The presidential debate held Monday evening exemplified the deep national political divide, former “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer said.
“I’ve never seen [a debate] where the decorum broke down the way that it did tonight,” Schieffer said on CBS News. “You almost never see audience responses like we saw tonight. We were expecting a different kind of debate and I think in that way that we saw one.
“I don’t think Donald Trump lost any votes tonight, I’m not sure Hillary Clinton gained any votes tonight,” Schieffer said. “What we saw was an example of how deep a divide is now between Democrats and Republicans. I didn’t learn very much new tonight.
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“I thought they started off pretty well. It was fairly businesslike, and then about 15 minutes in it broke down into name-calling, and it was back-and-forth and who can shout the loudest,” Schieffer added.
Schieffer, who has interviewed every president since Richard Nixon and served as a debate moderator in several presidential contests, said the candidates performed equally well, and that there was no sign the national political divide was going to lessen.
“She was preaching to her choir over here, he was preaching to his choir over here, we never saw any indication of how you can come together and form the coalitions to break the gridlock that this country finds itself in,” Schieffer said.
