Hillary Clinton Won Because Donald Trump Is a Sham.And he couldn't be bothered to prepare for the biggest test of his life.by Charles P. Piece ( republished with permission of the Author and Esquire Magazine in which the article first appeared)

Hillary Clinton Won Because Donald Trump Is a Sham.And he couldn't be bothered to prepare for the biggest test of his life.by Charles P. Piece ( republished with permission of the Author and Esquire Magazine in which the article first appeared)





HEMPSTEAD, LONG ISLAND—Let us be charitable and mention that there was a moment, one obvious moment, where he had her.

There was a wrangle over what is lazily called "transparency." Hillary Rodham Clinton was jabbing at Donald Trump over his failure to release his tax returns. He was countering with some stuff about her e-mail server. HRC had used his failure to release the returns as a door to talk about the possibility that he isn't as rich as he wants the country to believe he is, or as charitable, or perhaps that he is the money-slave of foreign interests. He said he'll release the returns when she releases the e-mails. Things were about at a draw. And then this happened.


HOLT: He also—he also raised the issue of your e-mails. Do you want to respond to that?


CLINTON: I do. You know, I made a mistake using a private e- mail.


TRUMP: That's for sure.


CLINTON: And if I had to do it over again, I would, obviously, do it differently. But I'm not going to make any excuses. It was a mistake, and I take responsibility for that.


HOLT: Mr. Trump?


TRUMP: That was more than a mistake. That was done purposely. OK? That was not a mistake. That was done purposely. When you have your staff taking the Fifth Amendment, taking the Fifth so they're not prosecuted, when you have the man that set up the illegal server taking the Fifth, I think it's disgraceful. And believe me, this country thinks it's—really thinks it's disgraceful, also.


This was good moment for him. Her answer was short and clipped and something she's said approximately 400 times. He could have gone hard at it. But she had lodged something sharp in his monumental ego, and he just couldn't let it go.


"As far as my tax returns, you don't learn that much from tax returns. That I can tell you. You learn a lot from financial disclosure. And you should go down and take a look at that. The other thing, I'm extremely underleveraged. The report that said $650—which, by the way, a lot of friends of mine that know my business say, boy, that's really not a lot of money. It's not a lot of money relative to what I had. The buildings that were in question, they said in the same report, which was—actually, it wasn't even a bad story, to be honest with you, but the buildings are worth $3.9 billion. And the $650 isn't even on that. But it's not $650. It's much less than that. But I could give you a list of banks, I would—if that would help you, I would give you a list of banks. These are very fine institutions, very fine banks. I could do that very quickly. I am very underleveraged. I have a great company. I have a tremendous income. And the reason I say that is not in a braggadocios way. It's because it's about time that this country had somebody running it that has an idea about money.


When we have $20 trillion in debt, and our country's a mess, you know, it's one thing to have $20 trillion in debt and our roads are good and our bridges are good and everything's in great shape, our airports. Our airports are like from a third world country. You land at LaGuardia, you land at Kennedy, you land at LAX, you land at Newark, and you come in from Dubai and Qatar and you see these incredible—you come in from China, you see these incredible airports, and you land—we've become a third world country. So the worst of all things has happened. We owe $20 trillion, and we're a mess. We haven't even started. And we've spent $6 trillion in the Middle East, according to a report that I just saw. Whether it's 6 or 5, but it looks like it's 6, $6 trillion in the Middle East, we could have rebuilt our country twice. And it's really a shame. And it's politicians like Secretary Clinton that have caused this problem. Our country has tremendous problems. We're a debtor nation. We're a serious debtor nation. And we have a country that needs new roads, new tunnels, new bridges, new airports, new schools, new hospitals. And we don't have the money, because it's been squandered on so many of your ideas.


HOLT: We'll let you respond and we'll move on to the next segment.


CLINTON: And maybe because you haven't paid any federal income tax for a lot of years.

