Catching up with Donald Trump in the "spin room" after Saturday's GOP debate, NBC's Hallie Jackson attempted to get Donald Trump to say who he thought "lost" the GOP debate, hoping, perhaps, to get the New Hampshire frontrunner to attack Sen. Marco Rubio. For his part, Trump refused to take the bait.
"Who do you think, of your rivals, underperformed tonight, Mr. Trump," Jackson asked. "Well, I know who they're all saying underperformed on the Internet, and I know the, your coworkers are all saying... but I don't want to say," Trump replied.
"Besides you, who won the debate tonight," Jackson followed up. Again, Trump demurred. "I just don't want to say.... It's not really my, it's your position to say."
"He didn't want to talk about Marco Rubio because he didn't want to get in between the media and Marco Rubio," Matthews observed a few moments later.
For his part, when asked minutes later by NBC's Katy Tur about Rubio, Trump again refused to take the bait, noting, "I have a very good relationship with Marco."
Here's the transcript:
MSNBC
Special edition of Hardball
February 6, 2016; 11:12 p.m. Eastern
graphic: Trump Reacts to Tonight’s GOP DebateHALLIE JACKSON, NBC News: Who do you think, of your rivals, underperformed tonight, Mr. Trump.
DONALD TRU MP: "Well, I know who they're all saying underperformed on the Internet, and I know the, your coworkers are all saying –
JACKSON: You’ve already checked your Twitter?
TRUMP: They’ve all told me. But I don’t want to say, I mean, you’ll see. But they say I performed very well, so, that’s what matters.
JACKSON: Besides you, who won the debate tonight?
TRUMP: I think, I just don't want to say. I mean, I do have a feeling as to who did well, who did poorly, a couple of them did poorly, but, I really don’t, it’s your position to say.
JACKSON: You’re passing on sort of [unintelligible]
TRUMP: It really is.
[…]
11:26 p.m. Eastern
graphic: Trump Reacts to Tonight’s GOP DebateTRUMP: Morning Joe and Mika and everybody are saying we won easily. And that was very cool. They just tweeted it out: Trump killed it tonight.
I think it was very important that I do that. I wanted to do very well tonight.
KATY TUR, NBC News: And how’d you feel about Marco Rubio’s performance? He got hit pretty hard by Gov. Christie.
TRUMP: Well, he’s being hit very hard on the Twitter. And, I dunno, I mean, I don’t want to comment on anybody else’s performance because I actually, I have a very good relationship with Marco. But I don’t want to comment on his performance. He’s being hit pretty hard.
# # #
