Clinton makes it personal
Trump forced on the defensive as he is accused over racism, sexism and taxes
DONALD TRUMP has sought to pin America’s economic and national security problems on Hillary Clinton after finding himself on the defensive for much of the first US presidential debate.
The Republican nominee belittled the former US senator and secretary of state as a “typical politician” incapable of delivering the change many Americans crave.
Mr Trump also accused moderator Lester Holt of a left-leaning performance and going harder on him than Mrs Clinton – even floating the theory that organisers had intentionally given him a faulty microphone to set him up.
Democratic nominee Mrs Clinton was thoroughly prepared in the debate, not only with detailed answers about her own policy proposals, but also sharp criticism of Mr Trump’s business record, his past statements about women, and his false assertions that president Barack Obama may not have been born in the United States.
She said his charges about Mr Obama were part of the Republican hopeful’s pattern of “racist behaviour.”
The Democrat also slated Mr Trump for his refusal to release his tax returns, breaking with decades of presidential campaign tradition. She declared: “There’s something he’s hiding.”
Mr Trump has said he cannot release his tax returns because he is being audited, though tax experts have said an audit is no barrier to making the information public.
When Mrs Clinton suggested her rival’s refusal may be because he paid nothing in federal taxes, he interrupted to say: “That makes me smart.”
The debate was confrontational from the start, with Mr Trump frequently trying to interrupt Mrs Clinton and speaking over her answers. Mr Trump’s criticism of Mrs Clinton turned personal in the debate’s closing moments.
He said: “She doesn’t have the look, she doesn’t have the stamina (to be president).”
Mrs Clinton leapt at the opportunity to remind voters of Mr Trump’s controversial comments about women, who will be crucial to the outcome of the November election.
“This is a man who has called women pigs, slobs and dogs,” she said.
Mr Trump later responded to a reference in the debate to his comments about a 1996 Miss Universe winner who was said to have gained weight after she won the beauty pageant which he formerly owned.
Donald Trump said it was a “real problem” when Alicia Machado gained significant weight, adding that among the past winners, she had been the “worst we ever had”.
Mr Trump was responding to Mrs Clinton’s claim he called Ms Machado “Miss Piggy”, though her rival repeatedly challenged her over where she had heard that remark.
The centrepiece of Mr Trump’s case against Mrs Clinton was that the former senator and secretary of state is little more than a career politician who has squandered opportunities to address the domestic and international problems she is now pledging to tackle as president.
“She’s got experience,” he said, “but it’s bad experience.”
The candidates sparred over trade, taxes and how to bring wellpaid jobs back to the United States.
Mrs Clinton said Mr Trump was too easily provoked and could quickly draw the US into a war involving nuclear weapons.