Hell, Mitt Romney would have put that one away, but Mitt Romney has actual liquid wealth and he is an actual politician. Donald J. Trump is (likely) neither of those. And that was it, the one moment he had, a moment pissed away in the wind because El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago couldn't be bothered to learn how to debate because he has always measured his IQ by his bank balance and by the toys in his various mansions.

I learned quite early in this campaign year that I live in a completely different ecosystem from most people, and from practically all of the people who boosted Donald Trump to a most improbable Republican presidential nomination. But how anyone could have watched the proceedings at Hofstra on Monday night and not seen a complete bloodbath is beyond me. There were two presidents on that stage. One was Hillary Rodham Clinton and the other one was Lester Holt. There also was a curiosity—a walking YouTube comment thread who knew nothing, cared less, and didn't even notice when he was setting his own feet on fire.




Steve Brodner


This was true 21st century Know-Nothingism. He plainly had not done even the most rudimentary preparation for the most important political night of his life. He spent the whole night drunk on the applause he's had from his frothing, adoring public over the past 18 months. His entire appearance was an insult to his supporters, to the audience, to everyone watching at home, and to the entire concept of democratic governance going back to Pericles. He is running for president as a guy who doesn't care enough to do the real work.

And, whatever you may think about HRC, she gave you all the respect of actually preparing for the debate. The examples are numerous and almost beyond belief.


TRUMP: Wait a minute. I was against the war in Iraq. Just so you put it out.


HOLT: The record shows otherwise, but why—why was...


TRUMP: The record does not show that.


HOLT: Why was—is your judgment any...


TRUMP: The record shows that I'm right. When I did an interview with Howard Stern, very lightly, first time anyone's asked me that, I said, very lightly, I don't know, maybe, who knows? Essentially. I then did an interview with Neil Cavuto. We talked about the economy is more important. I then spoke to Sean Hannity, which everybody refuses to call Sean Hannity. I had numerous conversations with Sean Hannity at Fox. And Sean Hannity said—and he called me the other day—and I spoke to him about it—he said you were totally against the war, because he was for the war.


HOLT: Why is your judgment better than...


TRUMP: And when he—excuse me. And that was before the war started. Sean Hannity said very strongly to me and other people—he's willing to say it, but nobody wants to call him. I was against the war. He said, you used to have fights with me, because Sean was in favor of the war. And I understand that side, also, not very much, because we should have never been there. But nobody called Sean Hannity.

Or, when he drove an icepick through his entire image as a Friend Of The Working Man.


CLINTON: 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, because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax.


TRUMP: That makes me smart.

Yeah, that'll be a commercial by noon. Taxes are for suckers.

Or, when he tried to slither away from birtherism and fell down a well…


HOLT: Mr. Trump, for five years, you perpetuated a false claim that the nation's first black president was not a natural-born citizen. You questioned his legitimacy. In the last couple of weeks, you acknowledged what most Americans have accepted for years: The president was born in the United States. Can you tell us what took you so long?


TRUMP: I'll tell you very—well, just very simple to say. Sidney Blumenthal works for the campaign and close—very close friend of Secretary Clinton… Look, it's true. Sidney Blumenthal sent a reporter—you just have to take a look at CNN, the last week, the interview with your former campaign manager.

Or, when he…well, I don't know what in the hell he was doing here…


TRUMP: And look at her website. You know what? It's no difference than this. She's telling us how to fight ISIS. Just go to her website. She tells you how to fight ISIS on her website. I don't think General Douglas MacArthur would like that too much.

Or, my singularly favorite moment…


TRUMP: You know, Hillary is hitting me with tremendous commercials. Some of it's said in entertainment. Some of it's said—somebody who's been very vicious to me, Rosie O'Donnell, I said very tough things to her, and I think everybody would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her. But you want to know the truth? I was going to say something…


HOLT: Please very quickly.


TRUMP: … extremely rough to Hillary, to her family, and I said to myself, "I can't do it. I just can't do it. It's inappropriate. It's not nice." But she spent hundreds of millions of dollars on negative ads on me, many of which are absolutely untrue. They're untrue. And they're misrepresentations. And I will tell you this, Lester: It's not nice.

