The 2016 Presidential debate, the first between GOP candidate Donald “Believe Me” Trump and Hillary “Stronger Without Bill’s Baggage” Clinton begins on every known channel, including Syfy and HSN, at 9:00 PM eastern, an hour that will live in infamy. Please keep your comments polite and factual, as my grandma will be following.
According to my exhaustive preparatory research and the first Google result for “our nation’s collective shame,” the hour and a half of podium-clutching at Hofstra University in New York will be divided into six 15-minute segments. That time may vary depending on whether Lester Holt brought an airhorn to shut up the participants. The major topics were determined by the moderator, and will probably include at least one about whether Dr. Harold Bornstein has had a psych eval within the last five years. Apparently, the topics were also announced a week ago, but I was too busy informing myself about Brangelina’s divorce to notice.
The candidates will have two minutes to respond, from which Trump will lose 47 seconds by repeatedly interspersing his answers with “by the way.” Each will then have an opportunity to respond to the other, hopefully with lots of GIF-worthy face-making. The moderator will use the balance of the time for more discussion of the topic, such as how grateful Hillary is that Huma finally ditched Anthony Weiner.
In the minutes before the debate commences, I’m watching videos of cute animals snuggling with each other and baking tutorials.
Lester Holt has entered the room. The Clinton family looks happy, while Ivanka looks dismayed, but that might just be because she’s sitting next to Mike Pence. A pundit says Trump need only be in proper character tonight and “wear the presidential suit.” Little does he know that’s a pantsuit. As the seminal hour approaches, a bunch of guys kill time congratulating each other on their own insights. It’s like most staff meetings I’ve been in.
And now we begin. Lester Holt describes the format and the topics, which are money, terrorism, and something else important, although it’s not whether Bill Clinton should properly wear shorts as First Gentleman. The candidates enter next. Hillary is in Power Red, which flatters her blond hair, while Donald in navy blue, which makes him resemble the flag of the State of New York. They greet each other politely, similar to how lionesses will circle their prey quietly before the attack.
The first question is about jobs. Why is Hillary a better choice to create many good-paying ones? Maybe because she’s actually worked for a living? She explains that wants us to invest in you with new technology, clean energy, and small business, but apparently not free porn sites. Paid family leave and affordable childcare are good, too. She will tax the wealthy, such as the guy standing next to her and Sheldon Adelson.
Donald says our jobs are “fleeing the country,” as if they know he’s a candidate for president. “Thousands of them, they’re leaving,” he asserts. He agrees with Hillary on childcare, but insists we have to stop our jobs from being stolen from us. Maybe that’s why he appreciates the endorsement of the NRA. He names Ford and Carrier air conditioning as companies sending their jobs to other countries like misbehaving trust fund children. How will he stop this hemorrhaging of jobs? I hope Dr. Bornstein isn’t the medical consultant. But it will be “a beautiful thing to watch,” however it happens.
Next Hillary accuses Donald of peddling trickle-down economics, the Reagan-era Band-Aid fix that fell off after one bath. She points out that everyone is not born rich like he was, and, like Mike Rowe, describes how her own dad worked hard printing patterns on draperies, which left him no time to refuse to rent apartments to black people. Donald dismissed her by saying it was a very small amount of millions his father loaned him. He further scoffs that Hillary has been working in government for 30 years without addressing this problem, while he’s been ignoring it his entire life.
Eight years ago, Hillary says, we were in a recession because of policies that favored the wealthy and told the middle-class to rely on Enron’s pension plan. She remarks that Donald was thrilled at the collapse of the housing market because he could exploit it for profit. “That’s business,” he interrupts haughtily. So is bankruptcy.
Independent experts favor Hillary’s economic plan, and also her recipe for apple cake. She’s all into clean energy to fight climate change and create jobs. Donald, who does not believe in climate change or that the shot didn’t come from the grassy knoll, bitches about Solandra. He’s upset that we’re losing money through debt. Since he’s the King of Debt, maybe he wants more to reign over.
