Conservative Blogger
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Clinton scores by staying on offense, Trump by sticking to serious issues
The tone was cordial at the outset, each candidate being polite to the other while hitting their talking points: she on equal pay for women, he on China and Mexico stealing American jobs.
Hillary Clinton said it was good to be with Donald Trump. Trump said he probably agreed with Clinton on child care. But it didn’t last long.
But Clinton, perhaps surprisingly, was the aggressor all night. She threw the first jabs, saying Trump’s father loaned him $14 million and that he was pushing “Trumped-up trickle-down” to mainly help the wealthy.
Trump came back by saying his dad gave him “a small loan,” made a show of calling her “Secretary Clinton” and said she should have started pushing for jobs years earlier.
“Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis,” she said.
“That’s called business, by the way,” he interrupted.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
When Trump insisted Clinton did nothing to create jobs for 30 years, she smiled and played the spousal card: “I think my husband did a pretty good job in the 1990s.”
It was 20 minutes into the faceoff when Trump finally went on offense, accusing Clinton of dropping her support for the Pacific trade deal to match his opposition.
“You called it the gold standard,” he said.
“Donald, I know you live in your own reality, but that is not the facts,” Clinton countered.
As the debate wore on, Clinton acted bemused at Trump’s charges, smiling and at one point suggesting he was saying “crazy” things. That seemed to aggravate the Republican nominee, who started talking faster and louder in pressing his case.
The good news for Trump is that he was debating serious issues with the former secretary of State, made no obvious gaffes and delivered no low blows.
His overarching indictment seemed to be that politics as usual had created a mess in the country: “Typical politician. All talk, no action, never gonna happen.”
The debate heated up when Holt asked why Trump wouldn’t release his tax returns. He gave his standard answer about an IRS audit but said he’d disclose them if Clinton would release her 33,000 deleted emails.
When Clinton gave an unusually crisp answer—it was a mistake and she would offer no excuses—Trump pounced. He said the private server wasn’t a mistake, that it was intentional, and noted that some of her aides had invoked the Fifth Amendment.
Just as he was getting a little traction, Clinton turned the debate to Trump’s business, saying she had met people “who were stiffed by you and your businesses, Donald,” and that “I’m certainly relieved my late father never did business with you.” Next thing you know, Trump was explaining his four corporate bankruptcies.
The differences were stark when the debate turned to crime. “We have to bring back law and order,” Trump declared. Clinton said it was unfortunate that he was painting “such a dire, negative picture of black communities.”
Clinton missed an opportunity to defend the police when asked if they are biased against blacks, saying many of us have to struggle with implicit bias.
The birtherism section did not go well for Trump. Asked why he had pushed the birther issue against President Obama, Trump blamed Clinton advisers Sidney Blumenthal and Patty Solis Doyle for first floating the issue in 2008. He deflected Holt’s question about why he continued to press the issue after the president produced his birth certificate. Clinton, ignoring his comments about her aides, accused Trump of pushing a “racist lie that our first black president was not an American citizen.”
Trump was able to blame the administration for the rise of ISIS, repeating his refrain that American forces should have “taken the oil.” When she said Trump supported the invasion of Iraq (as she did in the Senate), he kept saying “wrong” as she was speaking—a microcosm of the debate.
Holt then declared as fact (which Matt Lauer did not) that Trump had supported the Iraq invasion. Trump called that "mainstream media nonsense," citing, as he has in the past, an interview with Neil Cavuto (in which Trump did not oppose the war) and private conversations with Sean Hannity (which Hannity has confirmed).
The bottom line: Clinton set the pace for the Long Island debate, and Trump spent much of his time responding. He scored his points, but often as a counterpuncher.
A final word about the moderator: Holt lost control of the debate several times. And he was more aggressive against Donald Trump. He asked Trump a hard question about not releasing his tax returns, but didn’t do the same with Clinton’s email mess, merely asking her to respond after Trump raised it in rebuttal. He pressed Trump three times on the birther issue, with no comparable attempt to pin down Clinton.
Holt's fact-checking attempts were all against Trump. He followed up on Trump’s call for stop-and-frisk tactics against crime, saying that in New York it was struck down by the courts. And he backed Clinton on Trump's lack of public opposition to the 2003 Iraq war.
Holt often let the candidates go at it, and go at it they did. But his role may prove to be as controversial as what the nominees said.
Agency probes whether California Dem Party funneled illicit oil donations to governor
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| What's next for Jerry Brown amid illicit oil money scandal? |
“It was a laundry machine for dirty energy contributions to the Brown administration, a slush fund of sorts, hiding big oil, utility and other dirty energy dollars in close proximity to officials’ actions,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, the group that brought the complaint.
