After weeks of ugly headlines about alleged sexual misconduct, an uncontrollable skid in national polls and an aggressive performance in the last debate, Donald Trump needed a steady, disciplined performance in his final presidential debate with Hillary Clinton to shore up what’s left of his rapidly-deteriorating support.
For about half an hour, the celebrity billionaire seemed to deliver, serving up traditional red-meat talking points on how he’d pack the Supreme Court with conservative judges who will continue to chip away at abortion rights and protect an individual’s right to own firearms.
Then, reality set in. Asked if he would accept the results of next month’s election should he lose, Trump declared he’d have to think it over first — a stunning, unprecedented position in a political system that’s seen more than two centuries of orderly, post-election transfers of power.
RECAP: [The Final 2016 Presidential Debate]
“I will look at it at the time. I’m not looking at anything now,” Trump declared, before an audience inside the Thomas & Mack Center at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. “What I’ve seen, what I’ve seen is so bad.”
The “dishonest and so corrupt” media clearly favors Clinton, Trump said, and “they have poisoned the minds of the voters. But unfortunately for them, I think the voters are seeing through it. I think they’re going to see through it. We’ll find out on Nov. 8.”
Fox News host Chris Wallace, the debate moderator was incredulous: “Sir, there is a tradition in this country, in fact one of the prides of this country is the peaceful transition of power. And that no matter how hard fought a campaign is, that at the end of the campaign, that the loser concedes to the winner. … Are you saying you’re not prepared now to commit to that principle?”
Trump wouldn’t budge.
“What I’m saying is I’ll tell you at the time,” he answered. “I’ll keep you in suspense, OK?”
It was a remarkable statement in a Trump-Clinton debate series that had come to resemble a pro wrestling match and not a sober discussion of who should occupy the nation’s highest elective office. The real estate mogul’s abject refusal to promise an orderly transfer of power, should he lose, gave heartburn to Republican leaders already concerned his unorthodox, shoot-from-the-lip campaign is dragging down the party.
“Like most Americans, I have confidence in our democracy and election system,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, tweeted after the debate. “During this debate Mr. Trump is doing our party and our country a great disservice by continuing to suggest the outcome of this election is out of his hands and ‘rigged’ against him. If he loses, it will not be because the system is rigged but because he failed as a candidate.”
At least one other GOP heavyweight, Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, concurred.
.@realDonaldTrump saying that he might not accept election results is beyond the pale
— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake)
True to character, however, Trump — who last week celebrated his emancipation from the “shackles” of GOP orthodoxy by attacking House Speaker Paul Ryan — saw things differently.
That was really exciting. Made all of my points. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
So ended a presidential debate that began with more of Trump’s pre-debate gamesmanship. He invited to the event Malik Obama, President Barack Obama’s half-brother, and Patricia Smith, the grieving mother of one of the Americans killed in the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. It ended with Trump calling Clinton “a nasty woman.”
In between, Trump seemed marginally better prepared and more substantive, if still vague on policy. Despite his improvement, Clinton — an experienced politician and skilled debater — easily baited and rattled Trump, leading him to bristle, fume and fidget with his microphone. She used his own quotes to trap him, force him to become defensive and abandon the early show of discipline that briefly heartened some of his Republican supporters.
On an early question about immigration, for example, Trump seethed when Clinton said he “choked” — a favorite Trump insult — on his visit to Mexico by failing to mention the wall he wants to build on the U.S.-Mexico border, at Mexico’s expense. When she challenged him on whether he would condemn Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meddling in U.S. political affairs, suggesting a President Trump would kowtow to the former KGB agent, Trump denied knowing him, rejected the assertion of Russian meddling, then served up a weak schoolyard “I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I” retort.
“No puppet — no puppet!” he snapped. “You’re the puppet!”
He interrupted Clinton, talked over her and declared, “Wrong!” into the microphone during her answers — disrespectful habits that could further alienate him from independent women voters.
When Clinton brought up Trump’s insults of a former Miss Universe, Alicia Machado, Trump muttered, “Give me a break!” into the microphone. When Wallace pushed him on numerous allegations that he groped women and kissed them against their will, Trump denied knowing the women, then falsely declared their stories have been “debunked” and blamed Clinton for dredging them up.
“Nobody has more respect for women,” he said. “Nobody. Nobody.”
Trump gave rambling, sometimes incoherent answers on national security — again — when Wallace asked him if U.S. troops were necessary to secure battle zones in Syria and Iraq. He blundered clear opportunities to attack Clinton on her failure to avoid the appearance of impropriety when she spoke to Clinton Global Foundation donors while she was secretary of state, instead falsely insisting he didn’t use Trump Foundation money to pay legal fees and a fine.
And, during a back-and-forth about each candidate’s’ fitness to lead the nation, Trump seemed to prove Clinton’s point that he evades responsibility and scapegoats others when things aren’t going his way.
Calling it “horrifying” that he’d consider rejecting the election results, Clinton ticked off a series of Trump’s allegations of conspiracies against him: “”He lost the Iowa caucus. He lost the Wisconsin primary. He said the Republican primary was rigged against him. Then Trump University gets sued for fraud and racketeering. He claims the court system and the federal judge is rigged against him.”
“Every time Donald thinks things are not going in his direction, he claims whatever it is is rigged against him,” Clinton said. When his reality TV show, “The Apprentice,” didn’t get nominated for an award, she said, Trump “started tweeting that the Emmys were rigged.”
Trump: “Should have gotten it.”
Trump did get in some zingers, pointing out that Clinton dodged a question about her integrity by bringing up Trump’s affection for Russia, and again suggested she should be prosecuted and is unfit for office.
But his declaration that the election should be called into question if she wins and he loses is likely to further rock his faltering campaign — national polls have Clinton with a healthy lead with just 20 days until the election — and likely won’t stem the hemorrhaging of support from Republican elites.
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Photos: The 2016 Presidential Debates
Donald Trump Loses Discipline In Final Debate; Says He Might Reject Election Results originally appeared on usnews.com