The man has a glass fee-fee, there's no doubt about that.

Spectacularly, he came into the spin room after the debate and talked darkly about all the things he could have said about the Clintons and their marriage, but that he gallantly refrained from saying in deference to their daughter. He also claimed that "they" had given him a defective mic, by which he might have meant that it actually worked.



Steve Brodner

In all honesty, there were points at which HRC was allowed to wave her hand at genuine questions beyond her e-mail. Her actions as Secretary of State as regards Syria and Libya certainly would be grist for a competent opponent, as would her earlier defense of some of the Clinton-era policies that even she admits have led to some of the problems she would like us to elect her now to solve, particularly in the area of criminal justice reform.

But Donald Trump is so damned proud of how he doesn't really know dick about anything, and so damned convinced that not knowing dick about anything actually makes him smarter than the rest of us mortals, that he was utterly incapable of raising any of these points in a coherent fashion. There were two presidents on that stage on Monday night and he wasn't one of them.

Hell, I wouldn't let him park my car.

BBC Calls the First Debate of to Hillary Clinton by 65% to 25% ( 10% undecided)

US election: Who won the first debate? by Anthony Zurcher (Republished with permission of the Author and the BBC ( Online Magazine)
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

It was a battle between the lawyer and the salesman, and for the most part the lawyer came out on top.

It may be hard to remember, but before Mrs Clinton was a secretary of state, or a senator or a first lady, she was a lawyer - and, by all regards, a talented one.

And after all these years, she still campaigns like one. Meticulous, cautious, controlled. What works in the courtroom, with its rules and customs, often doesn't fly in free-wheeling political debates, however.

Mr Trump, on the other hand, is the consummate salesman. Rules, tradition, even the truth are only relevant in so much as they help seal the deal.

The weaknesses of this approach is the perception that the salesman is all talk and no substance - a problem that can be exacerbated by 90 minutes under the debate spotlights.

In the end, the lawyerly preparations paid off for Mrs Clinton, as she controlled the evening with forensic precision.

While Trump had a strategy - and pursued it on occasion - he was often blown off course by the former secretary of state and torpedoed by his own sometimes badgering performance.

While Mrs Clinton was occasionally prone to know-it-all-ness - particularly in her repeated appeals to outside fact-checkers - she largely maintained the upper hand.

Here are three ways she scored points, two times Mr Trump gained an edge and one very important wildcard.'

After a give-and-take on economic plans, the topic turned to one specific set of tax returns - Mr Trump's - and why he won't follow longstanding presidential candidate precedent and release his own.

After the Republican repeated an old, since debunked excuse that he can't release them while he's being audited by the Internal Revenue Service (which, he says, has been auditing him for 15 years, by the way), Mrs Clinton went on the attack.

Her key line: "I think probably he's not all that enthusiastic about having the rest of our country see what the real reasons are, because it must be something really important, even terrible, that he's trying to hide."

Takeaway: The lawyer did her homework.

Before Mr Trump got derailed on his taxes - and after Mrs Clinton's jab, he spent much too long trying to explain himself - the debate was actually going pretty well for him.

The economic discussion featured the kind of give-and-take on trade deals, including Mrs Clinton's past support for the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that will work to Mr Trump's advantage in industrial states hollowed out by manufacturing jobs moving overseas.

His key line: "You go to New England, you go to Ohio, Pennsylvania, you go anywhere you want, Secretary Clinton, and you will see devastation where manufacture is down 30, 40, sometimes 50%. Nafta is the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country."

Takeaway: A salesman knows a bad deal when he sees it.
Birther blues

If Mrs Clinton had the upper hand in the first round of the debate by putting Mr Trump on his heels when it came to tax returns, the second round proved to be equally inhospitable terrain for the Republican.

The issue was race relations in the US, and it was at that point that Mr Trump had to answer for being the leading voice questioning the authenticity of President Barack Obama's US citizenship.

