Within mere seconds of the first 2016 presidential debate ending Monday night, CNN’s post-debate analysis was dedicated to critiquing Donald Trump’s performance. The first round of critiques came from Jake Tapper who stated he felt that the first 30 minutes went well for Trump, while the following hour was dominated by Hillary Clinton. His colleagues Wolf Blitzer and John King agreed with both noting Trump took Clinton’s bait often and his many lies, respectively.
The focus on Trump carried over to CNN’s America’s Choice 2016 panel, where Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger agreed that Trump lost control of the debate. “On taxes, on the question of birther, at the Iraq war, and at the very end this question of stamina,” she stated, “When these charges of misogyny were raised against him, he started just attacking Rosie O'Donnell.”
Former Adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod lambasted Trump for his style leading up to and during the debate, “Well, Trump was Trump and it wasn't good for him tonight.” “I think there's a terrible night for him,” he continued, “She came in, it turns out that prep matters, experience matters and it showed tonight.”
Playing off of Axelrod, Senior Political Reporter Nia-Malika Henderson slammed Trump for how he looked and acted during the debate:
I mean, the split screen image of her standing there pretty firmly, and him sniffling a lot. He was drinking a lot of water, his facial expressions. It was clear, I thought early on that he was rattled, and it showed. And there were times when she was just happy to let him go deep. Four, five layers deep into birtherism, go four or five layers deep into his taxes and just sit there and let it flow, because he was just digging a hole.
The debate ended a little after 10:39 p.m. eastern time, while the first criticism of Clinton’s debate performance didn’t come until 11:12 p.m. eastern time.
The critique came from Axelrod, but it was tempered with praise for how much Clinton cares about the public. “I wish she is had in places invoked the stories of real people to animate the point she was making, she speaks sometimes in policy terms,” he complained, “She's met these people and they have undoubtedly touched her, and she could have done a better job of bringing them into the discussion.”
Even after Axelrod’s comments, the critiques of Clinton were spars and mostly come from panelist Kayleigh McEnany and Jeffrey Lord, both of whom were Donald Trump supporters.