Donald Trump's performance in the second debate was just enough to stop running mate Mike Pence and House Speaker Paul Ryan from bailing on the GOP nominee, CNBC senior contributor Larry Kudlow said Monday.
"From about Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon, I think Pence and Ryan were about to jump ship with catastrophic consequences," said Kudlow, an informal Trump advisor. "I think Trump's performance last night, which was much better than expectations — he had some good points, some very good points — saved that."
While Trump's campaign will "live for another day," Kudlow said on CNBC's "Squawk Alley" the GOP nominee's leaked comments were "vile." "I don't like it one bit,"Kudlow said.
Trump was condemned by many Republicans after the 2005 video leaked on Friday, showing the New York businessman joking about groping women without consent.
Ryan told fellow Republican lawmakers on Monday that he will not defend Trump and will dedicate himself to maintaining his party's control of both houses of Congress. Pence said in a Saturday statement that he does "not condone [Trump's] remarks and cannot defend them."
Trump's shrinking base of support within the GOP establishment is the "collapse of the Trump campaign and possibly even the Republican Party," said Keith Boykin, a former White House aide for the Bill Clinton administration.
Boykin, now an assistant adjunct professor at Columbia University, said that the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie may "share irredeemable shame for sticking by a candidate who has not only no chance of winning, but no chance of bringing any sort of respect to his campaign or to the party in the remaining 29 days."
Kudlow disagreed. He said that there's still four weeks left before Election Day.
"This is a crazy year. We can't predict the unpredictable," he said.