Subdued

Trump's bad morning after

The billionaire businessman emerges from the second presidential debate with a more subdued tone.

By Nick Gass

For the first three months of his campaign, Donald Trump built a wall of invincibility between himself and fellow Republican candidates. But on Thursday, as the dust settled from the second presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan presidential library, one thing became clear--that wall had been torn down.

Carly Fiorina emerged as the consensus winner of the 11-candidate showdown, in no small part because she landed a solid blow on Trump, shaming him for his disparaging "look at that face" comment. But it wasn't just Fiorina who finally was able to rough up Trump, while also pulling the spotlight off of the billionaire businessman and reality TV star currently dominating at the polls. Jeb Bush also got his moment, catching Trump in a fib about his Florida casino expansion dreams.

Trump on Thursday morning took a decidedly different tack on his opponents: He praised them.

“I really think that everybody did at least pretty well,” he said Thursday in a post-debate interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "I thought there was nobody that did poorly."

There's no way of telling if Trump's relatively subdued tone during the debate and day after is here to stay, but it seemed to usher in a new chapter of the Trump presidential saga, even if it's fleeting. His notorious Twitter feed on Thursday was even upbeat and restrained (for Trump). That's a far cry from the days following last month's Fox News debate, when the real estate mogul went on a spree with vicious insults hurled at Megyn Kelly.

"Just announced that in the history of @CNN, last night’s debate was its highest rated ever. Will they send me flowers & a thank you note?" Trump said in one Tweet.

He followed with, "Every poll done on debate last night, from Drudge to Newsmax to Time Magazine, had me winning in a landslide. #MakeAmericaGreatAgain!"

It will take a few days for the real poll results to roll in, and by many accounts, it was Fiorina as the victor who drew first blood from Trump and potentially paved the way for the rest of the field to pile on.

"Carly, hands down," said a New Hampshire Democrat as part of POLITICO Caucus, our weekly survey of the top operatives, activists and strategists in Iowa and New Hampshire. "She handled Trump like the junior high schooler he is."

"Trump take downs were appropriately icy without being over the top," a New Hampshire Republican said Wednesday night. "Consistently strong, memorable answers and made Trump seem very small tonight," added another. From an Iowa Republican: "She caused the fifth and final bankruptcy of Donald Trump. Bankrupt of policy, ideas and stature, he was finally shown to be the fraud con artist of 2016."

Trump on Thursday morning crowed about his own performance but seemed to hint that he might have not brought his A game. He took umbrage with the length of the debate, which ran more than three hours with commercials (roughly the length of the shortest Academy Awards ceremony in the last quarter century or slightly longer than the average length of a Major League Baseball game), which seemed to have struck a nerve both before, during and after the marathon television event.

"Will be heading over to the debate soon. Can you believe @CNN is "milking" it for almost 3 hours? Too long, too many people on stage!" Trump tweeted hours before arriving at the Reagan Library.

During the debate itself, Trump said that along with civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, he would put his daughter Ivanka on the $10 bill "because she's been sitting for three hours."

Hours later, Trump compared the length of CNN's primetime event to another American epic.

"Three hours is too much too long for a debate," Trump said this morning. "How long is 'Gone with the Wind'?" he asked. (The 1939 Oscar-winning film actually runs about 30 minutes longer than CNN's second debate lasted.)

Trump's relatively lackluster performance allowed other candidates to deliver their own memorable moments, including Bush, who earned the biggest applause from the Reagan Library audience when he invoked his brother's record in keeping the country safe after 9/11.

“Your brother's administration gave us Barack Obama, because it was such a disaster, those last three months, that Abraham Lincoln couldn't have been elected,” Trump told Bush.

“You know what? As it relates to my brother, there's one thing I know for sure,” Bush returned. “He kept us safe.”

For more than 30 minutes after that exchange, the usually vociferous Trump did not speak as other candidates discussed foreign policy and marijuana legalization.

“It totally silenced Trump, one of the things no one else has been able to do,” Bush adviser Trent Wisecup told reporters Wednesday night following the debate in the spin room.

Toward the end of the debate, Bush joked that he would make his Secret Service name "Eveready" because it was "high-energy, Donald," a light-hearted jab at Trump's frequent characterization of him as "low-energy."

As the audience laughed, Trump smiled, casually putting out his left hand. Bush, situated less than a foot away from his frequent tormentor, slapped his hand with a low-five.

“I think that might leave a mark,” said David Kochel, a Bush adviser who laughed off the suggestion that his candidate looked like he wanted to be friends with the bully who’s been taking his lunch money. “He showed his sense of humor and he closed strong.”

Kevin Madden, a GOP communications consultant who advised Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2012, said Trump seemed to noticeably fade at points during the debate. “If Donald Trump seemed to wander off with his tail between his legs at times, that was because of Carly Fiorina and Marco Rubio," he said. “I don’t think Jeb hurt himself tonight, but he didn’t stand out. And in a debate, if you’re not on offense, you’re losing. Carly Fiorina was on offense the most.”