Donald Trump Charges, Hillary Fades in Second Debate

Trump warms up for second debate by doing press conference with four women traumatized by Bill and Hillary Clinton.

By Al Perrotta Published on October 10, 2016

Good news, America: Contrary to the tension and expectation at the start, the earth didn’t open up under the last night’s debate stage, and send the candidates and the country into the fiery flames.

In fact, what started with high dread and more mud than a monster truck competition ended with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton complimenting each other. And in between they actually talked a little bit about policy.

However, most importantly, Donald Trump showed why he was able to write a book called The Art of the Comeback. In fact, his Secret Service code name might well have to be changed to Lazarus. What was supposed to be Trump’s political funeral instead may have brought his campaign back to life. “Donald Trump Lives,” blares the headline from Forbes.

“The Question”

Going into the debate, nothing less than the future of the election was at stake in the wake of a firestorm over a 2005 video of crude-talking Donald Trump.

There would be no talk of ISIS or taxes, and certainly not private servers and open borders, until the matter was addressed. How would Donald Trump handle the controversy? With contrition or with combativeness? Could he take a rotten lemon of a story and turn it into Trump lemonade?

Well … a nervous Donald Trump picked up the lemon, apologized for it, said he was embarrassed about it, and then proceeded to lob it at Hillary like a grenade. He brought up the woman who’ve accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault, and one raped by one of Hillary’s clients.

Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously. Four of them here tonight. One of the women, who is a wonderful woman, at 12 years old, was raped at 12. Her client she represented got him off, and she’s seen laughing on two separate occasions, laughing at the girl who was raped.

The four had taken part in a stunning press conference with Trump before the debate.

Anderson Cooper would bring the video up again, accusing Trump of having committed sexual assault. Trump again insisted it was “locker room talk,” again said he was embarrassed, denied assaulting anyone, and the issue at least for the night was as good as dead.

Trump Beyond The Video

Trump survived “the question,” and then got busy. He spent the rest of the debate prowling the stage, controlling the conversation, not letting Hillary or the moderators make a move against him without a comeback.

Trump pounded on Clinton for the “33,000 emails that you had deleted and that you acid-washed” after they had been subpoenaed. He made several appeals to Sanders voters, reminding them of what Hillary and the DNC had done to their guy and how Sanders repeatedly attacked her “bad judgement.”

Trump promised to launch an investigation of her if elected. Hillary replied, “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the laws in our country.” “Because you’d be in jail,” Trump said.

When Clinton said “I take classified material very seriously,” Trump replied “Yet she didn’t know that ‘C’ meant classified.”

And Trump had the best line of any of the debates this year.

A questioner challenged Hillary on the WikiLeaks transcript where she talks about how it’s fine to say one thing in private and tell voters something else. “Is it OK for politicians to be two-faced?” “As I recall,” Hillary said, “that was something I said about Abraham Lincoln after having seen the wonderful Steven Spielberg movie called Lincoln.”

At his first opportunity, Trump pounced: “She lied, now she’s blaming the lie on the late, great Abraham Lincoln.” He went on. “Honest Abe never lied. That’s the good thing. That’s the big difference between Abraham Lincoln and you.”

While Trump did get into policy at times, as in his discussion of his tax policy, and fact-checkers are sleeping in this morning after a long, busy night, that was hardly the point of the evening. Donald Trump had one goal last night: to emerge still standing. He did more than that. Partisans can bicker over the particulars, but Trump owned the room and he delivered under enormous pressure.

Hillary Clinton

Did Hillary Clinton have a bad night? Only to the extent she didn’t kill the wounded beast.

She gave her typically deep, involved policy answers on matters such as Syria, energy and taxes. She admitted there were problems with Obamacare, offered her suggestions and when it was noted her husband called Obamacare the “craziest thing,” she brushed it off like lint on her pantsuit.

Clinton eloquently defended her years of public service, talking about her decades of work assisting families and children. (She left out the rapists.)

Hillary also defended her private server use by saying there’s no proof anyone actually hacked into it. Neither the moderators nor Trump pointed out that while “no harm, no foul” is okay for pick-up basketball, that’s not the case with national secrets.

She repeated her tactic of showing bemusement at Trump’s answers, denying his words have any truth to them. She even said at one time, “There he goes again.”

Which gets to this fun fact: During the course of the debate, Clinton evoked Lincoln, quoted Reagan and praised Bush. Meaning, Hillary Clinton had more nice things to say about Republicans last night than Donald Trump.

Yet there was a problem: Sunday night she was the Hillary Clinton often seen on the campaign trail: Wonkish and somewhat weary.

Clinton was clearly not as sharp or energetic or effective as she was in the first debate, and seemed to tire as the debate went on. While Trump bounced around the stage the whole time like a gangsta rapper Hillary tended to sit when she wasn’t speaking. She seemed content to let Trump talk rather than engage him. And her attacks weakly drifted through the auditorium like campaign balloons.

In fact, as Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz interjected themselves more and more into the debate against Trump, Clinton seemed to become an afterthought. (Were Cooper and Raddatz simply biased or was it something more interesting? I’ll answer that later today.)

Finally, to the amusement of the Twittersphere, Hillary had the misfortune of having a fly land on her forehead while delivering an answer.

The Good News

The debate opened in an atmosphere so tense it made bomb-disposal work feel a yoga class. Fortunately it didn’t stay that way. The spirit broke. Sure, Clinton and Trump said some tough things about each other, but the tone grew less belligerent and almost relaxed. It’s not like they broke out into song, though it looked like it at one point. (Any suggestions for their duet? Comment below)

Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Debate 200

Then came the final question from an audience member: “My question to both of you is, regardless of the current rhetoric, would either of you name one positive thing that you respect in one another?”

“Look, I respect his children,” replied Hillary, whose daughter is indeed BFF’s with Ivanka Trump. “His children are incredibly able and devoted, and I think that says a lot about Donald.”

Trump also gave an earnest answer.

I will say this about Hillary. She doesn’t quit. She doesn’t give up. I respect that. I tell it like it is. She’s a fighter. I disagree with much of what she’s fighting for. I do disagree with her judgment in many cases. But she does fight hard, and she doesn’t quit, and she doesn’t give up. And I consider that to be a very good trait.

At the end of the debate, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton shook hands, which they pointedly did not do at the start of the debate.

Who won? The Frank Lunz focus group of undecideds gave it to Donald Trump by more than a two-to-one margin. It was enough of a win for Lunz to declare Trump back in the race.

The third and final Presidential debate takes place Wednesday, October 19 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The moderator is Chris Wallace of Fox News. What happens in Vegas definitely will not stay in Vegas; we can only pray it stays out of the gutter.

 

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