Scarborough Praises ‘Masterful’ Trump for Taking Down Jeb, Carson, Cruz

RUSH TRANSCRIPT: 
SCARBOROUGH: “On the other side, the CNN poll came out in Iowa which actually Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have been fighting for some time and I’ve been saying this over the past week or two, Donald Trump has been masterful putting Ted Cruz back on his heels. Trump ahead 37%. 26%. Marco Rubio 14. Nobody else close. So Nicole, forget about what you may think about whether you would vote for Donald Trump or not. I want to take you back to this campaign for a second and I’m going to ask you if you’ve ever, the last politician you worked with that had the instincts that Donald Trump had and I’m going to name three people.”
BRZEZINSKI: “You’re putting her in a terrible position.”
SCARBOROUGH: “No, I’m not. No, I’m not. First, you had Jeb Bush who was a prohibited favorite. Donald Trump like a laser focused on hitting them every day. Low energy candidate. Low energy candidate. It became a part of the political lexicon and you could not look at Jeb Bush without thinking he’s a low energy candidate. Then Ben Carson goes to Iowa and Donald Trump is ahead in 49 states. That’s not good enough for him. Remember what he did talking about the guy bragging about hitting his mother in the head. Everybody thought it was a terrible speech but in real time it was a masterful speech. It looked like theater, it was absurd and all that did was underline how absurd Ben Carson, the central thing.”
BRZEZINSKI: “In a way no one else could.”
SCARBOROUGH: “That’s the second one. Two masterful take downs on his opponents. Ted Cruz gets in his way and he sits back, sits back, sits back and then he drops the Canadian thing. It’s not like a virus that spreads early. It’s ldsu. You have Democrats talking about it, John McCain talking about it, conservative senators saying Ted Cruz needs to follow Donald Trump’s advice and get it in junction. If he gets elected we may lose and then on top of that just as he’s trying to get on top of that he drops the Goldman and Sachs story. Ted Cruz has been on the defensive for the first time in his political life and been on the defensive for over two weeks now. Look at those numbers. That’s a big set up.”
WALLACE: “Can I add one more? Hillary Clinton and obviously, Bernie is doing great and running a very good campaign. Those numbers also reflect the way trump legitimized questions and saw the story about Dunn. I think trump has also suppressed Hillary’s numbers.”
SCARBOROUGH: “I forget that.”
WALLACE: “I would add a forth politician in his body bag this week.”
RATTNER: “ I agree with that. He had an advantage in that bush was a low energy candidate.”
WALLACE: “That’s not true. Of course, you’ll cover him.”
RATTNER: “A lot of the people I talk to when they see him on television.”
WALLACE: “Where does that list end?”
BRZEZINSKI: “Because you watch Donald Trump and you go well, he seems like a low energy candidate.”
RATNNER: “Cruz when he got in trouble had no friends.”
SCARBOROUGH: “They were all in first place and then as Nicole said, John, I forget probably the most effective counter punch and that was to Hillary Clinton. So put the Clinton machine on their heels for weeks. The New York Times is still writing stories about how Hillary is losing younger women because of questions about how she treated women in the 1990s. I’m sorry, I can’t think of another politician in our lifetime that has had the gut instinct to destroy his opponents this way.”
HEILEMANN: “Well, there’s no doubt Donald Trump has, he’s a master siops. He not only contends the attention of the press but he figures out the weak points and relentlessly goes after them until he has succeeded in every case and even the most confident of his opponents. Joe, I just, there’s just a new, I believe, a new historic first in this campaign. There’s a new trump add. I just said it to Alex which I think we’re going to want to play. When I say it’s historic, I believe this is the case of a negative Donald Trump add attacking Ted Cruz. I believe it’s the first time Trump has gone on television with a negative add in this campaign. I’ve not had a chance to air it yet but I hope we get it on the show.”