This story was originally published on nationaljournal.com on Feb. 25, 2016 Friday, after Thursday night’s GOP primary debate,* we certainly won’t know whether Donald Trump’s upward trajectory has been fundamentally changed, but we ought to have an idea whether the circumstances required to stop Trump are starting to develop. Will the other candidates choose to take the fight to Trump rather than fighting amongst themselves? Will the media make Trump actually answer questions? Friday will be “the tell.” We know that Ted Cruz is not above mixing it up, but given the recent flaps over campaign tactics, will he need to pull his punches or will he continue to go all out? We can probably assume that John Kasich will play Mr. Rogers again, making nice, so no threat to the Trump juggernaut. All the talk leading into the debate was that Marco Rubio would not find the cojones to really go after Trump. The answers on Friday morning to those questions will be a good indicator of where this is going. We’ll also know whether the media, in this
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