I took some notes during the September 26th debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It was the first time to have a good “compare and contrast” between their policies. I took so many notes that I had to split this into 2 episodes!
It may seem like a lot of time to spend on one debate performance, but we finally got to compare and contrast policy issues directly between the two candidates. For the most part. So I think this is worth the time.
Mentioned links:
The first Trump-Clinton presidential debate transcript, annotated
Why Hillary never makes Equal Pay Day pay off
Top 1% pay nearly half of federal income taxes
Hey, Barney Frank: The Government Did Cause the Housing Crisis
The successful Clinton economy was based on tax cuts. No, really…

Show transcript
I took some notes about what the candidates discussed at the September 26th debate, but I want to start with my general impression. Overall, Trump, while I agreed with more of his policies, really didn’t come across very well. At the start of the debate, he was incessantly interrupting Clinton, and it really sounded impolite. Sometimes, I can understand it, but it was just constant at the beginning. He got better as the debate went on, but it was really bad form.
And the thing is, when he got his time to speak, he could have then addressed the issues he had with her answer. But instead, he belabored some points, especially defending attacks against him personally, that he left little time for discussing his policies. Clinton seemed to have his number. She baited the hook, and he went for it, leaving many of her disastrous policy ideas unanswered.
Even the email scandal got shorted, which is something he should have been harping on. Instead, he once alluded to them when she asked him to release his tax returns. He said he’s release them before the end of the audit, against the advice of his lawyers, if she released those 33,000 deleted emails. That was it. And of course, Lester Holt’s biting, probing question to Mrs. Clinton were those words that are seared into our minds now, “Do you want to respond to that?”
I don’t know about you, but I, for one, am ready to abandon the idea of a biased media.
OK, but seriously, she didn’t respond to it, but Lester could stand tall and defend his moderating with, “Well, I did ask her about the emails!” And her answer was, “It was a mistake, and I take responsibility for that.” Which is political-speak for, “Shut up.”
Now Lester did actually ask some pointed questions…of Trump; about his tax returns, about his support of Stop & Frisk, his birther past, and a potentially sexist remark about Mrs. Clinton. But he never really went any more in-depth with Clinton on any of her policies or her past; even the recent past. So Trump was certainly double-teamed.
But he had plenty of unforced errors as well, so he bears much of the blame. He should have been able to knock this out of the park. Instead, I think he hit a double.
OK, enough of the baseball analogies. On to the specifics.
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