The First Presidential Debate
Monday, September 26th was a time that no one will forget for a long time. It was the first presidential debate between Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, and Republican candidate, Donald Trump. Their moderator was Lester Holt, also the NBC Nightly News anchor.
Achieving Prosperity
The first topic was how each candidate would be a better choice to create jobs that give more money to Americans and the economy. Clinton began by saying that they needed to build an economy that works for everyone and invest in the economy through small businesses to create more jobs, raising the minimum wage and get equal pay for women, (which is still a matter of debate whether the gender wage gap exists.)
She also focused on the big companies, wanting them to do profit-sharing – a plan where employees receive a certain percentage based on the company's quarterly or annually earnings. Along with that, she wanted affordable child care, paid sick days, and debt-free colleges by making the wealthy pay their fair share, implying that she would raise taxes for the wealthy.
Donald Trump first began by talking about how we're losing jobs because so many of them are being outsourced to other countries such as China and Mexico. He agreed with Hillary on child care but did not go into specifics as he later went on to say that he would cut taxes from 35% to 15% for companies which he said would cause more jobs to be created like during Ronald Reagan's time. He believes that that will cause many companies to pop up and offer more jobs to people without work.
They soon went to NAFTA, where Trump talked about how the agreement was defective since Mexicon has a tax on our goods when they are exported there, 16% as he said during the debate, and that Clinton hasn't been trying to fix it despite how bad it is. Holt tried to bring him on topic and his answer to bring jobs back was to stop them from leaving in the first place.
However, Clinton decided to go on a slight offensive as she talked about how tax cuts were one of the causes of the Great Recession which she linked Trump to in terms of the housing market collapse. She talks about how 9 million people lost their jobs and 5 million lost their homes and how if Trump enacts his plans then $5 trillion would be added to the national debt, the US would lose 3.5 million jobs and may lead to another recession. She then talks about how people looking at her plans say that they will 10 million jobs back and goes on to mention clean energy, a topic that usually isn't mentioned during politics, and calls out Donald for saying climate change is a hoax that has been spread by the Chinese.
Back and forth arguments continued between the two candidates, talking about NAFTA and the TPP as Trump tried to attack Clinton for what he called were failed policies by her and president Obama. Soon the conversation went to the candidates defending their policies that they had stated before, Trump going on to talk about companies leaving because of bureaucratic red tape and that they have no leadership in the presidency to sit the companies down and convince them to stay. Clinton had a rebuttal that the economy should focus on the middle class as trickle down economics doesn't work for the country which she and Trump disagreed about.
Race Relations
The topic soon changed to race relations in the US which Clinton attributed mainly to a need for criminal justice reform and a gun epidemic as she would say. Trump on the other hand attributed most of the crime problems to illegal immigrants, saying that most gangs in places such as Chicago are illegal immigrants, a statement that still causes controversy among other new sources. He supported stop and frisk which the moderator rebutted was a form of racial profiling which Trump denied and tried to defend by saying that it worked in other states besides New York.
He also said that there needs to be a mend in the connection between police officers and communities, mentioning the events in Dallas where 5 police officers were killed. Though Clinton tries to speak about how Trump is painting the black communities in a negative light, Trump tries to strike back by saying that black communities have been used and abused to get democratic votes, trying to say that people in those communities are upset with what politicians have done and what they say.
The talk about race soon led to an off topic conversation about when it was assumed that Obama wasn't born in the United States. Donald tried to shift away from this subject since he was one of the main people who said that Obama wasn't a natural born United States citizen but neither moderator or Clinton would let him slip away. It soon went back to the issue of race as Trump attempted to say he had done a good job in mending relationships for African American communities.
Clinton wouldn't let that go as she attacked Trump for attempting to spread a racist point of view that their first African American president wasn't an American citizen. She then goes on to mention moments in his past where he seemed to be a racist but Trump didn't take that lying down as he came back talking about her behavior attacking Barack Obama when she ran against him for the candidacy back in 2008, attempting to make her appear as though she thought that she wasn't as bad as Donald Trump is advertised to be.
