Madame President, if youre nasty.
Madame President, if you're nasty.

All right, you all saw the presidential debate last night, right? In case you didn't:

If you don't have an hour and a half on your hands, or if you were watching but lost consciousness last night (perfectly understandable!), here's what happened:

• On the first question, about the Supreme Court, Clinton said she wants to protect Roe v. Wade and marriage equality. Trump said, "Justice Ginsburg made some very, very inappropriate statements toward me."

• Clinton said that she supports the Second Amendment, she just doesn't want toddlers shooting people. Trump said that if you vote for Clinton, "we will have a Second Amendment which will be a very, very small replica of what it is right now," even though the Second Amendment is one sentence long.

• Clinton said she supports Planned Parenthood. Trump said, "If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby. Now, you can say that that's OK and Hillary can say that that's OK. But it's not OK with me, because based on what she's saying, and based on where she's going, and where she's been, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month on the final day."

• Clinton didn't back down: "I've been to countries where governments either forced women to have abortions, like they used to do in China, or forced women to bear children, like the used to do in Romania. And I can tell you: The government has no business in the decisions that women make."

• On Russia, Trump said: "I don't know Putin. He said nice things about me. If we got along well, that would be good. If Russia and the United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good. He has no respect for her." Clinton said, "Well, that's because he'd rather have a puppet as president of the United States." Trump tried to interject, talking over her: "No puppet. No puppet... You're the puppet! ... No, you're the puppet." She was undaunted:


• They talked taxeszzz. He said Hillary will raise taxes on the middle class, which isn’t true.

• Clinton said, "One of the biggest problems we have with China is the illegal dumping of steel and aluminum into our markets. I have fought against that as a senator. I've stood up against it as secretary of state. Donald has bought Chinese steel and aluminum. In fact, the Trump Hotel right here in Las Vegas was made with Chinese steel. So he goes around with crocodile tears about how terrible it is, but he has given jobs to Chinese steelworkers, not American steelworkers."

• Trump was asked about groping women, and he said, "I didn't even apologize to my wife, who's sitting right here, because I didn't do anything. I didn't know any of these—I didn't see these women."

• Clinton said, "Well, he held a number of big rallies where he said that he could not possibly have done those things to those women because they were not attractive enough for them to be assaulted." Trump replied, ludicrously, "I did not say that. I did not say that." He did.

• Clinton said "the Clinton Foundation made it possible for 11 million people around the world with HIV/AIDS to afford treatment and that's about half of all the people in the world that are getting treatment." Trump said, "It's a criminal enterprise." Clinton said, "I would be happy to compare what we do with the Trump Foundation which took money from other people and bought a six-foot portrait of Donald. I mean, who does that?"

• Chris Wallace asked Trump if he will "absolutely accept the result of the election." The answer was shocking:

• The people who were shocked by it included Stephen Colbert, who began his live monologue after the debate by talking about it:

• The anchors on Fox News were shocked by it, too, circling around and around Trump's trashing of our free and fair democratic elections like elephants mourning their dead:

• They were so distraught on Fox News last night—almost speechless—they started reading aloud news stories from other sources about how Trump wouldn't accept the results of the election, and then Charles Krauthammer, who always thinks Trump won the debates, says Trump's error just blew up his chances:

• Kellyanne Conway spun like mad:

• John Cassidy wrote:

Trump’s decision to try to delegitimize the election result three weeks before voting day, before an audience of tens of millions of Americans, may have, as many are saying, broken longstanding political norms—but it was also tantamount to a concession of defeat in itself.

• The publisher of The Stranger wrote:


• This morning, in response to the outcry, Trump went full-on troll:

• Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, in the final throes of the debate, Trump revealed he knew nothing about Mosul or Aleppo.

• He trashed Reagan: "I disagreed with Ronald Reagan very strongly on trade. I disagreed with him."

• And he called Clinton "a nasty woman."


• Aaaaaand, thats a wrap! On our democracy! It's over! Let's dance.

Thanks to this source and this source for building transcripts.