The experts disagree on whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton took the edge in the first presidential debate — but most pointed to moderator Lester Holt as the clear loser.
LifeZette’s Debate Squad, composed of leading conservatives, debate experts, political scientists, and GOP consultants, found Holt’s performance to be heavily biased in Clinton’s favor.
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Holt interrupted Trump repeatedly, monopolized fact checks for the GOP nominee, steered much of the night’s discussion to Trump’s negatives, and even chided Trump’s supporters for applause — while giving Clinton’s backers a free pass.
Aside from Holt’s performance as moderator, most agreed Trump scored points on trade, the economy, and jobs, while Clinton capitalized on opportunities to attack the GOP nominee.
Here are the key takeaways from the LifeZette Debate Squad:
Brian Darling
The news media talking heads are falling all over themselves to declare Hillary Clinton the winner of this first of three presidential debates. There is no debate that Donald Trump started strong and made some winning points on policy.
While CNN, MSNBC, et al. would love to dissect who won the debate over Trump’s tax returns, the president’s birth certificate, and Hillary calling Trump a racist and sexist, Trump won on substantive issues like the Iran nuclear deal, the economy, high versus low taxes, and terrorism.
Trump hit Hillary hard for being a 30-year veteran of the federal government who has done nothing to solve the $20 trillion in national debt and defeating ISIS. Trump’s strongest point was that Hillary is an Establishment politician who is all talk and no action.
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I believe Trump won the debate, because he won on the two biggest issues today — jobs and national security.
Brian Darling is a former senior communications director and counsel for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Grover Norquist
Trump made the point Hillary wants to raise taxes and that he will reduce taxes.
Trump did stress the runaway burden of regulations and debt. I think he missed a great opportunity to point out that Hillary has called for many taxes on average voters: on soda pop, wages, the seven middle class tax hikes in Obamacare and on guns.
Hillary has already broken her promise to tax “only” the rich … but this was not pointed out last night.
Grover Norquist is president of Americans for Tax Reform.
Ben Voth
Hillary Clinton did quite well in the debate. She overcame perceptions of campaign weakness. She was quite specific in policies and landed a number of attacks on Donald Trump.
Trump was weaker in the first half of the debate but recovered later in the debate.
Neither candidate became distinctly rattled. Hillary Clinton maintained a more ideal demeanor; Trump needed to focus more on the camera and the public and less on looking at Hillary.
Trump’s demeanor seemed more defensive and less confident than Hillary Clinton’s.
Best Trump moments were attacking the emails and arguing that an absence in Iraq led to the formation of ISIS.
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Best Clinton moments were in the closing and challenging Trump on taxes.
The conduct of Lester Holt was weak and biased. His interruptions against Trump were repetitive and hostile while the infrequent interruptions of Clinton were sympathetic. Trump should have attacked Lester Holt’s role more specifically. Holt’s misconduct of the moderator role will help the Trump campaign.
Dr. Ben Voth is director of debate and associate professor at Southern Methodist University in Texas.
Eddie Zipperer
Trump won big on taxes and he won big on trade, but all Americans — Republicans, Democrats, and independents — should be upset at the content of the debate. Our nation faces real issues, but giant portions of the debate were spent talking about Trump’s tax returns, birtherism, and other miscellaneous nonsense that won’t affect the pocket-book of a single American. Lester Holt tossed so many tough questions at Trump that he had none left for Hillary. In the throwback to the 2012 portion of the debate, birtherism was an issue of great import, but Benghazi didn’t make the cut.
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I was shocked when Trump mentioned Clinton’s 33,000 deleted emails, and the crowd cheered. Holt had to wag a finger at them and remind them of the rules. Trump should have spent less time defending himself on points nobody cared about and more time pressing Hillary Clinton on her hidden classified emails.
I don’t think this debate will move the polls much. Next time, Trump needs to do a better job of seizing opportunities. If the question is about “cyber security,” and you can’t figure out how to use your answer to eviscerate unsecured-private-server Hillary, you need to spend more time preparing.
Eddie Zipperer is assistant professor of political science at Georgia Military College and a regular LifeZette contributor.
Cleta Mitchell
My vote for senior class hall monitor: Hillary Clinton. She has a plan for everything. Everything. Just ask her: “Look at my website … I have a plan.”
For the elite and media insiders, she is a dream. She has the policy wonk points and the style that everyone in Washington is used to.
But she also has the failed results that the people in America are used to.
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But … my vote for president? Donald Trump, who talked in language most Americans can understand: “You, your husband, and the Washington elites have failed.” On trade and jobs. “NAFTA? Not so great.” Race relations? “Visit the inner cities and stop talking platitudes.” ISIS? “You and your president created ISIS … and now you want us to trust you to stop it?”
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Trump talked about the issues as someone who is a constituent of the places Hillary Clinton identifies as part of one of her 1,000 plans. He referenced places where he is in business, owns a business, or a property. He knows what the elites are doing because he has experienced it on a firsthand basis.
