Baiting, flailing and bluster: The first presidential debate

Trump learns you can't win a debate with bluster

By almost any conceivable measure, Democrat Hillary Clinton won Monday night’s presidential debate both by demonstrating a detailed grasp of a wide range of issues and putting Republican Donald Trump on the defensive with a litany of personal attacks.

After a strong — but brief — opening in which he attacked Clinton’s support of what he called disastrous trade policies, Trump was reduced to a pouty and ill-focused blowhard as Clinton relentlessly pounded him as a racist, a heartless businessman, a misogynist and a likely tax dodger.

In the end, Trump was reduced to pleading that “I have a winning temperament” and that Clinton “doesn’t have the stamina” to be president. There are two debates to go, but the lesson for Trump is that you can’t bluster or improvise your way when you’re up against an opponent as experienced and battle-tested as Hillary Clinton.

-- Don Campbell is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

Trump wanders around the lunar surface

Trump lost focus and was in reactive mode for most of the evening, scowling, sniffling — someone needs to tell him about Flonase — and generally wandering around the lunar surface.

Clinton got under his skin early, with that remark about the $14 million from Dad that got him started in business. But the killer jab was the argument that he must be hiding something in his taxes or he would have released them; maybe, as he said, not paying taxes makes him smart, but saying so isn't.

By the end, he seemed to have completely lost his place on the page, muttering about Sid Blumenthal and admitting he hadn't given NATO a lot of thought. She came across as more likable than she has in some other outings, though she didn't need to smile through every insult.

-- Melinda Henneberger, a longtime political writer, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and a visiting fellow at Catholic University of America's Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies.

Fact check: The audience laughed

The winner of the first 2016 presidential debate was fact checking. The press coverage leading up to the first onstage meeting of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was preoccupied with the question of whether the moderator Lester Holt would dare attempt to fact check Trump — who was recently clocked in at offering a "falsehood" every three minutes. Despite several warnings from the GOP nominee's campaign, Holt took up the task a few times. His most notable effort was when he refused to accept Trump's oft-rebutted claim that he opposed the war in Iraq. After citing his opposition to the war in 2004, well into the second year of the war, Trump was reduced to demanding that the press call his buddy, Fox News’ Sean Hannity, for verification. Fact check: No one needs to call Sean Hannity.

Trump also attempted to engage in a not-so subtle method of fact checking of his own. He repeatedly interrupted Clinton to say the word “Wrong!” into the microphone. He also eagerly fact checked the assertion that he doesn’t have the temperament to be president – and seemed to be almost frothing as he did so. Fact check: The audience laughed.

Much of Twitter got in on the fact checking, too. After Trump claimed that he never suggested that the concept of global warming was created by the Chinese, the most retweeted tweet of the night was Trump’s November 2012 message stating that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese.”

-- Jason Sattler is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and a columnist for The National Memo.

Trump pulled off presidential: James Robbins

Clinton won and Holt lost

As someone who is “Never Trump” and “Never Clinton,” I knew I’d be both pleased that one of them lost and disappointed that one of them won. So it was. I’ve been a harsh critic of Hillary Clinton, particularly because of her flip-flops on crime, trade, immigration. But she got the better of Donald Trump.

I scored the match-up like a boxing match. Of the six segments, I gave Trump the first round on the economy, jobs, and trade. This is his sweet spot, whereas Clinton had little to offer that was new and different. They got a split decision on the discussion of race, since neither of them comes to that conversation with clean hands and the criticism that each leveled at the other was well-deserved. But the other four segments — on cyber security, the Islamic State, the “birther” issue, and Trump’s tax returns — all went to Clinton. In each case, her strength was in deflecting, steering, and shaping her own narrative clearly.

Meanwhile, Trump was his own worst enemy, often blowing opportunities to go after Clinton — as he could have done by turning a conversation about cybersecurity into another harangue about her private email server — by mixing up facts.

Trump was like the fighter who throws hundreds of punches but lands few; Clinton was the strategic puncher who throws few punches, but many are humdingers.

