Pundits: We've Never Seen Crowds Like Trump's

Bloomberg Managing Editor Mark Halperin, after hearing Donald Trump comment in an interview with him that his political movement is even bigger than President Ronald Reagan's was in the 1980s, said Thursday that he's never seen anything like the crowd of more than 10,000 people who filed in to hear the GOP presidential candidate speak Wednesday in Pensacola, Florida.

"It's not the first big Trump rally I've gone to, but it's one of the biggest I've been to," Halperin told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "It would be great for any American interested in politics, whether you like Trump or not, to see what it's like."

Trump rallies, said Halperin, are not only a one-hour stop with the former "Apprentice" star performing, but more like an all-day event with a "carnival-like atmosphere."

"When he talks, he knows how to work the crowd," Halperin said. "Even with a balky mike. It's true in Lowell, Massachusetts . . . and in the south."

And that makes Trump the "biggest thing in Pensacola in a long time," as "people have always wanted to come see him."

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough, a Pensacola native, told Halperin that the crowds are "nothing like I saw with Reagan, Bush, or any other candidate; what I saw last night."

Further, he noted that a friend called him at about 10 a.m. Wednesday to tell him there were people already lined up around the civic center, and that "thousands and thousands of people" who couldn't get in were turned away.

Trump tends to book the largest venues he can, said Halperin, but he does have a rival for crowd sizes: Bernie Sanders.

"I'm not sure he'll draw quite as big of a crowd," Halperin said. "This ability to bring people in, remember, it's not just for show and cameras, these are people trump has a chance to reach and speak to."

Trump, after the rally, told Halperin and Bloomberg editor John Heilemann, in an interview for the company's "All Due Respect" program, that "the closest thing I can think of is Reagan, but I don't think it's the intensity that we have."

The crowd wasn't just there to be entertained, Trump told Heilemann and Halperin, but are "now, Reagan had a little bit of this, but I don't think to the same extent — but he also won," Trump said. "It's not just like, 'Gee. It's a little political rally and people are showing up to have fun.'

"These people are committed . . . Why would a person stand in line for seven hours and then not want to go into a voting booth? It takes 10 minutes. So I think they're going to vote."

Trump's comments on Reagan were by far not the first time he's downplayed the conservative icon, reports Politico, as he slammed the former actor in his book "The Art of the Deal," saying that Reagan was "so smooth, so effective a performer" that "only now, seven years later, are people beginning to question whether there's anything beneath that smile."

In addition, to promote the book, Trump took out a campaign that attacked Reagan's record, taking out full page ads in The New York Times, the Boston Globe and The Washington Post to take on Reagan and his team.

In the Bloomberg editorial, Trump also weighed in on his nearest competitor, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who attacked him on Wednesday for how he "embodies New York values."

"When you want to knock New York, you've got to go through me," he said in the interview, which will air Thursday night as Trump heads to the GOP debate stage.

"New York is an amazing place with amazing people. We took a big hit with the World Trade Center — worst thing ever, worst attack ever in the United States, worse than Pearl Harbor because they attacked civilians, they attacked people having breakfast.

"And frankly, if you would've been there and if you would've lived through that like I did with New York people — the way they handled that attack was one of the most incredible things that anybody has ever seen."

But Trump still wasn't attacking Cruz, an odd stance considering the attacks he's made on other rivals who criticized him, namely Jeb Bush and Carly Fiorina.

For example, when asked about a New York Times report that Cruz failed to disclose to the Federal Election Commission around $1 million in loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank when running for the Senate in 2012, Trump said he hopes Cruz solves the issue.

"I heard it's a big thing," said Trump. "I know nothing about it. But I hear it's a very big thing."

Trump added: "I hope he solves it. I think he's a nice guy and I hope he gets it solved."

But Trump has attacked rivals for receiving financing from large corporate donors, and may well address the topic of Cruz' ties with Goldman Sachs and Citibank during Thursday night's GOP debate in Charleston, South Carolina.

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