Donald Trump was dismantled in Thursday night’s debate in Detroit.
In the face of consistent fire from Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and a tough line of questioning from Fox moderators, Trump struggled more than he has at any debate thus far.
The debate raised a number of doubts about Trump’s trustworthiness, business practices and readiness to take on Hillary Clinton in the general election.
On his signature issue, Trump was forced to confirm that he would be flexible on immigration policy, and that he was “softening” his position on high-skilled immigrants.
He took heat from Rubio for employing foreign workers at his Florida hotel and manufacturing his clothing line overseas — a contrast with his campaign rhetoric of protecting the American worker.
Rubio also pointed out that whenever Trump is asked a detailed policy question, he resorts to insults to avoid the question, an attack that was reinforced as Trump repeatedly referred to his opponent as “little Marco.”
After Trump claimed that he would balance the budget by eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Education, Fox’s Chris Wallace interjected that those numbers didn’t add up — that eliminating those departments even entirely would fall far short of eliminating the annual deficit. When Trump claimed he would make up the rest by negotiating drug prices with Medicare, Wallace pointed out that this wouldn’t be enough either.
Megyn Kelly confronted Trump on his history of changing positions within days, including on the Afghanistan War and allowing in Syrian refugees.
Cruz launched the most effective series of attacks on Trump’s record of donations to Democrats, including Clinton.
But the most blistering and potentially damaging attacks came on the fraud suit facing Trump over Trump University.
When Trump claimed that the school, which promised to reveal money-making secrets, received an ‘A’ rating from the Better Business Bureau, Kelly pointed out that it was actually a ‘D-.’
Under fire, Trump told Kelly that if she waited several years, she’d see him win the fraud case. But Cruz pointed out that this raised uncertainty heading into the general election were he the nominee, as the fraud case would be looming over him.
To be sure, Trump has received poor reviews by pundits in previous debates, only to continue to rack up wins and collect delegates. Until something different happens, the operating assumption will likely be that his poor debate performance won’t hurt him heading into upcoming contest, especially the big prizes of Michigan, Florida and Ohio.
But this time, one potentially key difference is that outside groups dedicated to blocking Trump’s nomination are — for the first time — spending large amounts of money taking out ads against him. This means that all of the potent attacks leveled tonight will be amplified in the coming days and weeks in a way they have not to this date.
