Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump just faced off in their final Presidential Debate — here’s how it unfolded
With all three debates now over, who came out on top?
After four and a half hours, tons of sniping and tens of below-the-belt punches, the 2016 Presidential Debate Series is finally over.
But don’t take a breather just yet – we still have to dissect this final dialogue. And what material Trump and Clinton gave us.
With the form of the debate reverting back from the second’s town hall format to September’s simpler, six segment head-to-head, the stress was clearly showing. Topics included immigrations, the Supreme Court, foreign policy and debt – and saw Trump’s first Q&A since he was accused of sexual assault, and Clinton’s first since leaked emails showed just how fickle and changeable her policies really are.
But if you don’t have the time – or stomach – to sit through the full hour and a half of political power playing, allow us to condense the confrontation.
Clinton outlined her plans for the Supreme Court, with a focus on everyday people. She believes that the Constitution should not be interpreted to benefit large corporations, but rather help the man on the street – singling out the LGBT community as a group that should be properly represented.
Trump, on the other hand, who was stung earlier this year when Justice Ginsburg made disparaging comments about him, focused on the integrity of the appointments he would make.
Clinton, whose emails on Wikileaks threatened to hobble her entire campaign, took this final debate as an opportunity to spin the debacle into an anti-Russian message. Claiming that hacking American servers was virtually an act of war upon her entire nation, the politician then went on to pull Trump into her argument, and asked him to condemn the support Vladimir Putin offered him several months ago.
Trump, surprisingly, shook his head and managed to turn the topic onto radical Islam and ISIS in a matter of seconds – proving that, if we’ve learned anything from these debates, it’s that both candidates are experts in evasion.
In the last of the politician’s back and forths, Trump called out Clinton as being a ‘nasty woman’ after she promised to raise taxes on the wealthy – and made a jibe at the Republican in the process.
Another contentious issue – and one that splits the candidates – is abortion. Trump came out and said that he would only appoint pro-life judges to the Supreme Court.
Clinton believed that the ‘most intimate and difficult decision’ a woman will ever have to make should be protected and prioritised, using this topic as a gateway into women’s rights. This week, Trump was accused by nine women of sexual assault, so anything Clinton could do to turn half of America’s voters against him was clearly grabbed by the horns and steered straight at the Republican.
With a minute on the clock each, Trump and Clinton had to answer simply why the American people should vote for them. Clinton characteristically focused on her inclusivity, asking all minority groups, Democrats and Republicans to see sense and make life better by voting for her. She promised better education, better jobs and a better economy in a truly rousing 60 seconds of speaking.
Trump, also characteristically, immediately came in attacking Clinton, calling her ‘another Barack Obama’. The Republican went on to pledge his support for the military, veterans, police forces, African Americans and Latinos, and ended with his campaign slogan, “we will make America great again.”
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