HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — If one of the closing exchanges was any indication of how the presidential race is likely to be in the final weeks, buckle up.
Toward the end of Monday night's debate, Lester Holt asked Donald Trump about his comment that Hillary Clinton didn't have a "presidential look."
He focused his response on his contention that the Democratic nominee doesn't have the "stamina" to be commander in chief.
“I don’t believe she does have the stamina," he said.
Clinton responded by citing a litany of achievements she had as secretary of State, including her travels to 112 countries and her more recent 11 hours of testimony before the House Benghazi Committee, and said that as soon as Trump did that, he could lecture her on stamina.
“Hillary has experience, but it’s bad experience," Trump countered.
Clinton then noted that Trump had tried to pivot in his response from talking about looks to stamina, then took that as her opening to recount previous offensive remarks the GOP nominee had made about women.
"One of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest," she said, noting that Trump "loves beauty contests."
She brought up Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe who claims Trump called her "Miss Piggy" and "Miss Housekeeping."
“And you can bet she’s going to vote this November," Clinton said of Machado.
Trump then teased that he'd been holding his fire.
“I was going to say something extremely rough to Hillary and her family," Trump replied, before saying he couldn't bring himself to do it. You'll recall over the weekend he'd floated the idea of inviting Gennifer Flowers to the debate, so we'll assume that might've been the direction Trump was hinting he was considering before opting against it.
“It’s not nice," Trump said of the ads Clinton has run against him.
Suffice it to say, it's going to get a lost less nice in the days and weeks to come.
