When President Obama sparred with Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential debates, hundreds of thousands of memes were spawned from the mentions of “binders full of women” and “horses and bayonets.”
That seems almost quaint now.
Many Americans watching the first 2016 presidential debate Monday night at Hofstra University zeroed in on sniffling noises coming from Donald J. Trump. In less time than it takes to set up a Twitter account — about two minutes these days, give or take a few seconds — the sniffling inspired speculation about his health, a crop of nose-first spoof Twitter accounts,hashtags and a few vaguely unsettling YouTube compilations.
Two weeks after Hillary Clinton’s health became the center of attention after she came down with pneumonia — “Something’s going on,” Mr. Trump said ominously — observers wondered if Mr. Trump was suffering from an illness, as well.
And though observers had no evidence of the cause of Mr. Trump’s sniffling, observers also indelicately referred to possible symptoms of cocaine use, including a widely shared tweet from Howard Dean, the former Democratic governor of Vermont who ran for president in 2004.
The world of late-night television also seized the opportunity to joke about drugs. Stephen Colbert, for example, in a live broadcast of “The Late Show” on CBS, analyzed Mr. Trump’s performance with the zinger: “He sounded like a coked-up best man in the bathroom at a wedding.”
After the debate, Mr. Trump appeared to blame a defective microphone for the sniffling, according to a video posted to Twitter by Mosheh Oinounou, a CBS journalist.
“They also gave me a defective mike,” Mr. Trump said to a crowd of reporters. “Did you notice that? My mike was defective. I wonder was that on purpose.”
Hours later, Mr. Trump reversed course:
“No, no sniffles. You know, the mike was very bad, but maybe it was good enough to hear breathing,” he said in an interview with “Fox and Friends.” “But no sniffles. No cold.”
In an email on Tuesday, Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, denied that the Republican nominee was sick and reitereated the assertion about the microphone.
“He has no cold or ailments,” Ms. Hicks wrote. “As noted by Mr. Trump, he experienced a few minor issues with his microphone, which may have contributed to these noises.”
It was clear that Mr. Trump was trying to shift focus from matters concerning his sinuses. In a series of tweets after the debate, he declared himself the winner.
But Mrs. Clinton was not ready to let him declare victory so easily.
“Anyone who complains about microphone problems is not having a good night,” her campaign wrote on Twitter.
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