Donald Trump lurks behind Hillary Clinton as she answers a question from the audience. (photo: Rick Wilking/Reuters)
10 October 16
cornered Donald Trump prowled the presidential debate stage on Sunday,
threatening to jail an opponent he called “the devil” in a last-ditch
bid to staunch his hemorrhaging campaign hopes.
Swaying malevolently behind Hillary Clinton as she
parried attacks on everything from her husband’s sex life to Wall Street
and her foreign policy judgment, the Republican dominated the night but
made little effort to seduce new voters.
Instead, he began the night by assembling a group of
women in a press conference to revisit alleged sexual assaults by Bill
Clinton, before confronting his opponent hardest on her private email
server.
“OK Donald, I know you are into big diversion
tonight,” shot back Clinton. “Anything to get away from your campaign
and how Republicans are deserting you.”
“Everything you have heard from Donald just now is not
true. I am sorry to keep saying this but he lives in an alternative
reality,” she added.
The Democratic frontrunner fired off occasional
attacks of her own, accusing Trump of being in the pocket of Vladimir
Putin, but looked rattled by the brutal onslaught over her record in
office.
Trump, embracing the spirit of the “lock her up” mob
chants at his rallies, threatened: “If I win I am going to instruct my
attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation
– there has never been so many lies and so much deception,” he
threatened.
Clinton said it was “awfully good” that someone with
the temperament of Trump was not in charge of the law in the country,
provoking another Trump jab: “Because you’d be in jail.”
“She got caught in a total lie and now she is blaming
the lie on the late, great Abraham Lincoln,” added Trump as Clinton
attempted to defend leaked Wall Street speech transcripts.
The Republican’s leonine menace even turned on the
moderators at Washington University, demanding half a dozen times why
they were interrupting him but not asking tougher questions of Clinton.
Within moments of the candidates meeting on stage –
without shaking hands – the night sank into an ugly war of words between
two nominees devoid of civility, a spectacle unlike any presidential
debate in recent memory.
After briefly sticking to general talking points about
Barack Obama’s record and the need to “make America great again”, Trump
was easily baited into a contentious exchange with Clinton.
The sparring followed shortly after Trump was asked to
address the recently leaked 2005 video which captured him bragging
about groping women without their consent.
The former reality TV star
apologized, saying he was “embarrassed by it”, but brushed off as
“locker room talk” the unguarded content that has sent dozens of
Republican lawmakers fleeing from his candidacy.
“I have great respect for women. Nobody has more respect for women than I do,” Trump said.
Clinton responded that the leaked video revealed “what he thinks about women, what he does to women”.
“He has said that the video doesn’t represent who he
is. But I think it’s clear to anyone who heard it that it represents
exactly who he is,” Clinton said.
“With prior Republican nominees for president, I
disagreed with them. Politics, policies, principles … but I never
questioned their fitness to serve,” she added. “Donald Trump is
different.”
The real estate mogul was visibly fuming, scowling and
pacing as Clinton spoke. Shedding any semblance of contrition over the
video, Trump pounced on the indiscretions of Bill Clinton while raising
unproven accusations that the former president had assaulted women.
“There’s never been anybody in the history of politics
that’s been so abusive to women,” Trump said. “Mine are words and his
are action.”
Declining to hit back, Clinton invoked first lady
Michelle Obama’s memorable speech at the Democratic national convention
in July: “When they go low, we go high.”
But Trump was in no mood to switch gears. His
rejoinder to Clinton’s criticism of Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants,
Muslims, prisoners of war and women was to falsely pin conspiracy
theories surrounding Obama’s birthplace on Clinton’s 2008 campaign –
even though Trump rose to political prominence on a crusade to obtain
the president’s birth certificate.
The debate turned even chillier as the topic turned to
Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state – and
Trump’s bulldozing attack caused damage.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Trump told his rival, jabbing his finger repeatedly in her direction.
Clinton once again attacked Trump for his praise for
Vladimir Putin and noted the repeated cyber-attacks by Russian-backed
hackers in an attempt to influence the election. “The Kremlin, meaning
Putin and the Russian government are directing attacks on American
accounts to influence our election. WikiLeaks is part of that,” said
Clinton. She added: “Never in history has a foreign power [worked] so
hard to influence outcome of election.”
Trump responded by suggesting “maybe there is no
hacking” and disclaimed any ties to Russia. “I don’t know Putin, I think
it would be great if we got along with Russia but I don’t know Putin.”
He went to insist: “I know nothing about Russia.”
Only right at the end of a verbally violent 90 minutes
was there a brief truce when the candidates were asked to name one
positive thing about each other. “I respect his children,” said Clinton
after first throwing back her head and laughing.
“She doesn’t quit,” responded Trump. “She doesn’t give up. She’s a fighter and I consider that to be a very good trait.”
While the debate was widely characterized as both
bitter and nasty, Clinton’s campaign was confident voters were capable
of discerning the difference between the two candidates.
“There was only one president on the stage tonight,” Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon told reporters in the spin room.
“There was only one person that showed the demeanor, the temperament, the resolve and the discipline to actually be president.”
