Washington: Donald Trump burnished his grand conspiracy theory of a presidential election "rigged" against him, by twice telling a huge national TV audience watching Wednesday evening's presidential debate that he was not prepared to commit to accepting the outcome – unless he was the winner.
After weeks of wild and erratic campaign speeches in which Trump has conjured up a non-existent alliance of Democrats and Republicans, corporate and mainstream media interests seeking to rob him of victory on November 8, he told debate moderator Chris Wallace: "I'll tell you at the time … I'll keep you in suspense."
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Trump on conceding: 'I'll keep you in suspense'
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump says he'll look at the results of the November 8th election "at the time" and does not say whether he would concede if he loses.
Wallace appeared stunned. Clinton seemingly couldn't believe her luck – with a "did-he-say-what-I-think-he-said?" look on her face, she filled the silence: "That's horrifying."
And just as she used Trump's blanket denials of his claimed sexual abuse to skewer him as the man in the picture told by the women's stories, she told a story of Trump in absurdly different circumstances, but again playing to type – when Trump's reality TV show The Apprentice failed to win an Emmy, he launched a Twitter campaign claiming the awards were rigged. For Trump it's the same deal, whether it's a TV gong or the White House.
In appearing to reject the cherished American history of gracious concession and a peaceful transfer of power, Trump rehashed a conspiracy theory that has obsessed him as he has nosedived in opinion polls – in Wednesday evening's iteration, it featured the FBI for not charging and incarcerating Clinton and the news media for "poisoning" the public mind against him with reports on his alleged sexual misconduct, including a video in which he admits to being a sexual predator.
When Trump said in late September that he would accept Clinton as president, they were neck-and-neck in opinion polls. And since then, what has changed is his polling and his own crazy performance in the face of a slew of sexual assault allegations against him – most of his accusers being prompted to coming forward by Trump's denial of any sexual impropriety in the previous presidential debate.
Early in the Republican primaries Trump told a debate audience he wouldn't accept any of his challengers as the GOP nominee. But Las Vegas was the crowning moment for Trump's increasingly wild claims that the election is rigged. Some observers worry that he is deliberately cresting an atmosphere of grievance to justify a violent response to a Clinton victory.
Cutting across members of his family and aides who in the previous 24 hours had assured reporters that the candidate would accept the election result, Trump walked away from his own undertaking in the first of the three debates that, yes, he would accept Hillary Clinton's legitimacy if she were to win.
The crisis confronting a fractured US polity just 20 days before polling was encapsulated by The Washington Post: "Now, Trump is running a campaign powered by conservative media in a moment where America is deeply fractured. Nearly half of Clinton supporters don't know anyone backing Trump; nearly three-quarters of Trump backers know no or only a few Clinton backers.
"If no one you know supports Hillary Clinton and if you read websites that insist on blowing small, unproven claims of fraud into a national epidemic and if your candidate is saying that the voting is rigged, what are you going to believe? Surely not someone from the mainstream media - a group that this same candidate and these same conservative media outlets are telling you are lying to bolster Clinton's candidacy."
It was an incredible moment in another remarkable debate in which Trump seemed to conduct himself according to advice that he didn't fully understand.
He actually held his own in a few head-to-heads with Clinton on policy. But the Trump who stood at the lectern was a bit like the guy who was there in the first debate – at times looking slightly dazed and missing golden opportunities to take a whack at his opponent.
Wallace mashed up Trump on the sexual abuse allegations against him – and his answer was disingenuous; but when Wallace allowed Clinton to pivot away from a question about Bill Clinton's conduct, Trump made no effort to haul her back to a point that has been a mainstay of his campaign.
At several points it seemed that Clinton was the Trump-like character - talking over him, interrupting him, talking down to him. His aides had promised "scorched earth"; the audience was watching a guy lost in Antarctica.
His jabs at Clinton did not have their customary firepower and they were delivered in lacklustre fashion. Between those policy exchanges Clinton ripped Trump, particularly on his lack of experience for the White House: "On the day when I was in the Situation Room monitoring the raid that brought Osama bin Laden to justice, he was hosting The Celebrity Apprentice."
The first snap poll for CNN gave the debate to Clinton by a striking margin – 52 to 39.
And between them they kept the fact-checkers busy, but especially Trump.
On investigating 20 debate points, the Post found that Trump was wrong or bending the truth in 14 and was right once; Clinton was found to have been less than honest in three statements and right on two. The result was similar at The New York Times – of 29 debate points, Trump was wrong or bending the facts in 16 instances and correct in two; Clinton was incorrect on six and right on five.
The debates were supposed to be the national shop front window, in which Trump would strut his stuff. But a campaign in which he made absurd early claims, like capturing overwhelmingly Democratic New York state and California, has narrowed to a tortuous path by which he might conceivably navigate his way through the Electoral College.
That's what an undisciplined campaign gets you. Interestingly, if the Trump who appeared on stage at the University of Las Vegas is to be believed, he has more respect for women than he does for the American democratic process.
More on the debate:
- The debate section that silenced young Republicans
- Tony Wright: Trumps knocks himself out
- Comment: Voters already knew everything they needed about Trump
- How Clinton flipped the script on Trump
- Presidential debate: as it happened