Broken mic, biased MC, disadvantageous to Trump?

Republican candidate Donald Trump says organizers gave him a broken microphone during his first debate with rival Hillary Clinton.

Republican candidate Donald Trump answers questions from the press after the debate. Photo: AP.

Speaking to reporters shortly after the debate ended, billionaire Donald Trump accused the organizers of deliberately giving him a faulty microphone, according to Le Monde.

"I wonder if this was an accident," Mr. Trump emphasized.

In addition, the real estate billionaire also criticized the moderator for being biased towards Mrs. Clinton. The moderator of the debate was accused of only focusing on issues that were unfavorable to Donald Trump, while not mentioning Hillary Clinton's scandals.

Lester Holt, moderator of the first Trump-Clinton debate. Photo: NBC.

Lester Holt, 57, is a famous American journalist who has worked for major programs such as Dateline NBC, Today. His current role is as host of NBC Nightly News, attracting millions of viewers every night.

He was accused of political bias a week before the debate. Mr Trump called him a Democrat and complained about an “unfair system”. But a check of voter records showed Mr Holt was actually a registered Republican.

Heat Street commented that in the debate, Mr. Trump not only had to confront Mrs. Clinton, but also Mr. Holt.

The site writes that Mr. Holt did not ask about Mrs. Clinton's email scandal, the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya when she was US Secretary of State, and the Clinton Foundation (Ms. Clinton is suspected of favoring donors to the foundation).

Meanwhile, Mr. Holt continuously dug into issues that were unfavorable to Mr. Trump, such as the billionaire's doubts about US President Obama's birthplace, his opinions on women, his bankruptcies, his failure to release his tax records, and a host of other issues.

Mr. Holt also tried to fact-check some of Mr. Trump’s arguments, such as the billionaire’s claim that he opposed the Iraq war. Mr. Holt repeatedly tried to interrupt Mr. Trump to interject, but often failed.

Toward the end of the debate, Holt asked Trump what he meant by Clinton being “unpresidential.” Holt did so after noting that Clinton had become the first woman to be nominated by a major party for president, which some viewers might have interpreted as an attempt to make Trump appear sexist. When Trump responded, Holt interrupted and then gave Clinton a chance to respond with points about the billionaire’s past comments about women.

"Lester Holt clearly favors Mrs. Clinton," Tim Clark, Mr. Trump's campaign manager, wrote on Twitter.

"Almost all of Mr. Holt's efforts to dig deeper and fact-check were aimed at Mr. Trump, not Mrs. Clinton," commented Fox News host Howard Kurtz.

Vox's graphic shows that during the debate, Mrs. Clinton was interrupted 70 times, but the main interrupter was Mr. Trump (51 times), while Holt only interrupted her 19 times. When Mr. Trump spoke, Holt interrupted him 30 times, while Mrs. Hillary only interrupted her opponent 17 times.

Number of times the two candidates were interrupted during the debate. Graphic: Vox.

"No mention of the email scandal. No mention of the Clinton Foundation being bought. And no mention of Benghazi," Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter after the debate.

However, when asked by reporters at the debate venue, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Holt.

"I think Lester Holt did a good job," the billionaire said.

According to VNE