By Julyssa Lopez
Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump faced off at Washington University in St. Louis on Sunday night for a second debate, which largely revolved around a leaked video of Mr. Trump making lewd remarks about women. Echoing what publications like The Washington Post and the New Yorker have said, Associate Professor Matthew Dallek called the event “an extremely dark debate.”
George Washington Today spoke with Mr. Dallek of George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management just after the debate to discuss some of the key moments that will likely carry over as flashpoints as the election approaches.
1. Donald Trump’s response to his crude remarks in a leaked video will continue to haunt him.
“During the debate, Mr. Trump apologized for what he said in the tapes and then started talking about ISIS. It was completely incoherent—there is no connection between apologizing for these comments and then talking about ISIS. It was bizarre.
The idea that he is going to improve his standing among college-educated, suburban voters and women by saying this was simply “locker room talk” is basically saying it’s no big deal. He apologized, but the phrase “locker room talk” is pretty dismissive. My guess is that this will continue to fester in the media. This is anecdotal, but there have already been some media reports of women in conservative states like Tennessee who were prepared to vote for him and won’t after these tapes and after last night.
The media will continue to air the tape footage, and Republicans have to grapple with whether at the 11th hour they’ll have to abandon the person they have supported for many months. If there continues to be a dozen members of Congress who are withdrawing their endorsement in the coming days, it keeps the issue of the tapes front and center. So if he’s at 40 percent at the polls, it’s hard to see how he goes upward.”
2. Donald Trump’s threat to Hillary Clinton about emails will be another source of Republican tension.
“The other major moment in the debate was Mr. Trump turning to Ms. Clinton and saying he was going to appoint a special prosecutor to her case if he was elected president and quipping she’d be put in jail. That’s a bigger deal than, in some ways, this narrative of “will Mr. Trump survive.” That comment takes on a life of its own because in part, it is deeply unsettling and probably offensive to a number of conservatives who call themselves constitutionalists, and it makes it increasingly harder for Republicans such as [House Speaker] Paul Ryan and [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell to stay behind him. That’ s not to say they’re going to bolt, but it makes it more of a farce that they’re supporting someone who is saying such outrageous, authoritarian things.”
3. Hillary Clinton’s performance wasn’t as strong, but that may not matter.
“In the first debate, Ms. Clinton was extremely sharp. She really owned it, she knew what she wanted to say, and Mr. Trump was reacting the way she anticipated. She was masterful at teasing out the themes and ideas she wanted to make.
In this debate, it was a different dynamic. It was dark from the get-go, and it made it hard after the first 15 minutes to get rid of that cloud—it just hovered there. She wasn’t as sharp in her arguments, and her response to the emails and Wikileaks weren’t terrific. The Lincoln comment was also a little off. But at the end of the day, these things get washed away by the chaos of Mr. Trump. The narrative doesn’t change—she’s ahead in the battleground states. The first debate mattered in a way this one did not. That first debate had a material effect in the polls and this one fundamentally does not change the dynamic.”
4. Despite a mid-range performance, Hillary Clinton’s had a compelling argument against Donald Trump.
“She didn’t knock him out, and Mr. Trump didn’t totally unravel. But she made a profound argument where she said that if Mr. Trump’s leaked tape had surfaced and it was all there was, we could move on. But she said the tape isn’t an isolated moment; it reveals who he is. I thought that was quite powerful and resonated with a lot of people. Her own scandals—the emails, the dredging up of the allegations of Bill Clinton—are overshadowed by the tapes and Mr. Trump’s campaign.”
5. Questions remain about how the events of the debate will affect post-election politics.
“If Ms. Clinton wins, no one is really talking about what happens after the election and how she moves forward. How does she actually govern in a way that feels like she’s a president to everyone when there is a segment of the country that is going to be unsupportive of her no matter what? There is also the question of how Republicans react over the next few months, especially if they lose the Senate and seats in the House and blame it on Mr. Trump—after supporting him and abandoning him with just a month to go. These are not exactly profiles in courage, and I think all of this will play out in the next month with ramifications for the post-Nov. 8 world we’ll inevitably be in.”