Ahead of the first presidential debate on Monday night, pundits and critics argued that the victor would be determined by whether or not Donald Trump could keep his composure onstage. When NBC’s Lester Holt brought up the question of the Republican nominee’s support of the Iraq war, Trump appeared to lose it.
“Mr. Trump, a lot of these are judgement questions, you had supported the war in Iraq before the invasion. What makes your . . .” Holt began before Trump interrupted.
“I did not support the war in Iraq,” he said. “That is mainstream media nonsense put out by her because she . . . frankly I think the best person in her campaign is mainstream media.”
Then, when the NBC anchor tried to refocus the G.O.P. hopeful on the question, Trump went right back to claiming that he was against the war in Iraq from the beginning. Holt pointed out that “the record shows otherwise,” referring to a 2002 Trump interview with Howard Stern.
Holt’s rebuttal seemed to push Trump over the edge.
“The record does not show . . . the record shows that I am right,” the Republican standard-bearer said, before making opaque references to interviews he conducted with Neil Cavuto and Sean Hannity. “Excuse me, that was before the war started. Sean Hannity said, very strongly, to me and other people,” Trump said. “Nobody wants to call him. I was against the war.”
He then shifted his argument to an article “in a major magazine,” likely in reference to a highly-cited 2004 Esquire interview before bringing up Hannity, again. “If somebody—and I’ll ask the press—if somebody would call up Sean Hannity, this was before the war started, he and I used to have arguments about the war.” (Shortly after Trump’s comments, Robert Draper, a reporter for The New York Times Magazine tweeted, “I actually talked to Sean Hannity about Iraq. He said no transcripts or audio to confirm Trump's claim.”)
Holt was eventually able to get out his intended question about how the G.O.P. nominee’s judgement differs from his rival.
“I have much better judgment than she has. I also have a much better temperament than she does,” Trump argued before adding that it might be his strongest asset. “I have a winning temperament. I know how to win. She does not.”
