Trump
threatens to jail Clinton as he fights dirty to keep campaign alive
Embattled
candidate goes on offensive with personal attacks but Democratic
rival accuses him of diverting attention from lewd tape as
Republicans desert him
Dan Roberts, Ben
Jacobs and Sabrina Siddiqui in St Louis
Monday 10 October
2016 05.19 BST
A 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 intense 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 that saw the Republican
nominee threaten to jail his opponent of elected president.
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.”
Hillary Clinton
makes a point during the debate. Photograph: ddp USA/Rex/Shutterstock
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.
Advertisement
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.”
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário