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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Tom McCarthy

Second US presidential debate – as it happened

Highlights from the second presidential debate: Trump fights dirty against Clinton

Here’s how searches for “Hillary Clinton” and “Donald Trump” respectively peaked around key moments in the debate, according to the good folks at Google:

1. Trump: “You’d be in jail”

2. Trump: “It’s just words”

3. Trump on what he respects about Clinton

4. Trump on the Iraq war

5. Clinton on religious freedom

We know we’ve published a summary post, but we don’t want you to miss this, either:

Dan writes:

Nigel Farage, interim leader of the UK Independence Party, was also in the spin room to defend Donald Trump and attack Clinton as a threat to democracy.

“What would your warning be to America having heard Hillary Clinton say she’s for open borders?,” he was asked by a reporter during an interview alongside Alabama senator Jeff Sessions.

“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.

Updated

Don’t miss this roundup of reaction from Guardian opinion writers. Great first lines here:

That banging sound you heard were the last nails being hammered into the coffin of the Trump campaign.

And

If there was a theme for Trump this evening, it would be aggressive desperation.

And

Trump succeeded, and he succeeded before the first question was even asked.

And, simply:

Donald Trump lost tonight’s debate.

Summary

The second presidential debate is in the can. Here’s what happened:

  • It was a nasty affair without perhaps being quite so sordid or raw as might have been expected, given Donald Trump’s signal beforehand that he would attack Hillary Clinton as an enabler of her husband’s sins.
  • Challenged to defend his recently uncovered hot mic remarks about grabbing women, Trump said they amounted to “locker room” talk he was embarrassed by – but he denied he had assaulted women, whereas, he said, Bill Clinton had been “so abusive to women.”
  • Clinton did not respond to Trump’s catalog of her husband’s sins, apart to say it was inaccurate. “When they go low, you go high,” she said.
  • Clinton placed Trump’s hot mic remarks in context with others – she listed his attack on the Khan family, his “birther” attack on Obama, his attack on a disabled reporter and his attack on a federal judge of Mexican descent – to paint Trump as an unreformed bully. She said Trump “owes the country an apology.”
  • Trump projected intense hostility for Clinton. He repeatedly called her a liar, leered at her, scoffed, said she had accomplished nothing in her career, loomed behind her as she spoke with audience members, and told her if he were president, “you’d be in jail.” He pointed at her, and said, “she has tremendous hate in her heart.”
  • “I know you’re into big diversion tonight,” Clinton told Trump. “Anything to avoid talking about your campaign and its explosion and how Republicans are leaving it.”
  • More than one snap analyst – FWIW – thought Trump had “shored up his base” of supporters by attacking Clinton over deleted emails, Benghazi and other issues. Few asserted that he had broadened his appeal.
  • Twice Clinton said that Russia was seeking to influence the election, and not on her behalf.
  • Trump said he disagreed with running mate Mike Pence’s assertion that the United States should consider military force to oppose Russian aggression in Syria. Pence tweeted congratulations after.
  • Trump also said there’s no Muslim ban plan anymore: “The Muslim ban is something that in some form has morphed into extreme vetting.”
  • A few times, Trump seemed to shock Clinton. He said that Capt. Humayun Khan would still be alive if he, Trump, were president. Clinton’s foreign policy spokesman replied:
  • Trump admitted unapologetically that he had applied almost a billion in personal losses to not pay federal income tax. “Of course I do.”
  • Trump staged a media event before the debate with three women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault or rape and one woman raped as a child whose assailant Hillary Clinton defended as a 27-year-old lawyer.
  • Clinton was asked about a line from a Wikileaks version of a purported paid speech in which she describe a president’s need to have separate public and private faces. She said she was talking about Abraham Lincoln.
  • The candidates did not shake hands when they arrived at the town hall. Trump had the sniffles. And he complained a lot about the moderators letting Clinton talk more than him. A time clock count afterwards showed the time was split evenly.

Updated

A fact check from Guardian world affairs editor Julian Borger:

Updated

The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs notes a dearth of elected Republicans spinning for their candidate:

Twitter has announced that this was the most-tweeted debate ever, with data to come. Surprising that it beat the first one?

Reactions II

Reactions I

(And here’s one from a Trump campaign employee who is paid to spread favorable messaging for him):

What’s your snap reaction? Trump attacked Clinton aggressively. He was, at times, downright nasty. Did he manage to shake Clinton?

Clinton is shaking hands with everyone. Trump is hanging with his family. Now Trump moves to mingle with the crowd too.

Fact check: energy

Trump: “There is a thing called clean coal. Coal will last for 1,000 years in this country … we have found tremendous wealth under our feet in this country.”

Trump appears to be conflating the national gas boom of the last 15 years with so-called “clean coal”, which arguably does not exist, given the high carbon emissions of coal energy.

The decline of the coal industry is in large part attributable to the rise of the natural gas industry and the long-term decline of the industry, though regulations enacted by the Obama administration have also restricted the industry.

What do you think?

The candidates shake hands, awkwardly, and then Clinton moves over to mingle with the crowd-- Trump goes to his family.

And finally, the pair shake hands.
And finally, the pair shake hands. Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters

Updated

Trump: “She doesn’t quit, she doesn’t give up. I respect that. I tell it like it is. She’s a fighter... she does fight hard and she doesn’t quit and I consider that to be a very good trait.”

That’s it.

Trump and Clintonlaugh as the final questioner asks them to list positive traits in one another.
Trump and Clinton laugh as the final questioner asks them to list positive traits in one another. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AP

Updated

Last question. Carl Becker:

Would either of you name one positive thing that you respect in one another?

Raddatz invites Trump to go. Clinton goes.

She says she respects his kids. She says they speak well of him. “As a mother and a grandmother” it’s very important she says.

“This election has become in part so conflict-oriented so intense because there’s a lot at stake.

She says the next president will make Supreme Court decisions and other far-reaching decisions.

She says she’s been “trying to put it off of the personal and get it on what it is I want to do... yes I’ve spent 30 years, actually a little more trying to help kids and families.”

Clinton: “Trump is illegally dumping steel in the United States and Trump is buying it.”

Clinton says that for the first time ever, the United States is energy independent, but the Middle East still sets the price of oil, which has hurt energy companies.

“We have got to remain energy independent, it gives us much more power and freedom,” she says.

She says she supports moving toward more clean renewable energy. She says she is the only candidate with a plan to revitalize coal country.

“I don’t want to walk away from them,” she says.

Last question is about efficient energy. Trump says it’s a great question and calls for clean coal.

“We have found tremendous wealth right under our feet,” he says.

This is from earlier but it applies:

Trump names Justice Scalia. “Great judge. Died recently. And we have a vacancy.”

He says he’s picked 20 highly respected judges who are “very beautifully reviewed by just about everybody.”

He wants justices who respect the constitution and the second amendment.

On political contributions, Trump says that he will “invest” more than $100m. “I ask Hillary why doesn’t she – she made $250m by being in office.”

