I think somebody with the biggest brain in the room at all times, and what a difficult thinged it just to feel normal and at one with whats going on when youre aware of everybodys meetivations at all times. You can see the angle everyone is working. David lipsky is there to profile him. David Foster Wallace had done numerous profiles of people so he was aware of how this works and hes watching someone, with all due respect, at that time who probably had lesser skill at that, try to dissect him. And he could see it happening. Rose an analysis of the first republican president ial debate, and a conversation with jason segel about david Foster Wallace when we continue. Rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we begin this evening with analysis of the first republican president ial primary debate. The top 10 candidates faced off in cleveland as fox news moderators questioned them on a range of topics. These included the economy Foreign Policy and social issues. All of the contenders highlighted conservative themes. Frontrunner donald trump declined to rule out an independent bid. It was Good Television and one of the most awaited political events of the year. Heres a look at some of last nights most memorable moments. This election cannot be a resume competition. Its important to be qualified but if this election is a resume competition, then Hillary Clinton is going to be the next president because shes been in office and in government longer than anybody else running here tonight. If im the nominee, how is Hillary Clinton going to lect lecture me living paycheck to paycheck . I was raised paycheck to paycheck. How is she going to lecture me about student alones. I owed over 100,000 just four years ago. Im going to have to earn this. Maybe the barrier the bar is even higher for me. Thats fine. Ive got a record in florida. Im proud of my dad, and im certainly proud of my brother. In florida they call me jeb because i earned it. I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. cheers and applause ive been challenged by so many people, and i dont, frankly, have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesnt have time, either. You fundamentally misunderstand the bill of right. Every time you did a case you got a warrant from a judge. Im talking about searches without warrants, indiscriminatelily of all americans records and thats what i fought to end. I dont trust president obama with our records. I know you gave him a big hug and if you want to give him a big hug again, so be it. At Hillary Clinton, i said be at my wedding and she was at my wedding because she had no choice. I gave to a foundation that frankly, that foundation is supposed to do good. I didnt know her money would be used on private jets going all over the world. It was. I just went to the wedding of a friend of mine who happens to be gay. Because somebody doesnt think the way i do doesnt mean they cant care about him or cant love them. So if one of my daughters happened to be that of course i would love them. And i would accept them them. Its sad to think right now but probably the russian and Chinese Government know more about Hillary Clintons email server than do the members of the United States congress. Ive described many times how my father, when i was a child was an alcoholic. He wasnt a christian. And my father left my mother and left me when i was just three years old. And someone invited him to clay Road Baptist Church and he gave his heart to jesus and it turned him and around he got on a plane and he flew back to my mother and me. I was appointed United States attorney on september 10 2001. And spent the next seven years might have career fighting terrorism and putting terrorists in jail. Im the only one that separates siamese twins. laughter applause the only one to operate on babies while they were still in a mothers womb. The only one to take out half of a brain although you would think if you go to washington that someone had beat me to it. Rose joining me Jeanne Cummings from the wall street journal. Here in new york, ed rollins a republican political consultant. And served as a Senior Adviser to ronald reagan. Nick confessore is a political reporter for the new york times. Nancy cordes is a cbs news correspondent. Finally, from washington former minnesota congressman vin weber. He served as a top policy adviser on mitt romneys 2001 campaign and is assisting jeb bush in his bid for the nomination. I am pleased to have all of them on this program. I will not ask you, ben, about jeb bush but i want to go to your analysis, as a former politician and now a strategist and consultant as to how you saw the debate from yourwn sort of political experience. Good and bad. I thought i thought, first of all, jeb bush did what he needed to do gave a forceful presentation of his conservative record as governor of florida. We also saw that we have a broad range of candidates in the party, many of whom did quite well last night. That was the good. The bad was the big story today largely still is about donald trump. I had hoped to wake up this morning with people talking mainly about Something Else anything else, and were still talking probably more about donald trump than anything else. And i dont think ultimately thats good. I dont mean particular disrespect to him. I just think we need to get more of the focus on the other republican candidates. And that started to happen last night. Rose but do you think this was the beginning of the end for donald trump or does he have staying power . Oh, i think hes got a lot of staying power but i think we also saw the seeds of vulnerability planted a little bit last night. He hes deified the laws of political gravity that most of us, you know, have lived by all of our lives. And things that he has said and done in the last few weeks would have killed