Pleasantries. Secretary clinton, yes . Is that okay . Good. I want you to be very happy. Reporter but it didnt take long for the gloves to come off. The kind of plan donald has put forth would be trickledown economics all over again. I call it trumpedup trickledown. Nafta is the worst trade deal maybe ever signed. Now you want to approve transpacific partnership. Reporter trump repeatedly casting clinton as a typical politician while attempting to portray himself as a change agent. Youve been doing this for 30 years. Why are you just thinking about these solutions right now . Reporter clinton putting trump on the defensive for much of the debate, baiting gop nominee on his business record. Donald was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis. He said back in 2006, gee, i hope it does collapse because then i can go in and buy some and make some money. We well, it did collapse. Thats called business, by the way. 9 Million People lost their jobs. Reporter challenging him on his refusal to release his tax returns. I will release my tax returns against my lawyers wishes when she releases her 33,000 emails that have been deleted. Maybe he doesnt want the american people, all of you watching tonight, to know that hes paid nothing in federal taxes. That makes me smart. Hes paid zero. That means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health. Reporter trump pouncing on clinton about her use of private email but not dwelling on it. I made a mistake using a private email. Thats for sure. And if i had to do it over again, i would obviously do it differently. That was more than a mistake. That was done purposely. Reporter and insisting she cant be trusted. I have much better judgment than she does. Theres no question about that. I also have a much better temperament than she has. Woo. Okay. Reporter trump on the defensive over years of false claims that president obama wasnt born in the u. S. I think i did a great job and a Great Service not only for the country but even for the president in getting him to produce his birth certificate. Reporter clinton hitting trump hard, dubbing his crusade racist. So he tried to put the whole racist birther lie to bed. But it cant be dismissed that easily. So he has a long record of engaging in racist behavior, and the birther lie was a very hurtful one. Reporter debate moderator lester holt Fact Checking in realtime, trump insisting he did not support the iraq war despite proof that he did. I did not support the war in iraq. 2002 that is a Mainstream Media nonsense put out by her. The record shows otherwise. The record shows that im right. Reporter the fiery debate ending on a personal attack of clinton. She doesnt have the look. She doesnt have the stamina. I said she doesnt have the stamina. And i dont believe she does have the stamina. To be president of the this country, you need tremendous stamina. As soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a ceasefire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina. Hillary has experience, but its bad experience. Reporter but the veteran debater fought back at trumps critiques. I think donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate, and yes, i did. And you know what else i prepared for . I prepared to be president , and i think thats a good thing. Reporter and guys, theres no question, for large portions of the debate, donald trump was on the defensive, more so than Hillary Clinton. There might be a good reason why. Some of his wheelhouse issues didnt come up. No talk of immigration, no talk of a border wall, no talk of benghazi, even though one of his guests in the front row of the audience was a survivor of the benghazi attack. There are two debates left. You can be rest assured those issues will come up in the future. As for the candidates themselves, its all about the swing state, once again back on the campaign trail. Hillary clinton in north carolina. Trump in florida. Two states they desperately want to win. Phil, very simple instruction on display last night. Everything you see on this show today is a function of preparation. We work our butts off to get things right and communicate with you. We saw that on display last night with the two candidates as well. Just after the debate ended, cnn polled debate watchers. They overwhelmingly chose Hillary Clinton as the winner. 62 of respondents thought clinton won the debate. Thats an unusually high number. Most debates are kind of a wash. 27 having trump on top. The poll sample of debate watchers, no question, skews slightly in favor of democrats. More democrats responding than republicans. Thats not unusual. When supporters feel that they won and did well, they usually respond more to these different analyses that are presented to them. But it was a big night. The race is going to be different as a result. So lets bring in our panel. We have cnn political analyst and president ial Campaign Correspondent for the new york times, maggie haberman. Cnn senior political analyst ron brow bro bro brownstein. Errol louis and david gregory. Maggie, let me start with you. Weve heard from many people who thought donald trump came on strong the first half an hour. In some ways he owned or at least did a very aggressive and strong job then sort of wilted. What was your analysis . Something close to that. I thought he had a couple very good lines at the beginning, particularly on trade, where i think clinton had a not great answer. She was not forthcoming and clear about tpp, the transpacific partnership. Lets play it, maggie. Then people will get the context. Here it is. Wait for it. Your husband signed nafta, which was one of the worst things that ever happened in the manufacturing industry. Thats your opinion. You go to new england, go to ohio, pennsylvania, you go anywhere you want, secretary clinton, and you will see devastation where