Trump asks Clinton why she is not self funding.

Clinton jumps in on the second amendment. She says she respects it but wants to close the gun show loophole.

Photographers train their lenses on the stage.
Photographers train their lenses on the stage. Photograph: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters
Donald Trump with a trademark hand gesture.
Donald Trump with a trademark hand gesture. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AP
Trump turns to Clinton on the stage.
Trump turns to Clinton on the stage. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images
Clinton speaks to the audience.
Clinton speaks to the audience. Photograph: Rick Wilking/Reuters

Updated

Crosstalk.

Question: Supreme court justice. What would you prioritize?

Clinton: You’re right. This is very important.

She says she wants justices who understand “the way the world really works.” Who have life experience outside of law firms. She wants to reverse Citizens United and get dark money out of politics. She wants to reinforce protections of voting rights, to stick with Roe v Wade and with marriage equality.

She says Trump’s picks would reverse Roe v Wade and marriage equality and that would be a mistake. She wants a supreme court that is not blatantly pro-corporatist.

“I regret deeply that the senate has not done its job.” She calls it a “dereliction of duty.”

Fact check: 'sex tape'

Trump: “It didn’t say check out a sex tape”

There is no evidence that such a tape exists; Trump may be referring to an appearance Alicia Machado made in a reality TV show.

Trump: “Ambassador Stevens sent 600 requests for help and the only one she talked to was Sidney Blumenthal”

Eight congressional investigations found no evidence that Clinton personally put Americans at risk at a consular facility in Benghazi, Libya when it was attacked on 11 September 2012, nor that she was tardy or negligent in the handling of an event in which four Americans, including ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed.

The Pentagon was responsible for sending military assistance but did not get help to the compound in time to save the Americans. Officials did repeatedly ask for more security, but Congress found no evidence that those claims made it to Clinton’s desk.

Updated

Trump says Clinton 'has tremendous hate in her heart'

Clinton is asked about her deplorables comments.

Clinton says she apologized, because “my argument is not with his supporters, it’s with him, about the hateful and divisive campaign he has run.. what he has said about African Americans, Latinos... he’s never apologized for.

“I’m proud of the campaign that Bernie Sanders and I ran... we might have had some differences but we believed.”

Trump: we have a divided nation. “you look at Charlotte, you look at Baltimore, Chicago, Washington DC.

“Believe me, she has tremendous hate in her heart. When she said deplorables... she’s got tremendous hatred. And this country cannot take another four years of Barack Obama, and that’s what you’re getting for her.”

Trump is asked about his tweet inviting people to “check out sex tape” of Alicia Machado. Trump denies the tweet and brings up Benghazi. “Ambassador Stevens sent 600 requests for help and the only one she talked to was Sidney Blumenthal.

“Twitter happens to be a modern-day form of communication. You can like it or not like it. I’m not unproud of it.”

Question now for Clinton: Does Donald Trump has the discpline to be a good leader?

Clinton: No.

Trump: I’m shocked to hear that.
Clinton: “It’s not only my opinion.” She mentions the Republicans who have defected from Trump.

Is the Pence-Trump bromance officially over? After a strained beginning to the partnership – Trump waited until the 11th hour to go with Pence, after advisers reportedly twisted his arm – their union has reached a new low: Trump is openly disagreeing with his running mate in presidential debates.

Last week Pence called for bombing Syria, but tonight Trump called for the opposite: “I don’t like Assad at all but Assad is killing Isis.”

It comes just a day after Pence said he couldn’t condone Trump’s newly surfaced comments from 2005 about how he feels sexually entitled to the women in his orbit, and canceled a campaign event where he was supposed to act as Trump’s surrogate. Trump’s debate burn may well be his revenge.

Trump at the second debate.
Trump at the second debate. Photograph: Tasos Katopodis/AFP/Getty Images
Chelsea Clinton whispers to her father, former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Chelsea Clinton whispers to her father, former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Photograph: POOL/Reuters
Trump sneers at Clinton.
Trump sneers at Clinton. Photograph: POOL/Reuters

Updated

Clinton addresses the audience member by name. She says out of college she worked for the Children’s defense fund. She worked as an anti-discrimination lawyer. She worked for kids with disabilities, and she worked to register Latinos to vote. She says she has a devotion to make sure that every American has a voice.

She says many Americans are worried that they wouldn’t have a place in Donald Trump’s America.

Trump smiles behind her, like, “can you believe this bullshit.” He’s trolling her onstage.

Clinton says there’s a “Trump effect” of bullying in the United States. She says kids are concerned.

Fact check: trade

Trump: “At the last debate she lied [about the Trans Pacific Partnership]. She did say the ‘gold standard’ but she said she didn’t say it.”

Clinton has not been consistent on the Trans Pacific Partnership, and her language from 2010 through 2014 suggests she was broadly in support of Barack Obama’s trade deal.

As secretary of state in 2012, she said: “This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field. And when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40% of the world’s total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment.”

She continued to praised it while she worked for the Obama administration, variously calling it “high quality”, “cutting edge”, “groundbreaking” and “high standard”.

Out of office in 2014, she moved away from the deal, whose negotiations were not complete. She reserved judgment in her memoir published that year, expressed “concerns” in 2015, and, when pushed from the left by Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, moved to opposing it in its current terms.

Clinton: “bullying is up” because of Trump’s rhetoric

The left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center has described a “Trump effect” based on a survey of 2,0000 teachers, and the National Education Association, which supports Clinton, has made similar claims. But there’s no peer-reviewed data to support this claim at this point.

Updated

Clinton takes the Syria question. She says she would not use ground forces. But special forces, which are there – yes. Enablers and trainers, yes.

Raddatz: What would you do differently?

Trump: Everything.

Clinton: I hope that by the time I am president we will have pushed Isis out of Iraq.

She says that Trump does not know more than the generals. She says “we all need to be in this.”

“I would go after Baghdadi. I would specifically target Baghdadi. ... I would also consider arming the Kurds. The Kurds have been our best partners.”

Trump: “She went over a minute over and you don’t stop over. When I go a second over.. it’s very interesting.”

Fact check: foreign policy

Clinton: the New Start treaty helped reduce Russia’s nuclear arms

It’s correct that the New Start treaty set limits on deployed American and Russian ballistic missiles, bombers, launchers and warheads. But the story is much larger than these terms.

Russia was already within limits in two categories before the treaty was signed, in 2011; the treaty does not affect un-deployed or retired weapons; and Russia has reduced its nuclear arms more slowly in the last decade than it did while George W Bush and Bill Clinton were in the White House. Nor does the treaty prevent countries from stockpiling weapons. In the last two years, Russia has increased its arsenal.

Trump: Look at what she did in Libya with Gaddafi, Gaddafi’s out, it’s a mess

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump all supported intervention in Libya in 2011. None supported occupation to “build democracy” there in the model of George W Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Trump is lying about his opposition to intervention in Libya. Like Clinton, he supported military strikes, saying in a February 2011 video blog that the US should take “immediate” action against dictator Muammar Gaddafi. “We should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be be very easy and very quick. We could do it surgically.”

