9:05 a.m.
Hillary Clinton apparently has the Google edge after the presidential debate.
Google Trends says more people looked up Clinton’s name than Republican Donald Trump’s in all 50 states following Monday’s debate. Google says Trump searches led in the majority of states before the debate.
The search giant says users looked up information on both candidates’ stances on immigration, abortion and guns most often while the debate was happening.
Many used Google to do their own fact-checking on the candidates’ claims. Google says the top fact check question for Trump revolved around his stance on the Iraq war. For Clinton, users wanted to follow up on her statement that stop-and-frisk police tactics had been ruled unconstitutional.
___
8:30 a.m.
Donald Trump says he didn’t have the sniffles during the debate.
The Republican presidential nominee sounded like he was sniffling — and loudly — through much of the presidential debate Monday, eliciting comments and jokes on social media. The hashtag #sniffle became popular on Twitter.
But asked about that in a phone interview Tuesday morning on “Fox & Friends,” Trump denied there was any sniffling.
He said the microphone was very bad, “but maybe it was good enough to hear breathing. But there was no sniffles.”
He said he doesn’t have a cold or allergies.
___
8:10 a.m.
The two vice presidential candidates unsurprisingly saw their running mates as debate winners.
Democrat Tim Kaine says Donald Trump “looked like he was running out of gas” and Republican Mike Pence accused Hillary Clinton of launching “an avalanche of insults” at Trump.
They appeared on morning news shows Tuesday after the first debate between Trump and Clinton.
On NBC’s “Today” show, Kaine, said he thought Trump offered few specifics on policies, adding, “I don’t think he was prepared.”
Pence countered that Trump was “focused on the issues that the American people care about.” Pence also said he thought Trump came off as an agent for change while Clinton epitomized the Washington “status quo.”
Kaine and Pence will appear together in a debate Oct. 4 at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.
___
7:50 a.m.
Donald Trump is issuing his report card for Hillary Clinton for her debate performance: C-plus.
Trump also says moderator Lester Holt of NBC News earns a C or a C-plus. He says Holt asked him unfair questions.
But Trump isn’t giving himself a letter grade for his performance. He told Fox and Friends on Tuesday that he’s merely that he’s confident he did much better than Clinton in Monday night’s debate.
___
7:40 a.m.
Donald Trump is floating the theory that debate moderators gave him a bad microphone on purpose.
Trump says his mic at Monday’s debate was “terrible.” He’s blaming it for what some listeners thought were sniffles by Trump during the debate.
Trump said Tuesday on “Fox and Friends” that it was going on and off and that his volume was lower than Hillary Clinton’s microphone.
Trump tells Fox News he wonders “whether that wasn’t set up that way on purpose.” He says “I don’t want to believe in conspiracy theories, but it was much lower than hers.”
Trump campaign manager Kellyann Conway told CNN that she heard from audience members that his mic sounded off. She said that from where she sat backstage, the mic sounded fine.
___
7:20 a.m.
Donald Trump says it was a “real problem” when the 1996 Miss Universe gained significant weight after winning the pageant that he formerly owned.
Trump is responding to Hillary Clinton’s reference in the first debate to Alicia Machado’s claim that Trump called her “Miss Piggy” when she gained weight. In the debate, Trump repeatedly challenged Clinton over where she had heard that.
But Trump told “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday that Machado was “the worst we ever had,” referring to past winners of the pageant.
Trump says, “She gained a massive amount of weight. It was a real problem. We had a real problem.”
____
3:45 a.m.
Donald Trump aggressively tried to pin the nation’s economic and national security problems on Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate, belittling the former senator and secretary of state as a “typical politician” incapable of delivering the change many Americans crave.
But Trump found himself on the defensive for much of the 90-minute showdown Monday night. Clinton was thoroughly prepared, not only with detailed answers about her own policy proposals, but also sharp criticism of Trump’s business record, his past statements about women, and his false assertions that President Barack Obama may not have been born in the United States.
The Democrat also blasted Trump for his refusal to release his tax returns, breaking with decades of presidential campaign tradition.