On Trump, “I never questioned their fitness to serve. Donald Trump is different. What we all saw and heard on Friday was Donald talking about women, what he thinks about women, what he does to women, and he has said that the video doesn’t represent who he is … It represents exactly who he is.”

THE PREDEBATE, TRUMP SETS THE TONE.  “So many self-righteous hypocrites. Watch their poll numbers – and elections – go down!” read one Trump tweet Sunday. (Trump quotes in orange.) 

THE PREDATE PEEP SHOW: For ninety minutes before the debate began Trump hosted a news conference with four women, all of whom he claimed had been mistreated by  president Bill Clinton. In effect, Mr. T was accusing Mrs. C of being Bill’s pimp. Mr. T even tried to blame Mrs. Clinton “Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously,”  an argument that at worst suggests that Hillary stood by her husband.

As Trump’s predebate ended, reporters shouted questions related to the 2005 video. “Mr. Trump does your star power allow you to touch women without their consent?”  Trump ignored the questions, then left.

TAXES: “Of course I do. Of course I do,” said Trump, after Anderson Cooper asked if he’d used that loss  to erase all his federal income tax liabilities.   “I understand the tax code better than anybody that’s ever run for president,” he said but never answered questions from the moderators abut how he woulds change the tax law. .

How Drudge readers saw the debate

THE DEVIL:  In a campaign where many of Trump’s supporters are fundamentalists, Trump used the D word … calling Mrs. Clinton  “the devil.” and promised that – if elected – he would order the Justice Department to hire a special prosecutor to send this devil jail.  He told Mrs.Clinton that “you’d be in jail.”

THE DEVIL SEDUCES BERNIE SANDERS:  Trump referred to Bernie Sanders support of Mrs Clinton as a deal with “the devil.”

THE DEVIL SEDUCES THE FBI:  Trump insisted that Mrs. Clinton would be in jail  if she had not somehow seduced FBI Director James Comey into taking the case but not charging Mr.s Clinton for her handling of email.

Of course the trick here is that the Attorney General rightly assigned the politically sensitive  case to the FBI and Director Comey’s job was simply to sum it up and see if there were any evidence of a crime that should be prosecuted.

Comey, a  Republican himself, did not find such evidence.

Trump went so far as to claim that Clinton’s emails were marked classified.  That has never been true.  What is true is that an analysis of the emails after they were disclosed showed that about a half dozen out of thousands should have been marked classified.  These were not messages from Mrs. Clinton but were messages that contained attachments from others.  So, at worst someone in State was sloppy.  Finally, both Condeleesa Rice and Colin Powell also used private accounts, to avoid the technological difficulty of the govt. system.

Comey has said Clinton and her staff “were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” But he said the FBI won’t recommend criminal charges against Clinton for use of the server while she was secretary of state and closed the investigation.

THE DEVIL CONDONES RAPE:  “She’s seen on two separate occasions, laughing at the girl who was raped. Kathy Shelton, that young woman, is here with us tonight.” The truth is that, fresh out of law school, Hillary Clinton worked as a public defender for an accused child rapist: After the prosecution lost key evidence, Clinton’s client entered a plea to a lesser charge.  At no point was Clinton seen laughing at the victim. In fact, Clinton expressed horror at the crime, but was recorded on tape laughing about the incompetence of the prosecutor who lost the case because of his incompetence.
THE DEVIL AND BENGHAZI: Trump: “Guess what happened? Ambassador Stevens sent 600 requests for help.”  Where does he get this ..Hannity?  Between the actual embassy structure and the CIA annex, there were 600 communiques regarding requests for everything from more printer ink, more toilet paper, more current movies on DVD, and yes, on the day of the attack, reinforcements. Most of those 600 requests were carried out, by the way. But by no means were there “600 requests for help on 9/11/12.” That’s pure Trump.

THE MUSLIMS: After seeming to back off from the ban on foreign Muslims from entering the United States Trump said ““The Muslim ban is something that, in some form, has morphed into an extreme vetting from certain areas of the world,”  When asked what “extreme vetting might mean, Trump doubled down .. not explaining but rambling on about the evils of Muslims and the need to be sure they were working with the FBI.

CAPT. HUMAYAN KHAN: Trump claimed that the Kahn family mourn their son as a hero because Hillary voted for the Iraq war.  Again lying that he, the Donald, had opposed the war. The Donald has claimed he confided his opposition to good friend Hannity in midnight phone conversations.  Sadly. Sean Hannity says he does not remember those midnight talks saying anything abut Iraq beyond Trump asking him what this Iraq “thing” was about.

Click to read more about Mr T’s relations with Putin.

THE RUSSIANS AND ASSAD: Having yelled at Mrs. Clinton because she voted for Mr. Bush’s war, now Mr. T is yelling at her for not allying with Russia, Iran and Syria’s President Bashar Assad .  He said “I don’t like Assad at all. But Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS.”

This is bizarre.  Maybe Trump is unaware that Assad is a Shiite, a protege of the Iranians.  Assad’s army is not only allied with Russia but with Hezbollah, the terrorist group that now occupies Lebanon.  Assad’s military and the Russian air force are not fighting Isis. It is focused on combating Syrian opposition groups, some of which are supported by the United States.

The fight against the Islamic State militants is being waged by a U.S.-led coalition, with help from Turkey, by training, advising and equipping Syrian Arab and Kurdish fighters. While Moscow asserts that it is fighting the Islamic State extremists in Syria, the vast majority of its airstrikes has targeted opposition groups threatening the Assad government.

GROPING: The opening question asked  whether the campaigns were setting a good example for the nation’s youth. Trump  rejected a question that called his remarks about groping women – captured in a 2005 video – “sexual assault.” during the second presidential debate on Sunday night. Anderson Cooper asked whether Trump understood the implications of what he had said when Mr. Trump bragged that he had committed sexual assault.  “I didn’t say that at all. I don’t think you understood what was said. This was locker-room talk,” Trump said. Cooper kept on, asking Trump if he had actually committed the acts he alluded to in the video. Trump repeatedly sought to turn the subject to other subjects, blaming Bill Clinton or saying that he had just spoken the way guys talk.

Mr. T never answered the question but, the answer is obvious since Trump has had two divorces after public affairs.  Moreover Trump was also sued for sexual harassment in 1997 by Jill Harth, a woman who, along with her romantic partner, was pitching Trump to get involved in a pin-up competition in the early 1990s. Harth said Trump ran his hands up her skirt during dinner in 1992, and on another occasion, Trump tried to force himself on her in his daughter Ivanka’s bedroom. “Next thing I know he’s pushing me against a wall and has his hands all over me,” Harth told the newspaper. Trump has denied Harth’s allegations.

SEE The New York Times Account

READMORE AT THE AP