The 5 moments from last night’s presidential debate that left us speechless
From Hillary Clinton comparing herself to Abraham Lincoln to Trump's racism rumbling on...
After we watched the first presidential debate with incredulity – at everything from Trump’s comments about beauty pageants to Hilary Clinton exasperatedly telling the Republican that he says “crazy things” – it seemed that the race for the White House couldn’t get any more ludicrous.
As it happens, we were wrong.
Last night, the second of three televised head-to-head debates between the two main candidates took place, this time taking a ‘town hall’ format wherein questions from the audience and social media were put to the politicians.
St. Louis was the stage for this showcase of feuding and ridicule, an event that frequently felt as if it were descending into pantomime. But which moments left us feeling the most flabbergasted?
Ninety minutes before the debate, Trump held a surprise event with four women – trying simultaneously prove that he cares for females and belittle Clinton. Three of his guests had accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct in the past, and one was a rape victim whose attacker had been defended by Hillary Clinton in court.
This warm-up culminated in Trump’s claim that “there has never been anyone in the history of politics in this nation who’s been so abusive to women” as Bill Clinton, and adding – without evidence – that “Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously”.
After comments from 2005 emerged last week showing Trump’s wildly sexist side, it looked like the end for the Republican leader. But, in a staggering show of downplaying, Trump claimed his words weren’t so bad.
“This was locker room talk,” said the Republican, trying to fight the fire. “I’m not proud of it. I apologise to my family; I apologise to the American people. Certainly I’m not proud of it, but this is locker room talk.”
In a misguided attempt to liken herself to one of the greatest presidents who ever lived, Hillary answered a question about whether or not it is acceptable for politicians to have ‘public’ and ‘private’ opinions on issues by comparing herself to the nineteenth-century politician.
“She lied, and now she’s blaming the lie on the late great Abraham Lincoln,” came Trump’s retort. “Honest Abe never lied. That’s the big difference between Abraham Lincoln and you.”
It has become almost a staple of the Republican’s character that he is slightly politically incorrect in almost every way. Having taken shots at women and the disabled in the past, minorities bore the brunt of his ignorance last night.
At one point, Trump suggested that the only place African-Americans lived was in the ‘inner-city’, whilst answering a black man’s question about social reform. And, shortly afterwards, he suggested that anti-Muslim hate crimes and Islamophobia were the faults of Muslims themselves – because they didn’t report the incidents.
Hillary Clinton’s private mail server is a perennial pain for the Democrat. It is a wound Trump won’t stop needling, and his latest attack was scathing to say the least; as he threatened to lock Clinton up should he win the election.
“If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation,” Trump said, “because there has never been so many lies, so much deception.”
After Clinton expressed her relief that Trump was not in charge of the USA’s laws, he shot back, “You’d be in jail” – the most outlandish and unbelievable barb of a thoroughly surreal night.
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