--- title: Presidential Debate: Donald Trump Interrupted 55 Times description: Trump, the Republican nominee, was responsible for 55 of 84 interruptions, while Clinton contributed 11. canonical: https://time.com/4509790/donald-trump-debate-interruptions/ author: Chris Wilson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-27T16:10:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T00:51:44.170Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Interrupted Clinton and Holt 55 Times in the Presidential Debate og:description: Clinton interrupted 11 times og:url: https://time.com/4509790/donald-trump-debate-interruptions/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Interrupted Clinton and Holt 55 Times in the Presidential Debate twitter:description: Clinton interrupted 11 times twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Donald Trump Interrupted Hillary Clinton and Lester Holt 55 Times in the First Presidential Debate > Sponsored content. 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Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Chris Wilson](https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/)  ## Chris Wilson Sep 27, 2016 4:10 PM UTC  by [Chris Wilson](https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/)  ## Chris Wilson Sep 27, 2016 4:10 PM UTC Monday night’s first presidential debate often resembled a schoolyard argument as the candidates interrupted and talked over one another, largely ignoring moderator Lester Holt’s attempts to impose order. Based on the transcript, which adds an ellipsis when someone is interrupted, TIME counted 84 times in which either Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Holt or the audience cut off the current speaker. Trump, the Republican nominee, was responsible for 55 of those 84 interruptions, while Clinton contributed 11\. The following interactive displays each line as a box, colored by the speaker, with a black border if that speaker cut in without being prompted. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4509790/donald-trump-debate-interruptions/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4509790/donald-trump-debate-interruptions/"},"headline":"Donald Trump Interrupted Hillary Clinton and Lester Holt 55 Times in the First Presidential Debate","datePublished":"2016-09-27T16:10:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:51:44.170Z","description":"Clinton interrupted 11 times","url":"https://time.com/4509790/donald-trump-debate-interruptions/","keywords":["Debates","presidential debate"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Chris Wilson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"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/debates/","name":"Debates"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4509790/donald-trump-debate-interruptions/","name":"Donald Trump Interrupted Hillary Clinton and Lester Holt 55 Times in the First Presidential Debate"}}]}] ```