VietPress USA (Oct. 9th, 2016): The highlights from the New York Times for the second presidential debate between Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump:
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/us/politics/presidential-debate.html
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Who’s Ahead in the Presidential
Debate? What You’ve Missed
Debate? What You’ve Missed
After struggling mightily in a long exchange about his
treatment of women, Donald J. Trump lashed out at Hillary Clinton and pledged
that as president he would appoint a special prosecutor to pursue her.
Mr. Trump repeatedly interrupted Mrs. Clinton and taunted
her as she sought to speak, saying several times: “You should be ashamed of
yourself.” He accused her of covering for her husband’s alleged abuse of women,
and of deliberately destroying evidence in a congressional probe of her emails.
Mrs. Clinton remained impassive through most of Mr. Trump’s
extended attack, jabbing just once that Mr. Trump was eager to distract from
“your campaign and the way it’s exploding.”
But it was Mrs. Clinton who delivered the most pointed
denunciation of the evening, minutes before Mr. Trump’s tirade, calling him to
account for his attacks on the Khan family, a Hispanic federal judge, President
Obama and a newspaper reporter with a physical disability.
“He owes our country an apology,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And he
needs to take responsibility for his actions and his words.”
Here are the rest of the highlights:
• Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump took the stage without shaking
hands.
• Asked by an audience member about coarseness in the
presidential race, Mrs. Clinton said it was “very important for us to make
clear to our children that our country really is great because we’re good.” She
reminded the crowd of her campaign slogan, “Stronger Together.” Mr. Trump, who
before the debate appeared with women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual
assault, said he broadly agreed with Mrs. Clinton. “I began this campaign
because I was so tired of seeing such foolish things happen to our country,” he
said.
• Pressed on the 2005 recording which he seemed to boast of
sexually assaulting women, Mr. Trump said he was “not proud of” the behavior,
saying that he had apologized to his family and the American people. But he
disputed that the recording amounted to bragging about sexual assault, calling
his comments “locker room talk.” “I have great respect for women,” he said.
“Nobody has more respect for women than I do,” he said, adding, “I was
embarrassed by it.”
• Mrs. Clinton, responding to Mr. Trump’s remarks about the
recording, said that while she disagreed with past Republican nominees, “I
never questioned their fitness to serve.” “Donald Trump is different,” she
said. She suggested that, despite Mr. Trump’s insistence that the recording did
not reflect his character, “It’s clear to anyone who heard it that it
represents exactly who he is.”
• Mr. Trump turned the discussion of his lewd remarks on Mr.
Clinton, arguing that his “words” did not compare to Mr. Clinton’s history with
women. “If you look at Bill Clinton, far worse,” Mr. Trump said. Mrs. Clinton
did not address the attacks on her husband. “He gets to run his campaign any
way he chooses,” she said. She paraphrased Michelle Obama’s speech at the
Democratic convention to describe her approach: “When they go low, you go
high.”
• Addressing Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump said that if he wins,
“I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look
into your situation,” citing her use of a private email server as secretary of
state. Mrs. Clinton pointedly said she could not spend all of her time
fact-checking Mr. Trump, advising viewers to go to her website to see his
falsehoods. She said it was a good thing that Mr. Trump was not in charge of
the laws in the country. “Because you’d be in jail,” Mr. Trump shot back.
Cheers could be heard from the crowd.
• Mrs. Clinton said Mr. Trump was plainly trying to divert
attention from his own campaign — “the way it’s exploding and the way
Republicans are leaving you.” Mr. Trump asked a moderator, Mr. Cooper, why he
had not spent more time discussing Mrs. Clinton’s private email server. (The
other moderator, Martha Raddatz, had in fact brought it up moments earlier.)
Mr. Trump was unmoved. “Nice, one on three,” he said, suggesting the moderators
were teaming up on him.
• In response to a question on the Affordable Care Act, Mr.
Trump called the program “a disaster.” “You know it, we all know it,” he said.
Mrs. Clinton was asked about recent remarks from her husband, in which he
appeared to criticize Mr. Obama’s signature legislative achievement. “He
clarified what he meant,” Mrs. Clinton said. “If we were to start all over
again, we might come up with a different system,” she said. “But we have an
employer-based system.”
• Asked about how to stop Islamophobia, Mr. Trump said,
“You’re right about Islamophobia and that’s a shame.” But he pivoted
immediately to a discussion of what he called “radical Islamic terrorists,”
citing the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., and the attacks on the World Trade
Center, among other atrocities. Mrs. Clinton suggested Mr. Trump’s statements
throughout the campaign had been destructive. “We are not at war with Islam,”
she said. “It plays into the hands of the terrorists to act as though we are.”
• Pushed repeatedly to answer whether his proposed ban on
Muslim immigration still stood, Mr. Trump deflected, saying his plans amounted
to “extreme vetting” and accusing a moderator, Ms. Raddatz, of favoring Mrs.
Clinton. Mrs. Clinton said it was “important for us, as a policy” not to ban
people based on religion. “How do you do that?” she asked. “We are a country
founded on religious freedom and liberty.”
• After Mr. Trump said again that he opposed the war in
Iraq, despite past public statements that contradict him, Mrs. Clinton
reiterated that “we have it on tape” that Mr. Trump had not been against the
war before it began. “It’s not been debunked,” he insisted, turning the issue
back on Mrs. Clinton. “You voted for it and you shouldn’t have.”
oOo
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