a little over one month to prepare for the next GOP debate in California.
