Presidential Debate: Trump lies vs Clinton’s prepped responses

It had been predicted as a tension encounter for the two lead presidential contenders of the world’s most powerful nation. At exactly 4.04 am Kenyan time, donned in a red suit, Hillary Clinton walked to the stage from a direction against Donald Trump who donned a black suit in a blue tie. This was at Hofstra University in New York for what would turn out as the most important ninety minutes of TV time in the current presidential campaign yet.

These were two largely different people from gender, political background and experience as well as their perspectives on how best to move the American nation forward.

For one and a half hours the two tore each other apart over jobs, taxes, securing the US and birtherism. The debate would start on a high for Trump who accused Clinton of being part of the cause of challenges facing America over the years. His argument being that Clinton who has been in public service and politics for close to three decades now has been part of systemic decisions that have influenced the lives of Americans. Hilary Clinton served as First Lady of the US in his husband’s tenure as President from 1993 to 2001, before ascending to the Senate for eight years until 2009. She then served as Secretary of State in President Obama’s first term in office.

“Secretary Clinton has been doing it in 30 years…why? We cannot continue to do it the same way…,” Trump claimed while responding to a question on measures to improve the nature of doing business and to stop American firms from leaving the U.S. for other countries.

In the first 30 minutes of the debate, Trump came out strong at criticizing Clinton and the political class which he doesn’t historically belong to. But the remaining one hour would expose his non-preparedness and inability to stick to message.

When the two were asked of their defence for plans to cut tax on the wealthy, Trump kept interjecting Clinton’s responses forcing the host, NBC’s Lester Don Holt, to defend her. “Mr Trump, it’s Secretary’s two minutes,” Holt said.

When the turn came for Trump to respond, he would cite her responses as: “Politicians talk good, no action, never works, won’t work. We have the worst revival of the economy. We are in a big ugly bubble…” Analysts have cited Trump’s responses as off message and taking the bait from Clinton who stuck to her pre-prepared, researched and largely factual responses in the debate.

TRUMP BEATINGS

Even though the Republican nominee has described the debate as better than he expected, Trump took a beating for his past and current positions on various issues. For months now, Clinton has claimed that Trump, who is yet to release his tax returns, was doing so for some hidden reason. In the debate she guessed: “Maybe he is not as rich as he claims, maybe not as charitable as claims, maybe he doesn’t want the American people to know he hasn’t paid anything in Fed income tax…”

But it is his response that was more astonishing when she lightly suggested that the national debt had risen because Trump had not been paying his taxes. “If I did (paid taxes) it would be squandered,” Trump retorted. He later told reporters that he didn’t like how the government spends the public’s taxes.

EMAIL SCAM HAUNTS CLINTON

It had been expected that the email scam that has defined Clinton’s tainted campaign more than any other scandal was going to be raised in the debate. As if checking himself, Trump only dwelled on it rather as a defence mechanism. “I will release my tax return against my lawyers’ wishes as soon as she releases her 33,000 deleted emails,” Trump said.

Amidst audience cheers, Mr. Holt asked: “So it’s negotiable?” “No it’s not negotiable, let her explain why she deleted 33,000 emails,” Trump responded. But she would pour cold water on the Trump embers. Instead of going to her defense like she has over the past months, she admitted to having made a mistake, spending just a few seconds on the matter before moving on. “I admit I made a mistake and I would do it differently. I don’t want to make excuses,” Clinton said.

The rest of the debate was spent talking about race interactions in America and the relationship between minority communities and security forces. Trump consistently tainted the minorities and especially black Americans as unfairly targeted by the police. He claimed that several inner cities in some American states were largely insecure. Clinton on the other hand defended the race relationship saying the situations had gotten better in cities like the New York that according to her had witnessed reduced attacks motivated by racial relationships.

Trump also was at pains to explain his changed position on President Obama’s citizenship. For years he had claimed that Obama was not a U.S. citizen by birth, claiming he could have been born in Kenya. Instead of admitting to the mistake, Trump defended himself saying that his curiosity had led to the release of Obama’s American birth certificate.

The business mogul also took a setback on the belief that he supported the invasion into Iraq. He was at pains to claim that he had changed his opinion and opposed the war. The damage had however already been done and Clinton used the opportunity to criticize him while hailing herself for having been consistent in opposing the war that has largely been adjudged as one that should have never happened.

In the end, Clinton appeared more prepared with facts. She even admitted saying: “I think Donald is criticizing me because I prepared for this debate, ad yes I did. And what else I prepared for is to be president.”

An immediate poll on debate watchers by news channel CNN shows that Clinton won the debate by a 62% against Trump’s meager 27%.

The presidential candidates will participate in two more televised debates: Sunday, October 9 in St Louis, Missouri and Wednesday, October 19 in Las Vegas, Nevada before the November 8 Election.