Hillary wants to enforce our trade laws and hold people accountable, except Bill. Donald complains about her hubs signing NAFTA, which ruined manufacturing. Maybe that explains what went wrong with Trump Mattresses. Personally, I have no idea who’s right, but Hillary is happier about the whole thing so she looks right. She tells Donald he lives in his own reality. He becomes incensed while she remains as calm as a country lake at dawn. Donald announces that he is proud of his ginormous tax cuts. They’re yuuuuuge.
Suddenly they’re talking about ISIS. Lester must rush to redirect traffic. Donald says the companies are leaving, “believe it or not,” although I’m not sure why anybody would find this hard to believe, because their taxes are too high and they can’t bring their money back into our country and have to hide it in places where they can roll around in the piles and giggle.
Hillary claims Donald’s economic plan is as worthless as a diploma from Trump University. She says we don’t need more advantages for rich people, like solid-gold faucets on their private planes. Donald says we’re in a big, fat, ugly bubble. The bubble must be a woman.
Next Lester brings up Donald’s tax returns. Never mind that, Donald says. His financial forms show income of $694 million this year. He’s impressed with that figure, as are many Americans unable to pay their $550 rent, and thinks the country should make that much. That’s probably what we’d get given his tax plan. He won’t release the returns until his lawyers say he can, or when he says they can say he can, because he’s under audit. That happens almost every year, he says, but he doesn’t mind. A paranoid, thin-skinned megalomaniac wouldn’t be bothered by that at all. Then he says he’ll release his taxes when Hillary releases her deleted emails, which would be kind of hard since they’ve been deleted.
Hillary wonders what he’s hiding in those taxes, other than him writing off Melania’s latest necklift as a medical expense. Did he not pay taxes? Is he not that rich? Is his accountant also Dr. Harold Bornstein? She then apologizes for using a private email server, which was wrong, and also for clicking on that phishing email. Donald sinks his teeth in. “It’s disgraceful, believe me,” he opines. He goes on to say he is extremely under-leveraged, which means I don’t know what but it certainly sounds business-related. He offers to give Hill a list of banks who would assure her he’s an upstanding customer and has never pulled one of their pens off the chain.
Donald then discusses the attractive airports he’s seen in other countries, while we owe trillions and have to cope with LaGuardia’s substandard Cinnabon. She brings up him the fact that he’s stiffed so many small businesses who did work for him. Donald suggests they did bad work, but Judge Judy says you can’t refuse to pay for the meal after you’ve eaten it. Donald explains that his “unbelievable” business has “some of the greatest assets anywhere in the world,” aside from Kim Kardashian’s behind. You’re right, Donald, that’s pretty unbelievable.
Onto race relations. What’s up with that, Lester Holt asks. Hillary agrees we have a problem and we must restore trust. She calls for criminal justice reform and for everyone to Netflix The Help. Guns are a problem, too, especially because her bullet-proof vest makes her hips look enormous. Donald accuses Hillary of not wanting, or at least not mentioning the words, law and order. Admittedly, it wasn’t the same after Jerry Orbach died.
He bemoans that Hispanics and blacks can’t walk down the street without getting shot, making them unable to reach their jobs as busboys and janitors. In Chicago, “so many people” –a figure he cites from a really good study–have been killed since Obama entered office, similar to how so many contractors haven’t been paid since Trump declared bankruptcy. He praises stop and frisk, which Lester Holt points out was deemed illegal. Donald challenges that, blaming New York City Mayor deBlasio for not liking illegal things. “These are bad people that should have guns taken away from them,” Donald asserts, echoing the immortal words of Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Hillary wants to offer training and mental health treatment to address the violence and discontent. Donald is proud to have the endorsement of the NRA, although he thinks people should not have guns unless they pay their annual dues. He’s also disgusted that Hillary used the term “superpredator” to refer to young black men. When he called women pigs and Mexicans rapists, he was stating facts while Hillary was just being crass.
