CONNOR HOFFMAN
Managing Editor
The first presidential debate was held on Sept. 26, and Donald Trump was a complete and utter trainwreck the entire night. Honestly, there were so many instances that he could have come up with better replies to questions or retorts to Hillary Clinton’s comments that could have seriously changed the nature of the debate.
Let’s look at perhaps the worst quip Trump made during the debate, when Clinton detailed all of the reasons Trump may be hiding his taxes.
“So you’ve got to ask yourself, why won’t he release his tax returns?” said Clinton. “And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he’s not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he’s not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, we don’t know all of his business dealings, but we have been told through investigative reporting that he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks. Or maybe he doesn’t want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he’s paid nothing in federal taxes.”
A proper response to this would have been for Trump to ask and then detail all of the reasons Clinton deleted her 33,000 private emails. He could even had attacked all of the shady donors to the Clinton Foundation.
Instead, Trump chose to give the literally worst response he could have given to these accusations: he replied with, “That makes me smart.”
Dear Lord, Trump.
Why did you just admit that you don’t pay taxes in front of the most televised debate in history? Ironically, he said that after he had just went on about how all of the country’s infrastructure was crumbling. This quip literally is gold for Democratic strategists, and Clinton’s campaign has already used it in an advertisement.
When Clinton questioned Trump’s business practices, we saw another example of a horrible retort Trump gave.
“I’ve met dishwashers, painters, architects, glass installers, marble installers, drapery installers, like my dad was, who you refused to pay when they finished the work that you asked them to do,” said Clinton. “We have an architect in the audience who designed one of your clubhouses at one of your golf courses. It’s a beautiful facility. It immediately was put to use. And you wouldn’t pay what the man needed to be paid, what he was charging you to do.”
The only response Trump could seem to muster was “maybe he didn’t do a good job, and I was unsatisfied with his work.” Seriously? How does anyone seriously believe he cares for the middle class. Any other answer would have been so much better.
Trump’s response when asked about cyber security was not only ridiculous, but it literally made no sense.
“So we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is — it is a huge problem. I have a son. He’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it’s unbelievable, “ said Trump. “The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it’s hardly doable.” I guess Trump wants to appoint his 10 year old son in charge of our cyber-security. Count me out.
Now, don’t be mistaken. I don’t like Clinton at all, but despite my feelings toward her, she gave a very strong debate performance. She was effectively able to trap Trump, and in doing so, she distracted him from the debate, and he missed a lot of opportunities that he could have taken to even the score.
Trump does not seem to have learned from his performance and has said that he will bring up Bill Clinton’s mistresses in the next debate. Instead, he should focus on attacking her legitimate scandals and record harder, and not falling for her traps.
I seriously don’t know if I can survive another two debates with Trump, let alone an entire presidency.
The dialogue used in this article was obtained from the Washington Post.