I have taken
the liberty of abridging the debate in case you were one of the six or so
Americans who did not watch.
LESTER HOLT:
Welcome to the debate! I have somewhere else to be for the next half hour,
so do not look for me to say anything or fact-check anyone. I will not. First, who
will be better for business? Secretary?
HILLARY CLINTON:
Look at me. Now look at Donald Trump. Now at me. Now at Donald
Trump. Donald Trump is actually on the presidential debate stage right
now. With me, a former senator and secretary of state. Donald Trump. Also, I
have actual plans.
DONALD TRUMP: Hi.
I am Donald Trump. Yes, I am here. If you believe in the two-party system, then
I am 50 percent of your options for president right now. You may have been
wondering: Did my advisers just say that I had not prepared at all for these
debates in order to lower audience expectations, or did I NOT PREPARE AT ALL
for these debates? Now, you will have your answer. My answer to that last
question is that I am pretty sure I saw on TV that Mexico was taking our jobs.
Or something.
CLINTON: Can I
respond? I heard there would not be any fact-checking this debate, so I brought
my own. I just want to explain what your plan would actually do. It is like
trickle-down economics, but even worse. I came up with a fun nickname for it
because my campaign wanted to make sure I created moments of “levity” instead
of just “lecturing.” This is the straitjacket of speaking while female.
“Trumped-up trickle-down,” we call it. Is that fun? By my standards, that seems
fun. Donald, your business started when your dad loaned you $14 million.
TRUMP: In my
defense, $14 million is, like, practically nothing. If I found it crumpled
up in the pocket of a coat I had not worn in a while, I would make a face and
throw it away. Also, NAFTA is bad, Secretary Clinton — does that make you
happy? Usually when I address women as “secretary” they get upset and
yell.
CLINTON: My plan
would create jobs. Your plan would destroy them. I think global warming is
real. You think global warming is a hoax created by the Chinese.
TRUMP: Well, I
don’t think that NOW. Listen, we disagree on a lot. One thing we disagree about
is whether you have a plan. I, for instance, think that you do not have a plan.
CLINTON: I have a
plan. It is called “Stronger Together” and published in book form. You can buy
it at an airport near you. Or wherever books are sold, so, I guess, an
airport near you.
TRUMP: You are
going to embiggen taxes whereas I am going to lower them. You are going to make
more regulations, and I will do the opposite of that. I will create millions of
jobs, and all you will create are bad ideas.
HOLT: Hey, guys,
did I miss anything?
CLINTON:
(frenzied, into the camera) Please, viewers at home, I know that
fact-checking is not permitted, but at least GO TO MY WEBSITE. I promise —
TRUMP: I also
have a website. You should go to mine. If you go to her website, you will see
her plan to fight ISIS. Right there on the Internet where anyone can SEE. I
know what Gen. MacArthur would have thought of that. He would not have liked it
ONE BIT. Gen. MacArthur is a person from history whose name I have suddenly
remembered.
CLINTON:
(whispers) Fact-check rating — Mostly True.
TRUMP: You have
to keep everything secret, like tax returns, but NOT like emails.
Otherwise your enemies will know your next move. “No wonder you’ve been
fighting ISIS your entire adult life.”
CLINTON: I don’t
understand. How long do you think ISIS has been in existence? Do you think it
is 50 years? Or do you think I am in my 20s? Or — what? PLEASE SOMEONE FACT-CHECK
THIS. Lester?
HOLT: (sticking
head through door) Hey, guys! Just wanted to check in and see how you were
doing in here. You two having fun? It’s important to have fun. Donald, though,
can you explain your tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans?
TRUMP: You know
what we don’t have? Leadership. And I blame Secretary Clinton.
CLINTON: Sure.
Great. Everything is my fault now.
TRUMP: Yes.
CLINTON: (makes
carefully neutral facial expression that must have taken 10 weeks to practice)
TRUMP: If there
is one thing I have learned from campaigning in America, it is that people
think you sit at the controls of a vast and horrible machine making
everything that is wrong in America go wrong.
CLINTON: I can
assure you that I do not do that.
TRUMP: Also in
addition to your sinister Machiavellian control of everything on earth, you are
not good at leadership. I believe these things simultaneously and see no
contradiction in them.
CLINTON: Wasn’t I
supposed to be talking? About focusing on the middle class?
HOLT: (shrugs)
TRUMP: “TYPICAL
POLITICIAN. ALL TALK, NO ACTION.”
CLINTON: Is
this in response to something specific?
TRUMP: “NEVER
GONNA HAPPEN.”
CLINTON: Did
someone hit a switch on your back somewhere into drunk uncle mode?
TRUMP: “We are in
a big, fat, ugly bubble.” The Fed is bad. “The Fed — is doing political.”
Soon Obama will go to the golf course, and then, you know, it will not be good,
because they will do something to the rates. And you won’t like it one bit!
Please someone else talk now.
CLINTON: Where
did you read this? Was it on a drunk person’s Facebook wall? Are you still
friends with this person? Because I wouldn’t be.
HOLT: Donald
Trump, what about releasing your tax returns?
TRUMP: Thank
goodness this is a subject I actually know something about! I don’t want to.
Clinton should release those EMAILS, that’s what I say! I’m being audited
anyway, so…
HOLT: There’s
nothing that says you have to wait for the audit to be over before you release
your tax return. But about those emails, Hillary?
CLINTON: That was
definitely a mistake, but I would prefer to watch Donald Trump flail
uncomfortably about his tax returns.
TRUMP: Listen,
I’m a very wealthy man. I know a lot of wonderful banks. I know a lot about
money. I have been to airports, both good and bad. Newark is a bad airport.