Donald insists the African-American community has been let down and badly treated by Democrat politicians, although he fails to offer examples. He’s been to Detroit, he explains, and other places that are native habitats of black people, so he knows. Lester Holt then throws the birther dealio at him. He again blames Hillary’s associates for “starting it,” which is like the Bloods blaming the Crips for starting the turf war. He feels he dismissed the whole business by harassing Obama for several years until he coughed up his birth certificate, and then claiming it was faked. Hillary shakes her head wearily.
“We’re talking about healing here,” Lester Holt reminds him. Hillary just points out that Donald is a damn fool. He accuses her of attacking Obama during her first run. While he admits there was a federal lawsuit against him for discriminating against black renters, it’s not important because he settled it with no admission of guilt. It’s like when Peter and Greg glued Mom’s vase back together without admitting they broke it.
National security is the hopeless topic introduced next. Lots of people are terrified at the very idea of a Trump presidency, while they feel Hillary isn’t up to the job because she gets hot flashes. Donald would rather be endorsed by admirals and ICE than the political hacks who think Hillary is at least sentient. Donald then suggests that anyone could have hacked the DNC: Russia, China, or evem some random 400-lb. person sitting on his bed. It could even be 400-lb. Russian sitting on his bed in Moscow. Furthermore, Donald says, his 10-year-old son is great with computers. Maybe Barron was the hacker!
ISIS: They have all the oil “all over the place,” Donald observes. We should show them by taking it back somehow, and without anyone’s head getting lopped off. Hillary explains that George W. Bush arranged our schedule for leaving Iraq, not Obama, and that we need to work with our allies on intelligence-gathering, something Donald is unfamiliar with in his private life.
Donald replies that “everything is a total mess,” a unique foreign policy view. Despite being only a businessman–who did really well–he’s been asked by many people, such as Howard Stern and the homeless guy who sleeps in front of the CVS, what to do about NATO. He believes the feds took his advice on that, but refuse to credit him. Maybe because all the companies who used his name went out of business.
Donald also claims he has a much better temperament than Hillary, which brings the first not-horrified laugh of the evening. It’s a more ridiculous statement than the one he makes with his hair. Hillary is enjoying all this even more than that Facebook memes says she did when she defended a child rapist. She calmly explains how NATO countries are our partners, and why the Iran deal was necessary so they wouldn’t blow anyone up. Also, she thinks too many nukes in the hands of tyrants and despots could be a bad thing. She repeats the line about being able to provoke him with a tweet, which Donald is tired of hearing and will repeat so in a tweet. Then he asserts that the nukes are more terrifying than global warming or even Melania’s 50th birthday.
Lester Holt now asks directly about nuclear capability. Donald thinks our B-52s are too old, which he also felt about his ex-wives. He thinks the Iran deal needed something having to do with North Korea and Yemen, two countries he’s probably heard of, and that all the cash we sent them was “something no one had ever seen before.” I’m sure some of his banker friends have seen that much money. Hillary basically responds that he’s embarrassing us like that one uncle at Thanksgiving always does.
Moving right along, Lester Holt asks why Hillary doesn’t have the look or the stamina to be president, as Trump has stated. She suggests Donald can try to be the Secretary of State, who travels constantly without KFC. Can he even have sex with Melania in anything but the missionary position? He complains about Hillary’s negative ads, which are not nice and very costly, although he never says they aren’t correct. Hillary points out that Cezanne painted fruit because that was what he saw.
Is the loser willing to accept the outcome? Hillary can deal–the will of the people is the American way. Donald just wants to make America great again so he can sell more hats. He thinks a lot of people became citizens by mistake, by the way. But he’ll accept Hillary as president.
Thank God that’s over. See you for the next appalling display.
Did you miss the debate? Watch it here:
Part 1
https://youtu.be/F_s4e0wYHkQ
Part 2
https://youtu.be/xxgzDFTnLAg
Part 3
https://youtu.be/9JOLIgVDfcg
POLL
Who won the first Presidential Debate?