Mr Trump once again tried to blame Mrs Clinton's 2008 campaign for starting the rumours - an assertion roundly dismissed by fact-checkers - and said he deserves credit from Mr Obama and black voters for settling the issue.

Mrs Clinton would have none of it, using the moment to turn up the heat on her opponent.

Her key line: "He has really started his political activity based on this racist lie that our first black president was not an American citizen. There was absolutely no evidence for it, but he persisted, year after year, because some of his supporters, people that he was trying to bring into his fold, apparently believed it or wanted to believe it."

Takeaway: The lawyer had the chance to come to the defence of Mr Obama, whose popularity is currently higher than either of the two candidates on the stage.
Inside-out

Throughout the debate, when he wasn't being goaded into responding to Mrs Clinton's carefully planned barbs, Mr Trump played up that he is the outsider and Mrs Clinton is too closely tied to the unpopular establishment and the status quo.

With polls showing upwards of 70% of the American public unhappy with the direction of the country, being the agent of change is in the political sweet spot. Add to that the natural inclination of the American public to switch direction after one party has been in the White House for eight years, and it is clear this is a potentially winning way for Mr Trump to frame the ballot-box choice for Americans.

Mr Trump's key line: "You've been doing this for 30 years. Why are you just thinking about these solutions right now?"

Takeaway: A good salesman knows when the customer wants a new product.
Temper, temper

Toward the end of the debate, discussion turned to the question of presidential temperament and stamina. Who had it, and who didn't? Mr Trump, who seemed increasingly frazzled as the evening stretched on, saw this as a moment to attack. He questioned Mrs Clinton's judgement, her "look" and her stamina.

Mrs Clinton, after saying that her international travels as secretary of state, her efforts in diplomatic negotiations and her marathon congressional testimony showed she had the endurance to be president, asserted that Mr Trump's attacks were evidence of his sexist behaviour.

Mrs Clinton's key line: "You know, he tried to switch from looks to stamina. But this is a man who has called women pigs, slobs and dogs, and someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers, who has said women don't deserve equal pay unless they do as good a job as men."

Takeaway: The lawyer had the salesman sputtering, complaining about her negative advertising, how she wasn't being nice and how was still doing well in the polls. It wasn't a good look for him.

The Holt factor

And for the final X factor. The Lester Holt factor. Much had been made of how the NBC presenter would handle the debate and whether he would serve as a real-time fact-checker or take a more hands-off approach. One NBC staffer said Holt wouldn't be a "potted plant" - and that was definitely the case.

In all the above points, the opening for Mrs Clinton's advantage was set by the moderator. He first brought up Mr Trump's taxes. He asked about the Obama "birther" controversy. He pushed Mr Trump on the Iraq War and brought up his comment about her "look", which led to the extended discussion of presidential temperament and judgement.

Mrs Clinton's weaknesses - particularly her use of a private email server and potential conflicts of interest in her charitable foundation - were barely discussed.

If the winner of political conflict is dictated by the ground on which it is fought, then most of the debate was contested on terrain that was favourable to the Democrat.

Some of that was her own effective strategy and preparation; the lawyer's advantage. Some of it was Mr Trump's missteps and meandering; the salesman's failure to move his product.

A lot of it, however, was Holt's doing. That will have Democrats smiling and Trump supporters howling.

Who is moderator Lester Holt?

Reaclearpolitics.com Assessment and Comment:What It's Like to Debate Trump

What It's Like to Debate Trump by Rebecca Berg ( republished with permission of the editor and realclearpolitics.com that is collating over 100 different polls and surveys )

As Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton prepare to take the stage Monday for the first of three debates before the election, RealClearPolitics spoke with two veterans of the Republican primary about their impressions after having faced Trump in that setting.

Michael Steel, a former senior adviser to Jeb Bush, and Frank Sadler, Carly Fiorina’s campaign manager, pointed to Trump’s debating style — confident, if vague on details — as his greatest asset. “I think it’s a combination of skills honed over his years as an entertainer — a combination of bravado and shamelessness,” said Steel.