A Consumer Watchdog report “Brown’s Dirty Hands” highlighted transactions between 2011 and 2014 that seem to show contributions from Chevron, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Occidental Petroleum Corp. were given to the state’s Democratic Party around the time the party gave Brown’s campaign donations of similar amounts.
“Twenty-six energy companies with business before the state greased the skids via $9.85 million in political donations to Brown’s gubernatorial campaigns, ballot initiatives, favorite causes ... and the California Democratic Party since Brown’s run for office in 2010,” the report alleged.
In all, the companies gave $4.4 million to the state party, which gave Brown’s re-election campaigns $4.7 million.
Galena West, chief of enforcement for the Fair Political Practices Commission, confirmed Friday it is now investigating the California Democratic Party “for alleged violation of the Political Reform Act’s campaign reporting provisions resulting from information contained in your sworn complaint.”
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
California Democratic Party spokesman Michael Soller told the Los Angeles Times his group has received the letter from West and they have “been cooperating fully with their inquiry.”
Brown over the years has sided squarely with environmentalists on issues like climate change, but also has sparred with them in other policy disputes.
Consumer Watchdog often has gone after Brown and other state Democratic leaders over the years.
In March, the FPPC opened an investigation into Brown’s executive secretary, Nancy McFadden, over a similar Consumer Watchdog complaint.
Calls to Brown’s office by FoxNews.com were not immediately returned.
A spokesman for the governor told The San Diego Union-Tribune, “The decision not to broaden the investigation speaks for itself.”
Consumer Watchdog, in its report, also questioned the timing of company contributions and alleged they were made the same time the governor was discussing California’s climate change initiatives.
“The timing on donations suggests that the Brown Administration used the Democratic Party as a pass-through to Brown committees as reward for legislative or regulatory action on behalf of these companies,” the report said. “For example, at the end of December 2013, three months after weakened fracking legislation was chaptered, Chevron donated $350,000 to the Democratic Party. One week later, the party donated $300,000 to Brown for Governor 2014, while Chevron donated $54,400 to the campaign that day—the maximum amount allowed.”
A few weeks later, Brown came out against the oil severance tax that Consumer Watchdog argues would have produced billions for the state.
“Chevron had long opposed the tax,” the report said.
“Hopefully this will shed some light on what looks like a backdoor laundry machine for energy company contributions and probably extends beyond the energy industry,” Court said in a statement.
Trump questions Clinton's temperament, calls her 'out of control'
Donald Trump tried at Monday's debate to turn the tables on presidential rival Hillary Clinton, questioning her temperament and calling her “totally out of control” during a recent speech.
Trump, the Republican nominee, was referring to a video address Clinton, the Democratic nominee, gave last week to a union group in Las Vegas in which she touted her support for big labor, then loudly asked, “Why aren’t I 50 points ahead? … I need you to get Donald Trump’s record out to everybody.”
Trump said near the close of the 90-minute debate, “I don’t know who you were talking to, Secretary Clinton, but you were totally out of control. I said, ‘There’s a person that’s got a temperament problem. That’s out of control.’ ”
Clinton and others previously have called into question Trump’s temperament, with Clinton repeatedly suggesting it makes him “unfit to serve as president.”
On Monday, she said shooting Iranian vessels “out of the water” for approaching U.S. vessels in international waters in the Persian Gulf, as Trump recently suggested, would be tantamount to an act of war.
“I have better judgement,” Trump said. “I also have a much better temperament than she does. I think my strongest asset, maybe, is my temperament. I have a winning temperament. I know how to win.”
Trump goes after Fed Reserve's Yellen, claims she's 'more political' than Clinton
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| Fed Reserve Janet Yellen |
He also called her “more political” than Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
“We have a Fed that’s doing political thing -- this Janet Yellen of the Fed -- by keeping interest rates at this level,” Trump said. “The day Obama goes off … playing golf for the rest of his life, when they raise interest rates, you are going to see some bad things happen.”
It was not the first time that Trump, a wealthy businessman, has come after Yellen and the Reserve about rates.
Last week, Yellen, the Reserve’s chairman, told reporters that “partisan politics play no role in our decisions” about setting short-term rates.
“We are in a very big, ugly bubble,” Trump said Monday. “The Fed is not doing its job. The Fed is being is more political than Hillary Clinton.”
Trump, Clinton clash at fiery first debate on trade, tax returns, temperament
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, in a fiery opening debate where seemingly nothing was off limits, clashed sharply Monday night as the Republican nominee worked to cast his rival as a career politician unable to bring change – and the Democratic nominee fought to tag Trump as an empty suit “hiding” something from the American public.
Entering their first encounter after a solid week of intense preparation, Clinton seemed ready for several of Trump’s taunts on stage at Hofstra University.
When Trump, discussing how he’d been “all over” the country talking to inner-city communities, said, “You decided to stay home, and that’s okay” – Clinton had a swift retort.
