SEPTEMBER 27, 2016
Photo: AP
Wow, that was a hot mess.
As Presidential historians said on cable news on Monday night, this debate was like no other, and truer words were never spoken.
While Hillary Clinton spent days off the campaign cramming for the contest, Donald Trump bragged that he wasn’t going to practice with mock debates or really do any preparations at all. I suspected that this was a clever campaign ploy, and he might fool us with a sudden command of the facts. Turns out, Trump was telling the truth when he said he didn’t prepare. And it showed.
Actually, Trump got off to a pretty good start in the first half-hour when the subject of trade came up and Trump blasted Clinton on her flip-flopping position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. Trump argued that the deal, which Clinton once supported but now opposes, has sent jobs from Ohio and Michigan (two important swing states) overseas. Clinton didn’t have a convincing answer and will need to work on that for subsequent debates.
Trump could have pivoted to make the effective argument that he is a change candidate, but Clinton, in one of her answers, mentioned that Trump only got his start in business by borrowing $14 million from his father. You could see that Trump was absolutely livid — if this debate was a Warner Bros. cartoon, smoke would be coming out of his ears. The effective fact-based style of his answer on trade was suddenly out the window, replaced by the loud and bellicose style of “Bad Trump.”
Clinton clearly rattled him, and she knew it. So she kept it up, and time after time after time, he took the bait. When the subject turned to Trump’s tax returns, she suggested he wasn’t releasing them publicly because he didn’t want to reveal either the fact that he’s not as rich as he claims he is, he gave zero in charitable donations or that he would up paying nothing in income taxes. Trump could have denied the accusation that he paid zero taxes, but he took the bait again and boasted “That makes me smart.”
Trump repeated his lie that the birther movement was created by Hillary, prompting Clinton to point out that this is not Trump’s first racist action — in the 1970s he was sued and had to settle when he refused to rent apartments to African-Americans.
When the subject turned to the economy, Clinton reminded the audience that Trump had been quoted as cheering on the housing market collapse in 2006, so that it would give him a chance to make more money. Trump’s tone-deaf response was “That’s called business.” Clinton went on to bludgeon him on the number of workers at his hotels of all specialties whom he refused to pay for their services, citing an architect in the audience whom Trump had stiffed. His response?
“Maybe he didn’t do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work.”
Really?
The capper was Clinton calling out Trump’s treatment of women, citing in particular Miss Universe winner Alicia Machado, whom Trump claimed had gained “a massive amount of weight,” so Trump began to call her “Miss Piggy” and because she was a Latina, “Miss Housekeeping.” Trump answered by rekindling his feud with comedian Rosie O’Donnell. The whole exchange was jaw-droppingly bizarre.
I didn’t even mention that Trump sniffed throughout the entire debate.
If Monday night was bad for him, Tuesday morning was even worse, as Trump returned to the friendly confines of Fox News, and even the “Fox and Friends” anchors sat stone-faced as Trump continued to attack Miss Machado, and he excused his disastrous performance by alleging that someone sabotaged his microphone — one pundit said today it’s like blaming your keyboard if you write something stupid. Oh yes, and moderator Lester Holt (who did a terrific job) was mean to him. Somehow, it’s never his fault.
I still don’t know what to make of Monday’s night’s 90 minutes of political theater. It was not a substantive debate by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a very revealing one. The bar was set super-low for Donald Trump, but he failed to clear even that.
The two will meet again in the next Presidential debate, set for October 9 from St. Louis. Be there or be square.