They agreed Trump has an unusually good ear for sound bites and confrontations that will capture the media’s attention, often to his advantage. Meanwhile, they noted his uncanny ability to dodge details, or even his own past statements, without consequence.

Both were struck by a moment during the second GOP presidential primary debate, hosted by CNN at the Ronald Reagan Library, when conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump what his priority would be among the nuclear triad, meaning would he beef up the land, sea, and air missiles that can deliver nuclear warheads. Trump, apparently unfamiliar with the term, spoke for a few minutes about nuclear proliferation and the Iraq War, before concluding: “Nuclear is just the power — the devastation is very important to me."

A response like that might have been damning for another candidate, but it did not stick to Trump — foreshadowing fundamental challenges on the debate stage for his GOP rivals, and now Clinton.

Michael Steel, former senior adviser to Jeb Bush:

[Trump] managed to come up with words that sort of formed sentences, but [when] asked a very specific policy-based question, an important one, he had no response. He managed to string together words. He never gets that deer-in-the-headlights look, even when he clearly does not know what he’s talking about. I don’t remember him ever being flummoxed.

At the North Charleston debate, he had an answer on Boeing and trade jobs that showed some preparation [Boeing is a major employer in South Carolina and there have been tensions over an attempt to unionize the workers. Trump said in the debate that these jobs could move to China.] It’s an obvious attack given the huge Boeing plant right up the road from that venue, that these are good-paying SC jobs that you’re essentially going to throw away. And he had a response about Boeing now having to do manufacturing in China. And what he said wasn’t accurate, but it had a kernel of truth to it and was based on a relatively recent news story, which suggested to me he was doing some kind of traditional debate prep, in the sense that that was an obvious attack given the location and he had a factual-ish response.

Secretary Clinton needs to be prepared for Trump to say things that are wildly factually inaccurate. I think she needs to be prepared for the fact that he is most dangerous when he is on the defensive. If she feels like she lands a blow or is scoring points, that’s when they need to be most worried about him launching a personal attack or saying something outlandish.

[A debate moderator needs to have] a big personality, because in addition to being completely fluid on the facts, [Trump’s] perfectly happy to walk over you. He’s got a lot of skills of an entertainer, of a television personality, that make it very difficult for traditional candidates to debate him.

He hates being told he’s wrong, he hates being challenged factually or those kind of things, but I don’t recall him ever losing his temper. He’ll roll his eyes, he’ll interrupt, he’ll talk over people. Those are a lot of things that would not traditionally be considered presidential, but I don’t remember him hurting himself that badly. People expect him to be undisciplined, and I don’t recall him ever really having a bad moment like that.

Trump does his worst when there’s that consistent focus on him. A strong, well-informed moderator and a single opponent is probably a much worse format for Donald Trump.

Frank Sadler, former campaign manager for Carly Fiorina:

Hugh Hewitt asked Donald Trump about the nuclear triad, which had a very specific answer to it. Trump doesn’t know the answer and gives his made-for-TV answer, and a lot of the people watching think it’s completely great. I know Hugh Hewitt knows the answer to the question. And I do remember feeling like, if that had been Mitt Romney and he had said that, things would have been a lot different. I was like, wow, that’s not the right answer, Hugh Hewitt knows it’s not the right answer, and yet it didn’t seem to matter at the moment.

If the goal is, let’s really understand how these folks are going to tackle policy in the administration, if that’s really what you want, to get somehow a deeper dive into what they think about policy, then I think you probably have to handle the debate differently than if it were Mitt Romney there or John McCain.

The expectation is that, yeah, Donald Trump is going to say something that probably isn’t politically correct, or sexist, or was a little off the cuff, but [viewers seem to let him off the hook and tell themselves] that’s not really what he means, he’s just not as articulate. With Mitt Romney, everything was scripted, so anytime he misspoke it was a much bigger deal.