America can agree. We have wasted all this money on your bad ideas, but instead
we should have made Newark Liberty International Airport a better, more
welcoming place to be.
CLINTON: Okay,
let’s talk about your business. You don’t seem to pay people. I have talked to
all the people who work for your businesses: the people who make
mohair and who cover railings with brass and who paint the walls of
buildings to look like the pleasure palaces of dictators with poor taste and people
who make garish rugs and lay faux marble, and they all said that you did not
pay them.
TRUMP: Of course
I did not pay them. Listen, you know the thing where you want to go out in a
fancy outfit but then you do not want to own the outfit forever, and so after
you wear it you go to the people and say to them, “This was bad, it did not
fit!” and then you don’t have to pay, but you have already worn it so —
you win.
CLINTON: That’s
fraud.
TRUMP: It’s
savings. America should try it.
CLINTON: …
TRUMP: Say
America orders a big boat. When the boat comes, it can say, “This is no good,”
and then: free boat.
HOLT: And now,
please, take two minutes to discuss America’s complex legacy of racial
problems. Secretary Clinton, you first.
CLINTON: Here is
a complex and thoughtful response about the need for criminal justice reform
that I have clearly been working on for some time, because it is not at ALL
what I would have said in the ’90s.
TRUMP: Listen.
Two words: law and order. I guess that’s three words. Stop and frisk.
Wait, no, also three words.
HOLT: Three
unconstitutional words.
TRUMP: No, no, I
am pretty sure that is wrong. It went before a judge who was a very Anti-Police
Judge.
HOLT: You mean a
judge who found it was unconstitutional because it was a form of racial profiling?
TRUMP: No,
listen, we need Law and Order. Benson and Stabler. To make us
a Stabler nation.
CLINTON:
Stabler was on “SVU.” I bet you can’t even name the police officers
on regular “Law and Order.”
TRUMP: Eric and
Melania.
CLINTON: No.
TRUMP: Two wonderful
officers, great friends of mine.
CLINTON: You have
Briscoe and Green, or you have Green and Fontana, or you have —
TRUMP: Please
don’t interrupt. Listen, if there is one thing I have learned on my tour trying
to convince people that I am not wildly and ridiculously tone-deaf about race,
it is that people who are not white probably live in nightmarish hellholes
than which nothing can be worse.
CLINTON: That’s
just not true at all.
TRUMP: (audible
grunt of dismay)
HOLT: Is implicit
bias a problem for police?
CLINTON: It’s a
problem for everyone.
TRUMP: WRONG!
Look, I’ve been around, okay? I’ve visited these places, in the last week.
CLINTON:
(unexpectedly) Did you just criticize me for preparing for this debate? Because
what I was really preparing for was to be president of the United States, and
that takes hard, hard work! Hard work I’m ready to put in! (summons an eagle) (it perches on her
shoulder) (fireworks shoot off) (a glass ceiling shatters)
Perhaps I
over-prepared this answer and it was not exactly related to what you just said,
but I have literally been rehearsing it since I was 4.
HOLT: Donald,
let’s talk about the horrible racist birther movement that you founded and
nurtured for five years.
TRUMP: Never
heard of it. It’s the work of a woman, name of Patty. I just put it to rest so
America could have closure.
CLINTON: (mouths)
Website.
HOLT: But, like,
we can agree that it was racist, right?
TRUMP: No. You
know what they say about ducks. If something walks like a duck and quacks like
a duck, it could just be me, Donald Trump, at a debate.
HOLT: Secretary,
do you have anything to add?
CLINTON: No, but
thank you for that footage for my ads next month.
TRUMP: Wait, I
have a story of a time I was not personally racist! “I opened a club, and really
got great credit for it. No discrimination against African Americans, against
Muslims, against anybody. And it’s a tremendously successful club.”
CLINTON: You
literally just said that.
HOLT: Okay, how
do we protect America in the cyber realm?
TRUMP: My
son Barron is an accomplished hacker. Or he does something on the computer. He
will save us.
CLINTON: I
thought you were in favor of the Russians hacking us. Didn’t you literally ask
Putin —
TRUMP: OMG!
Putin? What, where, did he say something? He thinks I’m brilliant, you
know.
HOLT: Talk about
ISIS.
TRUMP: I was
against Iraq.
CLINTON: No.
TRUMP: Yes.
CLINTON: You
literally were not.
TRUMP: I
literally was. In the sense in which “literally” is now used.
CLINTON: No.
TRUMP: Call Sean
Hannity.
CLINTON: I would
not wish that fate on my worst enemy.
HOLT: Mr. Trump,
do you have a better temperament?
TRUMP: I have the
best temperament. Obviously.
CLINTON:
Obviously. Yes. Obviously. You have interrupted me 70 times to say
nonsense remarks that indicate you have not the faintest idea what you are
talking about. Seventy times. I have spent my life doing this. You
decided, like, last year that you were mildly interested in it and that you
would probably be great at it. I wish I had that confidence. I wish any
little girl did.
If I had coughed
even once on this stage, I would have lost this debate instantly. And so you
know what? I did not cough. Not even once. You sniffed and you lectured
and you made faces and you sighed. And I stood there. Impassive. Like a screensaver.
I focus-grouped my number of blinks.
But maybe it
worked. Maybe, just this once, America saw a man yammer on for an hour and a
half about a subject he knew nothing about to a woman who had spent her
lifetime in that field, and America said, “Oh,” quietly, to itself. Maybe.
But knowing America, maybe also not.
HOLT: Will you
accept the outcome of this election?
TRUMP: Probably.
CLINTON:
(smiling, waving) Yes, definitely.