--- title: Donald Trump Gives Hillary Clinton a C+ for Debate description: Donald Trump gave Hillary Clinton a C+ grade for her debate performance, but declined to give himself a score canonical: https://time.com/4509300/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-presidential-debate-grade/ author: Zeke Miller article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-27T12:10:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:55:07.215Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Gives Hillary Clinton a C+ for Debate og:description: Donald Trump gave Hillary Clinton a C+ grade for her debate performance, but declined to give himself a score og:url: https://time.com/4509300/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-presidential-debate-grade/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaa37169324261130/6988a7a70a4a2245db9cb6ac/trump_post_debate.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3500 og:image:height: 1969 og:image:alt: trump_debate og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Gives Hillary Clinton a C+ for Debate twitter:description: Donald Trump gave Hillary Clinton a C+ grade for her debate performance, but declined to give himself a score twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaa37169324261130/6988a7a70a4a2245db9cb6ac/trump_post_debate.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Gives Hillary Clinton a C+ Grade for Debate Performance > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Donald Trump To Hillary: "I Want You To Be Happy" [Watch (HLS stream): Donald Trump To Hillary: "I Want You To Be Happy"](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/puXMDTo5.m3u8) (0:26)  _Published 2016-09-27. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump squared off at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., Monday for the first of three presidential debates_ by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Sep 27, 2016 12:10 PM UTC  Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, with his wife Melania, talks to reporters in the spin room after his first debate against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, Sept. 26, 2016. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, with his wife Melania, talks to reporters in the spin room after his first debate against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, Sept. 26, 2016. Jonathan Ernst—Reuters by [Zeke Miller](https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/) ## Zeke Miller Sep 27, 2016 12:10 PM UTC Donald Trump gave Hillary Clinton a C+ grade for her debate performance, but declined to give himself a score. The Republican presidential contender appeared on Fox and Friends the morning after the debate to give his thoughts on the first presidential debate at Hofstra University on Monday night. Most pundits have hailed Clinton as the narrow winner of a closely-fought contest. Her performance improved as the night went on, Trump acknowledged, but only because of the moderators. “I thought she was very bad in the first half when they were asking normal questions,” he said, “and when they were asking bad questions she did better.” Trump said he had planned to hit Clinton on her husband Bill Clinton’s infidelities but had declined as he didn’t want to do it in front of their daughter Chelsea. “See, I do have a heart,” he said. The Republican’s repeated sniffing was noted by many viewers on social media, including onetime Democratic presidential candidate [Howard Dean who speculated Trump might have been on drugs](http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/09/27/trumps-sniffles-prompt-howard-dean-to-tweet-coke-user.html). The real estate mogul blamed the technology and said his health was not to blame. “No, no sniffles. The mic was very bad,” he said. “I had a problem with a microphone that didn’t work … I wonder, was it set up that way on purpose?” In the debate hall the microphone did indeed appear to have some kind of error, though it was not picked up by TV cameras. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4509300/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-presidential-debate-grade/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4509300/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-presidential-debate-grade/"},"headline":"Donald Trump Gives Hillary Clinton a C+ Grade for Debate Performance","datePublished":"2016-09-27T12:10:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:55:07.215Z","description":"He declined to grade himself","url":"https://time.com/4509300/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-presidential-debate-grade/","keywords":["2016 presidential elections"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaa37169324261130/6988a7a70a4a2245db9cb6ac/trump_post_debate.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Zeke Miller","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/zeke-j-miller/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaa37169324261130/6988a7a70a4a2245db9cb6ac/trump_post_debate.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"trump_debate","caption":"Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, with his wife Melania, talks to reporters in the spin room after his first debate against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, Sept. 26, 2016.","creditText":"Jonathan Ernst—Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-presidential-elections/","name":"2016 presidential elections"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4509300/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-presidential-debate-grade/","name":"Donald Trump Gives Hillary Clinton a C+ Grade for Debate Performance"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Donald Trump To Hillary: \"I Want You To Be Happy\"","description":"Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump squared off at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., Monday for the first of three presidential debates","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/puXMDTo5/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-09-27T01:23:57.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/puXMDTo5.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4509300/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-presidential-debate-grade/","duration":"PT26S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4509300/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-presidential-debate-grade/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```