First Presidential Debate Tackles America’s Direction

First+Presidential+Debate+Tackles+America%E2%80%99s+Direction

Elle Grant'18, News Section Editor

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Tanvi Dange’17

The first presidential debate took place on September 26 between Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump. Moderated by Lester Holt of NBC News, the six segments of the debates were “Achieving Prosperity,” “America’s Direction” and “Securing America.” Some of the topics brought up under these main three ideas were: economy and job creation, the war on terror and foreign policy, and race relations and policing in the United States. A variety of topics ranging from Donald Trump’s tax history to Hillary Clinton’s stamina were touched upon.

In the first section of the debate, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both outlined plans for the future economy of the United States. Clinton stated she intended to invest for the future.

“I want us to invest in you. I want us to invest in your future. That means jobs in infrastructure, in advanced manufacturing, innovation and technology, clean, renewable energy, and small business,” Clinton said.

Donald Trump, in response to the same question, touched on creating jobs to benefit the Americans. He stated that it was important to prevent jobs from fleeing to other countries, specifically China and Mexico.

“We cannot let it happen. Under my plan, I’ll be reducing taxes tremendously, from 35 percent to 15 percent for companies, small and big businesses. That’s going to be a job creator like we haven’t seen since Ronald Reagan. It’s going to be a beautiful thing to watch,” Trump said.

Clinton criticized the mentality of Trump, claiming the trickledown effect was certain to fail in bringing in their different life experiences; growing up rich in Trump’s case and in middle class in Clinton’s case.

Trump then criticized Clinton for being a politician for thirty years, but doing nothing positive with trade deals in that time. He brought up the trade deal, NAFTA, which Trump and the members of his party argue had a negative impact on the country. Clinton argued this was simply not true.

 

A final important theme in this segment was whether Trump was paying federal tax as he had not payed for several years and had refused to release tax returns. He claimed that he would do so when Hillary Clinton releases her 33,000 deleted emails.

 

In the second segment, speaking of America’s Direction, Holt first brought up the controversial issue of race in our country, asking how to fairly heal the divide.

 

Clinton immediately touched on the police brutality within the nation, declaring that “everyone should be respected by the law, and everyone should respect the law.” She went on to  claim that criminal justice reform was the solution.

 

Trump, on the other hand, argued for the restoration of “law and order”, saying that methods such as “stop and frisk” worked well in New York, though ruled unconstitutional for racial profiling, and supported the notion of constant vigilance with guns and crime in inner cities.

 

During this segment, Trump acknowledged that he had been visiting more places, including Detroit and Philadelphia while Clinton stayed home in advance for the debate. In her controversial response, Clinton claimed she had prepared for the debate.

 

“And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president. And I think that’s a good thing,” Clinton said.

 

At the end of the segment, moderator Holt asked Trump about his repeated claims that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States and his recent acknowledgement of the President’s birth.

 

“I think I did a great job and a great service not only for the country, but even for the president, in getting him to produce his birth certificate,” Trump said.

 

Securing America was the title of the final topic of the first debate, and the nominees went in swinging. They began talks about ISIS and their different views became clearer than ever. Clinton made it clear that the attack on terror was a huge priority both on American soil and in the Middle East, and she planned to focus on stopping more attacks. Trump was also adamant on the fact that terrorism needed to be eliminated from the United States. He stated that he felt Clinton and Obama were partially to blame for the increase in terrorism in recent years with the Iran Deal and other actions of military and peaceful intent. He went on to criticize the longest military alliance in history, NATO.

 

“The 28 countries of NATO- many of them aren’t paying their fair share…and that bothers me, because we should be asking. We’re defending them, and they should at least be paying us what they’re supposed to be paying by treaty and contract,” Trump said.

 

He went on to state that going into Middle East with NATO was extremely necessary and needed to be done quickly. He ended his segment by criticizing the temperament of Clinton, a notion she found laughable.

 

This preluded one of the final crossfires of the night where the stamina of Clinton was discussed.

 

“She doesn’t have the look. She doesn’t have the stamina. I said she doesn’t have the stamina. And I don’t believe she does have the stamina,” Trump stated.

 

Clinton jabbed back at Trump, pointing out some of his controversial remarks.

 

“Well, as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a cease-fire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina. But this is a man who has called women pigs, slobs and dogs, and someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers,” Clinton said.

 

With these statements in the final minutes, Clinton brought up a particular reason Trump is a controversial topic in media: his frequent alleged statements that are demeaning to women. Trump fired back by stating that he could make comments about Hillary’s family, but he felt it would be too rude to speak of it and he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

 

The debate ended with both candidates claiming to support the United States democracy and whoever should eventually become President.

 

Although many people said that Trump was leading the debate during the first half hour, in the end, analysts and the majority of the polls reflected Clinton as being the winner in the first presidential debate.