manufacturing is down 30, 40, sometimes 50 . Nafta is the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country. Now you want to approve transpacific partnership. You were totally in favor of. Then you heard what i was saying, how bad it is, and you said, i cant win that debate. But you know if you did win, you would approve that, and that will be almost as bad as nafta. Well, that is just not accurate. I was against it once it was finally negotiated and the terms were laid out. I wrote about that in you called it the Gold Standard. You called it the Gold Standard of trade deals. You said its the finest deal youve ever seen. He owned that exchange. Well, i think he owned it to a point. I think at the end when he was talking over her and sounding like he was bellowing, i dont know that the style of that was good. I think the substance was good. I think when he painted the outsider case at another point, saying shes been there for 30 years, i havent, was also gad for him. Those were really the two moments. In a general Election Debate for president , it is up to the nominees to bring their case. If you are basically waiting for the moderator to ask the question and lead you there, you are going to be lost. Thats what we saw with donald trump. He didnt talk about benghazi. He didnt talk about emails more than once. He did not talk about immigration, his signature issue. There were a lot of things he could have done. I think overall, he did fade in the back end. I think clinton got in the hits, especially at the end, that she wanted to get in. Most of this going to be set by who we all say are winners today. For the last however many hours its been since the debate, i cant remember, nine, eight, basically the takeaway has been that she won. I think first base youre donald trump watching this takeaway, im curious how it will impact his view of the upcoming debates. The good news is the voters won last night. They got a good look at these two people. Theyre really contrasting styles. To your point about preparation, Hillary Clinton was ready for a good hammer that trump has used on her, which is stamina. We know about her recent Health Problems with pneumonia, what that projects. Heres how that exchange went. You said she doesnt have, quote, a president ial look. Shes standing here right now. What did you mean by that . She doesnt have the look. She doesnt have the stamina. I said she doesnt have the stamina. And i dont believe she does have the stamina. To be president of this country, you need tremendous well, as soon as he travels to 112 countries and negotiates a peace deal, a ceasefire, a release of dissidents, an opening of new opportunities in nations around the world, or even spends 11 hours testifying in front of a congressional committee, he can talk to me about stamina. And she stood very strong on that stage last night, barely drinking any water, seemed to have the right vim and vigor for it. How does that play . I think it neatly refuted the case he was trying to make. That was always the weakness of that attack. Saying that, you know, she might collapse, that shes not ready, she doesnt have the stamina and so forth. All she has to do is simply stand there. That sort of cancels that argument. I thought all along it was kind of a mistake for the Trump Organization for the Trump Campaign to get into all of that because shes going to be on the campaign trail. Once you put that the out there, all a crowd has to do is see her come bounding out of the plane and give an energetic performance of the kind she gave last night and the issue is moot. But they did feed it for a minute, when they were covering up the pneumonia, when they werent been honest and forthright that she was ill that entire time. That did feed Donald Trumps argument that she was wilting on the campaign trail. Better than having an answer about stamina was having stamina. He kind of faded in the final third. It really got to me, donald trump had one overriding test in this debate. By all indications, he failed it. Hes laboring under the fact hes in the final month facing the highest proportion of voters ever for a nominee who says hes not qualifying to be president. This was his single best chance to reduce those numbers. The cnn instant poll, 67 of those surveyed said clinton showed that she had what it takes to be president. 55 said donald trump did not convince them, and that number was even higher among the College Educated white voters who are the principal barrier between where he is and where he needs to go. This may not change the horse race that much overnight or even in the near term because the country is so polarized, but what this does is makes it tougher for him to grow from where he is to where he ultimately needs to be. David, of course Donald Trumps taxes came up, the ones that he has refused to release. He says hes under audit. So its hard to tell if he won this point or lost it. Watch this. Or maybe he doesnt want the american people, all of you watching tonight, to know that hes paid nothing in federal taxes because the only years that anybodys ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didnt pay any federal income tax. That makes me smart. There you go, david. Does that if he avoided paying federal taxes, which is everyones dream, lets admit it, does that make him smart or does that make him selfish . It makes him a prime target for her next ad that no doubt will be coming in the next day or days. This is a huge opening. This is what happens when you buck convention as a president ial candidate and youre not forthcoming with something that other candidates in history have done since nixon. Release your taxes that can show whether youre as wealthy as you say you are, whether you pay taxes like other people do, whether you give philanthropically the way you would be expected to do. I thought this was a