The 3AM call came at 9PM. That’s when the largest audience ever to watch a presidential debate tuned in to see two candidates tested to determine which of them was best suited to hold high office. As it turned out, only one candidate was ready to accept that call.
Before the debate there was a great deal of discussion about “which Donald Trump would show up.” Would it be the blustering braggart who reassured the nation about the size of his … hands. Or would it be TelePrompTer Trump, delivering an equally viscious but more measured message featuring words of more than one syllable.
It turned out to be neither. Instead it was a Trump who was simply … awful. Awful by every measure.
From the very first question, the way the evening was going to unfold was clear. Hillary Clinton was prepared, relaxed, ready both for the questions and for her opponent. And Donald Trump simply thought he could wing it. It was Kellyanne Conway who called Trump 'the Babe Ruth of debating,’ but it was Donald Trump who clearly made the mistake of believing his own press.
He was Trump, by gum. The guy with the best brain. The best words. He crushed low energy Jeb! He murdered Little Marco. He sent Lyin’ Ted running. Trump was too fast, too good to fail. But he did.
Hillary Clinton responded to the first economic question with an an opening into her plans for energy, education, the minimum wage, child care … it was a smooth summary of her position delivered to fit the two-minute window without sounding wonky or confusing. When the ball was handed to Trump, he immediately lurched into a half-speed version of his usual nationalist rant, blaming Mexico, blaming China, but offering up nothing that looked like policy. Instead of filling his time with two minutes of information, Trump replayed the same few phrases over and over—which would happen on almost every exchange.
In fact, this slow-boil replay of Trump's rally speech would turn out to be his high point. On the very next question, Hillary Clinton mentioned the loan Trump received from his father. Donald Trump physically cringed. In his response he tried to pass over the charge quickly, saying he got a “small loan,” but his temperature was on the rise.
Hillary had him hooked at that point. For the rest of the night, no matter what bait Clinton tried, she never failed to get a bite from Trump.
But it was the tax return question when Hillary broke him. Broke him. Speculating about the reason Trump wouldn't release his taxes, Clinton rattled off every single sore spot on Trump's tender skin. Maybe he wasn't so rich. Maybe he wasn't so generous. Maybe he paid no taxes. In response, Trump openly bragged about paying no taxes. It was a response Clinton would use to bludgeon Trump again as someone who didn't contribute his fair share, and from that point on Trump became less self-possessed, less coherent, less able to restrain himself.
From there on, Trump could rarely string together something that came within a mile of a sentence. Even for those who had tried to decipher Trump's rally rhetoric or his answers at the CIC forum could only listen slack-jawed to the unrelated sets of words produced—at length—while both Hillary and moderator Lester Holt set back to allow Trump to … ramble is too kind.
In the middle of the debate, the answers around a series of race-related issues stood out not just for the groans and interruptions coming from Trump's side, but for Trump jumping on Holt to say that stop and frisk was not found unconstitutional — a moment where Trump came just short of recreating his “Mexican judge” attack. And Trump fell into not one, but two long defenses of his birtherism, including the statement that he had done the president a favor by “forcing” him to release his birth certificate. Then Trump repeatedly refused to apologize for any aspect of the fight even when reminded that the topic was healing wounds between the races.
Ironically, even as Trump was charging that Clinton lacked the stamina for the job, it was clear that his own knees were getting rubbery. He was increasingly unable to focus, or to respond with an answer that matched the question. Increasingly prone to wandering from every topic. His answers included the imaginary 400 lb hacker and the even more imaginary conversations with Sean Hannity that would prove Trump's opposition to the Iraq War.
By the end of the evening, Trump skated from “Rosie O’Donnell deserved it” to an answer on nuclear weapons that was denser than spent uranium—a response in which it was completely unclear if Donald Trump even knew what “first strike” actually meant.
Trump actually finished up with a statement that 1,800 immigrants who were slated to be deported were instead welcomed at citizens because someone “pressed the wrong button,” a story so bizarre that it almost certainly originated on his campaign CEO’s web site.
The level of performance from Trump should be disqualifying. Was disqualifying.
Even people who really would stand for Trump shooting someone in the street are going to have a hard time with this debate.