“I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And yes, I did,” Clinton said. “And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president, and I think that’s a good thing.”
Later in the debate, Trump summed up his counter-argument in a few words: “Hillary has experience, but it’s bad experience.”
The debate took a number of twists and turns, and it’s unclear how and whether it will tilt the race at a time when the polls are tightening. The general election rivals will meet twice more on the debate stage next month.
The latest headlines on the 2016 elections from the biggest name in politics. See Latest Coverage →
Trump, toward the close of the debate, tried to undermine Clinton’s persistent argument that he’s temperamentally unfit for the nation’s highest office.
“I have a winning temperament. I know how to win,” Trump said, before contrasting that against Clinton’s widely mocked video-conference address last week to a labor union. Trump told Clinton “you were totally out of control.”
She countered: “A man who can be provoked by a tweet should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes.”
Trump also repeated his charge that Clinton “doesn’t have the stamina,” while Clinton responded by reviewing her secretary of state resume.
“As soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a cease fire, release of dissidents … or even spends 11 hours testifying before a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina,” she said.
Trump used the debate to hammer campaign themes like calling for a return to “law and order” and vowing to bring jobs back to America. Clinton focused on rebuilding middle-class America as well.
But in between, the debate veered into personal shots.
Trump reached back to the 1990s to hammer her former president husband Bill Clinton over NAFTA, which he called “the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere,” and remind voters about her controversial comment from that era referring to some young criminals as “super predators.”
Clinton, though, had a sharp exchange with Trump as she challenged him to release his tax returns, which Trump has said he can’t do because of an audit.
Clinton questioned whether Trump is really as wealthy as he claims and said, “There’s something he’s hiding.”
Trump issued Clinton a challenge of his own, saying he’ll defy his lawyers’ advice and release his taxes if she releases the “33,000 emails” she erased.
“As soon as she releases them, I will release my tax returns,” Trump said.
The tone of the debate seemed to get more caustic as the debate neared its end.
Clinton said of Trump, “This is a man who has called women pigs, slobs and dogs.”
And they traded shots over Trump’s role in questioning President Obama’s birthplace. Clinton said he peddled a “racist lie,” while Trump said Clinton aides played a role as well.
“When you try to act holier than thou, it really doesn’t work,” he said.
The debate was moderated by Lester Holt, who stayed out of the fray initially but toward the end challenged Trump on a handful of assertions including his claim he opposed the Iraq war.
At one point, Trump also accused Clinton of “fighting ISIS your entire adult life,” and she later mocked him for blaming her for “everything” and saying what she described as “crazy things.”
The Democratic nominee also ripped Trump over his tax plan, which she said would “blow up the debt” while mainly benefiting the wealthy.
“I call it trumped-up trickle down,” she said. “That is not how we grow the economy.”
Trump, meanwhile, described Clinton as late-to-the-game when it comes to scrutinizing American trade deals.
“Secretary Clinton and others … should have been doing this for years, not right now,” he said.
He said he wanted to keep jobs and business in the United States by threatening to tax companies that move jobs outside the U.S. He told Clinton pointedly, “You’ve been doing this for 30 years. … I will bring back jobs. You can’t bring back jobs.”
He made a similar argument about her ability to take on the Islamic State.
“You were secretary of state when it was a little infant. Now it’s in over 30 countries. And you’re gonna stop them? I don’t think so,” he said.
The presidential debate, six weeks before Election Day, was the first of three in the final stretch of the campaign. The general election foes’ first face-off came as polling consistently shows a tightening race, in national surveys as well as in the battlegrounds that will decide the election.
This put even more pressure on the candidates to turn in a stellar performance Monday night, and seize the advantage going into October. Polls show both candidates are viewed negatively by sizeable swaths of the electorate – but Clinton faced the primary task of settling questions about her honesty while Trump faced the task of proving to voters he’s ready for the nation’s highest office.
The debate, though, seemed to gloss over two of the biggest trouble spots in Clinton’s record – her personal email use as secretary of state and ethical questions surrounding the Clinton Foundation. The latter issue did not come up during the debate, while the emails were addressed briefly.
While Trump has assailed Clinton throughout the campaign as dishonest, the Clinton campaign increasingly has pushed a narrative that Trump is temperamentally unfit to lead. The former secretary of state has enjoyed some help from influential voices in the media establishment, with The New York Times and Washington Post both publishing editorials Monday morning echoing that theme.
But Trump has dismissed such critiques, maintaining the public confidence heading into Hofstra that he exuded throughout the Republican primaries – during which the first-time candidate and debater vanquished 16 foes and dominated the stage over the roughly dozen early-season debates.
That record rendered him a rival not to be underestimated by the Clinton camp, which spent days preparing the Democratic nominee in study and mock-debate sessions even while Trump was out campaigning last week.
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