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From The Reporter’s Notebook
Donald Trump claimed he stopped himself from saying something that he described as “rough” during Monday night’s debate, which, judging from comments from him post-debate, were linked to former President Bill Clinton’s sex scandals, TPM’s Kristin Salaky reported. Yahoo News’s Hunter Walker asked Trump if he thought about bringing up Clinton’s sex scandals, and Trump confirmed that he thought about it and that he held back for Chelsea’s sake. “I was, but I decided not to out of respect for Chelsea,” Trump said.
Agree or Disagree?
Josh Marshall: “We heard a lot about Clinton preparing in depth for this debate. Trump, we’re told… well his advisors couldn’t get him to do any real debate prep. He had bull sessions with Christie and Giuliani and Gen. Flynn. I now find those claims quite believable. Her preparation and his cocky indifference to doing so showed in both cases. Clinton was poised and unflappable. She needled him but not in a way that seemed nasty or petulant. She was poised throughout. It was equally clear that he had no clear strategy for what to do. For that among other reasons she took control of the debate within a half hour. There was no knock out blow here. I don’t know that it will move the polls dramatically. But Trump was scattered, swaggering and stumbling. He lied a lot and repeatedly refused to answer big questions in a way that was fairly obvious and transparent.”
Say What?!
“A lie would mean that he knew.”
– Kellyanne Conway insisted that Trump didn’t lie last week when he said that NBC’s Lester Holt is a Democrat, because he didn’t know that Holt is actually registered as a Republican.
BUZZING: Today in the Hive
From a TPM Prime member: “Seems to me there are two things that happen here. Clinton is compared unfavorably with Obama and Bill Clinton, both of whom are speech givers of a generation. When I was younger, every Democratic candidate was compared with JFK and the comparison was always unfavorable. The other thing that I think is sometimes missing in the discussions of the perceived unlikability is how much she was disparaged by Republicans because they just couldn’t get around Bill Clinton. I’ve never been much of a Bill Clinton fan, but I do recognize the extent to which he’s the “Explainer in Chief,” as Obama put it.”
Related: Conservative pundits criticized both candidates in the first presidential debate, but many grudgingly gave Clinton the edge.
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