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Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin
Lester Holt was a joke. He was ok for the first part of the debate. But his bias came out for the second half. He was much tougher on Trump than Clinton. In addition, his fact-checking was wrong. He totally mischaracterized what the court ruled with regard to Stop and Frisk. There is nothing unconstitutional about Stop and Frisk. It was done for over 10 years in New York. It was legal and it was very effective. Many years later, one liberal judge ruled that it was being applied improperly and that the police were frisking people without probable cause. First of all, that was only one judge's opinion. Second, that judge did not claim that Stop and Frisk in itself is unconstitutional. She only ruled that the way it was being applied at that point in time was unconstitutional. Lester Holt needs to get his facts straight. So does Hillary Clinton. Under Giuliani, Stop and Frisk was a huge success and the courts had no issue with it.
I don't mind a moderator doing some fact-checking, as long as he fact-checks both candidates and as long as he knows what he's talking about. Holt did not know what he was talking about with regard to most of the things he tried to fact-check. The Stop and Frisk was one example. His claim that Trump supported the Iraq War was another example. Trump did one interview with Howard Sterne where he gave luke-warm support to the Iraq War. That is hardly proof that he supported the war. Holt acted like there was indisputable evidence that Trump was in favor of the Iraq War. Trump claims he told multiple people (including Sean Hannity) that he was against the war. That could be a lie. We will never know for sure. But I certainly don't think there is indisputable evidence that he favored the war. Holt should have simply said that there was one interview with Howard Sterne where Trump gave luke-warm support to the Iraq War.
And why in the world is Holt bringing up the birther issue? Nobody cares about that. In addition, most people including Holt don't even know that there is evidence that supports the birther claims. I'm not saying Obama was born in Kenya. I have no idea where he was born. But there is certainly reason to suspect he was born in Kenya. Obama's own literary agent said he was born in Kenya. That was written by his literary agent in his bio in 1991. If it was a mistake, how come nobody ever corrected it, not even 10 years later? In addition, Obama's grandmother said he was born in Kenya and that she was there when he was born. In addition, Obama first claimed he was born in one hospital in Hawaii, then later claimed it was a different hospital. There is certainly enough evidence there to make a reasonable person wonder. Despite all that, I don't think anyone really cares at this point. For Holt to be wasting time on this was unconscionable.
With regard to who won the debate. I thought Trump won the first half of the debate. I thought Hillary won the second half and probably won the debate overall, if you were scoring it on points. But most of her points were won on irrelevant issues, such as whether Trump discriminated against tenants back in the 1970s. When the candidates went point, counter-point on a few of these irrelevant issues, I thought Clinton outscored Trump on many of these. I don't know how this will translate to the polls. Clinton might get a slight bounce, but I don't think it's a sure thing. It's possible that many voters will see that Trump scored points on many key issues. In addition, expectations were low for Trump going into the debate. Polls showed that most people expected Hillary to win the debate. Since expectation for Trump were low, he may have outperformed expectations. If that is the case, he may not lose any ground as a result of this debate. We will see what the polls show over the next few days.
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If Trump had prepared he would have mitigated most of these issues. But he didn't. Lord knows he interrupted over 51 times. He could have used those interruptions to "set the record straight." But he didn't. Why? Because he didn't prepare, thinks he knows it all when he actually knows very little. He thought he could just show up, use his stump speech and get away with it.
That being said, Lester Holt was, indeed, awful. But that didn't affect Hillary because, (gasp!) she prepared! (And she knows what she's talking about).