The first presidential debate is in the can. Here’s a summary of what happened:
- Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump engaged in an occasionally raw series of clashes on topics from trade policy to the Iran deal to Trump’s taxes.
- The Republican candidate came out swinging on Nafta and on, he said, his Democratic rival’s failed record of public service. His most aggressive attacks had Clinton appealing to “fact-checkers” instead of offering rebuttals.
- Clinton’s performance was magisterial. She slipped easily into the details of many policy areas – cyber warfare, community policing, paid family leave – that Trump could not touch.
- Clinton also scored the biggest moment of wit, at the end of a long Trump boast about his temperament, which he delivered hotly. “Whew, OK!” she said when he was through, smiling.
- Clinton flayed Trump on his refusal to release his tax returns, on his “long record” of “racist behavior”, on his lack of knowledge about the deal to withdraw US troops from Iraq, on climate change being a Chinese “hoax”, and on and on. But his best line was: “Hillary’s got experience, but it’s bad experience.”
- Clinton’s best line (apart from “Whew, OK!”): “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 that’s a good thing.”
- Clinton’s runner-up best line, in reply to a Trump charge that “we don’t have the money because it’s been squandered on your ideas”, was: “Maybe it’s because you haven’t paid your taxes!”
- There were lots of manterruptions. Trump also had the sniffles.
- Trump lost altitude quickly after the first half hour, shifting from pointed interruptions to a more incoherent, sloppy pattern of interruption.
- Trump tried to deny five years of spreading birtherism – the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was born outside the US. Clinton replied sharply: “It can’t be dismissed that easily ... He has a long record in engaging in racist behavior.”
- Trump cast doubt on the notion that the hacking of the Democratic National Committee was Russia-backed. He said it may have been China or, bizarrely, a “400lb person sitting on their bed”.
- Clinton said neighborhood security would come from community policing and getting guns off streets while Trump called for “law and order” and “stop-and-frisk”.
- Clinton poked fun at Trump’s unlimited indictment of her record. “I have a feeling that by the end of this evening everything is going to be my fault,” she said. Then Trump agreed with her.
.@HillaryClinton after Trump's comment about her temperament: "Whew! Okay." https://t.co/LFGeC7wIJD #Debates https://t.co/0bZczb87cv
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 27, 2016
- Clinton launched a last-minute attack on Trump for his insults of women. She introduced the world to Alicia Machado, a beauty pageant contestant who said Trump called her “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping”.
The woman Trump called “Miss Piggy” has a name: Alicia. #debatenight pic.twitter.com/XlthzE8X8j
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 27, 2016
Gracias señora @HillaryClinton su respeto a las mujeres y nuestras diferencias la hacen grande! Estoy con usted!
— Alicia Machado (@machadooficial) September 27, 2016