another candidate at other time and were all scratching our heads how come it hasnt killed donald trump. But i dont think at the end of the day he deifies the law of politics forever. Rose ed rollins . I totally agree with that. Normally debates reinforce your base, whoever that may be, and i think donald trump has an antiestablishment base poop we have an evangelical win tea party wing, and the will to do, the establishment wing. The establishment wing is never going to accept him. Evangelical wing probably wont over time. The tea party is going to fight foor walker. I think he will diminish over a short period of time. What has held him up and given him all the time is the media coverage. Not saying theyre pro him but he dominated the media for six eight weeks, taken all the oxygen out of everybody else. Last nights show was basically the donald trump show again. We have some very substantive people. I think we have a of a top six or seven people that will go on and be a very viable candidate rose who had the best night . I think marco rubio did. I think bush ask walker did not make the final sale. They didnt hurt themselves, but people arent saying, thats my guy, i want to go for him today. And i think Carly Fiorina is going to get another look here. Rose nancy . I agree with ed that marco rubio had a great night. He sort of sailed above it all. Some of them were engaging with trump. He is the one who made the argument im post2000. Im the candidate for the next century. And, you know, im just going to rise above the morass. I thought he did well. I thought John Kasich John did well. Presented himself well, and he had a really low bar. Hes still polling in our cbs news polls at 1 or 2 . So, you know, he showed in front of a hometown crowd that was very supportive of him that hes got good ideas and hes got a sense of humor. He made a nod to the people who donald trump is appealing to. He said, i get it. Rose as did marco rubio. He said i understand why they like him but he laid out his own platform. Rose jeanne . I agree with the assessments that have been made. I i think in the case of rubio, what made him step apart from the rest is that they threw a couple of zingers at him and he navigated them right there in live time in front of people really professionally and in a polished way. He was basically invited to Say Something bad about jeb. He didnt. He stepped away from that. And so i think that that thinking on your feet was pretty impressive from him and i think thats what made him have a better night than, say, bush and walker. Rose nick, overall . I think in some ways the most important thing here in this debate is that trump is now at war with fox news. You can be in a war with the media if youre a republican and win. You cant be at war with fox news in a primary and win. You cant dp after megyn kelly like that and win. I think if youre an undecided voter, if youre coming to this fresh, kasich last night was great. I thought he was he had the best way of hamming trump embrace the resentment or the cause but not the man. Y, i get it. Youre angry, but there are other solutions. Sm i thought that was very effective. Not only did he fight with fox news but when he was asked about some misogynistic comments he made what, did he do . He made some more misogynistic comments. Calling out megyn kelly. He was still going on twitter at 3 30 in the morning, still working it out of his system nobody cares about his fight with rosie odonnell, a feud thats 10 years old now. He retweeted someone who called megyn kelly a bimbo and its just reinforcing what she said about him. Rose does somebody have to take him on or will the events take him on . I think the events will take him on. I think nick is exactly right but a lot of republicans are going to be very conflicted if they have to defend anybody in the news media, even fox news. But i think ill defend fox. laughter but i i dont i dont think that its wise for a candidate to take him on directly as their strategy. The candidates that weve talked about, rubio, kasich, walker bush, that have a real shot maybe Carly Fiorina, at being our nominee need to focus on defining themselves and not defining themselves simply in negative terms towards trump. I think events, because of eds analysis, i think events are going to deflate him. I think its going to take a little longer than ed thinks, but somebody who decides to define his candidacy in opposition to trump is to go so because they havent defined themselves and thats not where you want to be if you want to win. Rose what about Carly Fiorina . You mentioned her. Jeanne, what was about her performance in the first debate that made her stand out . She knew what she wanted to say. She had polished, precise answers, and she was willing to attack. And the Republican Party do want to fight her, especially the base. They want someone who will come out and fight for their convictions. And she was willing to take hillary on. She was willing to take on her republican rivals. And, you know, the interesting thing about the happy hour debate is that to get out of there, somebodys got to take down one of the top 10. So you have to fight to get into that top 10. And she was willing to go there. That is why she was such a standout in that predebate. The only problem and i have Great Respect for her and i thought she had a great night last night. Ive been in the choosing of a Vice President on several occasions, people say shes a candidate for Vice President. Against a woman were not automatically going to draw women. She has no political base. She lost california by a million votes. Shes somehow got to win her way up. She has to raise money. She somehow has to get numbers to get into the next debate. My sense is she will get a the love Media Attention the next week but its a tough hurdle she is better off