john: i'm john heilemann. mark: i'm mark halperin. "with all due respect" to the republican candidates in last night's debate, only one of you can be the next ronald raven. ♪ mark: on the show tonight, everyone, but first breaking news -- the most significant thing to happen since last night republican's debate happened moments ago on fox news. listen to jeb bush returning to his posture from a while ago and talking critically of donald trump. mr. bush: this reminds me of barack obama, not as a candidate, but as president. all he does is put people who

don't agree with him down to make his side look better and the divide makes it hard to solve problems. i do not think we are going to win that way. we should be talking about issues that give people a sense that the people will be better , not about how bad things are and not the kind of language that is really divisive. did it get under my skin, did it anger me about the tweet that says i'm soft and immigration? -- soft about immigration because my wife is from mexico? that is ridiculous. my wife is an american by choice. she loves america. she wants the border to be secured as well. so does everyone. mark: comparing trump to barack obama, takes the umbrage about tweet about his wife, why does jeb bush return to rhetoric like this when he passed on attacking him last night? john: doing it on a friday afternoon, a late summer friday,

attacking donald trump on cable when last night he had an audience of many millions -- i think early in this interview he made the suggestion he thought he did excellently in the debate. that attack suggests he knows he did not do excellent in the debate. it drove him to this. that looks desperate to me. that is not a show of strength. mark: bush was not disastrous last night, but he was not outstanding. he did not dominate the stage in the way that some supporters would have liked. some supporters today said he have to do better in the subsequent debates. the frustration he has about trump has manifested in that he is returning to this. let's see if he keeps this posture up. if he does, he will be the most aggressive person going after trump. john: i'm not saying he did disastrously. there was a consensus that he did not do well. i think he realized he missed a moment last night with trump. this screams to me like i screwed this up last night and i'm trying to fix it now.

mark: he wants a reset on trump. last night, trump dominated the debate and then he went on some shows to say he did well. did he? in case you are suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder here is some postdebate stuff that is very foxy and then mr. trump himself. >> the real story is the collapse of trump. he was lost for most of the debate. mr. trump: i had a great time. i got to meet some of the candidates and they were really great people. i had a wonderful evening. >> how many of you had a positive opinion about donald trump? raise your hands, overall. mr. trump: that was done by a guy named frank who is a real dunce. frankly, i don't know where he finds the people, but i think he handpicks people to say whatever they want. he came up to my office looking for work and then all of a sudden he is doing focus. i have no interest in him. i don't believe in that focus group. >> rosie o'donnell is a woman.

she is not the things he called her and women find those remarks offensive. mr. trump: the biggest applause of the evening was when i mentioned rosie o'donnell. people got a great kick out of it. we all got a kick. it was an amazing evening frankly and got tremendous ratings probably. mark: trump took to twitter in the last half-hour and went after fox for criticizing him. some of which you saw there. lots of discussion about this already, but what is your view? did trump help or hurt himself? john: my favorite two words in the english language are false binary. he neither helped himself or hurt himself. i think most of the trump supporters, the people i talked to in the focus group in new hampshire last week, will not desert him. i do not think he gained a voter. he did not look particularly presidential. i think the format -- when he

has a lot of time to present himself in full trump, he is a more compelling figure than these -- it is mr. trump on the phone right now. calling to object to the characterization. but that is my view. mark: i think he could have been better that he was, but he talked the most. he dominated the news. i think he helps himself in one way, primarily, which is he has proven that status quo, trump dominates the contest. nobody could put a glove on him last night. john: he is still in front. it is interesting. liberals thought he did well by his standards last night. conservatives are almost uniformly critical of donald trump last night. mark: they are thinking wistfully, not analytically. john: next, let's take a look at marco rubio's performance. the senator was widely praised by pundits, analysts, centrists , conservative republicans for how he did on stage. by this morning, it appeared one of his answers last night caused him a little bit of trouble. >> you favor a rape and incest