Trump has also claimed to have made “a lot of money” from Gaddafi through a failed rental deal in 2009.

Raddatz: What will happen if Aleppo falls?

Trump says it’s fallen. It’s basically already fallen. Then he switches abruptly to Mosul, which is ... not .. in Syria.

“How stupid is our country?” Trump says.

Raddatz schools him a bit about potential various military objectives including psychological warfare.

Trump does not take her opinion seriously. He says he has 200 generals.

Raddatz, who is a military specialist and has a lot of credibility with the military, is pressing him. “Tell me what your strategy is.”

Updated

Trump disagrees with Pence on confronting Russia in Syria

Trump says that Clinton was secretary of state when Obama drew a line in the sand on Syria’s chemical weapons. Clinton corrects him; no she wasn’t. Trump says Obama probably wouldn’t listen to her anyway.

Trump brings up “nuclear.” He says that Russian is new on nuclear, and we are old on nuclear.

“Almost everything she has done on foreign policy has been a mistake and it has been a disaster.”

Trump also says “she doesn’t even know who the rebels are” in Syria. Her eyes grow momentarily wide.

Trump is relentlessly insulting Clinton. He says the Iran deal was the “dumbest” and Clinton “doesn’t even know who the rebels are.”

Raddatz repeats the question. She says Pence said that if Russia continues airstrikes the USA should be prepared to use military force.

“He and I haven’t spoken and I disagree.”

!

Clinton says Russia wants Trump to become president

Trump and Raddatz fight about what to talk about.

Raddatz gets the floor. She describes the Syrian conflict, and particularly the assault on Aleppo and its horrors. She notes Russia’s involvement.

What would you do?

Clinton is first.

“The situation in Syria is catastrophic, and every day that goes by, we see the results of the regime, Assad, the Iranians, the Russians, bombarding places, particularly Aleppo..

“There is a determined effort by the Russian air force to really destroy Aleppo... Russia hasn’t paid any attention to Isis. They’re interested in keeping Assad in power... we need some leverage with the Russians... and we have to work more closely with our partners and allies on the ground.

“But I want to emphasize that what is at stake here is the ambitions of Russia.. Russia has decided that it’s all in in Syria, and they’ve also decided who they want to become president, and it’s not me.”

Fact check: Isis and children's healthcare

Trump: “The vacuum they’ve left, that’s why Isis started in the first place”

Trump is pretending that he has always supported a residual American force in Iraq. The businessman actually called for a complete withdrawal from Iraq, even in the event of continued civil war or authoritarian violence there.

“You know how they get out? They get out. That’s how they get out. Declare victory and leave,” he told CNN in 2007. “This is a total catastrophe, and you might as well get out now because you’re just wasting time and lives.”

The argument that Isis rose out of the vacuum of post-withdrawal Iraq also ignores that its first forms began during that country’s civil war, while George W Bush was in office, and that the terror group concentrated its powers in Syria’s civil war long before Obama began a bombing and special-forces campaign there.

Clinton: “Because when I was first lady I worked with Democrats and Republicans” to create the children’s healthcare program

This is a hard fact to check, given that Clinton’s boast is about backroom talks when she was first lady in the 1990s. Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, a Democrat and Republican, led the effort in Congress and passed the CHIP healthcare program in a budget bill after the first lady’s efforts to lead a broader healthcare reform bill failed. Clinton tried to claim credit for the program during her failed 2008 campaign for president, and at the time Kennedy gave great credit to her for efforts. Hatch disputed that account.

Clinton: “Here we go again”

Trump says that she should have gotten the tax law changed as senator. “If you were an effective senator, you could have done it,” he says.

She gives him civics 101: “Under our constitution, presidents have something called veto power. He has said repeatedly. Thirty years this, Thirty years that.”

Now she lists her policy achievements. Health coverage for kids, rebuilding New York after 9/11, health care for the national guard and reserve, safer meds for kids.

“For 30 years, I’ve produced results.”

Clinton walks over to another member of the audience before beginning her reply.
Clinton walks over to another member of the audience before beginning her reply. Photograph: Rick Wilking/Reuters
Trump listens as Clinton takes the mic.
Trump listens as Clinton takes the mic. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images
Trump directs his ire at Clinton.
Trump directs his ire at Clinton. Photograph: POOL/Reuters

Updated

Fact check: taxes

Trump: “She is raising everybody’s taxes, massively.”

This is true only if “everybody” refers to the tiny percentage of Americans who are the highest earners.

Clinton’s plan would tax high-income earners, close tax loopholes for corporations and largely leave taxes unchanged for most Americans. It would increase tax revenue by $1.1tn over a decade, the Tax Policy Center estimated, though much of that money would go into spending plans. The Committee for a Responsible Budget estimated that Clinton’s plan would add about $200bn to the debt, saying it would raise tax revenue by $191bn but decrease GDP by 1% “over the long term due to slightly higher marginal tax rates on capital and labor”.

Trump’s tax plan would disproportionately help the wealthiest Americans, saving them millions of dollars and adding $5.3tn to the national debt, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation, a conservative think tank. Another analysis, by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, warned that without severe spending cuts, the plan would balloon national debt “by nearly 80% of gross domestic product by 2036, offsetting some or all of the incentive effects of the tax cuts”.

Trump: “[The US is] just about the highest taxed country in the word”

For months, Trump falsely claimed that the US is one of the highest-taxed countries in the world; he later adjusted to a more specific and more correct claim, about corporate tax rates. The US corporate income tax rate does rank among the highest among industrialized nations, according to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). But Trump’s claim doesn’t take into account deductions and other exemptions – the kind that helped General Motors and dozens of other corporations escape paying any taxes in recent years.

Trump is asked whether he used his declaration of almost $1bn in personal losses in 1995 to not pay federal income taxes.

“Of course I do,” Trump says. “Of course I do.” He says that Clinton’s friends do it to.

“I understand the tax code better than anybody that’s ever run for president,” Trump says.

“With her, it’s all talk, and no action. And again, Bernie Sanders, it’s bad judgment.”

Clinton accuses Trump of paying no federal income taxes

Clinton: “Everything you’ve heard just now from Donald is not true.. it is sort of amusing to hear someone who has not paid federal income tax in 20 years say what he’s going to do.”

“Donald always takes care of Donald and people like Donald,” Clinton says.

Then she presents her plan. No raised taxes for households who make less than $250,000. She says she voted as senator to close corporate taxes. She wants a surcharge on incomes above $5m. “I want to invest in you, I want to invest in working families.”

“People like Donald who paid zero in taxes, zero for our vets, zero for our military, zero for health and education.. that is wrong.”

Fact check: Russia

Clinton: Putin and the Russian government are directing hacks “to influence the election”.

Intelligence officials said they have “high confidence” that the Kremlin is behind cyberattacks on the US government, Democratic organizations and polling centers.

