Donald Trump continued his analysis of Tuesday’s night’s debate, which he live-tweeted, during a rally in Richmond, Va. on Wednesday.

The Republican front-runner’s biggest criticism was that he felt no one went after Hillary Clinton aggressively enough. “Nobody attacked her,” he said. “There was no attack.”

The moderators and other Democratic candidates stuck to policy questions, Trump said. In contrast, he felt the Republican debates were “like a reality television show. With me, everything was an attack.”

Trump was appalled at the extent to which he felt Clinton moved to the left to compete with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whom he calls a communist/socialist and a “maniac.”

“I watched last night as Hillary and Bernie Sanders, they just couldn’t give away things fast enough,” Trump said, presumably referring to their promises of spending on programs such as higher education and paid family leave.  “And they’re giving them to illegal immigrants. They want heath care for illegal immigrants. They want drivers licenses for illegal immigrants. They want, listen to this, social security for illegal immigrants.”

On health care, Trump promised to repeal Obamacare and replace it with “something that’s going to be terrific.” He said his plan will save money, allow patients to choose their doctors and feature lower deductibles. He did not, however, provide any further details.

Trump sardonically praised Clinton for her flip-flop on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.

“I have to hand it to Hillary Clinton. You’re all going to be mad at me, but I have to hand it to her,” he told the crowd of supporters. “It took great courage for her to go against President Obama on the trade pact. You know why? Because she could be indicted,” he said, implying that upsetting Obama could leave her open to prosecution for having classified material on her private email server.

“Petraeus did 5% of what she did and they destroyed his life,” Trump said.

At one point, the crowd erupted in boos as a small group of immigration activists waived signs and began to heckle the candidate.

“That’s alright,” Trump says as the boos subsided. “That’s why we have freedom of speech,” he said.

At least one Trump supporter was not as understanding, cursing and spitting on one protester.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the Expo Hall of the Richmond International Raceway on Oct. 14, 2015 in Richmond, Va. (Photo: Mandel Ngan, AFP/Getty Images)

After praising the First Amendment, Trump turned on the media. “I’ll tell you how dishonest the press is,” he said. “We have thousands of people in the room … and we have about 10 people over there. They’ll get the headline. You won’t. That’s pretty disgusting but that’s the way it goes.”

On the subject of immigration, Trump again promised a wall along the border with Mexico that is “going to be something special,” and said that Mexico would pay for its construction. He also said there will be, “a big beautiful door right in the middle” of it for desirable immigrants. It was unclear if the door is metaphorical.

In one interesting non-sequitur, Trump claimed that his appearance on NBCs Meet the Press saved host Chuck Todd’s job.

“He had his highest ratings in 4 1/2 years,” Trump said of Todd. “He called up our office. He said thank you. I saved his job.”

Trump made it clear that he intends to win the nomination and become the next president, saying otherwise the entire race would have been a waste of his time.

“I don’t care about my company. It’s peanuts,” he said, explaining that his older children can run it while he is president. What really matters, he said, is “the movement” that his presidential campaign has begun.

“I want to make you so proud of this country again,” Trump said, before leaving the stage as Twisted Sister’s We’re not gonna take it thundered through the hall.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker announces he is suspending his presidential campaign. (Morry Gash, AP)

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, participating Wednesday in his first interview since he dropped out of the GOP presidential race last month, refused to do a post-mortem on his failed campaign.

"Instead of doing what a lot of candidates do and sit back and whine about this, that or whatever, to me, I accept it for what it is," he told Milwaukee radio host Charlie Sykes. "It is what it is."

But Walker had a lot to say about the media and not being able to break through with substantive policy discussions. He had unveiled plans to replace Obamacare — the first candidate to do so — and to take on federal worker unions. He’d also outlined a hawkish foreign policy platform.

But he ended up flailing in the polls after shifting positions on issues and committing gaffes covered extensively by the media, including a suggestion that building a wall along the Canadian border was a "legitimate issue" worthy of consideration.