As a way to end the discussion, he goes on to talk about how he opened a club in Florida that was not discriminating against anyone as a way to show that he was not racist against anyone for their race, going away from how most media portray him.
Securing America
The final topic of the first presidential debate was about protecting the United States from the 21st century warfare being fought with their secrets being leaked. The candidates were asked who they thought were behind it and how do they fight such a threat. Clinton began by talking about how cyber warfare is the main challenge for the next president, saying that the two main enemies are hacking groups independent from each other that do it for economic reasons to make money and the other being from nations themselves. She goes on to talk about how America must be more vigilant and steadfast against that threat and mentions Russia and how they have supposedly led cyber attacks against organizations in the US and mentions how Donald Trump praises Putin as a good leader.
She accuses Russia of being the one who hacked personal files of the Democratic National Committee and that leads to a bombardment of accusations at them and Donald Trump for inviting them to try and hack Americans, stating that several security officials – 50 to be precise – have said that he would be a horrible and unfit Commander-in-Chief because of statements such as that.
Trump starts by talking about how he has been endorsed by military officials and border patrol officers before going into his answer. He states that he agrees with Clinton about how to deal with cyber attacks before talking about how she keeps accusing Russia. He says that she doesn't know know who broke into the DNC and that it could've been anyone – Russia, China, "somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds."
He later attacks the DNC and tries to get Bernie supporters on his side by talking about how the DNC took advantage of him before going back on topic. He does not give specifics but Donald states that the government isn't doing its job and that one of the things it needs to better is it's cyber division.
When Clinton is given the chance to speak, she goes on to talk about how they have to deal with ISIS, giving examples such as: intensity air strikes, support Arab and Kurdish partners, push ISIS out of Iraq and squeeze them in Syria. She also talks about how they need to deal with the foreign partners that ISIS has along with their supporters.
The moderator decides to ask Trump how he will get rid of home grown terrorism and he begins by stating that Sec. Clinton and President Obama created a vaccum in Iraq that allowed ISIS to form and grow powerful when they left. He says that they shouldn't have invaded Iraq in the first place but the fact that they left led to ISIS being able to form. He states that they should've taken the oil in the Middle East since they lost supply to that oil which he gives an example of by naming Libya.
Clinton comes back by talking about how he supported invading Iraq and talks about how it was not Obama's fault since Bush was the one who made the agreement of when the troops would come out of Iraq. She then talks about the US's allies such as NATO and other groups that are on the front lines providing information for them. Trump later adds that they aren't paying their fair share despite the fact that the US is protecting them as he says, sparking a clash between the two of them.
The debate soon devolved into a back and forth match between Trump, Hillary, and the moderator, usually Trump being against one of them. Clinton's temperament was called into question by Trump but she responded by talking about situations where he gave answers that would most certainly lead to war with other nations and talked about her involvement in the Iranian deal and how her diplomacy works. Nuclear energy was added to the debate but it was a splintering point from Iran being mentioned with the nuclear project it had been focusing on for some time and had been an issue some time before the debate.
Conclusion
As the debate wrapped up, the issue of Trump's treatment of women came up, Hillary attempting to use this as a way to slander his reputation and show what type of person she saw him as. After arguments about that, the final question was asked whether or not they would submit to the vote of the people and support the other if they won the presidency which both responded yes.
This debate marked the beginning of the struggling between Clinton and Trump as the general election soon draws near. Both sides were hurt and helped by this debate but the reaction from the debate mainly painted Trump as the main offender and most media attacked him for things he said during the debate and his actions before.
It is not exactly clear who is in the lead but the reactions from the newest debate seem to paint Clinton as soaring higher than Trump, though that remains to be seen with the new polls that will show where the American people lie in who they support.
