“For more on that heated debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump we are joined now by our Washington correspondent Stefan Grobe. Stefan, it has been described as a poisonous debate and certainly Donald Trump was not pulling any punches. Is there a consensus in the US on who won?”
Stefan Grobe:“Poisonous is almost an understatement. I can tell you this, I am a scholar of American history and politics and I have watched every single presidential debate. I have never seen anything like this. The level of nastiness, mudslinging was unprecedented. Imagine if, in any banana republic, one candidate in a televised presidential debate had told the other candidate “I will put you in jail”, the US State Department would have called the UN to send in election monitors. This was truly unprecedented. I have never seen Trump so aggressive and he has been really aggressive throughout this election cycle. Now, did it help him? Probably not. A majority of Americans,and this is what the first polls are telling us, saw Hillary Clinton as the clear winner of this debate. Her numbers were a little lower than after the first debate but still she prevailed and survived Donald Trump’s onslaught.”
Here are the 8 best #DebateKaraoke memes you have to see: https://t.co/UhfVMJiYST #debate pic.twitter.com/Ppu3yM2Qxc— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) October 10, 2016
Catherine Hardy:“So, as we move on towards the third debate in the series, do you think these dramatic encounters, entertaining as they are will ultimately affect the outcome of the election on November 8th?”
Stefan Grobe:“I don’t really think so. I don’t think Trump can go any lower and be more aggressive that in the second debate and even if he did so, that would probably not move the needle. Trump’s campaign is unraveling right now and he needs desperately to make inroads with the electorate, he needs to win over Democrats and independents and especially women where he trails Hillary Clinton by 20-23-30 points. Now, given his most recent comments over the weekend, I don’t see that happening and if nothing changes until election day he is going to lose the election.
Hillary Clinton did everything she needed to do in this second debate, she stayed calm, kept her stoic face and was just counting down the minutes. This is exactly what she has to do, try to look presidential and weather Donald Trump’s storm and then reap the benefits.
We have seen so many headlines changing, dramatic events and incidents during this election campaign that I can’t think of anything that would eventually turn this election campaign around, change the narrative and give the election victory to Donald Trump. So I don’t believe the third debate will change anything.”
