What you missed from the presidential debate

What+you+missed+from+the+presidential+debate

Angie Moss, Print Editor-in-Chief

Tonight, presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump took the stage in their first debate of the season. The two candidates went head-to-head on what voters believe are the hottest issues of the election to date with the help of moderator Lester Holt. Of course, an unbelievable amount of information has been thrown at us throughout the night, but here’s the gist of every topic attacked by the two presidential hopefuls.

Jobs and the economy

Hillary Clinton: Clinton began her argument by proposing an economy that she said works for everyone. This proposal included cheaper child care, equal pay for women, higher minimum wage and profit sharing. She also reminded Americans of her plans to increase taxes for all U.S. citizens.

Donald Trump: The biggest concern throughout this topic was to keep jobs in the United States. Trump has made it clear that he is against outsourcing, claiming that it devalues our currency. He also touched base on child care, agreeing with Clinton that it should be cheaper, but noting that their numbers are probably different. Other plans including negotiating trade deals and the biggest tax cut that America has seen since former president Ronald Reagan was in office.

Race

Clinton: Race determines too much, including where people live, what education they can get and even how they’re treated in the criminal justice system, according to Clinton. Clinton hopes to restore the trust between the community and the police to try to dissolve some of the systemic racism that is taking place within the criminal justice system throughout the nation. She called for a criminal justice reform and she’s creating a platform that can remedy that reform. Clinton noted that she just wants two things: to restore trust between the community and law enforcement, and to tackle the plague of gun violence. After Trump mentioned the constitutionality of stop and frisk techniques, Clinton rebutted, saying that the method was ineffective.

Trump: Trump took this section to focus on two things that he believed were most important: law and order. Without this, he believes there is no America. Trump later capitalized on the struggle that African Americans and Hispanics live through every day. He mentioned that the stop and frisk method as his attempt at gun control, capitalizing that it was the best way to get guns out of the hands of criminals. After Holt pointed out that the stop and frisk method was ruled unconstitutional, Trump was quick to blame the new mayor of New York City for not carrying on the method.

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Security

Clinton: After dealing with American security for over thirty years, Clinton is no stranger to this topic and the candidates did not hesitate to emphasize that. She plans to intensify airstrikes against ISIS, noting that they have foreign weapons and intends to have U.S. intelligence search for every scrap of information that ISIS has, among other things. Clinton also plans to partner with Arab and Kurdish to take out ISIS leadership, and online propaganda seems to be the starting point. She also took the opportunity to inform the audience on Trump’s support of the Iraqi invasion, which Trump immediately shot down.

Trump: This one happened to be the one in which Trump noted all of his endorsements, and the fact that he’d take the endorsements he has over anything that any “political hacks” can give him. He was also very quick to attribute the loss of control of cyber warfare to incumbent Barack Obama. Other points that Trump made sure to mention were ISIS’s primary source, oil, and that the U.S. should’ve taken it from them.

Nuclear Weapons

Clinton: Reassuring allies that the United States will honor mutual defense treaties and how essential it is to keep America’s word good was a major concern for Clinton in this section. Looking at the entire global situation and not focusing on one or two countries in terms of nuclear weapons is important to maintaining security, according to Clinton. She focused on making peace, which she made clear in her final point: America needs to lead the world in strength, importance and value; America needs to make the decision to further peace and prosperity, while still standing up to bullies.

Trump: The hopeful Republican candidate immediately jumped in with the United States’ lack in advancement compared to Russia and China. There are newer capabilities that America does not have and we need to be prepared. Trump did not shy away from mentioning North Korea’s nuclear plans and didn’t guess twice about scolding China for not stepping in and stopping them.

The next two debates take place Oct. 9 and Oct. 19.