Liveblogging the Debate

Lester Holt: No applauding, no cheering, no audible reactions of any kind. Yeah, let's see how that works out for you, Les.

9:03 Here we go!

Hillary in fire-engine red.

9:05 First q: Achieving prosperity ... jobs. Income inequality, despite several years of improving conditions.

Hillary: raise the minimum wage. Equal pay for women. Investment in national infrastructure. Paid family leave. Wealthy pay fair share. Close corporate loopholes.

Trump: Jobs fleeing the country. China, bad. Mexico, sucking our jobs. Leaving ... leaving ... leaving, the jobs. He's said "leaving" now at least six times. Does Trump have post-nasal drip?

Hillary: reward work and not just investment. Trump is talking "Trumped-up trickle-down." "Donald was very fortunate in his life" ... given $14 million by his father.

Lester follows up with Trump: How are you going to bring back 25 million manufacturing jobs.

Trump: Already riled about Hillary's saying his father gave him $14 million. It was, according to Trump, "a small amount of money."

Trump as chivalrous knight: Is it all right to call you "Secretary Clinton?" I want you to be happy. Very important to me.

Lester pressing on the question: How do you bring back 25 million jobs.

Trump isn't going to answer. He can't answer. Just stop businesses from leaving. That's Trump's answer.

"That's called business, by the way," Trump interrupts Hillary's recitation of Donald gloating over the housing crisis in 2008.

Hillary is boring in on Trump's past statements. He interrupts her again about clean energy, denying he said what he said.

20 minutes in, and it looks increasingly likely that Trump is gonna blow! Insult comic Trump showed up tonight.

Hillary: "Donald, I know you live in your own reality." About Trump's rendition of recent history as regards trade deals, especially NAFTA.

Lester Holt has already lost control of this. Trump filibustering.

Hillary: Raise taxes on the wealthy since they've been the only ones to benefit from the economy's turn-around.

9:26 Lester Holt finally gets to ask the second question. Mr. Trump, please defend your plan for tax cuts for the wealthy.

Trump comes out as defender of the wealthy who have hidden their cash in off-shore accounts. Wow.

Trump the bully. He's in da house!

Hillary talking about "the Trump loophole." Trump can't stop interrupting her. Hillary: I don't think top-down works in America. We don't need more advantages for those at the top.

Trump: We're in a big, fat ugly bubble. I believe it's his ego.

9:31 Lester Holt: Mr. Trump, you haven't released your tax returns. Trump's answer is all over the place. He goes back onto trade. Lester presses in on the tax return. Trump: I will release them as soon as the audit is over. As soon as she releases her emails, I'll release my tax returns. Some in crowd cheer.

Hillary: You've just seen another example of bait and switch. Maybe he's not as he says he is. Maybe he's not as charitable as he says he is. Or maybe he doesn't want the American people to know he hasn't paid any federal income taxes. There's something he's hiding.

Trump: Loves the smell of hidden emails! I'm extremely under leveraged, Trump says. What's he talking about? I could give you a list of banks, if that would help you. (No, that wouldn't help that much!) Suddenly, he's talking about how terrible American airports are. Dubai has better airports.

Hillary: If your main claim for the presidency is your business experience, then perhaps we ought to talk about that. We have an architect in the audience who designed one of your buildings, and he didn't get paid. Trump: Maybe he did a bad job. Hillary continues to bring it about Trump's business history.

Trump: We used certain laws that were there to take advantage of people by not paying them by our taking bankruptcy. Yes, he really admitted it.

9:44 Lester Holt: Let's talk about race. How do you heal the divide?

Hillary: Respect on both sides. Criminal justice reform. Guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them. Restore trust between communities and the people.

Trump: She doesn't want to use the words "law and order." (Richard Nixon just sat up in his grave.) He's talking about being endorsed by police assn. And now about how bad cities are. You walk down the street and you get shot. Apparently, he's not talking about black men being shot by police. Stop-and-frisk works very well, says Donald.

Lester: Stop-and-frisk ruled unconstitutional in New York. Trump: No you're wrong. Cue the fact-checkers! Trump: You have to have stop-and-frisk. We need law-and-order!

Hillary: It's really unfortunate that Donald paints such a dire picture of black communities in our nation. Stop-and-frisk was found to be unconstitutional. Plus it was ineffective. Crime is actually down. It's just a fact that if you're a young black man and you do the same thing as a young white man, you're more likely to be arrested, charged, and jailed for it. I believe that implicit bias is true of all of us, not just the police.

Trump agrees with Hillary about denying guns to people on no-fly lists.

Hillary: I think he just accused me of preparing for this debate. Yes, I did. I'll tell you something else I prepared for: being president.

9:59 Lester Holt: Birtherism. Trump deflecting everything back on to Sidney Blumenthal. Trump: I think I did a good job. I got him to produce the birth certificate. So the racist attack on Obama was a good deed! Now we know. This is Trump at his worst -- exposed and incapable of producing a rational answer.

Hillary: He has a long record of engaging in racist behavior. The birther lie was a very hurtful one.

Trump seems to be admitting that he got successfully sued for racial discrimination but successfully slipped away without damage.

10:05  Cyber attacks

Hillary: Russia, and Donald has praised Putin for hacking us. We're not going to sit idly by and allow state actors to go after our commerce, our culture, our political parties.

Trump has sort of slumped at this point, He's low energy now. The old Interrupter, Bully Trump seems to have gone to sleep. Or at least deflated to a significant degree.

Trump gets revved up again over whether he favored the Iraq War. He's rambling. "Nobody's called Sean Hannity."

Trump: "I've got much better temperament than Secretary Clinton." People in audience groan.

Hillary: Donald's cavalier attitude. Yes, we see that.

10:27: Last segment. Thank Gawd!

What is Trump talking about ... Iran ... China ... North Korea. China should invade North Korea? Word salad!

Trump now telling us that he planned to say something "extremely rough" about Hillary and her family, but I decided I wouldn't.

Holt: Mr. Trump, will you accept the outcome of the election as the will of the people? Trump doesn't answer, goes off on one of his tangents. Finally says he'll support her if she's elected. Whew! Dodged that bullet!