According to Nielsen, the most watched presidential debate in history before 2012 was the 1980 clash between President Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Monday night's debate is expected to beat that record, as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton faced off against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
The candidates did not spend much time talking about the main issue facing college students: the cost of tuition. Clinton mentioned that she wanted to provide free college education in her opening statement, but the topic was not brought up again.
Instead, the candidates focused on jobs, race relations and foreign policy.
Still, the debate had plenty of big moments that had a big impact on social media.
At one point, Clinton claimed that Trump said that global warning was a hoax created by China. Trump denied the claim at the debate, but Twitter users quickly retweeted a Trump tweet from 2012:
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012
The debate was a bit out of control at first, with the candidates talking over each other and often moving away from the questions asked by the moderator, Lester Holt.
"I'm going to be blamed for everything that ever happened," Clinton said after one Trump response.
"Why not?" Trump responded to laughter from the audience.
On race relations, Clinton said that African-Americans are treated unfairly and that trust needs to be restored between them and the police. Trump called for a resumption of stop-and-frisk, the controversial New York City law enforcement policy that Trump claimed lowered crime.
Trump also said he would release his tax returns if Clinton released her emails.
Whether or not the debate will break rating records, it was a hit on Twitter, with debate-related topics dominating the U.S. trending topics. At times the debate seemed too ridiculous to be real for some viewers.
this is the longest snl cold open ive ever seen
— sarah haluska (@sarahhaluska) September 27, 2016
Early in the debate, Trump's sniffling dominated the conversation, and quickly led to the creation of a novelty account.
*sniff*
— Trump Sniff (@TrumpSniff) September 27, 2016
After the debate, there was no clear winner. But many felt as though neither candidate won, a sign of the remarkably low popularity ratings of Clinton and Trump.
AMERICA WATCHING THE DEBATE TONIGHT LIKE pic.twitter.com/qJ2HGn1K5I
— NO CHILL (@NoChillPosts) September 26, 2016
