Top takeaways from the opening Clinton-Trump debate

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — If you expected Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to pull their punches when they finally stood on stage together, Monday night's opening debate at Hofstra University put that notion to rest.

Top takeaways from Clinton vs. Trump, round 1:

Different visions, different debaters

The debate proved there is a reason presidential candidates are scripted. Clinton had facts and figures at her disposal, had opposition research at the ready that Trump was unprepared for, and had a few catchy retorts scripted. This did not always work in her favor: She strained to squeeze in a line about her absence form the campaign trail. “I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate. And, yes, I did. And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president.” But it gave her ammunition to enrage Trump, who then responded with disjointed answers. He did not have crisp responses on questions he admitted he knew he would be asked about — his tax returns, “stop and frisk” policing, even the Iraq War (more on that later).

For Trump, this is again part of the branding: he is the outsider, the unpracticed one, the fresh voice. But it makes it hard to lure new voters who still have doubts about his preparedness.

Analysis: Trump, Clinton came out swinging in fiercest presidential debate in modern times

Trump calls bareknuckled business a virtue

On several occasions, Clinton accused Trump of making money at the expense of working people, but Trump attributed those actions to just good business practices. When Clinton said he rooted for the housing market to crash so he could make money on other people’s losses, Trump interjected that “that’s called business.” When she said he paid no federal taxes, he said “that makes me smart.” When she said he did not pay contractors who worked on his buildings, using as an example an architect who designed a clubhouse on his golf course, Trump replied “maybe he didn’t do a good job, and I was unsatisfied with his work.” Trump’s argument, in a nutshell, is “it’s about time that this country has somebody running it who has some idea about money.”

The birther thing

Trump said he knew he would be questioned about his role in raising doubts about Barack Obama’s nationality, but when the question came, he attempted to turn it on its head, claiming it just proved his ability to get things done. Trump repeated the claim that Clinton’s 2008 campaign was first involved in circulating questions about Obama’s nationality, though it appears to have been only a few of her supporters with no backing from the campaign. “She failed to get the birth certificate,” Trump said. “When I got involved, I didn’t fail. ... I was the one that got him to produce the birth certificate.”

It is a strange defense, and Clinton turned it against him, noting that Trump had been sued in the 1970s for racial discrimination in his rental properties. “He has a long record of engaging in racist behavior, and the birther lie was a very hurtful one.”

If the goal was to attract black voters, Clinton’s response was likely the more effective one.

Race and gender draw sharp exchanges between Clinton, Trump

Trump running against Clinton's '30 years'

Trump repeatedly hammered the theme that Clinton has been in politics a long time.

“You’ve been doing this for 30 years. Why are you just starting to think of solutions now?” Trump asked. At another moment he said, “You have been fighting ISIS your entire adult life." Setting aside the fact that the Islamic State hasn't exactly been a global threat for the entirety of Clinton's career, the message Trump was trying to convey is clear: Yes, Clinton may have the résumé, but because of that, any ill in the world, he will argue, she has squandered an opportunity to address. At one point, an incredulous Clinton said that she had "a feeling by the end of this evening I'm going to be blamed for everything that's ever happened."

"Why not?" Trump responded.

The Iraq War debate continues

It is kind of weird that 13 years after it began, the question of who was in favor of the war in Iraq is still a big fight among presidential candidates – and weirder still that it is the Democrat who acknowledges being for it and the Republican who swears, against all evidence to the contrary, that he was opposed. Moderator Lester Holt asked several times how he could accuse Clinton of bad judgment on Iraq when Trump also supported the war. Trump said that is essentially a mainstream media lie: He was always against the war. Trump’s evidence for his opposition to the war in Iraq now boils down to a series of private conversations he says he had with broadcaster Sean Hannity in which Hannity — now a prominent Trump booster, who was pro-war — repeatedly argued with Trump, who was anti-war. It was a story Trump has never told before, and an odd one.

The first presidential debate: Catch up on what happened

Trump really takes this personally

When Clinton referred to a Trump tax proposal that would benefit wealthy individuals as the “Trump loophole,” he jumped in: “Who gave it that name?" Later Clinton raised the case of a former Miss Universe contestant who said Trump taunted her for being overweight and called her “Miss Housekeeping” because she was Latina. “Where did you find this? Where did you find this?” Trump insisted. He repeatedly interrupted her answers to defend his record. "Wrong. Wrong" he interjected when she raised his record on Iraq.

Toward the end of the debate, he complained about Clinton’s barrage of negative ads. “It’s not nice, and I don’t deserve that,” said the candidate who tabbed Ted Cruz as "Lyin’ Ted" accused Marco Rubio of having a sweating problem.

Trump never addressed Clinton by his preferred disparaging nickname for her — "Crooked Hillary  — and said in one of the final exchanges that he'd been preparing to say something "extremely rough to Hillary, to her family" but he didn't because, he said, "It's inappropriate, it's not nice." We'll assume this was a reference to past Bill Clinton sex scandals, which Trump hasn't always been so reluctant to bring up. Will Trump continue to view it as off limits in the next two debates? We wouldn't bet a lot of money on that.

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