Trump: “I don’t know Putin … I know nothing about Russia.”

It’s not clear whether Trump has ever spoken to the Russian president. Putin was invited to but did not attend a 2013 beauty pageant in Moscow, according to one of the oligarchs who helped organize the event. Trump wondered beforehand: “Will he become my new best friend?”

The pair may have communicated through intermediaries. In 2014, Trump told a National Press Club luncheon: “I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success.” A year earlier, Trump told MSNBC: “I do have a relationship and I can tell you that he’s very interested in what we’re doing here today.”

Last November, Trump claimed in a debate that he “got to know [Putin] very well because we were both on 60 Minutes”. They appeared in separate, pre-taped segments of the current affairs show and were not on set together.

Trump has repeatedly tried to do business in Russia, and his refusal to release tax returns prevents him proving that he has no assets there. In a July press conference, Trump admitted, “I guess probably I sell condos to Russians,” and gave a slightly exaggerated account of a $95m condominium sale. In 2007, he said he wanted to invest in Russia, saying in a deposition: “We will be in Moscow at some point.”

In 2008, his son Donald Jr told a real estate conference “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets” and “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

For the 2013 beauty pageant, Trump received a share of the $14m investment to bring it there. “I have a great relationship with many Russians, and almost all of the oligarchs were in the room,” he told Real Estate Weekly afterward, as he discussed his hopes for a Moscow hotel that ultimately went nowhere. Similarly, Trump either traveled to the city or drew up ambitious real-estate projects in Russia in 1987 and 1996, according to his memoir and court documents first unearthed by the Washington Post.

Trump could prove he has no financial interests in Russia, as he says, by releasing his tax returns.

Trump: “I pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.”

Trump could prove this by releasing his tax returns. Until then we cannot check it in full.

Trump says he’s paid hundreds of millions in taxes, more, he says, than Hillary Clinton’s friend Warren Buffett.

Next question is what you’d do to change tax code to increase receipts from the wealthiest Americans.

Trump says getting rid of carried interest provisions, by which some money managers can claim income as capital gains. He also mentions, confusingly, lowering taxes on corporations.

Then Trump says Clinton is “raising your taxes really high.”

Trump: 'I don’t know anything about Russia'

Now a question about Clinton’s paid speeches released in Wikileaks, about a line she said about needing a public and private view.

Clinton: As I recall, that was something I said about Abraham Lincoln.. it was a master class watching Abraham Lincoln getting Congress to approve the 13th amendment... I was making the point that yes, it is hard to get Congress to do what you’re trying to do.

Trump, on camera, smirks in disbelief when Clinton brings up Lincoln.

Then Clinton turns to Friday’s intelligence community declaration that Russians are behind the Wikileaks hacking. “We have never been in a position where an adversary has been working so hard to influence the outcome of the election. And believe me, they’re not trying to get me elected.”

She says Russia is trying to influence the election for Trump. She calls for his taxes.

Trump: “ridiculous. Now she’s blaming the lie on the late great Abraham Lincoln. Honest Abe.” He gets a laugh from the crowd.

Trump: “I don’t know Putin. I think it’d be great if we got along with Russia.” Then he implies that the intelligence community blames Russia for the hacking to get at Trump.

“I don’t know anything about Russia... I know about Russia... I have no loans from Russia.”

Fact check: refugees and Iraq

Trump: “I would not have had our people in Iraq because Iraq was a disaster”

“I was against the war in Iraq it has not been debunked.”

This is a lie. In the months before the Iraq war began in 2003, Trump tepidly endorsed invasion to radio host Howard Stern, who asked him whether he thought the US should attack Saddam Hussein. “Yeah, I guess so,” Trump said.

A few weeks later he told Fox News that George W Bush was “doing a very good job”. Several weeks after the invasion, Trump told the Washington Post: “The war’s a mess.” In August 2004, he told Esquire: “Two minutes after we leave, there’s going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over.”

Even in the interview cited by the Trump campaign to explain his “opposition”, Trump expressed impatience with Bush for not invading sooner. “Whatever happened to the days of the Douglas MacArthur? He would go and attack. He wouldn’t talk.”

Trump: Hillary Clinton wants to increase refugees by 550%

Trump is correct that Clinton has proposed a 550% increase in refugees, from 10,000 in 2016 to 65,000 in 2017.

But this does not add up to “hundreds of thousands”, as he says. He appears to have borrowed this figure from an ally, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who invented it. Session falsely claims Clinton would continue to grant asylum to 55,000 Syrian refugees every year in addition to 100,000 refugees from the Middle East in general. Clinton has called for allowing 55,000 refugees from Syria for one year, and has not proposed yearly asylum for 155,000 Middle East refugees for her term.

Trump: “People are coming into our country, like, we have no idea who they are, where they’re from, what their feelings about our country are … We know nothing about their values and we know nothing about their love of our country”

This is false. The US has likely the most intensive screening process in the world for refugees: it requires they register and interview with the United Nations, which then must refer them to the US; refugees who pass this test then interview with State Department contractors and have at least two background checks; then they have three fingerprint and photo screenings; then US immigration reviews the case; then Homeland Security interviews the refugee; then a doctor examines the refugee; and finally several security agencies perform one last check after the refugee has been matched with a resettlement agency.

The process takes 18 months to two years. The US has a very clear idea about which refugees it allows into the country.

Trump seems angry. Clinton feels frustrated. Trump is stalking the stage, frowning. Clinton can’t believe she’s onstage with him.

Fact check: Health, Muslims in America

Trump: Barack Obama and the architect of the Affordable Care Act lied: “The whole thing was a fraud, and it doesn’t work.”

Obama admitted in 2013 that his policy slogan, “If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it”, was false. Politifact named it “lie of the year” after millions of insurers cancelled plans.

Trump: Muslims have to report suspicion of terrorism, as in San Bernardino

Trump has repeatedly and baselessly said someone saw “bombs on the floor” and “suspicious behavior” before the mass shooting in California last December – he has repeated this for weeks without any evidence. Investigators found pipe bombs and ammunition in a townhouse rented by the couple who carried out the shooting in the Redlands, not near their home, and their landlord has said he had no reason to suspect them. Neighbors also expressed surprise and alarm, not concerns about political correctness.

One local news station reported on 3 December that Aaron Elswick, a neighbor one of the shooters’ mother, recalled hearing yet another neighbor say, in Elswick’s words: “She had noticed that they had, I guess, been receiving packages, quite a few packages within a short amount of time. And that they were actually doing a lot of work out in the garage and she was kind of suspicious and was wanting to report it but she was, ‘I didn’t want to profile.’”

Clinton: We’ve had Muslims in America since George Washington

Clinton is correct that there were Muslims in the early days of the United States – she doesn’t mention that many of them were slaves, and that George Washington likely claimed ownership of Muslims. Another slave-owning founder was Thomas Jefferson, whose Qur’an has entered congressional lore. Both Jefferson and Washington preached tolerance of religions, Islam included.