"They claim that they want substance, they claim that they don't like fighting and yet that's exactly what they put on air," Walker told Sykes on WTMJ Wednesday.

"The Republican debate the last go-round, it was a little bit like watching a Jerry Springer Show. They are much more interested in the personality battles."

He dropped out five days after that debate, in which his performance was roundly criticized as lackluster.

He now says he still hopes to exert national influence, perhaps by joining with other governors and pushing for some of the ideas he was going to roll out as a presidential candidate and to make the case for a smaller federal government.

And there is still perhaps an endorsement to be made, though he said he's not sure if he will make one. That "remains to be seen," he said.

The governor mused that maybe one day he will write a book about his experience. He said one thing he learned was that it's very difficult to try and run a state and simultaneously run for president. That's something he won't do again, he said, although he did not rule out another presidential run.

"God's got a calling for each of us, and I try and discern that calling every single day," Walker said. "And it may be for something like that, it may be to run for reelection."

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a No Labels convention on Oct. 12, 2015. (Jim Cole, AP)

This post has been updated.

The billionaire real estate mogul is renowned for braggadocio about his YUUUGE wealth, and for foregoing million-dollar checks from special-interest donors and self-funding his campaign.

But there is one thing he wants that taxpayers would foot the bill for: Secret Service protection.

He told The Hill on Tuesday that he deserves such a detail because of his popularity. And he noted that Obama already had Secret Service protection at this stage of the 2008 race.

"I want to put them on notice because they should have a liability," Trump said. "Personally, I think if Obama were doing as well as me he would've had Secret Service (earlier). I have by far the biggest crowds."

Obama was placed under Secret Service protection in May 2007, the earliest of any presidential candidate in history, in part because of racially charged rhetoric that had been directed at the then-senator running to be the first black president of the United States.

Trump, who employs his own security detail, joked that there must be some partisan reason he hasn't received protection yet.

"They're in no rush because I'm a Republican," he quipped.

Trump then clarified that he's sure the Secret Service doesn't want him or anyone else to get hurt.

"But I would think they should be very proactive and want protection for somebody like me that has 20,000 people at any time," he said. "You would think that they would want to be very proactive, but we have not heard from them."

Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Marsha Catron told USA TODAY on Wednesday that the agency had not received an official request for protection from the Trump campaign. Once it receives a request, a determination would be made on whether to grant it after consultation with a congressional advisory committee, she said.

Trump’s private security officers have at times been a newsy presence on the campaign trail, with one guard removing a Univision anchor from a press conference in August and possibly the same officer hitting a protester outside a New York event last month.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks at a presidential forum sponsored by Heritage Action on Sept. 18, 2015, in Greenville, S.C. (Richard Shiro, AP)

What to do when you're in the presidential polling cellar and can't seem to break through?

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul announced with much fanfare that he would livestream his entire day on the campaign trail in Iowa on Tuesday, predicting on Twitter that the event "could be HUGE."

Paul invited viewers to tag along as he visited St. Ambrose College in Davenport, Loras College in Dubuque and Upper Iowa University in Fayette. He stopped in at the baseball diamond where Field of Dreams was filmed, and he even took song requests and kept followers up to date on what he was listening to.

But perhaps the most viewed part of the day — at least judging by buzz the following day — was his reading mean tweets, ("dressed like sporty Spock,""hair looks like ramen noodles,""like a bucket of French grease on his head") and answering the top searches on his name on Google (He's 5-foot-8-inches tall and 52 years old).

Then came the most popular question on Google, "Is Rand Paul still running for president?"

"I don't know, I wouldn't be doing this dumbass livestreaming if I weren't," he said. "So, yes, I still am running for president. Get over it."

Paul has been averaging in the low single digits in national polls for months as Donald Trump has maintained his front-runner status — and dominated media coverage. The most recent USA TODAY poll found Paul with 2% support.

