Exactly what I think. Strong suspicion on it being racist because she really strangely let him off on his rants about blacks and Latinos.
They know he got nothing to lose going into the debate so didn't want to get down and dirty too much, take the hit, let him win a bit of respite and drop the bomb after the 3rd debate.
Yeah, I think that sounds spot on and makes an awful lot of sense. It backs up the theory that she didn't want to finish him tonight because he would get replaced.