He then added of Trump: “Everything from his
meandering answers on policy, which showed a complete lack of
understanding on important issues like Syria and healthcare, to his body
language on stage where he was menacingly stalking her during parts of
her answers suggested that this is not someone with the temperament to
be president of the United States.”
Jason Miller, senior communications adviser to the
Republican campaign argued that when Trump “turned the Honest Abe
question around on Mrs Clinton that was a knockout”.
Trump supporters in the spin room also stood by their
candidate in the wake of the latest audio revelations. Ben Carson, a
former primary season rival of the Republican nominee, insisted that
when Trump made those remarks “that was a very different time in his
life and at that time he was a billionaire playboy and the language that
he used was consistent with that”.
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani also dismissed the
wave of Republicans who had announced in the past 48 hours that they
were no longer voting for Trump. “Sometimes Republicans get a little
weak-kneed,” said Giuliani. “I happen to be a Republican with very
strong knees.”
Only two Republican officials were in the spin room to
praise Trump’s performance, longtime Trump ally Senator Jeff Sessions
and congressman Jason Smith of Missouri. When asked about the paucity of
Republican elected officials defending Trump after the debate, Smith
told the Guardian: “I am reminded of what my grandfather told me that
‘people will hurt you a lot to help themselves a little’ and elected
officials that are willing to go out and have kneejerk reactions when
they are losing the focus of issues, that is the problem.”
The Missouri Republican went on to dismiss those who
have abandoned Trump, adding: “Most of the people who have been leaving
were last to arrive and first to leave and what we have to know and
remember as a party that we are fighting for principles and issues and
don’t make personality such a big part.”
Nigel Farage, interim leader of the UK Independence
Party, was also in the spin room to defend Trump and attack Clinton as a
threat to democracy. “If you value democracy and if you value being in
control of your own destiny then you have to reject Hillary Clinton’s
ideas. Simple,” said Farage.
An hour before the debate started, Trump sought to
distract attention away a newly released recording of him boasting of
molesting women by staging a surprise stunt to highlight claims once
made against his opponent’s husband.
Despite recently claiming that he would rather the
second presidential debate be about “policy” rather than “in the
gutter”, the Republican nominee held the extraordinary three-minute
press event with four women who have accused Bill and Hillary Clinton of
wrongdoing. One of them claimed, “Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary
Clinton threatened me.”
Speaking in a conference room to handful of reporters
in an event aired on Facebook Live, Trump appeared with Paula Jones,
Juanita Broaddrick, Kathy Shelton and Kathleen Willey. Three of the four
women have claimed inappropriate sexual contact with Bill Clinton,
which he has denied. Shelton was the victim of a 1975 rape where Hillary
Clinton was assigned by an Arkansas court to represent her assailant.
The women took turns in speaking after Trump praised them as very courageous. They then joined him in the debate hall as guests.
“We’re not surprised to see Donald Trump continue his
destructive race to the bottom,” said Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer
Palmieri in response to the press conference.
“Hillary Clinton understands the opportunity in this
town hall is to talk to voters on stage and in the audience about the
issues that matter to them, and this stunt doesn’t change that.”
The press stunt came just 48 hours after a tape was released of Trump making obscene boasts
about using his fame to kiss and grope women without their consent. The
tape caught Trump on a live microphone with then-Access Hollywood host
Billy Bush in 2005, and includes the statement “I am automatically
attracted to beautiful women. I just start kissing them. It’s like a
magnet. Just kiss, I don’t even wait … and when you’re a star they let
you do it. You can do anything.” Trump, who was then 59 years old and
newly married to his third wife, Melania, added “Grab them by the pussy.
You can do anything.”
Although the Republican nominee issued a videotaped apology after midnight on Friday, the mounting controversy has led to a growing number of Republicans to announce that they will not vote for Trump in November. These included the party’s 2008 nominee, John McCain,
as well as a number of other senators in tight re-election battles
including Rob Portman of Ohio and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire.
Many have argued in favour of letting Trump’s running
mate, Indiana’s governor, Mike Pence, fight the remainder of the
election against Clinton, even though such a scenario remains highly
unlikely under Republican party regulations.
Trump is struggling to overcome deep scepticism among
women voters, which has led to plummeting poll numbers in recent days
and risks putting his chances of winning the presidency out of reach.
Clinton appeared to be in a jovial mood following the
debate, chatting and laughing with husband Bill and members of her staff
at the front of her plane back to New York.
Before departing St Louis, she came back to talk to reporters.
Asked if she was aware of Trump standing behind her as
she answered questions, Clinton let out a laugh. “I could tell, yes,”
she said. “Well, it was a very small space and I tried to give him space
when he was talking to people. I would go back and lean up against my
stool, but he was very present.”
She added: “I was surprised by the absolute avalanche
of falsehoods. I really find it almost unimaginable that someone could
stand and just tell falsehood after falsehood.
“You all remember Politifact said that he was the most
untruthful candidate they’d ever evaluated … I think they said he was
70% untruthful and so I think he exceeded that percentage tonight.”
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