Absolutely to his credit, [Trump] has a very good grasp of how to handle the spotlight, how to handle the media. I don’t mean that in a condescending way to the media, but he’s very gifted at understanding how to take advantage of those moments. It’s different than how other people have done it, and he’s very astute at that.

If the debate is not about diving deep into policy, really getting in the weeds on this stuff, I do think this is set up much better for Donald Trump than it is for [Clinton]. It’s weird to use this word, but he is authentic. You are seeing who he is, right? Take it or leave it, it is what it is. Hillary has been immersed in the policy world for 30 years. She’s incredibly studied. She knows this stuff. She’s brilliant when it comes to policy. I don’t agree with her policy stances, but I absolutely think that she’s given serious thought over the years to policy. If the debate is about how you make one policy decision over another, that’s fine, she’ll be great. I don’t suspect that’s what this is, and so this is about relating to the voter. I think being authentic is much more valuable than simply knowing all the right answers. She knows all the right answers.

I do think he understands how to capture those 30 seconds or 90 seconds and not get hung up on what the press wants him to say, or what the policy wonks at [the] Heritage [Foundation] want him to say, or what I want him to say. I think he’s very gifted at understanding … the American people, and authenticity means more to them. He really is good at coming across as authentic. Debate prep doesn’t solve that, if that’s your problem.


Rebecca Berg is a national political reporter for RealClearPolitics. She can be reached at rberg@realclearpolitics.com.

Reaclearpolitics.com Assessment and Comment:What It's Like to Debate Trump

What It's Like to Debate Trump by Rebecca Berg ( republished with permission of the editor and realclearpolitics.com that is collating over 100 different polls and surveys )

As Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton prepare to take the stage Monday for the first of three debates before the election, RealClearPolitics spoke with two veterans of the Republican primary about their impressions after having faced Trump in that setting.

Michael Steel, a former senior adviser to Jeb Bush, and Frank Sadler, Carly Fiorina’s campaign manager, pointed to Trump’s debating style — confident, if vague on details — as his greatest asset. “I think it’s a combination of skills honed over his years as an entertainer — a combination of bravado and shamelessness,” said Steel.

They agreed Trump has an unusually good ear for sound bites and confrontations that will capture the media’s attention, often to his advantage. Meanwhile, they noted his uncanny ability to dodge details, or even his own past statements, without consequence.

Both were struck by a moment during the second GOP presidential primary debate, hosted by CNN at the Ronald Reagan Library, when conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump what his priority would be among the nuclear triad, meaning would he beef up the land, sea, and air missiles that can deliver nuclear warheads. Trump, apparently unfamiliar with the term, spoke for a few minutes about nuclear proliferation and the Iraq War, before concluding: “Nuclear is just the power — the devastation is very important to me."

A response like that might have been damning for another candidate, but it did not stick to Trump — foreshadowing fundamental challenges on the debate stage for his GOP rivals, and now Clinton.

Michael Steel, former senior adviser to Jeb Bush:

[Trump] managed to come up with words that sort of formed sentences, but [when] asked a very specific policy-based question, an important one, he had no response. He managed to string together words. He never gets that deer-in-the-headlights look, even when he clearly does not know what he’s talking about. I don’t remember him ever being flummoxed.

At the North Charleston debate, he had an answer on Boeing and trade jobs that showed some preparation [Boeing is a major employer in South Carolina and there have been tensions over an attempt to unionize the workers. Trump said in the debate that these jobs could move to China.] It’s an obvious attack given the huge Boeing plant right up the road from that venue, that these are good-paying SC jobs that you’re essentially going to throw away. And he had a response about Boeing now having to do manufacturing in China. And what he said wasn’t accurate, but it had a kernel of truth to it and was based on a relatively recent news story, which suggested to me he was doing some kind of traditional debate prep, in the sense that that was an obvious attack given the location and he had a factual-ish response.

Secretary Clinton needs to be prepared for Trump to say things that are wildly factually inaccurate. I think she needs to be prepared for the fact that he is most dangerous when he is on the defensive. If she feels like she lands a blow or is scoring points, that’s when they need to be most worried about him launching a personal attack or saying something outlandish.

