During the third and final presidential debate in Las Vegas, Hillary Clinton again fared better than in comparison to her at-times clearly ruffled opponent, Donald Trump. According to a CNN/ORC poll of debate watchers (which is slightly skewed to Democrats), Clinton led Donald Trump by a 13% margin overall; she nabbed 52% with Trump trailing at 39%. Much of this loss came down — once again — to Clinton’s preparedness on the issues while Trump engaged in line-in-the-sand tactics, including his response to being called Vladimir Putin’s puppet. And as always, the end result came down to Trump damning himself with women voters.
Trump messing up with women during his confrontations with Clinton are nothing new. During the first debate, he addressed his history of disparaging comments about women by insulting women. By the second debate, Trump avoided his “locker room talk” by claiming he never acted on the behavior that he bragged about. Since then, several women have made sexual assault allegations of Trump groping, kissing, and otherwise foisting himself on them without consent. Trump has strenuously denied all of these claims, but going into the last stretch of his campaign, he needed a debate performance that could overcome his problems with women. Sadly for Trump, he did nothing but reinforce the issues women voters have with him.
At one point, Clinton addressed Trump’s rhetoric against women with a quote that encapsulated how he makes women feel: “Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger. He goes after their dignity, their self worth.” She then brought it home: “I don’t think there is a woman anywhere who doesn’t know what that feels like. So we now know what Donald is and what he said and how he acts toward women. That’s who he is.” Let’s run down the ways where Trump further drove a wedge between himself and women voters.
“Such a Nasty Woman”
One of the most egregious examples of the Republican nominee doing himself in with women happened true to Trump form. After beginning the evening in a somber fashion, Trump held it together for awhile, but whatever debate prep was done eventually slipped by the wayside. Near the end of the debate, Clinton spoke about how social security contributions would go up under her tax plan. She also pointed out that Trump would probably find a way to avoid paying more — a clear reference to his decades of not paying federal taxes — and he didn’t react well. Instead of maintaining a poker face or issuing a denial, Trump couldn’t resist a snide reaction. He shook his head and interrupted by saying, “Such a nasty woman.”
With this simple insult, Trump reinforced decades of terrible statements he’s made about women. He shows no intention of behaving civilly, which also goes back to how he recently dismissed a woman who accused him of sexual assault because he finds her too unattractive to be worthy of assault. Trump always responds to legitimate challenges and accusations by women by immediately volleying gender-based insults as a default response.
“Rip the Baby Out”
Historically, Trump has flip-flopped many times on abortion, and he’s currently in a pro-life phase. However, Trump’s understanding of SCOTUS seemed to be lacking during his discussion of abortion. He first neglected to articulate much about Roe v. Wade other than he wanted to overturn it (he thinks the issue will go back to the states). Trump then launched into a graphic discussion of his belief that late-term abortions occur during the final days of pregnancy: “I think it’s terrible if you go with what Hillary is saying in the ninth month you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.” He wasn’t done with the baby-ripping discussion: “Hillary can say it’s okay, but it’s not okay with me. You can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day. And that’s not acceptable.”
Trump was immediately greeted on Twitter by medical professionals who stated the obvious — no woman receives an abortion on her “final day” of pregnancy. Most abortions take place during the first trimester, and those procedures that occur in the later months often happen in cases of fetal abnormality or danger to the mother’s life. Even then, these are not abortions but instances of induced labor for infants who won’t survive. Naturally, Trump fails to understand much about abortion, despite it being an issue that affects everyone, especially women of child-bearing age.
Beyond these two very serious portions of the debate, Trump also dug a hole with women in several smaller ways.
“Wrong”
Few things are as annoying during a discussion than someone who bloody won’t let you talk. Trump interrupted Clinton all evening long, which can be seen in the above montage. Those who were tasked with keeping records of such things noted that he did so 67 times over the course of 90 minutes. Somehow, his own allotted speaking time just wasn’t enough, which doesn’t bode well for conversations with foreign leaders (then again, that will be a nightmare for other reasons). Despite Trump’s insistence on making himself heard, Clinton managed to out talk him by six minutes, likely because she anticipated his interruptions and tuned him out.
“These Stories Have Been Largely Debunked”
Several outrageous moments happen in this short clip, in which Wallace asks Trump about the wave of women who have accused him of sexual assault. In response, Trump insisted, “These stories have been largely debunked” when they clearly have not. Then Trump awkwardly tried to shift the subject to his Chicago rally where protesters forced a shutdown of the rally before it began. Trump claimed Clinton and Obama paid the protesters $1500 apiece. And he insisted — despite all of the claims against him and the dreadful things he’s said for decades — “Nobody has more respect for women than I do.” You can’t hear it too well from the audio in this clip, but the audience roared with laughter to the point where Wallace had to admonish the audience: “Please, everybody.” Wallace also pressed Trump by asking, “Mr. Trump, why would nine women lie about being groped by you?” He replied, “I really want to just talk about something slightly different.”
“I’ll Keep You In Suspense”
“I will look at it” was the way Trump answered Wallace when asked if he’d respect a Clinton win. He added, “Ill keep you in suspense.” Trump essentially refusing to accept possibly losing to a woman and abiding by election results was perhaps the most dangerous thing he said on this night (even worse than his multiple false statements about ISIS) because Trump’s refusal could inspire a post-election revolt. Van Jones bluntly assessed the situation by deriding Trump’s “appalling lack of patriotism” in his refusal. Indeed, neither a man nor a woman who cannot respect the electoral process or the U.S. Constitution should even dream of presidency.
(Insert Annoyed, Passive-Aggressive Face Here)
This seems like a minor point, but it was a pervasive action that occurred throughout the evening and runs tangential to Trump’s status as Chief Interrupter. Almost every time Clinton spoke, Trump stood at his podium and mocked her with his facial expressions. Several instances of this childish behavior occur in the above clip in only 30 seconds. Is this how Trump will behave any time he’s challenged by a Senator, a foreign leader, or any number of presidential situations that require adult behavior?
Is this the election over yet? Almost there.
