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. we should be talking about issues that give people a sense that the people will be better 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? that is ridiculous. my wife is an american by choice. she wants the border to be secured as well. mark: comparing trump to barack obama, and the 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, attacking donald trump on cable went last night

he had an audience of many millions -- i think early in this interview he made suggestions. 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 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. if he does, he will be the most aggressive person going after trump. john: i'm not saying he did disastrously. 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: last night, trump dominated the debate and then he went on some shows to say he did well. here are some post-debate stuff and then mr. trump himself. >> the real story is the collapse of trump. 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? mr. trump: that was done by a guy named frank who is a real dunce. i think he picks 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. >> she 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. 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. lots of discussion about this already, but what is your view? did trump help or hurt himself? john: false binary. he neither helped himself or hurt himself. i think most of the trump supporters will not desert him. he did not look particularly presidential. i think -- 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. 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 which 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. conservatives are almost uniformly critical of donald trump last night. next, let's take a look at marco rubio's performance. the senator was widely praised by pundits, analysts, centrists for how he did on stage. by this morning, it appeared one of his answers last night caused in 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. i advocated that we passed a law in this country that all human life at all stages is worthy of protection. it is called the constitution of the united states. >> you are on the bill that had that for rape and incest. is that something you want to correct this morning? mr. rubio: that is not true. every single pro-life senator, group, even the catholics, supported the bill you are talking about. 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 it to be no exception? he has never been pressed and i think if he has success -- we will see if this moves them 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. i will say i thought if you compare him to a lot of people on stage, the elements that have always been true -- he makes a compelling case for conservative policies. his biography is very strong. people in team rubio are mile

high today about how well they think he did. mark: 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 help our mentally ill. it costs money to keep them in prison. i would rather give them their medication. 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 then had second thoughts when i saw a piece when 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 overall, the stronger kasich looks. 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 cranky. that is not like how he is now. john: you heard conservatives say he was the charismatic comfortable version of jeb bush and that is a good place if you want to be the alternative. 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. 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.

you would get the message -- 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? mark: on one level i was wrong because i was saying the earlier debate had great opportunities. she clearly proved you could have a breakout performance. on the other ones, they did not come playing their a game.

she has done a lot of great things in terms of her coverage and connection with the voters. i'm not sure it will help her. can more than one person succeed on that debate? 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, it is big trouble. john: i thought the moderators were good. 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. when cnn does this debate, they have to do better in setting up a better debate-like atmosphere. 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 the measure passed 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. john: the income senate majority leader is not going to be the one that derails the signature foreign-policy for the president. mark: it puts the president in an uncomfortable position to condemn schumer.

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 servers. 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. john: he has to get off talking points. 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 but he does need to get better. ted cruz's knowledge on foreign policy and russia on display. mr. cruz: you just mentioned the iranian general 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. john: i thought -- if you think about the guys playing the social conservative tea party bracket, i think he did well. they are happy with his

performance. it seems like he was a subterranean success. mark: i think a lot of people did pretty well. i thought he would have been more dominant. 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. 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. 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 people who lost their families on september 11. john: i thought chris christie was pretty good and rand paul sucked. mark: rand paul needs to send a

message that can win over republicans. 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 appeal. 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. that was unfair. 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.

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? with her anything that should worry them? al: i don't think it was one of the most memorable debates i have ever seen so would maybe 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 abortion, planned parenthood. not the issue, but the emphasis in and the tone. john: i think democrats liked

this debate. everyone on stage was competing for trump's voters which is not a good position for the party. did you agree with that? 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. one example -- i was in iowa before we came to cleveland and i talked to a lot of evangelicals. two out of five voters. donald trump is in first place in that group. he will lose that vote. 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 what i heard from some of those born-agains in iowa. i heard several say we don't

want to see a boehner and mcconnell go along in washington. 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? 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 between huckabee and cruz with scott walker getting a share. mark: what are the issues? 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. energy and climate did not get talked about.

were there any substantive issues that popped up that made you think that they might pop up again and again and become more prominent this cycle? 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, 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. mark: i still think until we see how jeb bush's super pac spends it is hard to fully gauge that. john: your friend tweeted that if a candidate not named jeb bush gave that performance, they would be toast. i think that is a little 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: we are on twice a day at

5:00 and 8:00 p.m. until next week, friends and neighbors and baywatchers, sayonara. ♪

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