Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Bloomberg TV’s Mark Halperin said Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump will not be hurt by the back and forth with his rival Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) over his wife, Heidi Cruz.
Halperin said, “It doesn’t help anybody, doesn’t help the discourse but it also doesn’t help Senator Cruz, I don’t think this is what he wants the contrast to be with Donald Trump.”
Former Bush and McCain adviser Nicolle Wallace disagreed.
“I totally disagree,” she said. “Women hear him standing up to a guy bullying other women and yesterday what happened on cable news, a lot of female cable hosts pressed Trump’s spokespeople about the larger theme of Trump’s treatment of women. And that conversation would not have started unless his opponent, Cruz, had raised the issue. Lots of coded words in here, small, petty, pink, this gender debate, you can say it doesn’t hurt or help, I think it will be a long time before we can tell the actual affect among female voters about debates like this.”
Halperin said, “It may be a long time but the Wisconsin primary is a week from Tuesday.”
Wallace added, “But I think in eroding Trump’s potential support among women I think the damage could be lasting.”
Halprin said, “It could be in the general election it could be but Ted Cruz is not trying to help Hillary Clinton when he’s trying to win the nomination himself. I just believe that this one frame which is going to dominate the news as long as he continues to escalate the rhetoric is not enough to stop Donald Trump for getting a majority of the delegates.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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