Isz. I have to say this. He hit my hands. Nobody has ever hit my hands. I never heard of this one. Look at those hands. Are they small hands . [ cheers and applause ] and he referred to my hands, if theyre small Something Else must be small. I guarantee you theres no problem. You got pretty big hands. See . My hands are big. This is the problem with politicians. Theyre all talk. They give you stuff and people you know, i have good sized hands. What about the schoolyard taunts of the debate . I mean, there were references i dont see schoolyard taunts. To hands and see how beautiful my hands are . Those are powerful hands. Hit a golf ball 285 yards. I was very proud to hold my hands up because these are politicians. They say things and they make things up and, you know, you have to clear up the record. Clear up the record. Wow. So, willie, its come to that. We get the measuring stick out. I just said weve reached the portion of the campaign thats a literal blank measuring contest. Im amazed marco rubio didnt turn to him and say prove it. Right there. Politifact is working on it right now. No, whats funny is the fix at the Washington Post a couple days ago came out with a scientific view. On stands in. Took all the hands [ laughter ] were going start with the hands right there. Thats where your mind is
willie. Sorry, misunderstood. Look at him showing his hands and they explained yes, his hands are normal for a gay whos 63. This is the election for the person thats going to run the biggest military and the biggest economy in the world, right . It is. I didnt drift off somewhere. Election for president of the fraternity. Whats remarkable is Grayden Carter started this by making up a line back 25, 30 years ago in spy magazine, greatest magazine ever. A short fingered vulgarian. I have to say quickly before we dive into everything and also that mitt romney press conference. Dude, if youre going to get into the pool, jump in. Jump in or go and put the towel on. It was just kind of depressing. And i know everybody is saying marco hit him, hit him, hit him,
hit him. Ive always said marco was too young and inexperienced and not ready to run for pakistresident. But thats 2016. Ive said stay in the senate, be governor, run in 2020 and youll probably be ready. Im just afraid for his sake and his part soa his supporters sake talking about trump wetting his pants. What happens if trump runs and loses to Hillary Clinton . Theres marco who has diminished himself . You know what im saying . It doesnt seem worth it. Hes going against his brand. Were chain saw repair shop, were a chain shaw repair shop, oh, you need your nails filed . Come on in. Beautiful. Unless four years from now hes able to say Hillary Clintons president , marco rubio runs again. He can say listen the donald trump thing was a unique
phenomenon it was once in a lifetime, well never see it before, well never see it again, i did what i did to do to fight this guy fighting on ground weve never fought before. But besides john kasich, it was an embarrassing night absolutely. The way they addressed each other and ted cruz while it was funny kind of talking and coaching trump through yoga, breathe, breathe, you can do it. There was fox tried their level obesity best to get subst but the debate was depressing. I was exhausted by the end of the day, kind of drained having watched romney and trumps reply to romney and the debate you felt like you wanted to come home and have a sauna or hot shower. And then marco made the joke, the punchline saying well, hes flexible on the yoga front and everybody laughed and there were people tweeting that was the moment of the night. Im sitting there going thats the moment of the night . Its not fun anymore. All of them need to know its not funny anymore. Were electing a president , one of the most vital times for the country where our representation across the globe was shattered. Where the u. S. Economy while it seems to be doing better if you look at unemployment numbers you have stagnant wages. Still have billions and billions of dollars offshore. Look at what the democrats have been doing. The democrats have been talking about issues and substance. I say two things. It may be a low bar. I thought it was more civil than houston which was a complete gang of whatever. Maybe that was just because the first time we saw it was houston and i think weve got used to it. I think the fox moderators did a good job. Excellent job. And when they brought up the charts to basically say, well, you say youre going to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from pharma but we only spend 80 billion a year on drugs, i
thought they got trump to be more specific than hes been. Lall right. The debate was in detroit. The remaining president ial candidates met for the 11th time and one of the question from the fox news moderators dealt with the recent attacks from marco rubio to the size of Donald Trumps hands. Can you believe that, though . The first out of the box . Out of the box. Theyre talking about the size of Donald Trumps hands. Can i say but thats not what they were exactly talking about. But if they are fighting, though, on that ground, donald trump wins. All of this were talking about, donald trump wins. Hes up 20 points in all of these polls. Theyre playing right into his hands. As David Axelrod told me the other day donald trump is somehow allowed. The Football Team hes playing against to play on his side of the field the entire time. Yeah, now, in fairness trump brought that up on some other
topic. He said and by the way little marco, which is what he called him, lying ted and little marco. He brought up my hands and went into the other thing riff. So after that insult, more insults continued into the night. The candidates debated poll numbers, immigration, honesty, even height. He has spent a career convincing americans hes something hes not exn exchange for their money, now hes trying to do that in exchange for their country. This little guy has lied so much about my record. Here we go. You see what happens when you challenge him on a policy issue . You asked him about the economy and the first thing he does is launch an attack about some little guy thing. Because he doesnt have answers and hes asking us to make him i have a policy question for you, sir. Lets see if he answers it. I will, dont worry about it, marco. Dont worry about it, little marco, i will. Dont worry about it, little marco. Gentlemen you want you have to do better than
