Anderson Cooper to Donald Trump: ‘She didn’t talk while you talked’
Presidential debate moderators Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz worked aggressively on Sunday to keep the nominees in line, pushing the candidates to stick to their allotted response times and butting in when they interrupted one another.
After Trump was criticized for interrupting Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate, this time around, the moderators cracked down on the rules.
“Please allow her to respond,” Cooper told Trump when he interjected into a comment on Clinton’s leaked emails. “She didn’t talk while you talked.”
The moderators also kept Trump to his two-minute limits, cutting him off several times when he tried to speak for longer than the allotted time. In response, Trump seemed to accuse them of favoring Clinton, saying that she was allowed to take more time with her responses while he was cut off.
“She went over a minute over and you don’t stop her. When I go one second over, it’s like a big deal,” Trump said. “It’s really very interesting.”
But it wasn’t just Trump who tried to skirt the time limits. The moderators also sparred with Clinton as she spoke over them, trying to finish her answer after the limit had expired.
The moderators repeatedly reminded the candidates that the questions came directly from voters and deserved to be addressed. They tried to keep them moving through the list while also pushing them back on topic.
When Trump launched into a vague and long-winded answer on his proposed policies regarding a humanitarian crisis in Syria, Raddatz held the Republican candidate to a stricter standard.
“Let me repeat the question,” she said.
Overall, the moderators managed to split time between the candidates fairly evenly, with Trump speaking for an estimated 40 minutes and 10 seconds and Clinton grabbing 39 minutes and five seconds of time, according to CNN.
Still, Trump took issue with the fact that he felt Clinton’s emails, one of the election’s hottest topics, didn’t get enough airtime.
“I’d like to know, why aren’t you bringing up the emails?” Trump asked, several minutes after Clinton had been asked about the emails.
“We did bring them up,” Cooper responded.
“No it hasn’t. … One on three,” Trump said.
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