US Presidential debate: Trump and Clinton fight a bitter battle

According to Huffington Post, the tone for the Presidential debate was set the moment  the two candidates met in the middle of the space, glared at each other and steadfastly refused to shake hands.

Trump, the Republican candidate told her Democrat rival that  she should be in jail, repeatedly called her a liar to her face, accused her husband of sexual predations and the former secretary of state of having sought to silence and punish the women involved.

In the debate, the two  interrupted each other often. Trump referred to Clinton as "the devil."

Denying that he had made any comment on a former miss universe, Trump asked  his Twitter followers to "check out sex tape" of her.

"It wasn't, 'Check out a sex tape,' " Trump said, saying instead that he wanted followers to examine the life of Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe.

His rival Hillary Clinton had brought her up in the previous debate, talking about a 1990s episode when Trump made a public spectacle of Machado's weight gain.

According to the Washington Post, Trump's message, sent out on Twitter on Sept. 30, was this: "Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?"

Clinton called “Donald” unqualified for the office, dangerously ignorant, a congenital liar, a tax cheat, a racist and a bully.

In what was the crudest moment, Trump said that Clinton had criminally mishandled her State Department emails, should be “in jail,” and vowed, if elected, to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her conduct in office.

"I didn't think I'd say this, but I'm going to say this, and I hate to say it, but if I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation," Trump said. "There's never been anything like it. And we're going to get a special prosecutor."

He proudly admitted that he had indeed used $916 million in tax write-offs against his income, but attacked Clinton for not changing the very law he used.

Clinton narrated in detail her policy victories on children’s health care and other issues, talked in detail about what the U.S. should and should not do in Syria.

She also attacked Trump, alleging that he was  “inciting violence” at his rallies and with his “racist lie” about President Barack Obama’s birth.

Trump said his proposal to ban foreign Muslims from entering the United States has "morphed," but the Republican nominee declined to give details about what it had morphed into, during Sunday night's presidential debate.

"The Muslim ban is something that, in some form, has morphed into an extreme vetting from certain areas of the world," Trump said, when asked if he had backed off the position.

The Washington Post reported that the  Republican nominee rejected a question that called his remarks about groping women - captured in a 2005 video - "sexual assault," during the second presidential debate on Sunday night.

"That is sexual assault. You bragged that you committed sexual assault," moderator Anderson Cooper said, and then asked Trump if he understood the implications of what he said.

"I didn't say that at all. I don't think you understood what was said. This was locker-room talk," Trump said. "Certainly I'm not proud of it. But this is locker-room talk."

Cooper kept on, asking Trump if he had actually committed the acts he alluded to in the video - which included kissing women without their consent, and groping women's genitals. Trump repeatedly sought to turn the subject to other subjects, including in some cases with seeming non-sequitor.

"I'm very embarrassed by it. I hate it. It's locker room talk," Trump said at one point. "I will knock the hell out of ISIS."

Clinton, in her response, said that she considered Trump different than past Republican nominees.

"I never questioned their fitness to serve. Donald Trump is different," she said. "What we all saw and heard on Friday was Donald talking about women, what he thinks about women, what he does to women, and he has said that the video doesn't represent who he is. . .It represents exactly who he is."

image: Wikimedia Commons