Last night Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump met at Washington University for the second of three planned presidential debates. Trump was under tremendous pressure after the release of a recording of him speaking about sexually assaulting women. The tape has forced prominent republicans to drop support for Trump, many pundits stated this debate was the last chance for him to save his campaign. If the pundits are correct, the Trump campaign is dead and gone.
The debate was moderated by Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz. This was a town hall style debate. Questions came from both the moderators and the audience, each candidate was given two minutes to answer.
The pressure on Donald Trump was obvious; he began with a non-answer to the very first question, while Hillary Clinton remained poised and articulate and actually answered the posed questions. The second question, from Cooper, was directly related to the released recording. Trump denied he said what was clearly on the tape and then claimed it was just locker room talk. Cooper then asked Trump, “Just for the record though, are you saying that what you said on that bus eleven years ago, that you did not actually kiss women without consent or grope women without consent?” Cooper asked this question six times and Trump refused to answer every time, saying over and over “women have great respect for me.” Cooper finally gave up. Everything was downhill from there for the republican candidate.
The differences in the candidates demeanor was clear, Trump paced between his turns to speak, Clinton sat calmly. Trump tried to interrupt and speak over Clinton but the moderators very adeptly kept this debate under control. He complained the debate was not fair and Clinton was being given more time than he was. It only made the scene worse.
The next question was about Clinton’s email debacle. She answered calmly and succinctly, turning this important issue into background noise. This was Trump’s chance but, he was too flustered at this point to do anything but speak in partial sentences that often made no sense.
Trump was able to score a few points attacking Clinton’s past record but, overall this was a clear win for Hillary Clinton.
A transcript of the entire debate with fact checking can be seen at the NPR website.
The latest polls can be seen at RealClear Politics.