Two very different worldviews. She has a plan developed by experts. Trump has a vision borne of life experience on the receiving end of the plans developed by the experts.
Never has there ever been such a clear contrast between the “smart people” and those who built America.
The post-debate polls will surely reflect the divide.
Cleta Mitchell is an attorney for several conservative organizations.
Robert Kaufman
Hillary Clinton won the first and probably the most significant presidential debate of 2016 decisively. Credit her for making an objectively bad case very well. From start to finish, Mrs. Clinton looked and sounded presidential. She honed in effectively on Donald Trump’s major vulnerabilities — on his failure to disclose his tax return; on his record as a businessman; on his incendiary rhetoric, especially in the areas of foreign affairs and national security. She did significantly better than usual in style as well as substance, curbing her propensity to scold and condescend.
Donald Trump’s less than stellar performance also assisted mightily in making Mrs. Clinton come of much better than she objectively deserved, based on a long record of policy failures and ethical breaches. The one-on-one format exposed Trump’s rhetorical and substantive shortcomings that a multi-candidate field had masked during the Republican primaries. Instead of zeroing in on Hillary Clinton’s legion of vulnerabilities, Trump often gave meandering responses to questions, spending most of the evening on the defensive or talking excessively about his exploits.
Time will tell whether Mrs. Clinton’s gain is permanent or evanescent.
Mrs. Clinton thus evaded sustained and disciplined scrutiny of her terrible record as secretary of state. Trump allowed her to perpetrate the fiction, for example, that President Obama was not to blame for the premature withdrawal from Iraq that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and facilitated the rise of ISIS, whose danger Obama and Mrs. Clinton downplayed. He barely mentioned the precipitous cuts in the defense budget that emboldened aggression everywhere, especially a rising, authoritarian, and ambitious China and Putin’s Russia.
Nor did he drive the point home about the perilous implications of the feckless Iran deal that puts the revolutionary anti-American regime on the autobahn to crossing the nuclear threshold in the most dangerous region of the world.
Trump’s lack of focus and verbosity also de-fanged his well-justified critique of the Obama administration’s economic record and rationale for it. He did not articulate with sufficient clarity or vigor an alternative pro-growth agenda relying on lower taxes, less regulation, and free enterprise than government to spur wealth creation and innovation. Trump’s demeanor — especially the wincing and facial expressions conveying disapproval — did not help his cause, either.
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At a minimum, the first debate has blunted Donald Trump’s momentum while boosting Mrs. Clinton’s flagging campaign. Time will tell whether Mrs. Clinton’s gain is permanent or evanescent. Donald Trump will have to improve significantly in the final debates to have a decent chance of winning.
Robert G. Kaufman is professor of public policy at Pepperdine University in California and author of “Dangerous Doctrine: How Obama’s Grand Strategy Weakened America.”
Ron Bonjean
Trump did very well as the candidate for change going after Clinton tying her economic and trade policies as tired and decades old. He knew this was a show to millions of voters and won the first half hour of the debate. However Trump was too defensive on his federal tax returns and business operations when he could have been scoring points on her email scandals and lack of transparency. The goal for Trump is whether he is a safe alternative for Americans who want a new direction for this country. Some may want to wait for a second debate to make that decision. However, Clinton did not disqualify him as an alternative for change.
Ron Bonjean is a partner of the public affairs firm Rokk Solutions. He remains the first person to serve as the lead spokesman in both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate. He has served as a strategist for the Republican National Committee in numerous senior communications roles for high-ranking officials.
Heather Richardson Higgins
She won the debate, but he helped his campaign.
Hillary Clinton attacked Donald Trump personally, and he spent way more time defending himself than he should have, in part because he did not have pithy responses to deflate the attacks.
And still, she didn’t make the case that she wasn’t more of the same, or that she was trustworthy — so her largest liabilities remain.
Nor did she make Trump seem dangerous. Because that was his challenge: Could he seem rational, to parry the dangerous and crazy meme? That was far more important for him than zinging her on points.
Related: 5 Debate Moments That Will Impact the Race
It’s why his campaign likely suggested he say that he was restraining himself from going after her — because “restraint” isn’t the first word one thinks of coming after “Trump.” It’s also, I suspect, why he didn’t attack Clinton more. Yes, he took her on somewhat, dominating the microphone with interruptions and filibusters, but just enough that his own team would think “yes, our guy.” But not so much that he would give anyone fodder for going after him.
That’s because his pitch in the first debate was not to his base.
He’s in it to win, and playing the long game. The expectations for him for the second debate are now quite low, and he has room for improvement, while everyone has now been reminded of how good a debater Mrs. Clinton is. Now all Trump needs is a good writer of presidential caliber zingers to help him soar in rounds two and three.
Heather Richardson Higgins is president of Independent Women’s Voice, a non-partisan, non-profit organization for mainstream women, men and families in Washington, D.C.
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