--- --- # Donald Trump Interrupted Hillary Clinton and Lester Holt 55 Times in the First Presidential Debate  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. Presidential Debate: Donald Trump Interrupted 55 Times ```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"}}]}] ```