[A debate moderator needs to have] a big personality, because in addition to being completely fluid on the facts, [Trump’s] perfectly happy to walk over you. He’s got a lot of skills of an entertainer, of a television personality, that make it very difficult for traditional candidates to debate him.

He hates being told he’s wrong, he hates being challenged factually or those kind of things, but I don’t recall him ever losing his temper. He’ll roll his eyes, he’ll interrupt, he’ll talk over people. Those are a lot of things that would not traditionally be considered presidential, but I don’t remember him hurting himself that badly. People expect him to be undisciplined, and I don’t recall him ever really having a bad moment like that.

Trump does his worst when there’s that consistent focus on him. A strong, well-informed moderator and a single opponent is probably a much worse format for Donald Trump.

Frank Sadler, former campaign manager for Carly Fiorina:

Hugh Hewitt asked Donald Trump about the nuclear triad, which had a very specific answer to it. Trump doesn’t know the answer and gives his made-for-TV answer, and a lot of the people watching think it’s completely great. I know Hugh Hewitt knows the answer to the question. And I do remember feeling like, if that had been Mitt Romney and he had said that, things would have been a lot different. I was like, wow, that’s not the right answer, Hugh Hewitt knows it’s not the right answer, and yet it didn’t seem to matter at the moment.

If the goal is, let’s really understand how these folks are going to tackle policy in the administration, if that’s really what you want, to get somehow a deeper dive into what they think about policy, then I think you probably have to handle the debate differently than if it were Mitt Romney there or John McCain.

The expectation is that, yeah, Donald Trump is going to say something that probably isn’t politically correct, or sexist, or was a little off the cuff, but [viewers seem to let him off the hook and tell themselves] that’s not really what he means, he’s just not as articulate. With Mitt Romney, everything was scripted, so anytime he misspoke it was a much bigger deal.

Absolutely to his credit, [Trump] has a very good grasp of how to handle the spotlight, how to handle the media. I don’t mean that in a condescending way to the media, but he’s very gifted at understanding how to take advantage of those moments. It’s different than how other people have done it, and he’s very astute at that.

If the debate is not about diving deep into policy, really getting in the weeds on this stuff, I do think this is set up much better for Donald Trump than it is for [Clinton]. It’s weird to use this word, but he is authentic. You are seeing who he is, right? Take it or leave it, it is what it is. Hillary has been immersed in the policy world for 30 years. She’s incredibly studied. She knows this stuff. She’s brilliant when it comes to policy. I don’t agree with her policy stances, but I absolutely think that she’s given serious thought over the years to policy. If the debate is about how you make one policy decision over another, that’s fine, she’ll be great. I don’t suspect that’s what this is, and so this is about relating to the voter. I think being authentic is much more valuable than simply knowing all the right answers. She knows all the right answers.

I do think he understands how to capture those 30 seconds or 90 seconds and not get hung up on what the press wants him to say, or what the policy wonks at [the] Heritage [Foundation] want him to say, or what I want him to say. I think he’s very gifted at understanding … the American people, and authenticity means more to them. He really is good at coming across as authentic. Debate prep doesn’t solve that, if that’s your problem.


Rebecca Berg is a national political reporter for RealClearPolitics. She can be reached at rberg@realclearpolitics.com.

The First Presidential Debate : a New Frontier for Donny T Trump

The First Presidential Debate : a New Frontier for Donny T Trump





Donald Trump is entering a new realm as a debater.

The Republican presidential nominee has never debated another candidate one-on-one in his short political life. On Monday he'll face Hillary Clinton instead of a crowd of other Republicans.

Trump has also never debated in such a quiet setting.


GOP primary debates sometimes resembled WWE wrestling matches, with an audience applauding and booing loudly depending on what it heard. Trump appeared to seize on many of those moments to turn the tide.

At Hofstra University in New York on Monday night, the crowd will be directed to not applaud, cheer or boo, and it will at times feel like two people and a moderator talking in front of a quiet theater audience.