Updated

Raddatz turns to Clinton. She’s asked about her Syrian refugee policy.

Clinton: “First of all, I will not let anyone into our country that I think poses a risk to us. But there are a lot of refugees, women and children, think of that picture we all saw, that four year old boy, with blood on his forehead...”

In describing the Syrian conflict, she repeatedly mentions “Russian aggression.”

“It is important for us as a policy not to say, as Donald has said, we’re going to ban people based on their religion. How do you do that. We are a country founded on religious freedom and liberty... How? Are we going to have religious tests when people fly into our country? And how do we expect to implement those?

“Propaganda on a lot of the terrorist sites... What Donald Trump says about Muslims is used to recruit terrorist fighters. .. This is the 10th or 12th time that he’s said he was against the war in Iraq...

Trump jumps in, Raddatz tries to cut him off.

Trump says he was against the war in Iraq (nope). Then: “She just went about 25 seconds over her time. Can I just respond to this please?”

Trump says Capt Humayun Khan would be alive if he were president

Trump is asked about his call for a Muslim ban, which running mate Mike Pence said was no longer his position.

Trump says “Captain Khan is an American hero.. and if I were president at that time he would be alive today.”

Clinton gasps. She can’t believe it.

“The Muslim ban is something that in some form has morphed into extreme vetting.”

Raddatz: please explain.

Trump: “It’s called extreme vetting.”

Trump just succeeded in making this debate about the re-litigation of Clinton’s emails, rather than policy or any of the recent revelations about his views on women. When the scandal that is threatening to explode his campaign – specifically, his misogynistic comments seemingly endorsing sexual assault – was raised by moderators, Trump managed to redirect the conversation by saying, in something of a non sequitur when Clinton mentioned the law, that Clinton ‘should be in jail’.

Clinton couldn’t bring herself to let that barb lie, launching into a calm, collected defense that lasted as long as any topic raised in the debate thus far. And the moderators fell for it.

Trump managed to make the Commander in Chief Forum back in September a referendum on Clinton’s emails for the millionth time, and lie about his foreign policy. Moderators shouldn’t let him get away with it this time.

Updated

“Unfortunately there’s been a lot of divisive, dark things about Muslims,” Clinton tells the questioner. “Some of them by Donald.”

She says there have been Muslims in the United States since George Washington. She mentions Muhammad Ali.

She says that she has a vision of an inclusive rhetoric. “We need American Muslims to be part of our eyes and ears, on our front lines... make them feel included and that they are part of our country.”

She says that to defeat Isis requires a coalition with majority Muslim nations. “We are not at war with Islam, and it is a mistake, and it plays into the hands of the terrorists, to act as if we are.”

Fact check: healthcare

Clinton: premiums haven’t gotten too high

Trump: premium’s are up “68%, 59%, 71%”

Both candidates are correct that healthcare premiums have increased since the Affordable Care Act was enacted. On average, premiums have risen by about 5.8% a year since Barack Obama took office, compared to 13.2% in the nine years before Obama, Politifact found earlier this year. Trump, however, is cherry-picking data from various states and providers where rates have had higher jumps.

Trump: “She wants to go to single-payer”

Clinton has not proposed a wholesale shift to a single-player system, as Bernie Sanders urged throughout the Democratic primary. She has, however, proposed an expansion of the government program to include tax credits and reduced prescription drug costs.

Clinton gets animated.
Clinton gets animated. Photograph: Pool/Getty Images
Donald Trump awaits his turn to speak.
Donald Trump awaits his turn to speak. Photograph: Gary He/EPA
Donald Trump runs out of time.
Donald Trump runs out of time. Photograph: Pool/Getty Images

Updated

Ominous. That seems to be Trump’s debate style tonight. He threatens to jail his election opponent if elected president: a great tactic for, say, Zimbabwe, but perhaps not so familiar to a constitutional democracy.

He attacks the moderators for failing to talk about emails, right after talking about emails. And he looms behind Clinton on the debate stage like a bouncer in need of a new job. It’s a unique debating style, that’s for sure.

A self-identified Muslim questionner asks Trump about how to address Islamophobia.

“You’re right about Islamophobia, and that’s a shame,” Trump says. “Whether we like it or not, there is a problem.”

Trump says that Muslims “have to report it” when they see something “going on.” He repeats an oft-told lie about “bombs all over the floor” of an apartment in San Bernardino.

Trump says that Clinton can’t fight terrorism because she can’t say “the name radical Islamic terror.”

Clinton’s turn.

Hillary is talking about how premiums have risen – here are the statistics behind that statement. The average annual premium in 2015 was $17,545 for family coverage: that has risen 61% since 2005 and 27% since 2010.

Average annual premiums for single and family coverage, 1999-2015
Average annual premiums for single and family coverage, 1999-2015. Photograph: Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation

Question for Trump: How do you cover preexisting conditions without requiring people to have health insurance.

Trump: “You’re going to have plans that are so good, because we’re going to have so much competition.”

Cooper’s further attempts to get Trump actually to describe a plan in any detail beyond “competition” are futile.

Trump does mention Medicaid block grants there at the end.

Clinton is asked about Bill Clinton’s comments that Obamacare is the “craziest system.”

Hillary Clinton says that Clinton clarified his comments. SHe says there’s a sytem in place that needs to be built upon.

Trump is doing the thing again where he stands behind her like he’s about to fall on her or tap her on the shoulder. He looks like an entitled butler. She may not be distracted but it’s distracting.

Fact check: Clinton started the birther lie

Trump: Clinton’s campaign and Sidney Blumenthal started the birther conspiracy

There is no evidence that Clinton or her campaign had anything to do with the false rumors that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, nor did Clinton have anything to do with the five years Donald Trump spent questioning Obama’s citizenship and religion. Trump’s campaign has tried to blame several people who were tangentially related to the Clinton campaign, if at all. A former aide named Mark Penn wrote a 2007 memo that Obama’s “lack of American roots” could “hold him back”. But he added: “We are never going to say anything about his background.” The Clinton campaign never acted on Penn’s advice and he was dismissed in April 2008.

Sidney Blumenthal, an old friend of the Clintons who frequently sent them unsolicited advice, reportedly asked reporters to investigate Obama’s birth. He has denied this and denounced the conspiracy.

Clinton: “After a year-long investigation there is no evidence that anyone hacked the server I was using, and there is no evidence that anyone can point to at all, anyone who says otherwise has no basis … has no evidence that classified material ended up in the wrong hands.”

This is a highly legalistic answer. FBI director James Comey, who led the investigation and found that Clinton’s practices were “extremely careless”, said it was very likely that Clinton’s server was hacked.

Trump gets the question. “It is such a great question,” he says.

“Obamacare is a disaster. You know it, we all known it... In ‘17 in implodes by itself.”

He says it will never work. He says it’s very bad. He says it’s far too expensive. He says “repeal and replace.” He sniffles. His first concrete idea is to erase state insurance markets in favor of a national market. He says Clinton wants single payer like Canada. He disses Canada.

