The key topics Holt did not bring up

HEMPSTEAD, New York. — As he prepared for the crucial first presidential debate, Donald Trump knew moderator Lester Holt would bring up the birther issue. He knew Holt would raise Trump’s tax returns. And his old position on the Iraq War. None are among the voters’ top concerns, but it was eminently predictable that they would be part of the debate.

But Trump might not have predicted that Holt would leave some equally, if not more, important topics untouched. There was Obamacare, currently veering toward crisis. Immigration, including a proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Clinton Foundation. Benghazi. Certainly a moderator can’t cover everything, but those were some pretty big omissions.

Holt deserves blame for not bringing them up. But on the other hand, that is where a candidate’s preparation comes in.

“The wall is a very important issue, and I am surprised that it wasn’t brought up, frankly,” one of Trump’s key supporters and advisers, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), said after the debate. “Also, they didn’t bring up the Clinton Foundation. I mean, goodness gracious. So I thought there were a number of issues that could have been brought up that would have been troubling for Secretary Clinton that were not brought up.”

Trump began the debate well. He approached Clinton aggressively and made his case on the issue of lost American jobs. Clinton countered with a tired-sounding critique of what she called “Trumped-up trickle-down” economics, and an equally tired spiel on policies like heavily-subsidized clean energy as a partial fix for an ailing economy. Things were moving in Trump’s direction.

“Independents are closer to Trump than to Hillary,” tweeted GOP strategist Frank Luntz, who was holding a focus group watching the debate in Philadelphia. “Trump is doing better with undecideds than even with Trump-leaners. He is actually winning.”

But not for long. Trump went on and on about his taxes. Worse, he did not refute Clinton’s charge — reminiscent of Harry Reid’s no-evidence attack on Mitt Romney in 2012 — that Trump pays no federal income taxes. Then Trump took the bait on birtherism. And then Iraq. As the debate progressed, Trump got more and more bogged down, and less and less disciplined.

Yes, Trump had some good moments. He scored on the two highest voter-interest issues, jobs and national security, and that’s no small accomplishment. He also hit Clinton hard when she pulled out her talking point that she had made “a mistake” by creating a secret, unsecure email system as Secretary of State.

Trump’s problem was that he didn’t have a lot of really good moments because he spent so much time talking about taxes, birtherism and Iraq. The Clinton team wanted to distract him, to keep him on topics that hurt him — and away from topics that hurt her.

Meanwhile, those topics that could have done Trump a lot of good if handled well — Obamacare, immigration and the wall, the Clinton Foundation, Benghazi — were left untouched. Yes, blame Lester Holt for not bringing them up. But blame Donald Trump more for not taking matters into his own hands.