Donald trumped in TV debate

Former US Foreign Secretary Hillary Clinton was easily the winner of the first televised debate between her and Donald Trump, her rival for the White House race.

Although in US politics blue stands for the Democratic Party and red for the Republican Party, Mrs Clinton, the Democratic candidate, showed up for the debate in a red trouser suit. Mr Trump, the Republican candidate, had a blue tie.

According to a poll conducted by CNN, Mrs Clinton emerged as a clear winner, with 62 per cent of voters who watched the debate saying she emerged tops on key issues, especially foreign policy. Only 27 per cent said Mr Trump had performed better. On the issues of trade, it was a close contest but Mrs Clinton still emerged with the upper edge.

She was not afraid to throw punches at Mr Trump, challenging him to file his tax returns. According to Mrs Clinton, it was possible that Mr Trump was hiding something, including the possibility that he was not as philanthropic or as rich as he claims.

RELEASED EMAILS

In his defence, Mr Trump said he would file his tax returns if Mrs Clinton released the 33,000 e-mails at the centre of a scandal around her conduct when she was President Barack Obama’s Secretary of State.

When she was put on the spot over the e-mails, Mrs Clinton said: “I made a mistake and I take responsibility for that.” She said that if she were to do it again, she would do things differently. By contrast, when Mr Trump was put on the spot over his position on race and respect for women, he said that on the allegations that he discriminated against African-American tenants, the case was concluded without his admission of guilt. He also said that he had been charged alongside many others.

“Not true. Not true,” he shouted into the microphone as Mrs Clinton was talking about the case.

Asked whether he had said that Mrs Clinton did not have a “presidential look”, Mr Trump said that he actually meant stamina.

ABOUT STAMINA

In reply, she said that she would have a conversation about stamina after Mr Trump had negotiated a peace agreement and chalked up thousands of miles to broker trade and peace deals. She received applause from the audience, though the moderator had asked them to be silent throughout.

Observers who analysed the debate on CNN said that every time Mr Trump opened his mouth he appeared to be hanging himself, Mrs Clinton gave him more rope to do so.

Twitter, too, was awash with digital analysts. Though one measure showed that Mr Trump was the most tweeted about, many of the tweets on Mrs Clinton expressed more positive sentiment, partly because she had a more human touch.

She talked about real people who had the misfortune of crossing Mr Trump’s path, like the architect who was never paid for a job he did or the beauty queen that Mr Trump once called “Ms Housekeeping” because she was Latino.

Towards the end of the debate, Mr Trump said he had contemplated saying something nasty about Mrs Clinton’s family. Speaking to reporters later, he did not entirely rule it out at the next debate set to be held on October 9.