So Clinton won. And who lost? Moderator NBC’s Lester Holt. He didn’t say a word for 10 minutes at a time, losing control of the debate in a most embarrassing fashion. Even when he tried to intervene, Holt couldn’t stop Trump from talking. And for Clinton, on this night, that turned out to be the biggest blessing of all.

-- Ruben Navarrette Jr., a member of the USA Today Board of Contributors, is a columnist for the Daily Beast and the Washington Post Writers Group.

Trump flails in first one-on-one

The debate could have ended with permutations of six possibilities: victory for Trump, victory for Hillary, a draw, disaster for Trump, disaster for Hillary and disaster for Lester Holt, the moderator. Of those, two emerged with clarity: Hillary was triumphant while Trump was crushed. Holt, as moderator, did just fine.

The big question going into the debate was which Trump would show up, the teleprompter Trump neutered by his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway or the  rogue Trump who can’t control his tongue or facial gestures. We were greeted with the latter, on steroids. Away from the crutch of a teleprompter, Trump falls down.

The problem was visible from the outset: Trump was visibly nervous and instead of greeting the audience and thanking Hofstra as Hillary had done, he immediately launched into his stump speech. He had a few effective moments, especially when the subject turned to trade. But even on this, his strongest subject, he was short on specifics and repeated himself incessantly, as is his wont. It went downhill from there.

This was Trump's first one on one debate. Hillary has done dozens. Hillary prepared. Trump, quite evidently did not. The difference showed.  Key case in point: It was obvious to Trump that the birther question would come up. He could have prepared some sort of answer as to why he kept his racially charged campaign going long after Barack Obama produced his birth certificate and only ended it last week. His answer was a garble and a mélange of gibberish and diversions. It made no sense. Kellyanne Conway called Trump a brilliant debater. He was anything but.

Hillary, by contrast was composed throughout. She had her answers ready. They were crisp and coherent. She escaped her email travails unscathed as a rattled Trump even failed to prosecute an assault. At the same time, she was strategically aggressive, challenging Trump on his temperament and his taxes, and forcing Trump into a crouch from which he would jab out with unseemly interruptions. She radiated disdain and a condescending bemusement. Some viewers might find that repelling. I did not. The only major question to emerge from this spectacle is whether it will make any difference. Trump has said many disqualifying things along the path to this debate. Now we can add a whole new set of priceless items to the collection. Will it matter to the undecided voters? We shall find out soon enough.

-- Gabriel Schoenfeld, a member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. 

The public Trump is all that matters: Jill Lawrence

Unpresidential petulant Trump misses an opportunity

This debate was Donald Trump’s chance to shine — and he didn’t.

Fresh off polling momentum in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s campaign’s weirdly secretive handling of her pneumonia, with a large chunk of the country still undecided, Trump had a chance to show he wasn’t just a reality show buffoon or the small-minded bigot his critics have painted him as. In some ways, he succeeded, largely sidestepping policy gaffes, and consistently depicting Clinton as a Washington insider who had experience — but no wins to show for it. As Trump said, “look at the mess we’re in.”

But he needed to do more than not flub: he needed to keep up his momentum, show a largness of spirit, an ability to unify the country. At times, there were hints he was capable of it, such as his seemingly genuine emotion about the crime rates affecting minorities. Yet in the end it is likely Trump’s tortuous answers about his birtherism, his attitude to women and his tax returns (the last undercutting his argument as the straight-shooting alternative to Clinton) that will be most replayed and remembered. He too often seemed unpresidential, petulantly sniping in response to Clinton — and yet missing solid opportunities to put her on the defense, like when curiously failed to bring up her private server use during a cybersecurity question. Clinton didn’t get the blows she needed to leap ahead in the polls — but for Trump, who could have used this debate as a chance to continue his surge, tonight was a heck of a missed opportunity.

-- Katrina Trinko is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors. 

