Monday, October 10, 2016
Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton shake hands at the end of their presidential town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., October 9, 2016/REUTERS/Jim Young
Donald Trump suggested that he would put Hillary Clinton in jail. He continued to call his "Access Hollywood" comments "locker room banter." At one point, he said that she should be "ashamed of herself" for attacking Bill Clinton's accusers.
Then, at the end, they said something nice about each other: Clinton said that Trump deserves credit for his kids, Trump says Clinton "never gives up" and has been a fighter.
It was a hopeful note to end after one of the harshest of all presidential debates.
But it's not saying much. CBS News' Bob Schieffer said that some aspects of the debate were like Wrestlemania, what with the Trump campaign inviting four of Bill Clinton's accusers into the audience. Others compared his threat to jail Clinton as akin to a banana republic dictator. Social media picked up shots where Trump seemed to be looming over his rival.
All that said, it wasn't a Trump meltdown. Clinton was on defense much more for this debate than in the first.
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But Trump's trouble in going on the attack is one of throwing the kitchen sink. He lashed out at her on Libya, on Syria, for 30 years of her public service. His answers at times became such a volley of accusations that, for the average voter, they became non sequiturs. Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton family confidant, sparks strong feelings in right wing media as a kind of Clinton henchman; most of the public would struggle to even know who he is.
Clinton got a little more tangled in her own email explanation -- rather than answering and just moving on. Her answer about the WikiLeaks release of one of her speeches -- in which she suggested the need to be "both a public and a private position" invited one of Trump's strongest retorts of the evening. After she explained that she had been talking about Abraham Lincoln after seeing Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," Trump said, "Honest Abe never lied. That's the big difference between Abraham Lincoln and you."
Trump looked perturbed for much of the debate. He wandered a bit on the stage. He complained about the time he was being given. Clinton smiled, sometimes in the wrong spots, as when Trumpreferred to her "deplorable" comment. Who won? It may depend on how a voter views the state of the country.
It was a landmark night in politics -- perhaps not for the right reasons. As CBS News' John Dickerson said at the outset, "In this reality show campaign, we are now going to have a reality show debate."
Here are the five most memorable moments:
The Trump tape. Trump continued to call his comments caught in 2005 by an "Access Hollywood" mic "locker room" talk. He continued to even after Anderson Cooper referenced what Trumpactually said then -- that it sounded like sexual assault.
Trump tried to answer with some regret and move on to the need to be fighting ISIS. To use an overused word this cycle -- it was quite the pivot. "It's just words, folks, it's just words," he said. He did deny that he did any of the acts he described on the 2005 recording, but I doubt this story is over yet.
Bill Clinton's indiscretions. Trump went there -- as he said he would. The message was that what he said to Billy Bush were "just words"; what Bill Clinton has been accused of was far worse. To prove his point, he noted that four of Clinton's accusers were in the audience -- some of whom are very familiar names from the 1990s. He called Hillary Clinton "disgraceful" for attacking the women back then.
Clinton responded by quoting First Lady Michelle Obama, "When they go low, we go high."
It was a tabloid moment for presidential debates -- like no other -- and Clinton's response was clearly based on the notion that it would backfire on Trump.
Lock her up. Trump said that if elected, he would appoint a special prosecutor to look into Clinton's handling of her emails. She seemed a bit too much on defense in her answer, but Trumptook it to the extreme.
Clinton tried to switch to the question of Trump's temperament. "Good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country." Trump shot back, "You'd be in jail."
The remark isn't surprising as a chant at a Trump rally or even from the Republican convention, when attendees chanted "lock her up." But it was definitely a first for this format.
Trump Vs. Pence. Trump sounded the most indignant when he pressed Clinton on U.S. foreign policy in Syria, Libya and other areas of the Middle East. But curiously, he revealed that he diverged from his running mate when it came to the question of whether he supported Pence's threat to strike the military targets of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
"He and I haven't spoken, and I disagree," Trump said. It was an interesting comment -- one that will likely continue to raise questions of Trump's past praise of the Russians, who are backing the Syrian leader.
The End. The solace for many dismayed at the negative state of the 2016 campaign was right at the end, when each candidate was asked to identify a "positive thing" about the other. It actually was a good question from the town hall audience -- whose questions otherwise were too open ended. It also was a reminder that Trump and Clinton have known each other for a long time. Remember the Donald-Melania wedding picture?
There is one debate left, and it's hard to see that the remaining four weeks of the campaign will be anything but what it has been all along -- bitter and biting. The final exchange gives hope that perhaps the rhetoric of the reality show campaign will eventually fizzle out and lead to something fit for the family audience.