The climactic moment arrived during a discussion of health insurance. Trump tried to remind Rubio that he'd repeated himself badly in a debate five weeks ago, but Rubio exclaimed, "I saw you repeat yourself five seconds ago!" Cruz also tried to make the electability case against Trump but found himself hoist on his petard by The Donald, who noted that the senator's polls aren't in a great place. After hearing quotes from Mexican politicians attacking him about paying for the wall, Trump retorted that, "the wall just got 10 feet taller!" Rubio’s performance Thursday will cheer those who have rallied to his side since South Carolina, despite the fact that he did not win any of the first four contests. Right from the start on Thursday night, though, the Florida senator unloaded line after line of opposition research. But questions over when Trump and the other candidates will release their taxes took up a considerable amount of debate time. A sense of humor goes a long way in debates, and even though Trump was constantly challenged, he did his best to maintain his humor, even by telling Rubio and Cruz, "I know you two are embarrassed" (by the polls), "but keep swinging at me ..." 
 
 Trump's failure in this debate, which was in large part due to sustained and organized attacks from Rubio and Cruz, was that he forgot his general themes and he missed opportunities to attack Washington politicians. “You don’t know a thing about business.” But Rubio generally got the better of Trump, while Trump had only retread insults to lob back. By constantly reminding us that Trump throws money (and influence) at one Democrat after another, Cruz stole a little bit of that "outsider" luster away from Trump. Carson and Kasich got almost no questions, and the ones they did get they seemed unprepared to handle. Carson did, however, manage to coin an incredible phrase when describing his litmus test for Supreme Court nominees: “The fruit salad of their life is what I will look at.” (Your guess is as good as anyone else’s.)
– The debate post-mortems have a clear theme Friday morning: Marco Rubio is the consensus winner after his relentless attacks on Donald Trump, with the big question being whether it's too late to stop the frontrunner's momentum. Some highlights: "This was not only Rubio's best debate performance. It was the best debate performance by any candidate in any debate so far in the 2016 election." So declares Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post; he thinks it's now a two-man race between Rubio and Trump. Ted Cruz also scored points for his Trump assaults, and Todd Graham at CNN gives him an A. "His answers on immigration were his best in any debate, talking about faith, family, and patriotism. Both he and Rubio forgot their squabbles and focused on Trump. All great strategic moves." "For those fearful of Trump as the party’s nominee, Thursday was supposed to be the night that the dynamic of the race began to change," writes Dan Balz at the Washington Post. "Certainly Rubio and Cruz tried to make that happen, with some success. But Tuesday’s balloting will be the real first test of whether things actually are changing." Trump generally is getting bad to mediocre reviews—the New York Times says the attacks on him resulted in a "less nimble performance"—but David A. Graham of the Atlantic thinks it was his "worst debate of the campaign." Of course, "one rule of thumb so far has been that no matter how Trump performs during these debates, it doesn’t seem to hurt him." One succinct wrap-up comes from Mary Kissel of the Wall Street Journal via Twitter: “Blitzer loses. Cruz-Rubio tag team against Trump effective, but too late? Trump took big hits. Kasich blah. Goodbye, Ben.” Click to read some of the debate's best lines.