Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump reacted to the grading of last night’s debate performance by Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin, who gave Trump an A-minus and his opponent Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) a B-plus.
According to Trump, the mark for Cruz was too high and he cited Cruz’s “New York values” remarks.
Partial transcript as follows:
JOE SCARBOROUGH, CO-HOST “MORNING JOE”: Mark Halperin, let’s move back to the debate. You did something last night, on your report card that you have never done before.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI, CO-HOST “MORNING JOE”: He’s not happy with you.
SCARBOROUGH: You actually gave out an A.
BRZEZINSKI: No, he didn’t.
SCARBOROUGH: It was an A minus.
BRZEZINSKI: A minus.
HALPERIN: Which is still an A.
TRUMP: Oh, a minus? I heard he gave me an A.
SCARBOROUGH: So — so — so tell — so tell — so — so let’s talk about the debate. What happened last night?
HALPERIN: Well, you’ve got a guy who’s doing the job. Hasn’t been a political for very long who I think clearly is learning how to get better. He’s — all his debate performances have been strong, but I thought Mr. Trump was as — stronger than he’s been in a field of candidates, all of whom are trailing him and yet none of whom really I thought did much damage to him last night at all.
SCARBOROUGH: Yes. Question for the candidate?
HALPERIN: So, voting is going to start in a little over two weeks here and then all across the country. They’re going to come in quick succession. You’ve got a lot of support and your supporters are very loyal to you. But you’ve also got a lot of undecided voters in Iowa and around the country who haven’t picked you yet. What do you say to those undecided voters now who haven’t decided to vote for you?
TRUMP: Well, I think we’re going to do very well here and I think we have — I don’t know about the undecided voters. We have a tremendous group of voters that are going to vote and you know, by a lot, by a long shot they’re the most loyal. I have the most loyal people. We have people — they say you can do anything and they’re going to be with you. And I say I love my people. And I do love my people, but by far…
HALPERIN: But you want more people.
TRUMP: No, no. Sure. But they’re going to make decisions and I thought Cruz hurt himself last night very badly because he looked very strident to me. I see you gave him a B-plus, but I think you’re wrong about that because I think people are not going to like him based on that performance last night.
HALPERIN: What grade would you give him?
TRUMP: I can tell you one thing, if you live in New York, you’re not going to like him. He gave up about 20 million votes last night.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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