Jeb Bush made a mistake going after Marco Rubio over his voting record during Wednesday night's GOP debate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday, as being in a "back-and-forth brawl" isn't his greatest strength.
"Rubio's very smart and he is very fast and you know, you don't want to pick a fight with a guy like that unless you're prepared to stay in the ring with him," Gingrich said during
Fox News' "Outnumbered" show. "Other than [Donald] Trump, I'm not sure there is anybody else that could stay in the ring with Rubio."
Further, he said he does not know what point Bush, a former Florida governor, was trying to make by attacking Rubio, a Florida senator who had considered Bush a mentor at one time.
"I'm sure that his staff had some clever strategy but, you can't go into a debate with a previous game plan and implement it," said Gingrich. "Debates are like jazz. You have to follow the mood and then if it feels right, do it, but if it doesn't feel right, even if your advisers are all excited, don't do it."
Meanwhile, Gingrich said Rubio's great strength is his likeability, and the odd are "reasonably high" he'll be on the 2016 ticket.
Also on Thursday, Gingrich commented on the criticism about the CNBC debate moderators, saying he's "never seen an entire team go into the tank that badly."
However, that did give the candidates a chance to band together, and as a result, the team was "clearly winning decisively over the liberal team," he said.
Gingrich said the candidates' decision to attack presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton several times was "marginally effective," but urged them to remember Clinton is a "layer cake" of issues that is "never going to end."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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