U.S
I watched the Trump-Clinton debates again, so you don't need to
In 2016, Trump used sexist attacks to turn his opponent’s perceived strengths into weaknesses.
Updated 2024-Oct-05 10:00
Hillary Clinton is standing and speaking into a microphone, as Donald Trump stands behind her looking on.
Trump has a 40 point advantage in the group that found him offensive in the past but not lately. Most of the offended voters are Republicans but a significant number are Democrats with 25 voting for Biden last year.
They may find Trump s language offensive but it doesn t seem to impact how they vote. The results indicate that the Harris campaign may have difficulty redirecting voters focus to Trump s previous statements.
However prioritizing policy could potentially bring higher returns. Sixty percent of people who were informed about Project 2025 a collection of conservative policy ideas created by Trump s supporters expressed their disapproval of the policies.
In the end a debate is still television a platform where Trump excels regardless of the situation.
It is probable that he will rely on those instincts the next day even though he will confront a rival with unique abilities unlike any he has encountered previously.
As Clinton attempted to depict Trump as ethically unsuitable for leadership It s reassuring that someone like Donald Trump isn t overseeing the law in our nation she stated Trump counterattacked with a warning.
Tomorrow Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will take part in a debate that could shape the rest of the presidential race and perhaps the country’s future.
It’s the first time they are so much as meeting in person a fact that imbues the coming confrontation with a jolt of unpredictability.
We do though know a lot about how both candidates approach debates. My colleague Lisa Lerer dived into the combative debate style Harris honed over decades in the rough and tumble gauntlet that is San Francisco politics.
And I decided to consider what we learned about Trump’s debate skills the last time he took the stage with a woman who was standing between himself and the presidency which meant spending my weekend rewatching every one of the 270 minutes Trump and Clinton spent onstage together in 2016.Those debates gave Trump a reputation for being undisciplined and brutish onstage a man whose hailstorm of interruptions and half truths stood in stark contrast to Clinton’s focused calm.
If there was any winner over the four and a half hours they spent fighting on television it seemed at the time like it was her.
Watching it now though I see it differently. Trump was a more cunning debater than he got credit for at the time one who wielded ugly sexist attacks to his benefit turned Clinton’s perceived strengths into weaknesses and used his time onstage to steady his campaign.
What is less clear is whether he can deploy the same strategy this time and whether or not it will work.
Here’s what I learned rewatching the three Clinton Trump debates. Trump’s delivery was chaotic but his message was focusedTrump built his campaign on an upswell of grievance.
From his first moments on the debate stage he cast Clinton as a fixture of a self dealing political system responsible for the nation’s underlying problems and he kept to that core message despite his chaotic delivery.
Hillary I’d just ask you this Trump said minutes into the first debate as the two tussled over the economy.
You’ve been doing this for 30 years. Why are you just thinking about these solutions right now? Later when Trump blamed Clinton for jobs leaving the country she joked that by the end of this evening I’m going to be blamed for everything that’s ever happened.
Because you would be in prison he cautioned. It was an extraordinary moment. After that the discussion shifted.
The following query asked by ABC s Martha Raddatz was about Clinton s utilization of a personal email server during her time as secretary of state.
Afterwards Clinton and Trump argued about topics such as healthcare immigration and the conflict in Syria.
In retrospect Trump a performer who has always recognized the impact of TV visuals appeared to be relying on the influence of the traditional debate platform itself strategizing.
