Washington – Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton led the polls after the first televised debate with Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Clinton was deemed the winner of the debate by 62% of voters, while just 27% said they thought Donald Trump had the better night, according to a CNN/ORC Poll of voters who watched the debate.
Both candidates still have 42 days until the election day on November 08.
Experts said that Clinton, backed by her experience as former First Lady and Senate, kept her cool and showed restrains during the debate.
Analysts believe that Hillary had the control in the debate while Trump failed to press Clinton on “her scandals”, citing the controversies over her use of a private email server as secretary of state and her handling of a 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
Trump was put on defensive having to defend his record against charges of racism, sexism and tax evasion.
Clinton claimed that Trump was hiding his financial record and tax returns and owes the banks about $650 million, to which Trump responded: “That makes me smart.”
He then said: “I will release my tax returns against my lawyers’ wishes when she releases her 33,000 emails that have been deleted.” He criticized Clinton as a secretary of state, while she defended failed trade agreements.
Trump said that Clinton wants to proceed with the policies of President Barack Obama. He then condemned her plan to fight ISIS and mocked that she posted it online saying that generals of World War II won’t be happy with that. Clinton responded: “At least I have a plan!”
“We also have to intensify our airstrikes against ISIS, and eventually support our Arab and Kurdish partners to be able to actually take out ISIS in Raqqa and their aim of being a caliphate,” Clinton said.
Trump then added: “I want to get on to defeating ISIS, because I want to get on to creating jobs, because I want to get on to having a strong border, because I want to get on to things that are very important to me and that are very important to the country.”
Trump stressed that Clinton doesn’t have the ability to maintain the safety of Americans both locally and internationally. “But they wouldn’t even have been formed if they left some troops behind, like 10,000 or maybe something … or if we had taken the oil,” he added.
He also questioned Hillary’s stamina, to which she replied: “Well as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a ceasefire, release of dissidents and opening of new opportunities and
nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina.”
Clinton attacked Trump for his insults of women. She introduced the world to Alicia Machado, a beauty pageant contestant who said Trump called her “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping”.
Trump warned that he had been prepared to say something “extremely rough to Hillary, to her family,” but chose not to.
“I was going to hit her with her husband’s women and I decided I shouldn’t do it because her daughter was in the room,” he later said.
Trump looked weak when Clinton pointed out that he endorsed the war on Iraq and U.S. campaign to take out President Moammar Gaddafi.
“He actually advocated for the actions we took in Libya and urged that Gaddafi be taken out, after actually doing some business with him one time,” Clinton stated.
Asian stocks rose for the first time in three days after the debate as the Tokyo market closed on a rise of 0.8 percent and Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.6 percent.
Chief market strategist at CMC Markets told Bloomberg News that: “U.S. futures have moved ahead as the debate unraveled, and I think that is one of the factors. In policy terms, no doubt to Clinton; in emotional and tone terms, Clinton is also ahead.”