Donald
Trump refuses to say if he will accept election result in final
debate
Hillary
Clinton calls Republican nominee’s unprecedented refusal
‘horrifying’ in debate that saw heated clashes over abortion,
immigration and gun rights
Paul
Lewis, Ben Jacobs and Sabrina Siddiqui in Las Vegas
Thursday
20 October 2016 04.35 BST
Donald Trump used
the final presidential debate with Hillary Clinton to declare he
would keep the country “in suspense” over whether he would accept
the outcome of November’s election.
The Republican
nominee’s refusal to endorse the results of the election, unheard
of in American history, capped a fractious debate in which he clashed
with Clinton over abortion, gun rights, immigration and foreign
policy.
In one of the final
exchanges Trump called his rival for the White House “such a nasty
woman” after she attacked his personal record on paying no income
tax for years.
However, it was
Trump’s refusal to accept the outcome of an election he is
currently projected to lose that will stand out from Wednesday
night’s ill-tempered clash.
“I will look at it
at the time,” Trump said, when pressed by Fox News moderator Chris
Wallace, who pointed out Trump was breaking with centuries of
peaceful transition of power. “I will keep you in suspense,”
Trump said.
Clinton described
her rival’s refusal to accept the outcome of the election, which
takes place in less than three weeks, as “horrifying”, and even
went so far as to paint him as a “puppet” of Russian president
Vladimir Putin.
“He is denigrating
and he is is talking down our democracy,” said the former secretary
of state. “And I, for one, am appalled that someone who is the
nominee of one of two major parties would take that position.”
“Every time Donald
thinks things are not going in his direction, he claims whatever it
is is rigged against him,” said Clinton, adding that he has, at
various times, accused the FBI, Republican primary process and
judicial system of being corrupt.
“There was even a
time when he didn’t get an Emmy for his TV program three years in a
row and he started tweeting that the Emmys were rigged.”
“Should have
gotten it!” Trump interjected.
People in the debate
auditorium laughed at that interruption from the Republican nominee,
one of several occasions when the audience erupted, contrary to a
request they stay silent.
On another, there
were sniggers when Trump insisted: “Nobody has more respect for
women that I do, nobody.”
However Trump’s
treatment of women was once again on trial in a debate in which he
interrupted his opponent mid-flow to claim she was “such a nasty
woman”.
Clinton has a
six-point lead in an average of national polls, and is ahead of Trump
almost all of the key battleground states needed to win the White
House.
The bad blood
between the candidates was unmistakeable throughout their final
head-to-head – and pointedly there was no handshake before or after
the contest.
Asked about the nine
women who have come forward to accuse Trump of the sexually predatory
behavior he bragged about in a 2005 video leaked earlier this month,
Trump insisted they were all either seeking “10 minutes of fame”
or had been had been somehow orchestrated by Clinton’s campaign.
“Those stories are
all totally false – I have to say that,” Trump said. “And I
didn’t even apologize to my wife who is sitting right here because
I didn’t do anything.”
Pointing out how
Trump has publicly denigrated his accusers, Clinton said: “Donald
thinks belittling women makes him bigger. He goes after their
dignity, their self-worth, and I don’t think there is a woman
anywhere doesn’t know what that feels like.”
One of the women to
level accusations at Trump, Jill Harth, who gave an extensive
interview to Guardian US, tweeted mid-debate: “Trump lied and lied
again,” adding: “He says he doesn’t know any of the women.
Well, he definitely knew me.”
Another exchange
from Trump likely to alienate some women, but one apparently intended
to court the evangelical, stemmed from a discussion about the future
shape of the US supreme court, which has had an unfilled vacancy
since conservative Antonin Scalia’s death in February.
Trump portrayed
himself as a candidate who would protect the second amendment right
to keep and bear arms and said Roe v Wade, the historic ruling in
1973 that legalized abortion in the US, would “automatically” be
overturned if he were elected because of his commitment to pro-life
justices.
The Republican
characterized Clinton’s position as one that would “rip the baby
out of the womb of the mother” just days before a pregnancy. “You
can say that that is OK and Hillary can say that that is OK, but it’s
not OK with me.”
