Source: Time

Hillary Clinton may have been facing Bernie Sanders at Wednesday’s debate, but in reality she was shadowboxing Donald Trump.

The Republican frontrunner, who was the only GOP candidate who had supporters rallying in front of the Democratic debate, was the 800-pound gorilla in the room. He was named outright more than a dozen times, and referenced in the answers that didn’t refer to him directly.

In responding to questions about billionaire businessman, Clinton gave hints of what her general election strategy might look like. She mocked Trump’s “beautiful tall wall” and derided his divisiveness. She drew clear differences in their trade and climate strategies. And Clinton portrayed herself as earnest and wonky and positive, running “an inclusive campaign,” versus the real estate mogul she said profits from promoting divisiveness.

The debate, the last one scheduled for now on the Democratic side, comes as Clinton and Trump seek to cement their leads and secure their parties’ nominations.

Read More: Full Text of the Eighth Democratic Debate in Miami

The Clinton campaign said in a call with reporters earlier Wednesday that they believed that after voting in states next week, including Florida, Ohio and Illinois, that its delegate lead over Sanders would become “insurmountable”—despite evidence that the Vermont Senator has shown his populism is resounding, particularly amongst blue collar workers in the Rust Belt who are also attracted to Trump.

Clinton’s top message was one of inclusiveness. She noted that she was the first person in the field to call Trump out for his outrageous language and pledged she would continue to do so. “When he was engaging in rhetoric that I found deeply offensive. I said basta,” she said. (Basta is Spanish forenough.) “Others are also joining in making clear that his rhetoric, his demagoguery, his trafficking in prejudice and paranoia has no place in our political system. Especially from somebody running for president who couldn’t decide whether or not to disavow the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke.”

And she drew the sharpest contrast yet with Trump by directly pledging to not deport children or their families. “You don’t make America great by getting rid of everything that made America great,” Clinton said. “ It’s un-American. What [Trump] has promoted isn’t at all in keeping with American values.”

Perhaps most significantly, Clinton made her case for a very nuanced trade policy. Both Sanders and Trump are more stridently anti-trade than Clinton, whose husband authored the North American Free Trade Agreement. And many attribute Clinton’s surprise loss in Michigan this week to voter unhappiness in that economically challenged state over trade and outsourcing.

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