Clinton lures convoluted Trump off message

The expectations heaped on Hillary Clinton before the debate might not have been fair – she: an ordinary, ambitious politician who hedges; he: a bigoted, showman whose campaign remains little more than a cloud of hunches and untruths; they reflected this reality: in a four-person race, with third party candidates pulling around 10% of the vote, Clinton has to make more people comfortable with her.  The universe of people who already won’t vote for Donald Trump is about as large as it can be.

The debate started roughly for Clinton. In a span of 25 minutes, he interrupted her more than 20 times, hammering her 30 years of inaction, for supporting NAFTA and for her flip-flopping on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trump was at his most effective here, parrying Clinton’s defenses by painting her as a regulatory zealot, a tax raiser, out of touch with workers who are losing their jobs to, well, Mexico and China.  His aggression read to me as compassion for these workers, even if his command of the facts was shaky. “I'm going to cut taxes big-league, and you’re going to raise taxes big-league,” he said.

Then Clinton turned it around. She apologized for using a private e-mail server. It’s arguably her biggest vulnerability and she closed it up.  Just a single sentence, and a simple apology. Then she baited Trump. She took on his single biggest character vulnerability — his refusal to release his taxes — and insinuated that he had something to hide. That he might not be as wealthy as he seemed. Moderator Lester Holt turned to the Republican. Trump gripped his lectern. He called her e-mail server “more than a little problem.”  But then he couldn’t help himself. He didn’t follow up. He instead offered a convoluted defense of his refusal to release his tax returns. Clinton seized the chance to clobber him on his business record.

From there, the debate opened up. Trump stopped interrupting her. He seemed lost in his head.  Holt, who had let Clinton and Trump go at each other without stopping his verbal intrusions, started to fact check Trump. He asked Trump about birtherism; Trump’s response was nonsensical, because there is, of course, no valid response; Trump was responsible for its spread. When the subject turned to crime, Trump was left to bleat about law and order. Clinton had a nicely planned set of lines about racial healing. Trump could not recover. Every time Clinton tried to take him off his message, he followed her lead. He lost chance after chance to convince voters that Clinton is unfit to be the president because of her decisions and choices. By the end of the debate, Trump had one thing left to brag about: he had not brought up her husband’s infidelities. Low expectations? He didn’t even meet those. She won handily.

-- Marc Ambinder is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors working on a book about nuclear brinksmanship in the Cold War.

Little Donald elevated Secretary Clinton

In this — the single most important moment of this long, bizarre, race-to-the-bottom campaign — each candidate tonight had one overriding goal: to explain to a vast audience why they, and not their rival, are better qualified lead America in a time of rapid, unsettling change, both at home and abroad.

It wasn’t even close. Clinton — cool, calm, and exceptionally well-prepared — wiped the floor clean with Trump, putting him on the defensive from the get go on everything from his refusal to release his taxes, crime, climate change, Iran and, perhaps most damaging of all, his five-year lie on the birther issue. It is not biased to say what is factual: Trump lied repeatedly tonight on a variety of matters; the fact checkers are surely busy.

She baited him. He took the bait. She baited him again. He took the bait. There were numerous times when Trump, nodding, said "I agree with Secretary Clinton.” He even kept calling her by her title, which elevated her. She called him “Donald.”

The pundits said going into tonight that the bar was lower for Trump. It wasn’t. When 64% of Americans say you lack the “right kind of temperament and personality" to be president, that’s a actually a high bar to clear.  And he failed to clear it. He even had the gall — after insulting everyone but Grandmothers and Girl Scouts over the past year — to complain that Clinton was attacking him. “It’s not nice,” he said.

Clinton looked like a president tonight, a commander-in-chief. Trump looked rattled, frantic and, at times, bellicose. She just smiled. If Trump was being graded in a curve, as some said, he still failed. But remember: Barack Obama lost his first debate with Mitt Romney four years ago. Who's president now?

-- Paul Brandus, founder and White House bureau chief of West Wing Reports, is the author of Under This Roof: The White House and the Presidencyand a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.