Clinton countered
that Trump’s “scare rhetoric is just terribly unfortunate”,
while setting out her view in favor of women’s reproductive rights.
“I can tell you the government has no business in the decisions
that women make with their families in accordance with their rights,”
she said.
The third debate was
not as one-sided as the opening televised contest between the two
candidates, in which Clinton was by most accounts declared the
winner.
Neither was it as
personal as the second debate, in which the candidates clashed in
some of the most brutal exchanges ever seen on a presidential stage.
However the final
debate before the election was heated and at times bizarre, making
plain the differences in policy and style between the two candidates
– who spoke in grave terms about the consequences of their
adversaries in the White House.
Trump spoke in stark
terms about immigration, the touchstone of his campaign, saying there
were mothers in the audience whose children had been “brutally
killed” by undocumented immigrants. He promised to stem what he
characterized as an avalanche of people and heroin coming across the
border, which he said was “poisoning the blood” of young
Americans.
Trump reiterated his
call for a wall on the US-Mexico border and saying of his plans to
deport undocumented immigrants: “We have some bad hombres here that
were going to get them out.”
Clinton reiterated
her position of allowing undocumented immigrants to come out of the
shadows, and mocked Trump for failing to mention his signature wall
during his meeting with the Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto
over the summer. “He choked,” she said.
She also delivered a
wounding line telling him that there were “undocumented immigrants
in America who are paying more federal income tax than a
billionaire.”
The Democratic
nominee was pressed over a disclosure in emails leaked via WikiLeaks,
the whistleblower website, which revealed she had said her dream was
for a “hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders”
during a speech to a Brazilian bank.
Sidestepping the
question, Clinton deftly pivoted to Russia’s apparent involvement
in the US election by allegedly hacking the emails of her campaign
manager and passing them to WikiLeaks.
She insisted “the
most important question of this evening” was whether Trump would
condemn president Vladimir Putin’s “unprecedented” attempt to
interfere in the US election, which she said had been confirmed by 17
intelligence agencies.
When she challenged
Trump to disavow Putin’s support, he replied: “I don’t know
Putin. He said nice things about me. If we got along well, that would
be good.”
“That’s because
he would rather have a puppet as president of the United States,”
Clinton shot back.
“No puppet,”
Trump replied. “You’re the puppet.”
Trump added that
Clinton has “no idea if it’s Russia, China, or anyone else” who
was behind the hacking, apparently contradicting the reported
briefings he has received from security official fingering Putin’s
regime.
Trump added: “She
doesn’t like Putin because Putin has outsmarted at every step of
the way.”
One section of the
WikiLeaks disclosures Trump sought to capitalize on was an email in
which her campaign manager appeared to question the Democratic
candidate’s instincts.
“WikiLeaks just
actually came out John Podesta said some horrible things about you
and boy was he right,” Trump said. “He said some beauties.”
Trump, who is being
opposed by many senior Republicans, also tried to fuel the impression
that Clinton is also opposed by her former Democratic rival.
“Bernie Sanders
said you have bad judgment,” he said. “I agree.”
Clinton countered
that Sanders has been campaigning for her across the country, warning
voters the Republican candidate is “the most dangerous person to
run for president in the modern history of America.” She added: “I
think he’s right.”
There are 20 days
left before election day, but Wednesday’s debate was the last
occasion both candidates were scheduled to share the stage, marking
the final stretch in one of the most wildly unpredictable
presidential races of modern times.
It has been one that
has been dominated, throughout, by the former reality TV star, who
opened the first primary debate 14 months ago by brazenly declaring
“politicians are stupid” and threatening to ditch the GOP and run
as an independent.
His refusal to
accept the outcome of the election at the debate in Las Vegas was
perhaps his last throw of the dice. But it is a move the Clinton camp
is likely to exploit in the closing weeks of its campaign.
“Nobody,
Republican or Democrat, can support him going around trying to
question the integrity of our elections,” said Clinton’s campaign
spokesman Brian Fallon said, adding that Trump was jeopardizing “the
peaceful transition of power that has been a long running tradition
and is an important democratic institution in this country.”
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