lot of people are talking about today coming from the undercard debate. absolutely. here to give us his take on the performances last night is renowned debate coach brett o donnell. he s the president of o donnell & associates, a political consulting firm. he is also advising the lindsey graham campaign this time around. brett, it s great to see you. you were here yesterday kind of giving your expectations. i guess we should call it give them your grades. one of the big takeaways from last night is the back-and-forth on different topics and the engagement in the fight between marco rubio and ted cruz. and everyone kind of left wondering, as we have been already this morning, who won in that fight? who do you think won? well, in my opinion, marco rubio got the better of ted cruz last night. here s the reason why. these things aren t just about line-by-line pure debating. ted cruz still has too much of his college debating days in him. and he thinks it s all about the aggression and
result, nidal hasan murdered 14 innocent souls. and this is the consistent problem of the obama administration is their approach over and over again. it is to focus on law abiding citizens. what did president obama, what did hillary clinton say after san bernardino? let s take away the second amendment right to keep and bear arms of law abiding citizens. that s the wrong problem. you have to focus on the bad guys. all right. always interesting to hear from the candidates after the debate how they think they did and the points they want to build upon. we ll be bringing those to you this morning. you ll hear from several of the other candidates live. jeb bush is coming up in our next hour. we also have carly fiorina coming up and lindsey graham who many believe dominated that first undercard debate. he always has zingers. he s always funny but people thought he gave a particularly emotional performance also. we will ask him about that. so fears of terrorism and how each candidate wou
i like him. he s fine. because donald s out in the front. and ted has to go after him. cruz has to go after him. we ve got to ask you real quick, you re advising the lindsey graham campaign, he is the guy everybody was talking about from the undercard debate. he is known for his one-liners and is quick-witted. what struck a lot of people is how emotionally he talked during the debate. listen. at least 3,500 american muslims serving in the armed forces. thank you for your service. you are not the enemy. your religion is not the enemy. i m tired of beating on bush. i miss george w. bush. i wish you were president right now! one, was that a planned line? i miss george w. bush? absolutely not. that comes from lindsey s heart. you know, senator graham, in my opinion, first of all, he s the only one with military service on the stages last night.
nicolle, do any of the candidates take on trump when it comes to portraying strength, which is clearly something that at least the republican primary voters are looking for. listen, i think it s more than just odd that they don t take him on. it s slightly pathetic. you have had ted cruz trashing trump at a fund raiser behind closed doors and standing side by side, almost like a middle schooler who doesn t face up to them standing shoulder to shoulder. i don t think it says much about anyone s character to say something about someone behind their back and not have the courage to say it to their face. i don t think it s good for any of them. all these campaigns are harshly critical of donald trump, particularly when he does things like call for a ban on all muslims. i was flabbergasted that it was the undercard debate where lindsey graham really carried the message and made you proud to be a republican again for talking about that s not what we re for. i m surprised that nobody in the
what just happened. you ve had a minute. so what do you got? to me just on the substance. we went into obviously, focusing on national security. but really trying to develop the genuine split on a very important difference, whether or not as commander-in-chief they would push democracy around the world whatever it takes. regime change or if there is a dictator there and stability maybe that is not so bad and i think that conversation developed and republican voters got to see the differences between how each of them would take that question. and interesting, hugh, we were talking during the break. and you think the undercard debate really had an impact on the main stage. because i was told by one of the people that the main stage candidates watched intently and lindsey graham brought the syrian conflict to the center of the stage where it did not leave all night except when dana brought up