Todd: This Was Trump’s ‘Best Debate Performance to Date’

‘I don’t think you could say he won, but I might argue that because he was touched the least that he’s overall gonna gain the most’

GUTHRIE: "Chuck Todd, NBC’s political director and moderator of Meet the Press, is here. Up late, up early with us."
TODD: "That’s what we all do now."
GUTHRIE: "This seems like, more and more, a Trump and Cruz race."
TODD: "It is, and I thought last night what was interesting is that – I’ll throw Rubio in there – I feel like those three, it felt like they had the debate. And Jeb Bush and Christie tried to get involved, but you could really feel the top tier there. Because if you look at it, the three of them all had some moments. I thought Cruz did really well in the first part of the debate, Rubio did really well in the last part of the debate. But Trump, not many people came after him, other than Cruz, and he actually had good moments. This was his best debate performance to date. I don’t think you could say he won, but I might argue that because he was touched the least that he’s overall gonna gain the most."
DALY: "He did seem to get booed a couple of times. Do you think that was unsettling to him?" 
TODD: "Well, it did at first. And I think the crowd – you know, it’s interesting, if it wasn’t for the crowd, I don’t know if Ted Cruz would be seen to have done as well. That crowd was, to me --"
GUTHRIE: "They were with Cruz."
TODD: "-- very pro-Cruz. That helped him early. You could sort of see he sort of fed off of it a little bit. But Trump, I thought it rattled him early, but then he sort of got comfortable with the idea that, 'Okay, this crowd’s not for me, I’ll handle it.'"
DALY: "What about Cruz, brings up the New York issue? Papers are all over him today. That must have been a blow to him from Trump."
TODD: "Well, it is, I think – you know, look, it may not hurt him in Iowa. You know, my late father, he grew up in Iowa, and he would say, “Oh, those New Yorkers, they think they’re better than us.” So that can actually help Cruz in a place like Iowa. But I think having this intensity, and the way Donald Trump handled it, I have to say that was one of those, you’re like, “This is a guy who’s growing as a candidate. That answer on 9/11, and he did it without sort of an in-your-face aspect to it."

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