Never one to let such an opportunity slip away, the Paul campaign seized on his off-the cuff remark and is now selling "dumb ass" T-shirts.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper moderates a presidential debate sponsored by CNN and Facebook for Democratic presidential candidates at the Wynn Las Vegas on Oct. 13, 2015. (Joe Raedle, Getty Images)

What was your favorite moment from the first Democratic debate?

Choose from the list of moments with candidates Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb. Journalist Anderson Cooper also gets a mention.

Stigliani is an editor for the Burlington Free Press. Poll photos by Getty Images.

Donald Trump and Ben Carson. (AP)

Republican front-runner Donald Trump says Ben Carson has been gaining on him in recent polls because the retired neurosurgeon has taken a page from the Trump playbook: making controversial statements that draw media coverage.

"He's been getting a lot of ink on the Muslims and other things," Trump told ABC News Wednesday. "And I guess people look at that and they probably like it. Some people thought they wouldn't like it, but they probably do."

Trump himself burst into the lead in GOP presidential polls after saying during his announcement speech in June that people crossing illegally into the United States from Mexico are "bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people."

Carson's support has nearly doubled over the past two months, according to a Fox News poll released Tuesday that shows he is now virtually tied with Trump. The New York real estate mogul is still on top with 24% but Carson had 23%, well within the margin of error.

Carson generated a firestorm of criticism a few weeks ago when he said he didn't believe a Muslim should be president of the United States. He later walked that back, saying he wouldn't have a problem with a Muslim occupying the Oval Office as long as "they embrace American values and they place our Constitution at the top level, above their religious beliefs."

His comments prompted Nihad Awad, a co-founder of the Council on Islamic-American Relations, to call for Carson to withdraw from the race, saying he is "unfit to lead."

In response, Carson started a petition demanding that the IRS revoke the group's tax-exempt status because federal laws prohibit tax-exempt nonprofits from intervening in political campaigns.

"Under the Obama administration, the IRS has systematically targeted conservative nonprofit groups for politically motivated audits and harassment," the petition says. "The agency should now properly do its job and punish the real violators of America's laws and regulations."

Carson has regularly polled in second place behind Trump and Trump said Wednesday that he will soon have to go after him, though he is reticent to do so.

"You know he's a good guy, he's a nice guy, we get along very well," Trump told ABC.

He said there are "a lot of issues" he would target Carson on – "one of them would be experience. I mean, Ben is a doctor and that's what he's been doing.

"The question is, is he capable of negotiating with China and Russia and Iran and all of the things you have to do?" Trump said. "You know there'll be a lot of things, but I think at this moment I'm not going to go into them but there will be a lot of things."

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton take part in Tuesday’s debate in Las Vegas. (Joe Raedle, Getty Images)

This post has been updated.

The first Democratic presidential debate Tuesday night may have been the most watched debate ever – among Democrats.

Nielsen ratings show that 15.3 million viewers — 11% of American homes with televisions — tuned in, according to debate sponsor CNN. That would beat the previous record for a Democratic debate set in 2008, when 8.9% — or 10.7 million Americans — tuned in.

It's still far short of the viewership of this year's Republican debates, featuring Donald Trump. The August debate on Fox drew 25 million viewers, while the CNN GOP debate in September drew 23 million.

Executives told CNN that the two parties' debates are “apples and oranges” and that they didn't expect the Democrats to match Trump et. al.

The network did trumpet the numbers of viewers who livestreamed the Democratic debate, saying that 980,000 were watching at one point — more than streamed the Republican debates, which topped out at 921,000.

And the Twitter hashtag for the debate, #DemDebate, trended on Facebook and Twitter for much of the evening, the network said.

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders raised more than $1.3 million in the first four hours after the Democratic debate began, according to his campaign.

Sanders scored more than 37,600 individual contributions, averaging $34.58 during the four-hour stretch, spokesman Michael Briggs said.

The Vermont senator’s campaign sought to capitalize on one of the biggest moments of Tuesday’s debate, Sanders’ insistence that the “American people are tired of hearing about” Hillary Clinton’s “damn emails.”

The debate wasn’t even over when Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver emailed supporters a video clip of the quote and asked them to send a small donation “before Bernie steps off the stage.”