“Hillary Clinton has been after this for years,” he says. He says rates and deductibles are going up.

He made it all the way through two minutes.

The moderators Anderson Cooper of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC News.
The moderators Anderson Cooper of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC News. Photograph: Jim Bourg/AP
Democrat Hillary Clinton addresses the audience.
Democrat Hillary Clinton addresses the audience. Photograph: Gary He/EPA
Donald Trump turns his attention to Clinton.
Donald Trump turns his attention to Clinton. Photograph: Pool/Getty Images
Bill Clinton, the former president, looks around the room.
Bill Clinton, the former president, looks around the room. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Updated

Health care question. Clinton has to cross the stage to answer it. Trump slides into place in front of his chair, still standing, a few feet behind her. It looks like he’s stalking her.

He’s been trying to push her around tonight, blustering, interrupting, threatening.

Clinton meanwhile is giving a detailed, unbothered answer about how to fix Obamacare. “Right now we are at 90% health insurance coverage....” and her time is up.

Trump says Clinton would be 'in jail' if he were president

We appear to have lost a block, deleted by the system. It culminated with Trump’s assertion that if he were president, Clinton “would be in jail.”

Trump interrupts Clinton again and again.

Clinton:

I know you’re into big diversion tonight. Anything to avoid talking about your campaign and its explosion and how Republicans are leaving it. ..

Trump interrupts again.

Updated

Fact check: Inner-cities, Bill Clinton

Trump: “The inner-cities of our country, which are a disaster, education-wise, job-wise, safety-wise.”

Trump’s repeated claim that inner cities are a “disaster” or “hell” defies most of American history. Even if Trump is only referring to the past 50 years, his characterization of life for African Americans in cities is still wrong by most if not all metrics.

Data on employment, education and health show empirical evidence for persistent discrimination against black Americans, but also show major gains in the last few decades. In 2015, black people earned just 75% as much as whites in median hourly earnings, whether full- or part-time, according to a Pew Research analysis. The black unemployment rate in August 2016 was 8.1%, compared with 4.4% for white people, but still lower than for most of the last 40 years. Black life expectancy has increased from the mid-30s around 1900 to the mid-70s in 2016, according to the CDC. Education rates have similarly increased in the last 40 years, according to the census.

Trump: “Bill Clinton was abusive to women. Hillary Clinton attacked those same women, four of those women are here tonight … She’s seen laughing on two occasions, laughing at rape.”

Trump is referring to audio from the early 1980s in which Clinton, then running a legal aid clinic in Arkansas, jokes with a reporter about the legal system in context of a rape case she she had been assigned by a judge to take. In the recording, she laughs about the accuracy of polygraphs, access to evidence and the judge’s discomfort with the discussing the case before her. She also calls the case “terrible” and “fascinating”. In one of her memoirs she says she felt uncomfortable being assigned the case. The case against her client eventually collapsed, and charges were reduced to unlawful fondling of a minor. In 2014, the victim told the Daily Beast: “Hillary Clinton took me through hell.”

According to diaries by a friend of Clinton, she called Monica Lewinsky a “narcissistic loony toon”, albeit in private. According to the New York Times, the Clinton campaign hired a private investigator to find material to tarnish Gennifer Flowers’ reputation. Hillary Clinton’s role in the investigation is not clear, but in June 1992 she said on the Arsenio Hall Show that Flowers had “got lots of problems”.

Trump joked about sexual assault in the 2005 video released by the Washington Post on Friday, saying that he believed fame gave him the right to “grab [women] by the pussy”.

Trump: Bill Clinton “had to pay an $850,000 fine to one of the women, Paula Jones who is here tonight.”

Paula Jones was an Arkansas state employee who alleged that Bill Clinton, while he was governor in 1991, exposed himself in a sexual advance on her. In 1994 she sued him for sexual harassment, but a federal judge dismissed the case on the grounds that even if her allegations were true (at least one of her claims was found false) the behavior did not constitute sexual harassment under the law’s definition of it. Jones appealed, and in 1998 Clinton settled for $850,000 without admission of guilt or apology.

In a deposition for that suit, Clinton denied having sexual relations with White House intern Monica Lewinsky – a falsehood that led to his eventual impeachment trial, in which he was acquitted by the Senate in 1999.

In 1998, Trump called Paula Jones a “loser” in an interview uncovered by CNN, and told Fox News that she and other accusers “are terrible” and Clinton “he is really a victim himself. But he put himself in that position”.

“It’s just a really unattractive group. I’m not just talking about physical,” he said.

Clinton: “He never apologizes to anything or anyone.”

Trump did apologize for his 2005 comments about groping women, albeit without specifics and with the continued excuse that “it was locker room talk”. He also apologized vaguely for things he “regretted” earlier this year, but did not specify to whom he meant the apology.

Raddatz asks Clinton a follow up about the email. Clinton says she has admitted fault.

Trump jumps in. He says Clinton said she didn’t know what the letter “C” in her emails meant. Trump now goes hard on the emails. He says that there’s no way her “30,000 deleted emails” - that’s his own number – were all about Chelsea Clinton’s wedding.

Trump is briefly on Bill Clinton’s meeting with attorney general Loretta Lynch on a tarmac.

Updated

If you weren’t aware already, grabbing a woman in the “pussy” without their consent is sexual assault. And sexual assault isn’t just “locker room talk” – it’s an everyday occurrence in the US. Each year in the US, there are 288,820 victims (aged 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault, based on averaged statistics from 2010 to 2014 from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Trump attacks Bill Clinton

Q for Trump: did you change after age 59 when the hot mic tape was made.? Or when did you change?

Trump: “That was locker room talk. I’m not proud of it. I’m a person who has great respect.. but that was something..

Then Trump attacks Clinton:

If you look at Bill Clinton... there’s never been anyone in the history of politics in this nation that’s been so abusive to women... Hillary Clinton attacked those same women, and attacked them viciously, four of them here tonight.

One of them... was raped at 12 years old.. you can hear [Clinton] laughing on tape...

So don’t tell me about words. But what president Clinton did. He lost his license. He had to pay an $850,000 fine (it was a settlement).

Trump: “I think it’s disgraceful, and I think she should be ashamed of herself, if you want to know the truth.”

The audience applauds it.

Clinton says a lot of that was not accurate, continuing:

When I hear something like that, I am reminded of what my friend Michelle Obama advised us all. “When they go low, you go high. Look if this was just about one video... But he never apologizes for anything to anyone. He never apologized to Mr and Mrs Khan, the gold star family whose son died... He never apologized to the distinguished federal judge who was born in Indiana but Donald said he couldnt’ be trusted because his parents were Mexican.

She also mentions Trump’s birtherism and his mocking a disabled reporter.

Clinton says Trump owes the country an apology.

