Confused By Some Of Trump’s Answers? Here’s What The Transcript Says

Two of the most common criticisms of the presidential candidates after their first debate tonight was that Donald Trump was sometimes incoherent and Hillary Clinton was “over-prepared.”

Viewers especially had a hard time following Trump’s responses on claims that he underpaid his workers, nuclear security in East Asia, and “the cyber.” Even a GOP strategist told Newsweek‘s Kurt Eichenwald that “Trump was somewhere between incoherent and babble.” And Politico‘s Capitol bureau chief John Bresnahan tweeted: “That is the most amazingly incoherent display by a major party candidate in TV history. Truly breathtaking display by Trump.”

After the debate, in the media spin room, Trump sought to explain some of his incoherent answers by claiming that his debate microphone was “defective” and wondering if it was “on purpose.”

So, as a public service, here are some of the relevant parts of the debate transcript, via Vox and the Washington Post.

What About Bankruptcies And “Stiffing” Workers?

Now, if you want to change the laws, you’ve been there a long time, change the laws. But I take advantage of the laws of the nation because I’m running a company. My obligation right now is to do well for myself, my family, my employees, for my companies. And that’s what I do.

But what she doesn’t say is that tens of thousands of people that are unbelievably happy and that love me. I’ll give you an example. We’re just opening up on Pennsylvania Avenue right next to the White House, so if I don’t get there one way, I’m going to get to Pennsylvania Avenue another.

Do You Support Changing U.S. Policy On First Use of Nuclear Weapons?

I have to say, what Secretary Clinton was saying about nuclear aggression. Russia has been expanding there, they have a much newer capability than we do. We have not been updating from the new standpoint. I looked the other night, I was seeing B-52s that your father, your grandfather could be flying them. We are not keeping up with other countries. I’d like everybody to end it, just get rid of it, but I would certainly not do first strike. I think once the nuclear alternative happens, it’s over. At the same time, we have to be prepared. I can’t take anything off the table. Because you look at some of these countries. You look at North Korea, we’re doing nothing there. China should solve that problem for us. China should go into North Korea. China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea.

And by the way, another one powerful is the worst deal I think I’ve ever seen negotiated that you started as the Iran deal. Iran is one of their biggest trading partners. Iran has power over North Korea. And when they made that horrible deal with Iran, they ought to have included the fact that they do something with respect to North Korea and Yemen and all these other places, and when asked to Secretary Kerry, why didn’t you do that? One of the great giveaways of all time, including $400 million in cash. Nobody’s ever seen that before, that turned out to be wrong, it was actually $1.7 billion in cash. Obviously, I guess for the hostages, it certainly looks that way. Why didn’t they make the right deal? This is one of the worst deals ever made by any country in history. The deal with Iran will lead to nuclear problems, all they have to do is sit back 10 years, and they don’t have to do much. I met with Bibi Netanyahu. He’s not a happy camper.

How Would You Defend U.S. Against Cyber Attacks?

Look at the mess that we’re in. Look at the mess that we’re in.

As far as the cyber, I agree to parts of what Secretary Clinton said, we should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we’re not. I don’t know if we know it was Russia who broke into the DNC. She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia. Maybe it was. It could also be China, it could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. You don’t know who broke into DNC, but what did we learn? We learn that Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of by your people. By Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Look what happened to her. But Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of. Now, whether that was Russia, whether that was China, whether it was another country, we don’t know, because the truth is, under President Obama, we’ve lost control of things that we used to have control over. We came in with an internet, we came up with the internet.

And I think Secretary Clinton and myself would agree very much, when you look at what ISIS is doing with the internet, they’re beating us at our own game. ISIS. So we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyber warfare. It is a, it is a huge problem. I have a son.

He’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it’s unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it’s hardly doable. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing, but that’s true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester and certainly cyber is one of them.