today. The attention will turn to her business record, her godden parachute when she was fired. Rose let me talk about who people who there was a lot of early speculation before this primary season got under way one Chris Christie and the senator from kentucky, rand paul. I think they mixed it up a bit. They did, to both of their benefits, i think. In fact, before this debate even happened a the love people were predicting that if there was going to be a brawl on the stage, it would be between Chris Christie and rand paul. You know its a long established that theres no love lost rand paul came for a fight. He even telegraphed it on the morning shows before the debate. And he took on donald trump too. Both of them have kind of got a little lost in the shuffle lately. They werent interested in really taking on trump the way some of the candidates who are even lower in the polls have done but yet trump was stealing a lot of their thunder as sort of outspoken conservatives. So they both needed to get intak back into the conversation and this fight helped them do it. It was a fight over privacy issues and the the fisa court. Rand paul said, look, you know, we need to be collecting fewer documents not more from individuals. And Chris Christie called him out. He said look, ive actually had to take on terrorists. I was a u. S. Attorney. He really wanted to remind everyone watching at home that he has this unique experience. And rand paul on the other hand wants to remind people that he is the biggest privacy advocate on the stage. But to vins point, i think he lost almost every one of those exchanges. He came out there to fight. He took several shots at donald trump. He lost almost every one, and to vins point, if youre being defind as the attack dog and no one knows who you are or what youre about, its actually not that effective. Rose speak to jeb bush now. We have established that you can characterize an adviser, consultant to him and friend, im sure. Whats wrong with his campaign for those who suggest that he cant seem to bring it all together . Hes raised a ton of money, but it is not as strong a campaign as people thought might be. Im not sure i agree with that, charlie. Rose okay. I think to get pack to the point that ed just made about the debate is one huge event but now were back to basics. I think that governor bushs campaign has done pretty well with the basics. You made the point they raids a lot of money. Theyre putting organizations together around the country. I think that the only problem with the Bush Campaign is there was an expectation many months ago that he was going to come in and completely dominate the field. And what we have found is the field is pretty strong and nobody is able to dominate it, not even donald trump, as quirky as he is. But i think that governor bush is on track. I think hes got serious competitors, strong competitors. But i still think he is the most likely republican nominee and the republican nominee best able to broaden out our appeal in a way that can win the white house back. And the Clinton Campaign clearly still thinks that he is the most likely nominee because he is the one she attacks when she is going to attack 99 on the stump except for the odd comment about donald trump here and there. Hes the one you get press releases from about all the time from the Clinton Campaign. They still think that he is the person that they need to draw the sharpest contrast with. John kasich though, last night the last guy to get into this race that mattered stepped into the big leagues last night and my sense is he is someone who can attract the establishment, can have evangelical support. He is going to be a contender. Im not saying he will win this thing but the potential is there and we have a long ways charlie, can i. Rose go ahead. I served with john kasich in the congress. I know him well. Im pro bush i want to make it clear i am not antikasich. He is a great guy. Rose rubio . I dont know him well but i thought he did well last night. Rose will we see a turning point where there is more attention focused on the other candidates and their positions and who they are. I think so so. There were three bases to the party. Obviously, bush has the establishment element. Christie may have got a few of his fund raisers back but i think kasich is going to have an independent but a very Good Campaign moving forward. I think the critical thing here is self of the we need to get out of 17. We have way too many candidates and the superpacs may let them go on. Dut five, six serious people and i think we talked about them, bush kasich, theyre walker, my sense is that the huckabees, the carsons rubio its huckabees the carsons and those people who have a certain element that likes them very much. Theyre going to falter as time goes on the not having the money or resources. The falter the falterers, as ed puts it, will have a great temptation to go hard right. If you think youre not making that cut that ed rollins just defined, youre not in the top five or six, how do you get back in the game you . Go hard for the republican base, and theres a little risk in that because theyll drag some of those top five candidates along with them. Youre absolutely right. Rose who has the evangelical vote in the Republican Party right now in the primaries . I would say thats they. Rose huckabee . Theyve been rallying around ted cruz. Many of them have gone there. Huckabee, clearly. Last name im sure he even helped himself but hes got some support thats residual from when he ran and from his programming on television. Whats interesting is that you dont see the as many of them rallying around santorum early, even though they were so important in just the last election psyche toll help him win the iowa caucus. So they could still come to him. But cruz moved early, and forcefully and passionat