Live Blogging The Debate
Ok. I’m going to try to do this. Here we go:
OMG – Hillary is wearing a pant suit!!
Producing jobs and raising income – Hillary lays out supporting workers – minimum wage, profit sharing, paid family leave, getting the rich to pay their fair share. Trump focuses on jobs leaving the country – that’s about it.
Trump has the sniffles or something.
Trump interjects when Hillary points out that Trump wanted the housing market to collapse so he could pick up properties on the cheap, saying “that’s business.”
9:18 – Trump interrupts Hillary but she ignores him. We’ve got to do better at keeping our jobs by taxing imports is his answer.
9:20 – Trump goes after Clinton by saying Bill passed NAFTA which was the worst deal in history. Trump keeps on interrupting Hillary. His huge tax cut will create incredible number of jobs. He will cut regulations.
9:30 – Is Trump’s constant interruptions actually playing well? Now he’s going after the Federal Reserve. Lester Holt finally does something useful by asking about Trump’s tax returns. He says he made $694 million and then he says how badly things are going in the country. If it’s so bad, why is he doing so well. Holt presses and he then says he will release his returns when Hillary releases the 30,000 emails she deleted. Hillary goes after him on it, pointing out that the two years that were released showed he paid no taxes and he said, “that just make me smart”. Trump goes after Hillary on emails saying it was deliberate.
9:40 – Trump says the country is a mess – a third world country. Hillary counters that may be because Trump didn’t pay his taxes. She then goes on to talk about all the workers that Trump has stiffed. He interjects, “maybe they didn’t do a good job”. Hillary goes into his bankruptcies. Trump then plugs his new DC hotel and says he simply is using the laws of the country.
9:45 – Race is the issue. Hillary talks about better police-community relations and reduction of gun violence. Trump goes “law and order”. Now it’s “stop and frisk”. Holt points out that “stop and frisk” was unconstitutional. Trump says that isn’t true, it would have been overturned on appeal. Hillary goes after the inherent racism in the justice system. Goes after for-profit prisons. Trump goes after Hillary for “super-predator” comment. Trump agrees with Hillary that people on the terrorism watch list should not buy guns – NRA might not like them. I think Trump just accused Democrats of controlling black population through drugs!
10:00 – Holt raises birther issue. Trump says Hillary started it and that he ended birther issue by getting Obama’s birth certificate. Holt asks why Trump continued to press birther issue after certificate and Trump says “no one was really paying attention” whatever that means. Makes some comment on Hillary not being on the campaign trail. Hillary responds with the quote of the night, “I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And yes I did. And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president, and I think that’s a good thing.” She then points out racial discrimination suit of Trump’s father. Trump says many real-estate firms were sued by the federal government and Trump settled the case “with no admission of guilt”. We all know how that works. He then goes on about opening a club in Palm Beach that doesn’t discriminate.
10:05 – National Security – Holt starts it off with cybercrime. Hillary goes after Trump for encouraging Russia to hack Americans and Trump’s praise of Putin. Trump says no one knows for sure whether Russia hacked the DNC and manages to get in the fact that the hacked emails showed DNC supported Clinton over Sanders. Goes back to basic answer for everything – things are terrible and we’ve got to do better, but no description as to how.
10:15 – Hillary says we’ve got to do better against ISIS but no real plan. Trump says is was Obama/Clinton who didn’t leave troops in Iraq and didn’t take the oil that created ISIS. Hillary counters that the deal to remove troops was actually made by Bush, Trump supported Iraq invasion and Libyan intervention. Trump attacks Hillary on Iran nuclear deal and then goes after NATO for not paying their fair share and not focusing on terror. He claims his criticism of NATO led them to focus on terrorism.
Holt asks that he supported the war in Iraq and Trump goes ballistic and says he never supported the war in Iraq, citing Hannity. Holt says he was referencing Trump’s 2002 comment supporting the war and asked why his judgement was any better than Hillary’s. Trump says of course he has better judgement and he has the right temperament.
Hillary defends Iran deal; questions his judgement when he said if he saw foreign fighters taunting US sailors, he would blow them out of the water. She then
Trump floats the idea of cutting off Japan from military protection or make them pay. The goes after Hillary for not getting the Iranians to do something about the North Korean nuclear problem in the Iran deal. Clinton responds that are mutual defense treaties will be endorsed.
10:33 – Trump says Hillary does not have the look or the stamina to be President. Goes back to us defending Japan and Saudi Arabia. Insists she doesn’t have the stamina. Hillary says when he goes around the world or testifies for 11 hours in front of Congress, then Trump can talk about stamina. Trump says Hillary has experience by bad experience and then goes into a rant about Rosie O’Donnell. Hillary goes back to start of answer when Trump said she didn’t have the look and goes after Trump for his misogyny and sexism. Trump says Hillary is not nice and then says he is doing well in the polls.
It’s over!
I did it – what a struggle. If Trump is not decimated after this performance, then I truly fear for our democracy. His single theme was essentially the country is a hellhole and I will fix it. But there was no indication of how he would actually do that through any specific policies. And his constant interjections certainly came across badly. His only strong point, if you could call it that, was hammering on the trade issue. Clinton was her usual detailed and controlled self, freely admitted error with regard to email server, and hit Trump on all the big points – taxes, bankruptcies, stiffing worker, and foreign policy.
Initial post-debate analysis says it’s an almost total demolition of Trump by Clinton. Steve Schmidt called Trump’s performance “national security incoherence”. And now the MSNBC crew is focusing on Trump’s sniffing, interrupting, facial expressions, and general fidgetiness – nothing like focusing on substance. But we’ll see what the press says in a couple of days. I need a break – time to check the football game.
Late Update: Everyone in the press thinks Hillary crushed it but also think it apparently won’t change anything in electorate. Full debate transcript here.