very strong moment for Hillary Clinton because hes created this area of question and doubt, and she drove right through it. I think she extracted from him a key debating point she can amplify on, which is it appears that he was conceding that hes not paid federal income tax. I did hear him say later hes paid federal taxes. Has he paid federal income tax. I think that may continue. What ron said is important. These are two candidates on the world stage last night. The fundamental test is, can you see this person as president of the United States . Thats the test on the world stage. I think Hillary Clinton looked much more president ial. He, i thought, exceeded expectations for the first 30 minutes, maybe even the first hour. Then he just unraveled. Taxes, birtherism, attacking women, the worst of donald trump that weve seen in the course of the campaign. Panel, stick around. We have many more questions for you. Coming up on new day, well also hear from both sides in our 7 00 hour. Were going to speak to the interim dnc chairwoman donna brazile, as well as the Trump Campaign manager Kellyanne Conway. Jam packed. No question one of the big reasons we get excited about these debates is because the opportunities presented for both candidates to make big scores but also to miss big scores. Its a test of how they work under pressure. Who took the bait last night . Who was in control . Next. One of the things that came up during the debate that became a real flash point was when donald trump was asked directly about his role in the birtherism controversy. Take a look. In the last couple of weeks, you acknowledged what most americans have accepted for years, the president was born in the United States. The question is, what changed your mind . Well, nobody was pressing it. Nobody was caring much about it. I figured youd ask the question tonight, of course. But nobody was caring much about it. But i was the one that got him to produce the birth certificate. And i think i did a good job. And i think i did a great job and a Great Service not only for the country but even for the president in getting him to produce his birth certificate. Now, the moment that came out of that, that you didnt get to see there, is that lester holt said to the people who were offended by what that was and remember, it wasnt just a sham trying to delegitimize the president. It was the motivation for it. It was seen as being inherently racist. So he says, i say nothing. Our panel joining us again. Errol louis, hes given an opportunity to recognize the racist motivations, put it behind him, and he says, i say nothing to those people. How big a deal . Huge blown opportunity. It certainly helps to cancel out much of what hes talked about in the last few weeks about how hes going to do all this outreach to black communities and so forth. It made clear those were not really genuine assurances, that it wasnt genuine outreach, and he hasnt thought this through. Even in the clip you played, he did not answer the question. He wasnt listening for the question. He knew he was going to have to Say Something about birtherism, so he had this sort of concocted answer, which was involved sort of falsely accusing clinton of having started the whole thing without ever addressing why did you go on for five years. What does this say about your relationship to these communities. What do you want to do to be something of a healer. Race relations at a time when people are being kill ed, when people are burning stuff in the streets in charlotte, demonstrating on a daily basis, this is a big national conversation. A president has to be able to talk about it. And it was such a big moment. It was so important for Hillary Clinton in a sense that she has to activate those pieces of the Obama Coalition who have been slow to warm to her, africanamericans. In that moment, he just blew it. Did she seize it . If you look at polling thats come out in the last week, very consistently Hillary Clinton is leading among all voters of color, africanamericans, hispanic, asianamericans, mixed race combined by about 45 to 50 points. Thats in the enough. Usually democrats win by about 60 points. Obama did and the predecessors back into the 90s. The reason is shes suffering a lot of defection among Younger Voters of color, just like white millennials, toward those thirdparty candidates. I think that last night that exchange and also her very emphatic embrace of criminal Justice Reform and her kind of somewhat risky and striking talk about implicit bias was all efforts to she really put her chips down in basically saying, were a changing country, and we have to adapt to this. It was a very focussed effort to speak to that Obama Coalition, particularly those millennial voters who have been and are remaining a significant challenge for her. Maggie, what was remarkable is you knew birther was going to come up and be asked by lester holt. And he didnt have a hit it out of the park answer. What if he had done something completely unpredictable and unexpected and apologized . One of the things i was struck by in his performance throughout last night, particularly in that exchange, is this is the donald trump we know. There was not some donald trump 8. 0 who showed up. Donald trump 8. 0 would have apologized and done something that we did not expect. Donald trump does not like to be apologize. We know that very well. Hes also been, just based on all my reporting around the campaign, hes enormously frustrated by this conversation, genuinely does not want to listen to urgings from aides that he deal with it differently. That whole effort you saw from Rudy Giuliani and Kellyanne Conway and others saying publicly, you know, he believes that now, hes put it behind him, was an effort to speak to him through tv, as aides do, ahead of the debate. Hes just not there. He said to the Washington Post when