FACE OF THE NATION
Hillary’s look says it all as Trump buries himself in bumbling blather
We feel you, Hil. Donald Trump made little sense for much of Monday’s debate. What a surprise.
Maybe he doesn’t CLINTON: want the American people to know that he’s paid nothing in federal taxes. That makes me TRUMP: smart.
ON THE BIGGEST stage of his life, Donald Trump was a big, befuddled grump.
In a terse, tense and topsyturvy first presidential debate Monday night at Hofstra University, Trump and Hillary Clinton sparred over the economy, taxes and race with a confident Clinton trying to draw her rival out on the issues, leaving him at times visibly annoyed.
An increasingly agitated Trump repeatedly interrupted and talked over his Democratic opponent, creating, at times, signs of the venomous dogfight that many had expected of the first faceoff between the two presidential nominees.
But Clinton fired off a number of one-liners on the Hempstead, L.I., stage, hitting the GOP nominee on his command of the facts and his preparedness to be commander-in-chief.
“I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And, yes, I did,” Clinton, sporting a bright red pant suit, said. “And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be President. And I think that’s a good thing.”
Clinton also hit Trump for helping to start the racist conspiracy theories dating back to 2010 surrounding President Obama’s birthplace.
“He started his political activity based on this racist lie that our first black President was not an American citizen,” she said.
But Trump, who just last week through surrogates and his campaign finally admitted that Obama was actually born in the U.S., maintained he had done “a great job and a great service — not only for the country, but even for the President — in getting him to produce his birth certificate.”
Clinton went on to note that Trump was sued by the Department of Justice in the 1970s over charges one of his developments would not rent apartments to blacks.
“He has a long record of engaging in racist behavior,” Clinton said.
Trump dismissed the lawsuit as “just one of those things” that happened when he was “very young.”
In another exchange, about the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Clinton and Trump both oppose, the mogul repeatedly accused his rival of supporting it.
“Donald, I know you live in your own reality, but that is not the facts,” she said.
Moments earlier — in a line he would use several times throughout the night — Trump accused Clinton of pivoting toward an anti-trade stance only because he
I am going to cut taxes bigly, and you are going to raise taxes bigly. Rosie O’Donnell, I said very tough things to her ... nobody feels sorry for her.
had been there first.
“You’ve been doing this for 30 years. Why are you just thinking about these solutions right now? For 30 years, you’ve been doing it, and now you’re just starting to think of solutions,” Trump railed at his opponent.
“I will bring, excuse me. I will bring back jobs. You can’t bring back jobs,” Trump boomed.
An exasperated Clinton replied condescendingly.
“I have a feeling that by the end of this evening that I’m going to be blamed for anything that’s ever happened,” she said. “Why not?” Trump retorted. “You know, just join the debate by saying more crazy things,” Clinton shot back later.
Trump’s tax returns — which he hasn’t released — also came up, with the real estate mogul claiming he was “smart” to avoid paying them for at least a few years.
Clinton said the reason he doesn’t release them may be because “you haven’t paid any federal income taxes.” She pointed out that for two years in the late 1970s, when his returns were turned over to a New Jersey agency in a casino application, he reported paying zero.
“That makes me smart,” Trump retorted.
Trump also shared a few fractious moments with moderator Lester Holt — who his campaign had urged to refrain from fact checking either candidate — in-
cluding one where Trump, wrongly, disputed the “NBC Nightly News” anchor’s comment about stop-and-frisk having been ruled unconstitutional.
“You’re wrong,” Trump told Holt, who had just a moment earlier said, correctly, that the controversial tactic had been “ruled unconstitutional in New York, because it largely singled out black and Hispanic young men.”
But Trump continued. “It went before a judge, who was a very against-police judge. It was taken away from her . . . . If you look at it, throughout the country, there are many places where it’s allowed,” he said.
Trump made no mention of Clinton’s health — a favorite topic of some of his surrogates — but by the end of the night, many watchers were focused on his. The bombastic billionaire reached for his glass of water multiple times and frequently licked his lips — a tick body language experts quickly interpreted as a sign of anxiety.
“He seemed nervous, like he had dry mouth,” public speaking coach Ruth Sherman told the Daily News. “And does he have a cold? There was a lot of sniffling.”
Within moments of the conclusion of Monday night’s first presidential debate, the Trump camp had, nevertheless, claimed victory.
“I thought it was a great night with Donald Trump. He stood toe to toe with Secretary Clinton, who only came up with one zinger after the next,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said. “He showed the American people he’s ready to be President.”
The Clinton camp blasted Trump as having “showed up completely unprepared.” “Both for the debate and for the presidency,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook told reporters after the debate. “He became unhinged,” Mook added, referring to the mogul’s tactics of talking over Clinton and sighing loudly during her remarks.
Trump’s decision to “double down” on birtherism also “completely alienated himself from a broad swath of the electorate,” and his performance did nothing to take away from Clinton having “reinforced the sense that she is going to be the steady leader you want in the commander-in-chief.”
In fact, Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis, back in 2006. That’s called business, TRUMP: by the way. Trump just criticized me for preparing for this debate. You know what else I prepared for? Being President.