CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger was one of eight panelists on CNN’s post-Republican presidential debate coverage late Thursday and, at one point, expressed her distaste for Senator Marco Rubio’s debate performance as “quite intense,” “too tense for the format,” and “frozen.”
Prior to that, Borger ruled just past the 11:35 p.m. Eastern mark that, with Donald Trump boycotting the debate, “Cruz had the target on his back tonight, though, and I don’t think he weathered it all that well.”
“I think, you know, in this fight with Rubio over authenticity, I don’t think he did particularly well, particularly when you see these videos and you saw what it looked like without Donald Trump there,” she added.
Turning to Rubio, most political prognosticators thought Rubio fared well and in the top tier of candidates but Borger was not one of them as even though “we did get to look at Rubio pretty closely tonight,” the Florida senator “seemed, to me, somehow to be quite intense for this kind of debate environment.”
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Noting that most of her fellow panelists have “heard his stump speeches and all the rest,” Borger opined that Rubio appeared “to recite them and just comes across as a little too tense for the format, it seems to me and I’m not sure it helped him that much either...he looks frozen.”
The relevant portion of the transcript from CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360: Post Debate Special on January 28 can be found below.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360: Post Debate Special
January 28, 2016
11:35 p.m. Eastern
GLORIA BORGER: So, Cruz had the target on his back tonight, though, and I don’t think he weathered it all that well. I think, you know, in this fight with Rubio over authenticity, I don’t think he did particularly well, particularly when you see these videos and you saw what it looked like without Donald Trump there. The thing I will say, though, is we did get to look at Rubio pretty closely tonight and he seemed, to me, somehow to be quite intense for this kind of debate environment. You know, everybody here has heard his stump speeches and all the rest and he seems to recite them and just comes across as a little too tense for the format, it seems to me and I’m not sure it helped him that much either. He looks frozen.