exception to abortion bans. mr. rubio: i would not say that is -- i have never said that or advocated that. what i have advocated is that we pass a law in this country that all human life at all stages is worthy of protection. in fact, i think that law already exist. it is called the constitution of the united states. >> you are on the bill that had a carveout for rape and incest. it seems you had your own record wrong. is that something you want to correct this morning? mr. rubio: that is not true. everybody supported that bill. every single pro-life senator, group, even the catholics, supported the bill you are talking about. >> but it included the exception. mr. rubio: because it prevents abortions. i never said that it will only support a bill that has an exception in it. i will support a bill that has

exceptions in it because it prevents abortions. john: on the clear light of day and nearly 24 hours later, did marco rubio do as well as many people said? mark: i get why people said he did well because he is different from everyone else and the argument that he is the future is really strong compared to the other nine people on stage, but this abortion thing appears to us from our reporting sense has never been asked to be clear -- does he support legislation? would he like the law of the land to be no exceptions for rape or insist on women having an abortion? this factor with rubio he has never been pressed and i think if he has success -- we will see if this well-reviewed performance moves him up in the polls -- if he has success, i still believe he has to deal with a lot more scrutiny than he has ever gotten. john: it has to come some point. he has gotten very little scrutiny. he is very slippery on these issues. i will say i thought if you compare him to a lot of people on stage, i thought he did well. the elements that have always been true -- he makes a compelling case for conservative

policies. his biography is very strong. the other set of people who think he really did well -- people in team rubio are mile high today about how well they think he did. mark: no doubt he did well, but that abortion thing will come back. the candidate who barely made it on stage was the ohio governor john kasich. he got a lot of time with one shots backed by home crowd applause. it made him seem like one of the winners of the debate. he also answered a question on gay marriage that got well reviewed and dealing with accepting obamacare medicare money, kasich said this. mr. kasich: i had an opportunity to bring resources back to ohio to do what? to treat the mentally ill. 10,000 of them fit in our prisons. it costs $22,500 a year to keep them in prison. i would rather give them their medication so they can lead a decent life. medicaid is growing at one of the lowest rates in the country

and finally we went from $8 billion in the hole to $2 billion in the black. mark: kasich got a lot of praise from pundits. how much did he help himself with what was one of the stronger performances? john: i will plug the piece i wrote about this on bloombergpolitics.com. i called him one of the winners. i see kasich as having big appeal. i then had second thoughts when i saw camile paglia write a piece where she thought john kasich was the winner. he barely made this debate. he got in front of 23 million people and gave -- for the kind of conservatism he wants to be he was the best version of that candidate. for a guy like john kasich, that is the best you can hope for. mark: if bush does not perform stronger, the weaker bush looks not just in the debates but overall, the stronger kasich looks to a large segment of the

elite and i think a fair number of voters. i still think he has a chance to become number two in new hampshire by labor day. if he does, people will look at his record. people kept saying he was going to be peevish and cranky. that is not what he is like now on a regular basis. john: you heard conservatives say he was the charismatic optimistic, comfortable version of jeb bush and that is a good place if you want to be the alternative. mark: the medicaid thing is a problem. john: i don't disagree. on the undercard debate which took place at 5:00 yesterday not a lot happened except for carly fiorina. her very strong performance suggested her presence would have made the main stage debate even more interesting than it was and fox news felt so eager to include her that they played a clip of her during the prime time show. this is how fiorina displayed her command of international issues. ms. fiorina: i would make two calls when i first take office. i would make a phone call to benjamin netanyahu to make sure we stand with the state of israel and the second would be to the supreme leader of iran.

he might not take my phone call, but he would get the message and the message is this. until you open every nuclear and military facility to full open anytime, anywhere inspections, we will make it as difficult as possible for you to move money around the global financial system. as important as those phone calls are, they are important because they say america is back in the leadership business. when america does not lead, the world is a dangerous and tragic place. john: i predict she will be on the main stage at the next debate in september in california. she will not be at the kiddie table. what do the people that were at the second-tier table, what do they take away from her performance to help them elevate next time around? mark: on one level i was wrong because i was saying the earlier debate had great opportunities. on one level, i think i was right. she clearly proved you could have a breakout performance. on the other ones, they did not come playing their a game.