Clinton’s aides also sought to parlay her strong performance into campaign cash. “Turn on your TV,” was the subject line of a mid-debate email from former President Bill Clinton. “Chip in $1 right now and show her you’re with her.”

On Wednesday morning, Clinton’s camp wasn’t saying whether her big night on the debate stage yielded big dollars.

Sanders, who rails against money in politics, has proved very adept at raising it for his campaign. Fueled largely by small donations, the self-described democratic socialist raised $26 million during the summer, just $2 million shy of Clinton’s haul.

The day after a presidential debate is always such a letdown at For the Record headquarters. Right now we’re putting away the debate tree, the radio stations aren’t playing debate carols anymore, and the kids have already stopped asking us if Joe Biden really exists. We keep reminding ourselves that even if there’s not a debate every day, the spirit of Debatemas can live in our hearts all year round. Also, we have another one of these coming up in two weeks and we need to start baking more cookies soon.

Three quick takeaways from last night’s debate:

• Five candidates is a pretty good number to conduct a substantive debate.
• With last night’s Democratic debate and December’s Republican debate, Las Vegas is turning into a key city in national politics.
• Jim Webb killed a guy.

We waited months for that?

Five for fighting. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Positions were staked out, jabs were thrown — and ultimately, nothing really changed. Hillary Clinton impressed most pundits with her noticeably sharper debate skills — she did do 26 of these debates in 2007-08, after all. Bernie Sanders scored points by not trying to score points on Clinton’s email woes. Martin O’Malley seemed like a guy running for vice president. Webb wasn’t given as much time as his rivals, and if he could just get a little more time, he’d use it to tell everyone how little time he was getting. And Lincoln Chafee … well, we have yet to see a legitimate “lincoln chafee won” tweet.

There was room for occasional agreement; everyone on stage agreed that former CIA employee Edward Snowden should be prosecuted, for one. But the candidates were sharply divided on gun control, and Clinton and Chafee shared a snarky back-and-forth on her email server controversy. So does Joe Biden stay on the sidelines for good after solid performances from Clinton and Sanders? We can’t even hazard a guess. David Jackson and Cooper Allen of USA TODAY OnPolitics share their six takeaways.

If we wanted to read what other people thought of Trump, we’d read our father-in-law’s Facebook posts

Sorry, there is no STAR on the stage tonight!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2015

Dammit, Trump. You promised us a live tweeting of the Democratic debate. We set up a third screen to watch (our second screen was already set on Mets-Dodgers), and we mostly wound up with a series of retweets from supporters. Clinton tweeted more new content than you, and she was on the damn stage. Sanders pulled it off during the last GOP debate, why couldn’t you? We’ve got another Democratic debate one month from today — let’s try it again.

Nevada Senator Harry Reid thinks another state should be first in the nation. Guess which one

“Now that I’m retiring, let me tell you all what I really think.” (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

Prior to Tuesday night’s debate, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid came out in support of moving Nevada’s caucuses to first-in-the-nation status, ahead of perennial first states Iowa and New Hampshire, drawing demands for a retraction among New Hampshire politicos. “New Hampshire is heavily populated and loaded with a lot of minorities, my apologies,” Reid said in response. So how would Nevada’s setup work, exactly? Instead of hanging out at the Iowa State Fair, politicians are going to schmooze with people at blackjack tables and casino buffet lines? You know what, sounds entertaining. Let’s do this, Harry. The Des Moines Register’s Jennifer Jacobs has more.

More from the campaign trail

• Pro-Clinton PAC urges voters to “swipe left” on GOP, “like” Hillary on Facebook, and respond to her Snapchats every once in a while (USA TODAY OnPolitics)
• Best Saturday Night Live the world has ever seen will air Nov. 7 (Asbury Park Press)
• How come the Latino guy only got to ask about immigration and pot? (Reno Gazette-Journal)
• At least we weren’t the only ones channel-surfing last night. Thanks, Obama (USA TODAY OnPolitics)