Breathe a sigh of relief, America: We’re not quite out of the woods on Election 2016, but the debates are officially behind us, as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have left the Las Vegas stage. In an election where things have been unprecedentedly weird across the board, this year’s debates stand out as among the craziest, creepiest and most contentious events for both candidates. (Check out our full by-the-minute recap of the third debate here!)
Just like with the two previous debates, the third and final one on Wednesday, October 19, included some tidbits that everyone will be talking about in the morning. Watch five moments that stood out, including one that got “nasty,” in the video above, and detailed below.
“Bad Hombres” and “Nasty” Women Unite
You’ve got to hand it to Trump: The man knows how to spawn a hashtag. After he responded to an immigration question by citing the need to remove “bad hombres” from the country, #badhombres began trending on Twitter almost immediately. And toward the end of the debate, when Trump took offense to a quip by Clinton about his talent for finding loopholes in the tax code, he snarled, “Such a nasty woman.” This latter remark quickly started trending as well, becoming a sort of ironic rallying cry for a lot of women voters. Did Trump just inadvertently spark a get-out-the-vote movement?
“Bigly” Returns
Once again, Trump uttered that word-that-isn’t-a-word, “bigly,” this time discussing immigration, and Twitter loved it. “We have millions of people who did it the right way. They’re on line. They’re waiting. We’re going to speed up the process bigly because it’s very inefficient.” We’re still not sure whether he meant “big league.”
Comparing Experience
After a familiar argument from Trump that Clinton has experience, but that it’s “bad experience,” she responded by taking the line of rhetoric and running with it. Her tactic: to compare her experience at any given moment in history to Trump’s, with the following zinger to clinch it:
“On the day when I was in the Situation Room, overseeing the raid that brought Osama bin Laden to justice, he was hosting the Celebrity Apprentice.”
A Sore Loser?
Trump has said plenty of shocking things over the course of the debates, but this is the one that set all the political insiders abuzz: One of the central tenets of elections in the U.S. is the part where the loser steps down graciously, via a concession call after the voting results are in. When Trump was asked explicitly whether he’d accept the results of the election, his response was a dodge: “I’ll tell you at the time,” he replied. “I’ll keep you in suspense.”
Those Accusations
The allegations of sexual misconduct against Trump came up tonight as expected, with the real estate mogul insisting that the claims were false (“debunked” was the word he used), which he says is why he never apologized to wife Melania for them. The Republican nominee also suggested that the claims were invented explicitly by Clinton and her team. “I have a feeling how they came. I believe it was her campaign that did it,” Trump said.
“Who Does That?!”
Clinton rarely loses her cool, even when the debates get heated, but she sounded positively exasperated (and refreshingly unrehearsed) when she was going after Trump for the dubious expenditures of his charitable foundation — which included a 6-foot portrait of the GOP candidate himself. “Who does that?!” Clinton asked.
Tell Us: Who do you think won the debate?
