A lot of diaries have been written since the first Presidential debate last night so I just want to call out a couple of things that really sticks out in my mind that I haven’t seen really discussed yet.
First, let me state for the record that Hillary Clinton absolutely blew Trump out of the water — in fact she sent him into ORBIT. Hillary was clear headed and calm the entire night and she discussed the topics intelligently and just over-all showed just how prepared she is to be our next President, while the Donald devolved further and further as the night wore on into his typical attacks and childish antics!
To me the defining moment was the following exchange:
Hillary:
I have a feeling that by, the end of this evening, I'm going to be blamed for everything that's ever happened.
Trump:
Why not?
Hillary:
Why not? Yeah, why not?
Just proving to anyone with a half a brain that Donald Trump truly will do anything to lay blame on Hillary and shift blame away from himself (and other Republicans). Sadly I don’t think this will do anything to turn his supporters against him, but I think this exchange plus all the other attacks Trump launched against Hillary will turn many undecideds away from Trump!
And just one example (of many) of him doing this is in blaming President Obama for the rise of ISIS by withdrawing troops too quickly and completely denying the fact that it was Bush who defined the time table for withdrawal with agreement from the Iraqi government, and that any attempt to modify that arrangement required Iraqi approval.
Another thing which struck me about last night’s debate. I really did not expect Lester Holt to do any level of fact checking and calling out lies, but he actually surprised me by coming down on several of Trump’s biggest lies and falsehoods and putting Trump’s feet to the fire!
The ones which stick out in my mind are the following:
- Trump’s lies about the birtherism scandal concerning President Obama.
- Trump’s claim that he was NOT in favor of the Iraq war in the beginning despite well documented evidence to the contrary.
- Holt called Trump down several times for his repeated interruptions of Hillary.
- Holt really pushed Trump on explaining just how he was going to bring jobs back to America.
- Holt nailed Trump on his refusal to release his tax returns. When Trump tried to weasel out of this (again) and claim it was because he is being audited, Holt made it very clear that the IRS has stated in no uncertain terms that Trump is FREE to release his tax returns despite the audit.
- Stop and Frisk — Holt made it clear that this was ruled Unconstitutional as it primarily targeted race and that the Civil Rights of African Americans and other minorities must be respected and enforced as much as everyone else’s Civil Rights.
- Holt also came down on Trump for his claims that Hillary does not look Presidential or lacks the stamina to be our next President. Between Holt and Hillary I think they collectively put the Donald in his place!
While it can be argued perhaps that Lester Holt could have done a bit more in terms of fact checking and calling out lies, I was pleasantly surprised that he stood up to Trump so boldly on several topics as outlined above.
Hopefully this trend will continue with the remaining debates and even increase a notch or two.
At the same time we need to keep in mind that when it comes to Trump, if every lie were called out by either the moderator or Hillary, then there would be NO time left to actually discuss policies and other critically important topics. Trump simply lies so much, that we must carefully pick & choose the biggest ones to go after in a debate environment like this.
In summary: this was a major victory for Hillary and the post-debate polls I have been looking at today certainly seem to agree!!
Go Hillary!! :)
