Donald Trump slams Rosie O’Donnell during GOP debate

But the audience didn’t always seem impressed with his answers.

The Republican presidential TV debate on Thursday attracted an unprecedented 24 million viewers, Fox News has announced.

Before the debate on Thursday night, seven Republican presidential candidates who have lower support in public opinion surveys gathered.

“I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but I’ve never been called a clown and those focus groups are accurate”, Luntz responded on “CBS This Morning“.

Mr. Trump was asked about controversial statements he has made in the past.

He might not have helped his cause on Friday after he retweeted a tweet that called Kelly a “bimbo.”

Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes defended his moderators, calling it “the best political debate team ever put on television”.

This is hardly the first time that the View alum, 53, has found herself facing off against Trump.

The Republicans will host at least eight more debates as the party whittles down its broad field and determines its flagbearer to go up against likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. He said he’s not concerned about political correctness. “But I wouldn’t do that”.

In particular, he accused moderator Megyn Kelly of giving him tougher questions than other candidates.

Christie told the RedState crowd on Friday that his leadership of a Democratic-leaning state makes him “battle tested for Washington”.

The debate’s feisty tone suited the flamboyant Trump, who has been the centre of campaign attention for weeks for his personal attacks on rivals and his scathing comments about US Senator John McCain’s war record and about Mexican immigrants. Is it true? No, but I have said Mr. Trump’s language is divisive. “Because someone doesn’t think the way I do, doesn’t mean that I can’t care about them or love them”.

Discussing the Fox News debate, of course, was not the first time that Trump’s and O’Donnell’s names were in the same headline.

“Wow, @megynkelly really bombed tonight”.

“They attempted to create a negative narrative of Mr. Trump both during and after the debate but failed”, Cohen said.

Would he back the Republicans all the way?

The most-watched GOP primary debate for the 2012 election, on ABC in December 2011, had 7.6 million people, Nielsen said. “He wants to do that in a month in California, if he’s still on the stage after that performance last night”, he added, referencing next month’s Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California.