Republican U.S. presidential nominee Trump grimmaces.
Republican U.S. presidential nominee Trump grimmaces. Photograph: POOL/Reuters
The two candidates on the debate stage.
The two candidates on the debate stage. Photograph: Jeff Roberson/AP
Hillary Clinton responds to questions during the town hall debate.
Hillary Clinton responds to questions during the town hall debate. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Updated

Fact check: $150bn to Iran

Trump: “the US is giving back $150bn to a terrorist state.”

The US is not giving any of its own money to Iran as part of an international nuclear arms deal meant to prevent the construction of weapons. The deal gradually unfreezes assets that belong to Iran but were frozen under sanctions related to the nation’s nuclear program. Sanctions related to human rights, terrorism and other issues remain in place and still lock Iran out of billions.

Trump’s guess of how much Iran will benefit by unfrozen assets is far higher than most experts’ estimates, though not inconceivable. Treasury secretary Jack Lew has put the number at $56bn; Iranian officials have said $32bn and $100bn. Independent economists have calculated that Iran will free up anything between $30bn to $100bn. Complicating the math are Iran’s debts: it will have to pay off tens of billions to countries such as China.

Trump: “Just today, policemen were shot, two killed, and this is happening on a weekly basis.”

Two police officers were shot dead on Saturday in Palm Springs.

Trump’s claim is only one slice of a much larger story that does not support his argument. His campaign cited data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF), which does show a 56% increase in officers killed by guns between 1 January and 16 July 2016 (28) compared with the same span in 2015 (18). But according to the nonprofit group, officer deaths overall, including from traffic accidents and job-related illnesses, are roughly on par with figures from this point in 2015: 60 deaths this year to 61 the year before.

The nonprofit’s data also shows that police fatalities overall have declined in the last 15 years: the last seven years of Barack Obama’s presidency saw an average of 135 police deaths, a 17% decline on the final seven years of George W Bush’s administration, which saw an average of 162 a year. Gun deaths have declined, though only slightly, between the administrations. Police fatalities have in general declined in the last 40 years: from 1991 to 2000, an average of 162 officers were killed each year; from 1981 to 1990, an average of 186; from 1971 to 1980, an average of 230.

The deadliest era for police in the US was prohibition. In the years between its enactment and repeal, from 1920 to 1933, an average of 250 officers were killed each year. Gun-related deaths were highest in 1973, according to the NLEOMF figures, when 156 officers were killed.

The FBI also reports police deaths with information submitted to it from various law enforcement agencies, though its most recent figures date to 2014. According to such data, that year 96 law enforcement officers were killed, 51 by “felonious acts” and 45 in accidents, and 48,315 officers were assaulted while on duty. Forty-six of the officers were killed by guns; 28 in accidental deaths died in car accidents. Almost 80% of assaults were by people using their hands and feet. The last four years of Bush’s presidency and the first four of Obama’s saw about the same number of gun-related police deaths, according to this data, with about 46 a year.

Trump: “I did not say that … it’s locker room talk.”

Trump did say that he would “grab [women] by the pussy”, and was recorded saying so in 2005 in a video published by the Washington Post on Friday.

Pressed by moderator Anderson Cooper, he did admit to having made the comment, though he then said he had never actually acted in the way. He was accused of “attempted rape” in the 1990s, though never convicted.

Updated

Trump wants to reply.

“It’s just words, folks. It’s just words. Those words I’ve been hearing them for many years.”

He says Clinton has failed to bring jobs to upstate New York, to fix inner cities. He says he will help “the African Americans, the Latinos, Hispanics.”

Sniffles.

Will he bring up Bill Clinton?

Raddatz interrupts Trump.

Trump: “so she’s allowed but I’m not?”

“Sounds fair,” says Trump, sarcastically.

Clinton says she’s been thinking about the Trump tape. And it made her question his fitness to serve.

“I said starting back in June that he was not fit to be president... What we all saw and heard on Friday was Donald talking about women. What he thinks about women, what he does to women... I think it’s clear to anyone who heard it that it represents exactly who he is. Because we’ve seen this throughout the campaign. We’ve seen him insult women. We’ve seen him rate women on their appearance... spend nearly a week denigrating a former Ms Universe... so yes this is who Donald Trump is.

“But it’s not only women.. Because he has also targeted immigrants, African Americans, Latinos, people with disabilities....

“Yes this is who he is... this is not who we are.”

“I want to send a message that America already is great, but we are great because we are good. ... This is the America that I know and love.”

Hillary takes the highest of high roads from the get-go.

“I want to heal this country and bring it together,” she says, after avoiding the traditional handshake at the start of the debate.

Because who, after all, would want to shake those (tiny) hands.

Donald, of course, takes the low road of describing a country going to hell: a subject he knows quite well.

Trump, asked about tape, talks about Isis

Trump is asked about the hot mic. Cooper says “you’ve bragged that you’ve sexually assaulted women.”

Trump denies it. “This was locker room talk. I’m not proud of it. I’m not proud of it...”

Then he says it was OK because... Isis?

“This is a world where you have Isis... he’s on to steel cages...”

Now he’s back: “yes I’m very embarrassed by it... but I will knock the hell out of Isis. But I will take care of Isis.”

Cooper: Are you saying that you’ve never assaulted women?

Trump: “I have great respect for women, nobody has more respect for women than I do.”

Cooper: “Have you ever done those things?”

Trump: “No I have not. I’m going to make our country safe.”

Trump says “I agree with everything she said.”

“I began this campaign because I was tired of seeing such foolish things happen in this country... My whole concept was to make America great again. Where I watch... what’s happening with some horrible things, like Obamacare, where your health care is going up...”

He skips to mentions of the Iran deal, “all of the things that I see and all the potential that our country has...”

He sniffles again. He mentions the trade deficit. “You say who’s making these deals. He mentions the two police officers shot in California Saturday.” Now he’s onto to inner cities and African Americans.

It’s as scattered and unfocused as any of his answers.

First question, from the audience. A woman asks whether the candidates are modeling appropriate behavior for today’s youth?

Clinton says good question. “It is very important for us to make clear to our children that our country really is great because we’re good. We are really going to respect one another, lift each other up... celebrate our diversity...

“I have a very positive and optimistic view about what we can do. That’s why the slogan of my campaign is ‘stronger together.’”

Clinton is answering professionally and on topic. But there’s such energy in the room. Is she racing? Relaxed?

“It is my hope that we can come together in this campaign... I’m hoping to win your vote... I want to be the president for all Americans.”

Candidates skip handshake

The candidates walk in smiling.

They do not shake hands. Instead the nod at each other and kind of shuffle step a bit close.

Democratic presidential nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump arrive but don’t shake hands.
Democratic presidential nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump arrive but don’t shake hands. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The town hall debate format, with members of the public surrounding the candidates.
The town hall debate format, with members of the public surrounding the candidates. Photograph: Jim Bourg/Reuters

Updated

Here we go.

Moderators Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper have welcomed the crowd and sat down.

Any moment now.

#ff

Hillary Clinton tweets a Michelle Obama line: “When they go low, we go high.”

