About 50 students from Tonopah Hall packed into a meeting room Wednesday night, Donald Trump piñata dangling in the corner and donkey silhouette cutouts hanging from red, white, and blue streamers, to watch the UNLV Presidential Debate.
Amid the standing-room-only, politics-themed party, these civics-savvy students multitasked on their phones and laptops while the debate, happening just yards away at the Thomas & Mack Center, played out on a television hanging on the wall.
Over the course of an hour and a half, the candidates sparred. Here are the lines that got the Tonopah crowd vocal — on a scale from mild murmers to throaty shouts:
Donald Trump: “I will keep you in suspense, OK?” What proved to be the most controversial line of the night only got light titters from students.
Hillary Clinton: “The killer of the dozens of people at the nightclub in Orlando … was born in Queens, same place Donald was born.” A sharp sucking in of breath, like when a boxer gets off one good shot but doesn’t follow it up with a flurry.
Clinton/Trump exchange: “But he also went after a disabled reporter, mocked and mimicked him on national television.” “Wrong.” Trumps quick denial drew mutters.
Trump: “We need the wall the border patrol, ICE, they all want the wall.” The crowd’s first reaction was a laugh at Trump’s signature line.
Trump: “But we have some bad hombres here.” Students groaned all at once at the phrase.
Clinton: “In fact, the Trump Hotel right here in Las Vegas was made with Chinese steel.” The crowd gave this one a live studio audience-style “Oooooh!”
Clinton: “He went to Mexico … he choked, and then he got into a Twitter war because the Mexican president said we’re not paying for that wall.” Students laughed at this Clinton jab.
Trump: “Nobody can believe how stupid our leadership is.” Tonopah was less than appreciative at the line.
Trump: “Nobody has more respect for women than I do. Nobody. Nobody has more.” The crowd groaned again at this one.
Trump: “I will tell you what isn’t fictionalized are her e-mails.” Trump elicited back-to-back groans.
Clinton: “I mean, who does that?” Clinton’s capper after suggesting Trump used charity money to buy a painting of himself got her biggest laugh of the night.
Moderator Chris Wallace: “Wasn’t some of the money used to settle your lawsuits, sir?” Another “Ooooh!” from the crowd, the first time they reacted to Wallace.
Trump: “Excuse me — my turn.” Trump’s best showing in the room was when he shut down an interruption from Clinton as he was pressing her on her record on trade agreements.
Wallace: “We want to the thank the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and its students for having us.” Lesson to future candidates: If you want to win over a school, lead with something like this and skip the rest of the debate.
Trump: “They don’t want ISIS but they have other things because we are backing rebels. We don’t know who the rebels are. We are giving them lots of money, lots of everything. We don’t know who the rebels are.” Students: “RE-BELS! RE-BELS! RE-BELS!”
An enduring UNLV end-of-semester tradition is to highlight exceptional students who embody the academic, research, and community impact of the graduating class.