now, look -- she has done a lot of great things in terms of her coverage and connection with the voters in iowa and new hampshire, and has not moved up in the polls. i'm not sure it will help her. she set the dynamic that you can succeed there. can more than one person succeed on that debate? i'm not sure? but her performance was not surprising to me because she became a pretty good candidate. people like rick perry who did not do particularly well will face a lot of trouble. if you don't perform like a star in the b debate, it is big trouble. john: i thought the moderators were good. the whole thing was well-run. the undercard debate was not well run in this respect -- they were in an arena with an empty audience. for people like lindsey graham and others, not having any humanity in the room, that hurt them. the empty baseball stadium at camden yards. i think that cnn, when they do this debate, they have to do better in setting up a better debate-like atmosphere. mark: chuck schumer came out in

opposition of the president's deal with iran on nuclear weapons. that is a huge development. schumer's views have been waited for for a while. does this help the president get -- does this affect the likelihood the president will get the measure passedst capitol hill? john: it gearing there will not be a resolution of disapproval. i think chuck schumer would never be in this position unless he knew the deal was ultimately going through. mark: bernie sanders had an interview today and came out for the deal. now republicans we need to get almost every uncommitted democratic senator to override the veto and the white house is relatively confident. it could under different scenarios affect it. it won't. john: the income senate majority leader is not going to be the one that derails the signature foreign-policy for the president. chuck schumer is a good vote counter. he knows they have the votes. mark: it puts the president in

an uncomfortable position to condemn schumer. the way he condemned the republicans in a speech earlier this week. john: coming up, scott walker, ted cruz, chris christie, rand paul and professor and marianne -- all here on "with all due respect." ♪

john: there are lots of republicans running for president. let's go through the other moments from last night. starting with scott walker who had a big zinger on hillary clinton's e-mails. mr. walker: probably the chinese and russian government know more about hillary clinton's e-mail then do members of the u.s. congress. john: what did you think about scott walker? mark: i think he will do better in the other debates. i think the first national one he was not as loose as he could be. he does need to get better. i don't think that level of performance is going to be good enough. john: he has to get off talking points. he looks too canned. i had some democrats last night

who said he passed the intelligence seriousness threshold which for him was important. mark: he was solid all night as was almost everybody but he does need to get better. ted cruz's knowledge on foreign policy, iran, and russia on display. mr. cruz: you just mentioned the iranian general, the head of the al kudz forces. he is directly responsible for the murder of over 500 american servicemen in iraq and part of this iranian deal is lifting the sanctions on general sulamani. the day he flew back from moscow to iran was the day we believe russia used cyber warfare against the joint chiefs. we need a new commander in chief that will stand up to our enemies and have credibility. mark: too little optimism, i thought. how do you think he did? john: i thought -- if you think about the guys playing the social conservative tea party bracket, i think he did well. on the basis of what i have heard about various focus groups and other things on the inside they are happy with his

, performance, the cruz people are. he is a subterranean success in a lot of ways. mark: i think a lot of people did pretty well. i thought he would have been more dominant. i thought he was going to do better. john: he was not like mr. master debater. chris christie, rand paul -- this was the highlight of the debate. they went after each other over the issue of government surveillance. mr. christie: i want to collect more records from terrorists. but less records from other people. how are you supposed to know that? when you're sitting in the subcommittee just blowing hot air about this, you can say things like that. mr. paul: i don't trust president obama with our records. i know you gave him a big hug. if you want to give him a big hug again, go right ahead. mr. christie: the hugs i remember are the hugs i gave to the families who lost their people on september 11. john: i thought chris christie was pretty good and rand paul sucked. i thought that exchange illustrated christie at his best

