Final Debate Review: ‘You’re the Puppet!’
Fox News personalities framed this debate season: Megyn Kelly in the first Republican primary debate in August 2015, and Chris Wallace at the end, on Wednesday night. It was Kelly’s question to Donald Trump about women that revealed the tone Trump would take for the rest of the election season. And it was Wallace’s brisk marshaling of the candidates through a wide variety of topics that gave us the most thorough and engaging of the presidential debates.
When the debate ended, CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC all agreed that the headline coming out of this debate would be Trump’s refusal to say he will accept the result of the Nov. 8 election. “I will look at it at the time,” said Trump. “I’ll keep you in suspense.” Hillary Clinton’s response was succinct: “That is horrifying.” Stephen Colbert, doing a live Late Show, said Trump’s answer amounted to Trump “wiping his ass with the Constitution.” On CNN, Gloria Borger said that was the kind of answer you’d hear “on a game show,” and Jake Tapper said Trump’s response was “shocking.” Fox News agreed: Bret Baier said that Trump’s possible denial of the will of the people would “define” this debate.
Trump’s response might not have come forth had Wallace not pressed him for an answer. This is no small point, given what a free-for-all the election has become. Cable news has completely accepted the Trump example, of positioning one person against the other to engage in either insult or filibuster: CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC are filled with surrogates for the candidates insulting and yelling over each other, and this night was no exception. One example: On CNN in the hour before the debate, that network arranged a preliminary bout, Rudy Giuliani vs. Mark Cuban, with Erin Burnett acting as a very outmatched referee sitting between them. The yelling was so high-decibel… well, it was almost as loud as Trump vs. Clinton.
“You’re the puppet! You’re the puppet!” bellowed Trump, after Clinton said he was too willing to be a “puppet” for Vladimir Putin. “Such a nasty woman!” Trump spat out near the end of the debate, interrupting Clinton. Wallace had his hands full numerous times, also chiding and silencing Clinton, who occasionally lapsed into stump-speech boilerplate.
Wallace asked Trump about the women who’ve come forward with accusations of sexual assault in the wake of the Access Hollywood tape; he claimed they’d all been “debunked.” As Brit Hume said on Fox, “He doesn’t seem to know the issues that will help him and which will hurt him.”
It continues to baffle me why Clinton never refreshes her complaints against Trump. The guy gives her fresh potential material literally every day, and she’s still droning on about Trump’s Mexican-American judge insult, and his attack on “a Gold Star family.” This night, she made two Celebrity Apprentice digs too many. As Trump said at a different moment, “We’ve heard this before, Hillary.” On television, to be compelling, you have to present something new each time you take command of the camera, something Clinton fails at, and at which Trump excels. But then, Clinton excels at answering the question asked of her, whereas Trump prefers to talk about what is occurring to him at that moment. That Trump can get away with wedging Clinton’s email troubles into the topic of immigration — well, that’s what the moderator is there for, to keep both on-point.
Wallace did as well with this pair as seems humanly possible. It’s a small victory, perhaps, but a victory nonetheless. Now the debates are over, and what small light they shed on the candidates will continue to emit a feeble glow from now until Nov. 8. At which time, win or lose, Trump has guaranteed in advance: He will keep us in suspense.
