On Monday, September 26, the first debate of this general election cycle took place between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The debate was a culmination of mounting tensions that have only grown in recent months: with a total of 84 million viewers, it was the most watched presidential debate in the history of the United States. The previous record had been just under 81 million, and was held by a debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980.
The debate was moderated by journalist Lester Holt, who was responsible for choosing the six topics that would be covered by the candidates. The topics were broken down as follows: "America's Direction," "Achieving Prosperity" which focused on economic policies, and "Securing America" which covered national security and foreign policy.
Hillary Clinton is the indisputable winner of Monday's debate. Her numbers in the polls have increased substantially in just two days-one CNN poll noted that 62 percent of viewers believed that Secretary Clinton had a better understanding of the issues covered than Trump. It is unlikely that viewers had a change of heart regarding her policies-within this election cycle, she has been fairly consistent on her socioeconomic views. What swayed voters, then, was Secretary Clinton's demeanor, clarity, and steadfastness, particularly in relation to Trump.
Trump's brightest moments in the debates came at the very beginning when he made a pitch for blue collar workers. He attacked Clinton for her previous support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which she currently opposes. The TPP has been criticized from both political parties out of fear that it will led to the deportation of many jobs from the U.S.-Senator Bernie Sanders, for example, expressed his anxiety that the TPP would lead to increased competition between each country's respective labor force. Trump's primary argument was that Clinton had been involved in politics for thirty years and had never come up with solutions to bolster the U.S. economy. In short, he blamed Clinton for every failure in the United States over the course of several decades.
After the first few minutes, however, it was clear that Trump was drastically underprepared for the debate. Live fact checkers noted that Trump consistently made up his own facts both about his and Clinton's past records and about his policy ideas. For example, he came out in support of New York City's "Stop and Frisk" policy, which had allowed the New York City Police Department to stop pedestrians to search them for weapons or contraband items; the policy was declared unconstitutional in 2013, despite Trump's protests that the policy was perfectly legal. He denied that he claimed global warming was a hoax created by China (even though there is evidence that he did, in fact, push this idea) or that he was involved in the racist "birther" movement that claimed Obama was African-born and disqualified from the presidency. Trump reverted to his typical debate style: when it was clear he could not compete with facts or ideas, he resorted to bullying and personal attacks. At this point in the election cycle, this tactic will not win people over.
Secretary Clinton held her ground and proved, once again, that she is the current candidate who is qualified for the job. She did not lash out at Trump with petty attacks, but criticized his policies (or lack thereof). When Trump criticized her for taking time off from campaigning for the night, Secretary Clinton responded with one of the greatest lines from the entire debate: "I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And yes I did. And you know what else I prepared for? Being president."
The next debate will be held on October 9th; it will be interesting to see whether or not Trump is prepared to take on Secretary Clinton with several weeks to prepare.
