It began right away. Several minutes into Monday night's debate, Hillary Clinton said Donald Trump started his business with $14 million borrowed from his father. It was a small detail in a much larger point Clinton was making about creating jobs by investing in the middle class. But to Trump, it was the most important thing ever. He couldn’t stand it. How dare she belittle his business empire by noting that he built it on a loan from Daddy.
As moderator Lester Holt turned back to Trump to ask him how he plans to create the 25 million jobs he's promised as president, Trump was still fixated on that $14 million loan.
"Before we start on that," Trump said, "my father gave me a very small loan in 1975 and I built it into a company that's worth many, many billions of dollars with some of the greatest assets in the world and I say that because that's the kind of thinking our country needs."
You mean the kind of thinking where you feel slighted and get sidetracked and let it completely derail your response? Yeah, that type of thinking.
Hillary Clinton proceeded to undo the feebleminded raft of insecurity that Donald Trump truly is, bit by brilliant bit. On his failure to release his tax returns, she wondered if "maybe he's not as rich as he says he is" (zing!) or maybe "he's paid nothing" in federal taxes.
"That makes me smart," he interjected, taking the bait. (Score!)
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After she cleaned the floor with him on his taxes, Clinton was given the chance to respond to a question about her email server.
As she forthrightly admitted, "I made a mistake using a private email," Trump interrupted, "That's for sure," before she even finished her answer.
All this was only about a third of the way through the debate, but so telling. Trump literally hurled one small-bore, back-biting comment after the next to which Clinton repeatedly rose up and clobbered him with substance. He spent the entire night like a fly, whizzing around, trying to find an in. Clinton kept swatting him away en route to making bigger points about topics like racial justice, job creation and national security.
At no point was that more clear than when he suggested he had been zipping around the country making campaign appearances while she "decided to say home," an apparent swipe at her health or her lack of accessibility or who knows what.
Clinton simply smiled. "I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate," she responded, taking the rare step of making eye contact with her rival. "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."