If anyone believed Donald Trump would be any different in Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate, they were dead wrong. The Donald was his boastful, pugilistic, funny, and entertaining self, starting from the very first question of the night.
The debate’s only “raise your hand” question asked the 10 candidates if any were “unwilling tonight to pledge your support to the eventual nominee of the Republican party and pledge to not run an independent campaign against that person.” Without flinching, Trump raised his hand, eliciting a round of boos from the GOP crowd in Cleveland. Moderator Bret Baier made sure he understood. “You can’t say tonight that you can make that pledge?” Baier asked. Trump’s response wasn’t exactly clear, but it was classic Trump: rambling and contradictory.
“I cannot say. I have to respect the person that, if it’s not me, the person that wins, if I do win, and I’m leading by quite a bit, that’s what I want to do. I can totally make that pledge. If I’m the nominee, I will pledge I will not run as an independent. But, and I am discussing it with everybody, but I’m, you know, talking about a lot of leverage. We want to win, and we will win. But I want to win as the Republican. I want to run as the Republican nominee.”
After further pushing, Trump finally said, “I will not make the pledge at this time.”
It was an exchange that set the tone for the rest of Trump’s night, which did not go well for the New York real-estate magnate and reality TV star. When another moderator, Megyn Kelly, began to tick off the insults he’s said to women in the past (“fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals”), Trump interrupted her: “Only Rosie O’Donnell.” It brought down the house, but it may have reminded voters of the pettiness with which Trump conducts himself.
The Donald had plenty more Trumpian lines that straddled the line between outrageous and hilarious. On his tone: “I think the big problem this country has is being politically incorrect.” On his donations to Democrats, including Hillary Clinton: “When they call, I give.” On Barack Obama: “I would say he’s incompetent, but I won’t do that because that’s not nice.” When being pressed by moderator Chris Wallace: “You’re living in the world of the make-believe, Chris.”
Antagonistic interactions with the other nine candidates were few and far between. Rand Paul jumped in to challenge Trump’s refusal to pledge support not to run as an independent. “He’s already hedging his bet on the Clintons, okay? So if he doesn’t run as a Republican, maybe he supports Clinton, or maybe he runs as an independent, but I’d say that he’s already hedging his bets because he’s used to buying politicians,” Paul said.
“Well, I’ve given him plenty of money,” Trump shot back, pointing at Paul.
But for the most part, it fell to the moderators, not the other Republicans onstage, to call out Trump for his inconsistencies, flip-flops, and lack of conviction.
Chris Wallace, for instance, asked Trump to explain his assertion that the Mexican government is sending its criminals over the border into the United States illegally. Rather than answer, Trump simply reasserted it and pivoted to his talking point about the need to build a wall.
Wallace tried in earnest again. “I’ll give you 30 seconds to answer my question, which was, what evidence do you have, specific evidence that the Mexican government is sending criminals across the border?”
Trump dodged, again. “Border patrol, I was at the border last week,” he said. “Border patrol, people that I deal with, that I talk to, they say this is what’s happening. Because our leaders are stupid. Our politicians are stupid.” It didn’t answer the question, but it did make for a memorable applause line.
Later on, Bret Baier asked Trump to explain his past support for a “single-payer health care system.” Trump praised such systems in Canada and Scotland and suggested it “could have worked in a different age here.”
Near the halfway point of the debate Baier confronted Trump on his past donations to politicians, including many Democrats, on the basis that, in Trump’s words, “when you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.” Trump nodded in agreement and said the pay-for-play he’s engaged in is an example of the “corrupt system.” So what, Baier wanted to know, did Trump get from donating to Hillary Clinton?
“Well, I’ll tell you what, with Hillary Clinton, I said be at my wedding and she came to my wedding. You know why? She didn’t have a choice because I gave,” Trump said.
It was a lame answer, and already by this point the Trump shtick had begun to wear thin. By the end of the two hours, he was left with only his most basic message to close out his remarks the debate itself:
Compared to the detailed responses of the other candidates, and compounded by the pounding he received from the moderators, Trump looked like the lightweight, fairweather Republican that opponents like Rick Perry had been talking about for weeks. The question remaining is if the 20 percent or so of Republicans who say they support Trump saw it, too.