and paul at his worst. what you think? mark: rand paul needs to send a message that can win over republicans. talking about civil liberties over national security, talking about working with them across -- -- with democrats, that is not currently in step. john: he looked impatient, irritable, all the things we know that are weaknesses were all on display. mark: huckabee and carson, neither of them dominated. john: i think huckabee did better. carson is a mystery to me. i understand his biography. i understand his appeal as an outsider. but every time he spoke, the energy level in the room collapsed. he had a good closing statement but the rest was bad for him. mark: fox gave trump a lot more time than others. three times more. john: after promising to strive for balance. mark: that was unfair. i am surprised candidates are not complaining. next time, we will have to see how candidates deal with that. if you assume cnn will make up the trump show again -- they tried to engage but it was not

very effective. let's see, based on what jeb bush did earlier today -- maybe by that debate, he will want to be the one engaging. john: we will be right back with the real star of last night's debate after this. ♪

mark: let's talk more about last night's debate with our colleague al hunt. al, hillary clinton and her team seemed pretty psyched about the debate last night. honest appraisal, should they have been happy? was there anything last night that happened in that debate that should worry them? al: i don't think it was one of the most memorable debates i have ever seen so would maybe be forgotten in a couple of months. short-term, hillary and democrats should be pleased. trump dominated which is good for democrats. second, there was focus on of -- and hard edged focus on abortion, planned parenthood. not the issue, but the emphasis and the tone.

i think that helped the democrats. john: i think democrats liked this debate. one thing they seem to think was in their favor was everyone on , stage was competing for trump's voters which is not a good position for the party. did you agree with that? is that what you think was going on there? al: not really. i think they have different voters they are competing for. when donald trump is leading the way, you have to take voters from him. there is no question. but let me give you one example. i was in iowa for two days before we came to cleveland and i talked to a lot of evangelicals. they will be two out of five voters in the iowa republican caucus. donald trump is in first place in that group now. he will lose that vote. i am confident. donald is a lot of things -- a cultural conservative he is not. that is why i thought ted cruz had a better night last night because i heard there was so much he said last night which was playing back what i heard from some of those born-agains in iowa. not just about god and faith

but i heard several say we don't want to see a boehner and mcconnell go along in washington. that does not play well here. it plays well out there. mark: based on what the candidates said last night, what can we say about where the grassroots of the party is now? where is the focus? where is the energy? al: i'm just basing this on iowa, mark, because that is where i was. boy, it is up for grabs. those evangelicals i spoke about are all over the lot right now. trump will lose a bunch of those. i think the battle will end up really between huckabee and cruz with scott walker getting a share. mark: what are the issues? what is animating them? al: they want someone who's tough that they can be proud of and will beat the establishment. they really care about that because on the specifics there is not really a difference. john: they talked about a lot of the issues last night. they were going very quickly.

there were some that got left out. energy and climate did not get talked about. were there any substantive issues that popped up that made you think, because of the discussion that they might pop up again and again and become more prominent this cycle then we thought they might have been? al: i'm going to defer to you and mark on that because i heard the debate, i read the transcript and i cannot find any sleeper issues. i don't think there was a single issue that came up last night that we could not have anticipated. i may be missing something but i cannot think of one. mark: the normal physics of the republican nomination would say this is all a little bit of fun and light and eventually jeb bush will be the nominee. after last night, after bush attacked from today, -- trump today, do you think we are more or less likely to be on track for bush to be the nominee? al: a little bit less. he just did not look very exciting. he did not look like this is the

guy we would like to have as our leader. i thought kasich had a good night. if he breaks out and he is getting a lot of support in new hampshire, that will be bad news for jeb bush. john: what do you think the answer to that question is? mark: i still think until we see how jeb bush's super pac spends tens of millions of dollars, it is hard to fully gauge that. john: your friend dan pfeiffer tweeted that if a candidate not named jeb bush gave that performance, they would be toast. i think that is a little overstated. but not totally overstated. mark: he has to step it up. we will be back right after this. ♪

john: we are live 24/7 on bloombergpolitics.com. next week, we go to iowa for the iowa state fair. i know one of your favorite things to happen. what is your favorite food? mark: i'm looking forward to pork chop on a stick and donald trump at the fair. john: that is going to be

fantastic. remember we are on twice a day at 5:00 and 8:00 p.m. until next week, friends and neighbors

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