I'm feeling confident about his performance at the debate.
He is very good at taking a difficult question and then going where he wants to go with it. Time and time again reporters have tried to tie him down with potentially explosive questions and he just redirects them. Because he is speaking in an informal manner, he can get away with it.
Agree...he did just that - controlled the conversation - like you’d said, very well. He just needs to keep doing exactly this, for the debate.
IMHO, he did the best on CBS. He was asked when he will release his taxes. He replied that he will tie the release of his tax information with Hillary's release of emails. He then attacked Hillary stating that she did worse than Petraeus and his life was destroyed and if the prosecutor is an honest prosecutor, Hillary will be in jail.
Another out of the ball park response: Trump was asked how much income taxes he pays as a percentage of income. According to John Dickerson (Bob Schieffer’s replacement), Hillary pays about 40% of her income to taxes. Trump said as a business man his job is to pay the very least that he can and he fights to the death to do that. The money he saves from the tax man goes back into his company. Also, he hates, absolutely hates the way the government spends his money.
John Dickerson asked that Presidents face failures. What failures in the past prepared Trump for being POTUS. Trump said that when the market failed him, which is not his fault, he was able to renegotiate most if not all his business dealings and make those dealings even more profitable.
Trump was asked about attacking the candidates. Trump said he does not attack his fellow candidates. He counter punches them.