This debate started off in historic fashion and not in the way anyone would hope. When Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton took the stage for tonight’s debate, the pair didn’t shake hands.
After an introductory question, the debate quickly moved to a video leaked last week which showed Trump making derogatory questions about women. Here’s what Trump and Clinton said about that tape:
“This was locker room talk. I’m not proud of it. I apologized to my family and the American people,” Trump said.
After repeated requests from moderator Anderson Cooper, Trump denied what he said amounted to sexual assault, attempting to shift the conversation to ISIS. “No, I have not,” he said. “Yes, I’m very embarrassed by it. I hate it,” he said again, about the tapes.
“I have great respect for women. No one has more respect for women than I do,” Trump added.
In a follow-up round, Trump then went into full attack mode against Bill and Hillary Clinton, bringing up past allegations of sexual assault against the former president and scolding the former Secretary of State. “I think it’s disgraceful and I think she should be ashamed of herself,” Trump said.
“Like everyone else, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking over the past 48 hours over what we heard and saw,” Clinton said, when it was her turn to respond.
Clinton then said that with past Republican presidential nominees, “I never questioned their fitness to serve. Donald Trump is different.”
“What he thinks about women, what he does to women. He has said the video doesn’t represent who he is. I think it represents exactly who he is,” she said. “We’ve seen him embarrass women on TV and on Twitter. … Yes, this is who Donald Trump is.”
“The question for us, the question this country must answer, this is not who we are.”
