Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faced off on Monday for the first presidential debate, moderated by Lester Holt of NBC Nightly News at Hofstra University.  

The 2016 election season has been interesting to say the least. Monday night’s debate was proof of it. Fox News reports 81 million people gathered in front of their TV’s to watch Trump and Clinton take swings at one another. It wasn’t quite the train wreck most people thought it would be, but it wasn’t impressive by any means.

First of all, Lester Holt was tolerable but considerably biased. For a nonpartisan journalist, he certainly had a partisan preference on Monday night. Holt’s interventions as well as the questions he asked were unbalanced between the candidates.

Most of Holt’s questions toward Clinton were mild compared to the hostile questions he asked Trump. This was blaringly obvious as he consistently fact-checked Trump and didn’t do the same for Clinton.

Speaking of fact-checking, I chose to do some fact-checking on the claims of both Trump and Clinton.

It’s interesting how both candidates clearly contradicted themselves last night. The candidates each had their moments where they forgot what they had said before.

During the debate Clinton mentioned, “Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.” Trump instantly refuted the statement saying he never said it. However, Chris Joyce, a science desk correspondent/covers energy and the environment reported that it refers to a tweet Trump sent in 2012.

“He said the concept of global warming was created by the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive,” Joyce reported.

While there are quite a few other statements that Trump made which required some fact-checking, Secretary Clinton contradicted herself as well.  Trump brought up the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a way to provoke Clinton.

He said to her, “You were totally in favor of it, then you heard what I was saying  how bad it is  and you said, I can’t win that debate.”

She responded by denying Trump’s statement, but then Trump interrupted by saying, “You called it the gold standard. You call it the gold standard of trade deals.”

Trump got that information directly from Clinton’s book “Hard Choices” where she literally says that the TPP was the “gold standard” of trade deals.

Even though Trump’s contradictory statements during the debate were blaringly obvious, Secretary Clinton showed that she wasn’t perfect either.

The moment I was waiting for in the debate happened just as I expected. Clinton addressed the issue of her emails. She openly expressed that the private email issue was a mistake. Trump responded with, “That was more than a mistake. That was done purposely. That was not a mistake. That was done purposely. When you have your staff taking the Fifth Amendment, taking the fifth so they are not prosecuted, when you have the man that set up the illegal server taking the fifth, I think it’s disgraceful. And believe me, this country thinks it is this really thinks it is disgraceful also.”

Carrie Johnson, a Justice Correspondent, weighed in on Trump’s statement. She said that “the FBI director testified to Congress that Clinton told investigators she used the private server as a matter of convenience.”

Johnson goes on confirming the facts behind Trump’s statement, saying, “An IT aide did invoke his Fifth Amendment rights and won immunity from the Justice Department. Two other people who worked on the server for Platte River Networks, a private company, also took the Fifth. And a pair of Clinton aides got a limited form of immunity for turning over their computers to the FBI. No one was charged with any wrongdoing.”

I just can’t see how deleting your emails and using a private server was just a matter of convenience, since Clinton was a former senator as well as Secretary of State; she clearly knew what she did was wrong.

I accept that a substantial amount of bickering takes place at these debate, however when the candidates relentlessly interrupt each other it starts to get annoying. A significant amount of interrupting took place on the debate stage, but some of it was actually justified. Multiple media outlets are reporting different but similar numbers of times the candidates and moderator interrupted each other. According to Vox, Trump interrupted Clinton 51 times, while Clinton interrupted Trump’s comments 17 times. A noticeable difference.

The most compelling part of the debate, in my opinion, took place at the end.

“One of you will not win this election,” said Lester Holt. “Are you willing to accept the outcome as the will of the voters?”

This question was important in my opinion because of the suspense over how the candidates would answer it. “In no US presidential debate, at least in modern times, has that question been asked,” Steve LeVine notes in Quartz, a new website.

This question is crucial during this time since our country is so divided; it gave me faith to see that both candidates were willing to support the results of the election.

“I support our democracy,” Clinton responded, “I certainly will support the outcome of this election.”

Trump avoided answering the question at first, reminding us that he would “make America great again.” But he eventually offered an answer: “If she wins I will absolutely support her.”

Liz Kacher is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected]