Clinton and Trump intensify insults
Democrat Hillary Clinton has sought to keep Republican rival Donald Trump on the defensive after their first United States presidential debate with accusations that he is a sexist, racist and tax dodger, while Trump suggested he would ‘‘hit her harder’’ next time by bringing up her husband’s infidelity.
While the New York real estate mogul has found himself in another controversy, over fresh insults about the weight of a former beauty pageant winner, Clinton has tried to keep up the momentum after her forceful debate performance.
She told reporters yesterday that during the debate, Trump ‘‘was making charges and claims that were demonstrably untrue, offering opinions that I think a lot of people would find offensive and off-putting’’.
For his part, Trump, speaking at a rally in the battleground state of Florida, said of the debate: ‘‘On issue after issue, Secretary Clinton defended the terrible status quo, while I laid out our plan to bring jobs, security and prosperity back to the American people.’’
Tuesday’s faceoff between Clinton and Trump attracted a record TV audience for a US presidential debate. Nielsen data showed 84 million people watched, topping the 80.6 million viewers for the Jimmy Carter-Ronald Reagan debate in 1980.
Trump praised himself for not attacking Clinton during the debate about the marital infidelity of her husband, former president Bill Clinton, but said he could take up that line of attack in future.
There are two more debates scheduled, on October 9 in St Louis and October 19 in Las Vegas, ahead of the November 8 election.
‘‘I may hit her harder in certain ways. I really eased up because I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings,’’ Trump said.
He added that when Clinton criticised him for his treatment of women, he held back.
‘‘I was going to hit her with her husband’s women. And I decided I shouldn’t do it because her daughter was in the room.’’
Trump sought to deflect criticism of his debate performance, saying the debate moderator, Lester Holt of NBC News, asked him ‘‘very unfair questions’’, and that he was given a ‘‘very bad’’ microphone.
Clinton excoriated Trump during the debate in Hempstead, New York, for having called women ‘‘pigs, slobs and dogs’’.
Clinton, the first woman to win the presidential nomination of a major US political party, seemed to pique Trump when she brought up during the debate how Trump had insulted women, mentioning Venezuelan-born beauty queen Alicia Machado, who won the 1996 Miss Universe title and is now a US citizen.
Clinton said Trump called her ‘‘Miss Piggy’’ and also ‘‘Miss Housekeeping’’, because she was a Latina.
Trump levelled new and highly personal criticism at Machado yesterday.
‘‘She was the winner and she gained a massive amount of weight,’’ said Trump, the former owner of the Miss Universe pageants. ‘‘And it was a real problem. Not only that – her attitude – and we had a real problem with her.’’
Clinton also stepped up her criticism of Trump for refusing to release his tax returns, as presidential candidates have done for decades, and for saying during the debate that not paying federal income tax ‘‘makes me smart’’.
‘‘He actually bragged about gaming the system to get out of paying his fair share of taxes,’’ she said at a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, a pivotal state in the election.