this. I watched a cnn interview donald did where he explained. He said, well, the problem is you cant find americans who are qualified who are want to work as waiters and waitresses. Let me ask the people here, how many here have worked as a waiter or waitress . [ applause ] you know how Many Americans wanted those jobs . Roughly 300 applied. Donald hired 17. Whats been reported is that donald told the Editorial Board of the New York Times what im saying on immigration i dont believe. I wont build a wall or deport people. This is just rhetoric for the voters. If, in fact, you went to manhattan and said im lying to the American People, then the voters a right to know. Youre the lying guy up here. Youre the one. Release it. Excuse me. Ive given my answer, lying ted, ive given my answer. He scam it had people of florida. He scammed the people he doesnt vote. He doesnt show up to the u. S. Senate, he doesnt vote. He scammed the people. He defrauded the people of florida. Youve made that point. Go ahead. As you can see in his answer, its the same thing. You defrauded the people of florida, little marco. Let me ask the voters at home. This is this debate you want playing out in the general election . I tell you what i dont want playing out and ive said it before, the crowds. Who is that good for . Just the cheering and the booing. Mike, you said it sounded like a hockey game. Not only that, it looked like you know at a baseball game people seated behind home plate trying to wave. What happened there . Two things struck me. One was the crowd well, a couple things. John kasichs temperament, the idea he didnt say ive had it, im out of here. He proved he had the temperament to be president and the third thing i was stunned that they didnt go after donald more on taxes, on his lack of you know, failure to give us his tax
returns which is a point of vulnerability that he clearly wants to avoid. Well, Mark Halperin, you were there and looks like youve gotten the mud off of you. Give us your report card. Explain it. As always, my report card is based on performance and whether the candidate helped himself become the more likely nominee. I thought john kasich had his best debate. I gave him a bplus. He told stories about his record on the campaign trail and in ohio. This is a state where he wanted to do better than hes going to do but he positioned himself to be part of the conversation which ive been surprised hes not been. Trump and cruz i gave bs to. I thought ted cruz did a better job than marco rubio of going after donald trump and connecting it to things voters might care about. Marco rubio i gave a bminus. More scattered. He went for oneliners on trump and didnt do as good a job
connecting things to voters. I agree with mike, im surprised they didnt go more to the tax returns, im surprised fox moderators didnt go after that. Thats the thing mitt romney brought up yesterday. Its one of the pending issues with donald trump thats a legitimate issue and where hes not been forthcoming. Didnt it wasnt in the the fall of the election when mitt romney released his tax returns . September. He put out some earlier and some later. And then he put out all of them later in september . He put out a lot around the South Carolina primary and then he had that years return was delayed. So donald trump has cleverly brought up this notion that romney put his returns out later. He put them out he put some out later but some earlier and his people have said donald trump could release returns from years that arent currently under audit or tell us what his effective tax rate, is et cetera. Lets look at your report card. You look at this report card and if this ends up being how most
people score the debate and you look at the polls where trump is as far ahead as he is in the contests that are coming up, you probably agree with me that last night didnt change a thing. It didnt change much. Id say it only potentially changed two things in the margin. Doesnt change trumps commanding position, the extreme likelihood hell be the nominee. I think it gives john kasich another look which he needs badly. He needs to win ohio and i think this will help him get another look nationally and where other key primaries are coming up. And i think in this battle between ted cruz and marco rubio to be the more relevant figure, based on super tuesday and what happened last night ted cruz can argue he is the more relevant figure this battle to stop donald trump. You think all of marcos one liners, all the talk about wetting pants, engaging in Donald Trumps the size of Donald Trumps extremities, all of these things you think that actually plays to cruz and makes
marco less relevant . Like i said, i thought cruz when he went after trump did a better job of connecting it up to policy. Connecting it up to say to voters this is what trump is like with my one liner heres what im like. I think marco rubio is trying to find his footing in this new mode where there were more just oneliners as opposed to oneliners voters could look at and hear and say okay, thats what rubio is for, i like rubio, hes hitting trump but telling me what hes for. I thought cruz did a much better job of that. So during the debate we had all these personal attacks, we had rubio and cruz attacking donald trump on Foreign Policy, attacking hes not a conservative but at the end of the debate the candidates vowed to come together and back whomever ends up with the republican nomination. That would seem to undercut marco rubio who has been using the hashtag never trump. Can you definitively say you will support the republican nominee even if that nominee is