How Trump handles this different setting remains to be seen, as experts say the primary debate format played right into his wheelhouse.

“The very crowded stage served him very well,” said David Birdsell, a debate expert and professor at Baruch College, of the primary debate.

“He was able to pick fights, land a quick one-off and then fade into the background, becoming a headline without a lengthy examination of his record and changing policy positions.”

Trump’s most notable debate moments came not during a protracted back-and-forth on policy, but when he deployed quick one-liners that disarmed his rivals.

While some opponents, like Carly Fiorina at the start and Ted Cruz down the stretch, chose to attack him head on, Trump benefited when other candidates’ battles drew the spotlight, allowing him to pick his spots to strike hard and then retreat.

But the general election format will be a “challenge for Trump,” Birdsell said. Now, the GOP candidate will be responsible for filling more time, unable to step aside and let a crowded field run down the clock.

And the events themselves will be significantly longer. Networks loaded up the two-hour primary debates with commercial breaks, giving candidates time to collect themselves as well as shortening the event.

Rival campaigns even accused Trump of using some of those breaks to confer with campaign staff in what would have been violation of debate rules.

But the general election debate will be a 90-minute commercial-free event, testing the concentration of the Trump in his first one-on-one debate.

That could put Trump at a disadvantage, both as a candidate outmatched by his opponent’s policy grasp and with a penchant for controversial comments.

Trump’s debate prep appears to be less concerned about the former while looking to control the latter.

Trump is reportedly taking a more hands-off approach with debate preparations, eschewing full-length test runs and deep-dives into briefing books, according to the New York Times. Aides even have expressed concern that Trump is downplaying the difficulties of staying on top of his game for the full 90 minutes.

Instead, Trump, who once owned a United States Football League team, is scouring game tape, footage from old Clinton debates, in the hopes of finding weaknesses to exploit.

And his advisers are cautioning him to avoid falling into Clinton’s traps meant to frame him as unstable, and instead focus on hitting his campaign’s major themes.

But those who took on Trump in the primary debates caution against taking him lightly—predictions that the Trump train would derail when the political novice took the debate stage fell flat.

Frank Sadler, Carly Fiorina’s campaign manager during the primary race, believes it would be foolish to “underestimate Trump.”

“There’s this general thought that he can’t sit there for 90 minutes and answer policy questions in an effective manner,” he said.

“He’s been effective with the media since he came down that escalator. To think in the brand new format that he would be at a disadvantage, I don’t agree.”

Most critics point to Trump’s impulsive nature as potentially his undoing, as his campaign’s greatest missteps have come thanks to controversial comments made while deviating from message.

But the potential weakness could also turn out to be a key asset.

Those close to Clinton have told The Hill that she is preparing for “multiple Trumps,” an acknowledgement that they aren’t quite sure who will be standing across the stage from her.

“That’s the big unknown here, and it’s a case where it’s making her prep a little bit harder because she’s got to prepare for different versions of Trump—subdued Trump, aggressive Trump,” MSNBC’s Chuck Todd said Friday on “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”

“The Trump campaign is enjoying this.”

Trump’s limited debate experience has also set low expectations for the GOP nominee, expectations the Clinton camp is concerned could make it easier for Trump to come out looking sharp.

Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri called low expectations “my biggest concern” during a chat with reporters in the days ahead of the debate on the campaign’s plane, according toABC News.

Multiple experts compared the matchup to the 2000 debate, where a wonky Al Gore showed a mastery of policy but rubbed the audience the wrong way as he audibly sighed through George W. Bush’s answers.

Bush emerged looking competent, compared to the expectations, and significantly more likable than Gore. And ultimately, he edged out the sitting vice president.

“You have a very similar contest here,” Birdsell said.

“You have a candidate not expected to be able to talk about policy facing one expected to do an absolutely bang up job. The one who did an OK job could up being seen as the winner because he didn’t just flame out entirely.”
TAGS:Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Al Gore