Hillary's debate night was this good: Even Donald Trump admits she killed it

"Bernie for the sake of a good soundbite let her off the hook," Trump told "Morning Joe"

By Sophia Tesfaye

Senior Politics Editor

Published October 14, 2015 1:39PM (EDT)

 Donald Trump and Hillary clinton
Donald Trump and Hillary clinton

Donald Trump praised Hillary Clinton for her debate performance last night, saying "she did what she had to do.”

"It was a very calm, very nice, very easy debate," Trump told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" by phone this morning. Trump live-tweeted the entire debate and slammed all the Democratic candidates as "very scripted and rehearsed."

"You were bored weren’t you," host Joe Scarborough asked, clearly having taken a scroll of Trump's twitter feed.

"It wasn’t a very exciting debate. I wanted to turn, but I promised people I was going to tweet," Trump admitted.

Despite his boredom, Trump still had some strong opinions on his potential Democratic opponents (try not to laugh), including dismay that Bernie Sanders did not present a strong enough challenge to Clinton:

I think Bernie, actually, for the sake of a good soundbite, let her off the hook. You have an FBI investigation on the emails, and he just let her off ... I think that when you’re losing – because he is losing badly if you look nationally – when you’re losing that badly, you have to go a lot stronger.

"The other potential candidates, a couple of those shouldn’t have been up there," Trump said before adding he had hoped to see Joe Biden on stage.

In the end, Trump declared Clinton the clear winner:

She did her job. In all fairness, like her or not, she did her job. And they were very, very timed, and they probably, if they want to win, they really should’ve been a lot tougher in my opinion.

Watch Trump on "Morning Joe," via MSNBC:


By Sophia Tesfaye

Sophia Tesfaye is Salon's senior editor for news and politics, and resides in Washington, D.C. You can find her on Twitter at @SophiaTesfaye.

MORE FROM Sophia Tesfaye


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