donald j. Trump . Senator rubio, yes or no . Ill support the republican nominee. Mr. Trump, yes or no. Yes or no, you will support donald trump if hes the nominee. Yes, because i gave my word that i would. Yeah, and i kind of think that before its all said and done ill be the nominee, but let me also say [ cheers and applause ] can you definitively say tonight that you will definitely support the republican nominee for president even if its not you. Even if its not me . [ laughter ] millions and millions of people have come to the Republican Party over the last little while. Its the biggest thing happening in politics and im very proud to be a part of it and im going to give them some credit, too, even though they dont deserve it. But the answer is yes, i will. Okay. A lot of people have said that before, that theyll back donald trump but given the attacks on him, all the con man and the establishment attacks on
donald trump its kind of remarkable to watch people sit on the stage and tear the guy down and say we can not have him president then say ill support him in the end. And i think marco rubio is hurt the most from all of those because hes been putting that hashtag up, katty, never trump and thats become a rallying cry. Rubio jumped on it. Last night he undercut himself which actually plays to type for conservatives who are putting nevertrump. He moves around and he always does it. We saw it in realtime. He went from being Chuck Schumers buddy on Immigration Reform to wanting to put tanks at the border practically. This is really interesting. Marco rubio moves around, clearly, and the never trump but yes ill support him is an example. But then we had during the course of the debate, fox news put up a series of three different graphics on which donald trump has moved around and his answer was yeah, i
changed positions. And somehow from donald trump it worked. Its fine and it worked and his supporters will like him for it. Marco rubio doesnt seem to manage to get away it with. You foe why . Because trump says i changed positions. Or people hold trump to a much lower standard than they hold marco rubio who does look at times, i said it for six months and people said, oh, you hate him. He looks preprogrammed and he looks like a robot. So when he does that, he never gives an inch on anything. When he loses and is humiliated, he goes up and stands on stage and says tonight is the night that they will remember that he turned our campaign around. I mean, its and people are like come on, just tell us the truth. And at least with trump, you know, hell say, yeah, i changed my position and it just also i think people hold him to a much lower standard, i dont know why. But, yeah. I dont know if its a lower standard but if marco is goi
going nevertrump, then but i can see him saying never that and then his support i can see trump doing that and people saying fine. I think youre right they hold him to a much different standard than traditional politicians. And he proves that unlike everybody on that stage he has never run for Public Office before. Hes not a politician. He gives the normal human response, yeah, i changed may mind. But on the afghanistan he clearly wilg lly wiggles. When he heard the word afghanistan repeatedly and he said oh, i thought they were talking about iraq. But the peculiarity of trumps personality is he will never admit hes wrong. If you say youre wrong hell go of an a tirade or tangent and say i was wrong about that. Nor does he answer a question. About Trump University, say. Its so funny, everybodys heads are exploding, the medias response, why dont you ask the followup question . Well, we do. No, you dont, yes, we do. But you keep going after him, he keeps answering the way he wants. We had a senator that said the press has been too easy on him. Have you ever talked about the dang danger . I said we have, this is looking like germany in 1933, is that Strong Enough . Yeah, but have you asked about dictators and tyrants and we said, yeah, you know hes assassinated journalists. People are frustrated and theyre blaming the media because donald trump gets away with being donald trump and not answering the question the way they want it answered and not answering the followup and the followup and the followup. He wont answer. The people and you know
what, his supporters dont care. Dont care. Because they see allover us as the enemy. Including my brother on some days. So after the after super tuesday John Heilemann was tweeting from the obama team that helped president obama get elected and he noticed that they seemed to be getting the trump phenomenon better than republicans. And i talked to several of them. John favreau, David Axelrod and others and they all came i said what is it about trump that you get . What is it . John favreau, i thought it was fascinating, said when we were writing speeches for obama, he never said give me lofty rhetoric, he said make sure you write like people talk, i dont want to sound like a politician. And john favreau, David Axelrod, everybody, they went back to the
fact that unlike everybody else out there this year, donald trump talks like a person. Like how people talk to each other. As john favreau said, like your cranky uncle talks when hes watching tv on thanksgiving day and people relate to that and maybe they cut him more slack because he talks like people talk when they talk to each other. Not with the lofty rhetoric aad i truly do believe that americas greatest days lie ahead. Come on, i want to kill myself. Just stop. Thats one of the ways hes shattered we overuse the term establishment, but everything thats been done in the past. Everything we knew about politics, according to donald trump, is untrue. Hes the guy at the end of the bar, the national id, hes tapping into something that has not been expressed through
politics before. And John Podhoretz needs to trademark the name americas id. You can go four blocks from here to the new york diner on 57th street, go in, have breakfast, you wont hear anyone who sounds like ted cruz or marco rubio sitting there having breakfast. Right. Youll hear people who s