Donald Trump said Monday night he didn’t pursue a line of criticism he could have during the debate, out of respect for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea.
“I’m really happy I was able to hold back on the indiscretions in respect to Bill Clinton. Because I have a lot of respect for Chelsea Clinton,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash, who then asked what he would have said.
“Maybe I’ll tell you at the next debate. We’ll see. But I’m very happy,” Trump said.
He added: “I think she’d be a poor president. I don’t think she’d be do the job. We need somebody who will really be able to do the job. She doesn’t have what it takes to make America great again.”
“I think it went better than I ever thought,” he said.
Trump later said in another interview after the debate that Clinton never gets anything “fixed.”
“She has been saying these things for years. And nothing ever happens. They never get fixed. It’s all talk, no action,” he said.
The real estate mogul said the debate was “very exciting overall” and claimed online polls showed him doing well in the immediate aftermath of the debate.
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“I just think it was very exciting overall, Dana,” he told Bash. “Based on all of the online polls, we did tremendously.”
“You haven’t had a real poll yet,” Bash said.
“Well, I mean, but the online polls were fantastic. Hundreds of thousands of people are calling and voting,” he said.
A CNN/ORC post-debate poll suggested debate watchers thought Clinton had stronger performance. Clinton was deemed the winner by a 62% to 27%, but the debate watchers surveyed were slightly more Democratic than the general public.