Donald Trump won the first third of the debate. Hillary and the moderator, Lester Holt, won the second two-thirds.
Let’s start with Lester Holt. The Left was in unison working the ref (Holt) for weeks prior to the debate. Why? Well, the Clinton campaign and their liberal allies felt that in a previous engagement, Matt Lauer had been too easy on Trump and too tough on Hillary. So they relentlessly skewered Lauer, essentially warning any future debate moderator to get with the program, or else. The libs also insisted that upcoming moderators not be unbiased questioners as was the tradition, but rather be a “fact checker” (specifically fact checking Trump, not Hillary, who of course never lies.)
Well, Holt obviously got the message, and took it to heart, because besides the usual straightforward, non-partisan questions (Why are you a better choice than your opponent to create jobs? How do we stop cyber-attacks? How do we bring back industries that have left the country? etc.), he asked four “gotcha” questions, all four directed at Trump. They were:
2. “For five years you perpetuated a false claim that the nation’s first black president was not a natural-born citizen. You questioned his legitimacy. In the last couple of weeks, you acknowledged what most Americans have accepted for years: the president was born in the United States. Can you tell us what took you so long?”
3. “You supported the war in Iraq before the invasion… why is your judgement any different from Mrs. Clinton’s?”
4. “Secretary Clinton became the first woman nominated for president by a major party earlier this month. You said, quote, ‘She doesn’t have a presidential look.’ She’s standing here right now. What did you mean by that?”
Now if Holt had asked Hillary similarly tough questions, I’d have no problem with questions like this being asked – but he didn’t. And with all Hillary’s baggage, just think of the things he didn’t ask one question about. He didn’t ask about Benghazi, either her responsibility for the four American deaths, or her lying about a video being the cause of the attack. He didn’t ask about the tragic Russian reset. He didn’t ask about her “deplorables” comment. He didn’t ask about the Clinton Foundation. He astoundingly didn’t even ask about her email scandal, until Donald Trump brought it up, and Holt merely gave Hillary the opportunity to tell her side of it.
So why was Holt tougher on Trump than he was on Hillary? Here’s my theory. Trump was on Bill O’Reilly’s show recently, and claimed that “Lester is a Democrat. It’s a phony system. They are all Democrats. It’s a very unfair system.” Well, Lester Holt lives in New York, and Time Magazine checked the voter registration rolls, and found out that Lester Holt is actually, lo and behold, a Republican. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Lester Holt was embarrassed to be outed as a Republican. After all, we know that the vast majority of the mainstream press are Democrats. So I wonder if he didn’t atone for his stain of being a Republican, by being tougher on Trump. At least that’s my theory.
Okay, even though I’m making the case that the moderator was biased against Trump, I’m not going to let Trump off scot-free. If you’re one of my faithful blog readers, you know that I’ve been advising, strongly advising, that Trump put in considerable time and effort in debate prep. Why? I’ve cross-examined Hillary quite a few times when she testified as Secretary of State before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She’s always prepared. She does her homework. She’s usually unflappable (except for the time she went off the rails on Benghazi, pleading “what difference at this point does it make?”)
So he needed to be ready for her. And I really don’t think he was. Even though the moderator didn’t ask Hillary the tough questions, Trump should have pivoted to the tough issues for Hillary – Benghazi, the Clinton Foundation, etc., when he was finished answering some of the questions addressed to him. After all, he had the time. He quite frequently repeated himself over and over throughout the debate. But it takes practice to pivot as I’m suggesting, and I just don’t think he put in the time.
But hey, we’ve got two more debates to go. And maybe someone at Trump Tower is listening, and will diligently prepare for next time.
Finally, a lot of people (I’m told) will watch the first half-hour of the debate, and either lose interest, or decide to do something else. For those folks, Trump probably won the debate. For the rest of the folks, I bet it was mostly a split decision. People who were inclined to prefer Trump probably thought he won; those inclined to prefer Hillary probably thought she won.
What do I think? She probably won on points. But Trump held his own against a seasoned debater, without making any major mistakes. And that may have been just enough.