Locker Room Banter, emails scam return to haunt Trump, Clinton

The US election campaign is getting nasty in the last stretch of 30 days. This became evident in the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Candidates Donald Trump of the Republican Party and Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, came to the show with gloves off to fight over their messed reputations. This was clear from their first seconds into the debate hall; they declined to shake hands on meeting each other like they did in the first of the debate series a fortnight ago.

Trump came into the face-to-face encounter having suffered a severe blow in his campaign following his “dirty” tape released Friday, October 7, 2016 that depicts him boasting of his ability to grope women regardless of their wishes. That formed the basis of his defence in the first ten minutes.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper, one of the debate moderators, put Trump to task to explain how he would call the 11-year-old tape as mere “locker room banter”, that didn’t depict whom he was. The Republican would be seen struggling to explain the tape away, often resorting to argue that he was determined to fight ISIS, which to him is worse than his now infamous verbal episode of 2005.

“Are you saying you didn’t kiss women without consent? Have you ever done those things?” Cooper posed. “No I have not. I will make America great again, safe again,” Trump responded.

A calm Hillary Clinton, when invited into the matter, sought to milk the situation to her advantage. She argued that the tape was the true depiction of who Trump is, terming him a man who can’t respect the rights of women and thus “unfit to serve as President”. This offended the Republican who made good his threat of bringing President Bill Clinton’s (Hillary’s spouse) inadequacies into the debate.

“If you look at Bill Clinton, he was abusive to women and Hillary Clinton abused those women. One of them was raped at 12 years. She is here tonight… don’t tell me about words, I apologise for those words,” Trump explained. In the 1980s and 90s President Clinton was involved in sexual infidelities that eventually led him to losing his Law practicing certificate in 2001 for five years.

As if she had prepared for such an exchange, Mrs Clinton dismissed Trump’s responses as aimed at detracting the electorate from the real question. She quoted First Lady Michelle Obama: “When they go low, we go high”, to the applause of the audience who were, however, under instruction not to cheer or jeer.

Trump’s scandalous tape has cost his campaign earning him withdrawal of endorsement by dozens of Republican top politicians. His running mate, Governor Mike Pence, asked him to apologise as soon as the tape came to the fore. “I do not condone his remarks and cannot defend them,” Pence said.

The Republican candidate, however, managed to emerge from the lowest point of his campaign and debate by introducing Clinton’s perceived dishonesty. The 33,000 email scam returned to haunt Clinton who once again had to apologise for using a private email server to handle sensitive and classified emails while she served as Secretary of State between 2008 and 2011. “That was a mistake and I take responsibility of using a personal account. I am not making any excuses for that,” Clinton said.

Trump to jail Clinton

For the first time in American history, a potential President threatened his opponent with a jail term. “If I win, I will instruct my Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor to look into your situation because there have never been such lies,” Trump threatened.

Amidst interjection by ABC News Martha Raddatz, the co-moderator, Clinton termed Trumps claims as “absolutely false” attracting booing from the audience. “It’s good that someone with Trump’s temperament isn’t in charge of US law,” but Trump quickly interjected, “because you’d be in jail”. Trump’s supporter and political commentator Kayleigh McEnany has termed Trump’s assertion as just “humour”.

The remaining one hour was, however, utilized by the candidates haggling over matters health care, dealing with terror group ISIS and Islamaphobic tendencies in the U.S. Trump was at pains to defend his policy to “ban Muslim immigration”. He has been riding his campaign on the rhetoric that Syrian Immigrants of Muslim religion be barred from accessing the US to cure the country. “It’s called extreme vetting…hundreds of people are coming in from Syria and we don’t know anything about them,” Trump indicated. Clinton countered Trump’s argument saying it goes against the American values, “We can’t say that we are going to ban people based on religion.”

The candidates were put to task to explain how they would ensure they became a President for all people. The Democrat was at pains to explain how she would achieve that when she had referred to Trump’s supporters as “deplorable”. She retracted the sentiments saying she had already done so within hours when she uttered them weeks ago and that her problem is with the Republican candidate and not his supporters.

Trump and Clinton cherish each other

In a rare feature of the 2016 presidential campaign the two rivals had positive words though measured about each other. In a sneaked question from a member of the live audience, the two candidates were asked what one thing they respect of one another. Clinton went first picking on Trump’s children as “incredibly able and I think that says a lot about Donald.”

An amused Trump thanked his rival for the compliment terming Clinton as a never-quitter: “She is a fighter, I do disagree with what she’s fighting for…but she doesn’t give up and I consider that a very good feature.”

Instant polls published by CNN showed that Clinton has won the debate but with a lower percentage than the first episode two weeks ago. She polled 57 percent against Trump’s 34 percent, a seven percentage points improvement from the first debate for Trump.

Of the Debate watchers polled, 63 percent felt Trump had performed better than they had expected while only 38 percent felt the Democrat did better than expected meaning 62 percent felt she had either performed the same as in the last debate or worse.

The two candidates will meet again for the third and final presidential debate on October 19 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas ahead of the deciding vote on November 8.