The bombshell Donald Trump video that surfaced Friday has so dramatically altered expectations for Sunday’s town hall debate that one Democrat close to Bill and Hillary Clinton had a new view of what may unfold in St. Louis: “Expect Armageddon.”

Hillary Clinton will arrive at the Washington University debate stage Sunday prepped for battle against an opponent many of her allies believe has already lost the election.


Trump, in contrast, will walk onto the debate stage with nothing to lose.

Two days after a tape surfaced of the reality television star bragging in obscene terms about groping and kissing women without consent, and a day after unprecedented defections of support and calls for his withdrawal from leaders of his own party, the second debate now falls at the most precipitous moment in the election.

That puts Clinton in a more precarious position on the debate stage. “I think that Trump will figure he’s got nothing to lose, so he might as well go all out,” said the Democrat close to the Clintons.

Longtime Democratic strategist Robert Shrum, who guided the presidential campaigns of Al Gore and John Kerry, said that “to the extent that he has any chance left at all — and I don’t think he does — this debate is do or die for him. Her goal is to do no harm and relate to voters.”

A Clinton campaign official on Saturday said the Democratic nominee plans to address the bombshell Trump tape head-on for the first time from the debate stage — and that the campaign went dark on Saturday in order to capitalize on one of the biggest audiences available with 30 days left of the race, tuned in to hear her response.

But in debate prep sessions in the week leading up to the debate, Clinton aides were urging the Democratic nominee to remain focused on the real people posing questions in the town hall forum, rather than engage in an ugly back and forth with Trump. The goal, they said, should be to show off the caring, connecting, maternal side of Clinton that voters are less familiar with than the steely war horse who endured an 11-hour Benghazi hearing last fall.

But the weekend’s events have upended any expectation of a normal debate. In a video statement released late Friday night, Trump said that “Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary Clinton has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims. We will discuss this more in the coming days.”

On Saturday evening, Trump previewed his nothing-to-lose strategy — he retweeted Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who accused Bill Clinton of raping her in 1978. Bill Clinton has denied the accusation, which Broaddrick made in 1999, in the wake of his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Clinton was also preparing to respond to questions about her paid Wall Street speeches, which emerged on WikiLeaks after campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails were hacked. In one line, she stressed the importance of having a “public and private position” on contentious political issues. A source familiar with her debate prep said she plans to dismiss any scrutiny of the leaked excerpts from her speech as no different from what she has said in public.

But many Democratic allies predicted that bringing up Bill Clinton’s sex scandals only paints his wife in a sympathetic position, as someone who has struggled and suffered to keep her family together as a unit. Even if Trump argues that she disparaged the women who allegedly engaged in affairs with her husband, they said, many voters will see her through the lens of a hurt wife lashing out.

But a down-in-the-gutter conversation about sex and speeches is still not how the Clinton campaign would like to spend 90 minutes in prime time, with millions of viewers tuned in.

“The challenge, and the opportunity, will be to connect with people in a visceral and not simply a programmatic way,” said David Axelrod, a former senior strategist for President Barack Obama. “The danger is that she could overplay the attacks in a forum in which her interaction with the questioners should be a primary focus.”

“Voters identify with the citizens asking the questions,” added longtime Clinton ally Paul Begala, who is working as an adviser to the Clinton-backing super PAC Priorities USA. “I would bet my life that she talks about her 19-point plan on child care. What I’m wishing and praying for is, she makes a reference to the fact that she was a working mom. You’ve got to be more conversational.”

Before Trump’s weekend massacre, Clinton’s aides were hoping the town hall set up would be an opportunity for the oft-obscured “real Hillary” to reveal herself.

They pointed to a moment last February in Las Vegas, when Clinton comforted an emotional 10-year-old Latina girl who said she feared her parents were going to be deported, as one of her finest moments on the trail. “I’m going to do everything I can so you don’t have to be scared,” Clinton told Karla Ortiz, wrapping her arm around the girl’s waist. “Let me do the worrying, I’ll do all the worrying, is that a deal?”

Clinton aides often refer to the scene (which occurred in a private meeting and was released by the campaign as a carefully produced television commercial) as a prime example of the side of the Democratic nominee that voters don’t know exists.

More important than attacking Trump, Democratic allies said, was creating an “Ortiz moment,” which could give undecided voters a sense of something positive to vote for, not just someone to vote against.

Even before the release of Trump’s profane tape, in which he talks of grabbing women by the “pussy” and trying to seduce a married woman by “moving on her like a bitch,” Clinton was entering the second debate surging in the polls. The FiveThirtyEight election forecast had boosted her chances of winning back up to 79.6 percent before the damaging Trump tape release, and a new Quinnipiac University poll released Friday morning showed Clinton leading Trump nationally by 5 points.

That lead has given some of her longtime aides pause: if the past is prelude, this is exactly when Clinton chokes.

“She has, historically been a really horrible front-runner,” conceded one veteran of her 2008 campaign. “She’s extremely cautious and risk-averse, and it causes her, ironically, to make mistakes.” Another longtime aide added: "Finishing the deal has been hard for her in many contexts. Nobody in her universe is fully confident until it’s actually over.”

But the Trump tape changes the stakes. Clinton has never in her long career been this close to the finish line. And she has never had an opponent falling apart because of his aggressive and disparaging remarks about women: She now also has the opportunity to stand as a powerful avatar for disgusted and depressed women across the country.

It’s a role she has, in the past, hesitated to play. In her presidential campaign eight years ago, Clinton downplayed her gender, often saying that she “was not running as a woman” but “because I believe I am the best-qualified and experienced person.”

But on Saturday, her campaign released a powerful 90-second video online, splicing Trump’s profane comments from the leaked video with other misogynistic statements he has made over the course of his campaign. “Women have the power to stop Trump,” Clinton’s campaign tweeted from the candidate’s official account, with a link to the Web video.

The official campaign Twitter account also tweeted a quote from Sen. Cory Booker: “Sometimes the man in the arena, it ain’t a man. It is a woman.”

The events of the weekend were a boon to Clinton’s campaign, but also required re-prepping. Clinton’s aides had been reviewing tape of Trump in town hall settings and video of his deposition from June, in order to prepare for a more toned-down version of the blustering real estate mogul.

But on Saturday, longtime Clinton allies said they expected Trump was more likely to use the debate as a last-ditch effort to save his candidacy — and if that didn't work, possibly get out of the race and turn it over to Mike Pence to defeat Clinton.

The campaign’s attorney, Marc Elias, and campaign manager Robby Mook were huddling Saturday to discuss that possibility, but Elias said that it was too late to replace Trump on state ballots and he would be the candidate, no matter what, on Election Day.

Trump, meanwhile, was putting on a strong face, even in the wake of unprecedented defections from top GOP senators and party leaders. On Saturday afternoon, he strode out of Trump Tower to wave to a crowd of supporters gathered on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

“The media and establishment want me out of the race so badly — I WILL NEVER DROP OUT OF THE RACE, WILL NEVER LET MY SUPPORTERS DOWN #MAGA” he tweeted Saturday afternoon.

And those Republicans who were still standing with him previewed a come-from-behind performance. “Donald Trump is a clutch player who does well when he’s under pressure,” said Roger Stone, a former adviser to his campaign. “Any mistakes he makes are more likely when his guard is down and it’s casual.”