Bill Clinton is announced and walks in. He looks deadly serious. He shakes hands with the Trump family members who walk in: Melania, Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton greets Melania Trump before the start of the second U.S. presidential debate in St. Louis.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton greets Melania Trump before the start of the second U.S. presidential debate in St. Louis. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters

Updated

(L-R) Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick and Kathy Shelton take their seats before the town hall debate at Washington University.
(L-R) Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick and Kathy Shelton take their seats before the town hall debate at Washington University. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Welcome to the debate

If you’re just joining us – welcome to our live-wire coverage of the second presidential debate, and thank you for coming.

Donald Trump has attempted to hijack the night – or set it going in the appropriate direction, his campaign would say – by appearing in St Louis with three women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault or rape (two of them contradicting that claim in sworn statements and a third having settled a lawsuit). A fourth woman appeared with Trump whose rapist (ultimately convicted of a lesser charge) was defended by Hillary Clinton when she was a 27-year-old lawyer.

The four women are guests of Trump’s in the debate hall tonight at Washington University in St Louis. The format is a town hall, with forty uncommitted voters selected by Gallup asking some of the questions. The moderators are ABC’s Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper. The debate is to last 90 minutes with no commercial interruptions.

The first question, the moderators have said, was to be about Trump’s remarks caught by a hot mic that being a star meant he could “do anything” to women for example “grab them by the pussy.”

The Clinton campaign called Trump’s appearance with the Bill Clinton accusers a “stunt” in a statement that concluded, “as always, she’s prepared to handle whatever Donald Trump throws her way.”

Trump’s own disparaging comments about one of the women he appeared with, Paula Jones, and other women linked to Bill Clinton have resurfaced this evening, as have reports about hostile working environments for women in Trump companies and on his reality show.

Here’s video of Trump’s appearance with Bill Clinton’s accusers:

Thanks again for reading and please join us in the comments.

Updated

Bill Clinton accusers are Trump's guests in debate hall

The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs:

The “Bill Clinton raped” strategy and its exponents have been competing for oxygen in the Trump campaign for months. Now it’s the campaign’s primary message.

An early and zealous proselytizer of the line has been Trump shadow adviser Roger Stone, whose judgment perhaps is on display in his announcement tonight that he is pre-gaming the debate with 9/11 and Sandy Hook truther Alex Jones:

Trump in 1998 video: 'Paula Jones is a loser'

Here’s the 1998 interview we mentioned earlier in which Trump says “Paula Jones is a loser” and shares other opinions at odds perhaps with his current presentation as a defender of women:

Updated

Billy Bush suspended from Today show

Billy Bush, the Bush family cousin and former Access Hollywood host who can be heard egging Donald Trump on as Trump describes aggressive sexual advances on women in the hot mic video, has been suspended by NBC News from his post at the Today show, CNN reports.

It was unclear whether Bush would return to the show, according to the report.

Donald Trump’s sex boasts: ‘When you are a star they let you do anything’

As we near debate time, here’s more reading about Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and women:

Juanita Broaddrick’s Rape Allegations Are Credible. Her Attacks on Hillary Clinton Are Not.

To be clear, I’ve always found Broaddrick’s claims about Bill Clinton credible, though only the two of them know the truth. Five people say she told them about the assault right after it allegedly happened. She denied the rape in a 1997 affidavit filed with Paula Jones’ lawyers but changed her story the next year, when she was interviewed by the FBI in the course of Kenneth Starr’s investigation. At the time, some Clinton defenders treated her changing story as evidence of her untrustworthiness, but it seems perfectly plausible that, as she told the New York Times, she hadn’t wanted to go public but also felt she couldn’t lie to federal investigators. In the 1990s, Clinton defenders sometimes pointed to the fact that Broaddrick attended a Clinton fundraiser three weeks after she says he raped her. But we know it’s not uncommon for rape victims to blame themselves and continue to seek their rapists’ favor. After all, I also believe Jill Harth, who accused Donald Trump of sexual harassment and attempted rape, even though later, reeling from a divorce, she became his girlfriend.

Far less credible, however, is Broaddrick’s claim that Hillary Clinton tried to intimidate her into silence.

Click through above to read the full piece.

Trump, companies accused of mistreating women in at least 20 lawsuits

One woman sued Donald Trump’s Miami resort saying she lost her job because she got pregnant.

Two others claimed they were fired after complaining that co-workers sexually harassed them.

And a number of women testified in a lawsuit that Trump himself repeatedly instructed managers to hire younger, prettier workers at his Los Angeles golf club.

The release of a video Friday showing Trump’s sexist remarks in 2005 has created a firestorm of controversy that threatens to derail his campaign. But an ongoing USA TODAY investigation of Trump’s 4,000-plus lawsuits shows that he and his companies have been accused for years of mistreating women.

Click through above to read the full piece.

AP: ‘Apprentice’ cast and crew say Trump was lewd and sexist

NEW YORK (AP) — In his years as a reality TV boss on “The Apprentice,” Donald Trump repeatedly demeaned women with sexist language, according to show insiders who said he rated female contestants by the size of their breasts and talked about which ones he’d like to have sex with.

The Associated Press interviewed more than 20 people — former crew members, editors and contestants — who described crass behavior by Trump behind the scenes of the long-running hit show, in which aspiring capitalists were given tasks to perform as they competed for jobs working for him.

The staffers and contestants agreed to recount their experiences as Trump’s behavior toward women has become a core issue in the presidential campaign. Interviewed separately, they gave concurring accounts of inappropriate conduct on the set.

Eight former crew members recalled that he repeatedly made lewd comments about a camerawoman he said had a nice rear, comparing her beauty to that of his daughter, Ivanka.

During one season, Trump called for female contestants to wear shorter dresses that also showed more cleavage, according to contestant Gene Folkes. Several cast members said Trump had one female contestant twirl before him so he could ogle her figure.

Click through above to read the full piece.

Trump camp calls on Hillary Clinton to acknowledge Bill Clinton accusers

Trump campaign manager calls on Hillary Clinton to acknowledge the women with whom Trump just appeared – they apparently will be in the town hall as well?

Clinton camp portrays Trump 'stunt' as distraction

The Clinton campaign has released a statement attributed to communications director Jennifer Palmieri on Trump’s appearance with three Bill Clinton accusers:

We’re not surprised to see Donald Trump continue his destructive race to the bottom. 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. If Donald Trump doesn’t see that, that’s his loss. As always, she’s prepared to handle whatever Donald Trump throws her way.”

Who supports Donald Trump?

Dozens of elected Republican officials, including at least 10 senators, abandoned Donald Trump on Saturday. Many other Republican candidates continue to stand behind Trump, however. Ever since Trump became the Republican nominee, we’ve been tracking where every Republican member of Congress and governor, former nominees, and influential others stand.

Here’s our comprehensive interactive tool, “Who supports Donald Trump? The new Republican center of gravity”:

Far out.
Far out. Photograph: Guardian

Updated

Trump on Jones and others, in 1998: 'really unattractive group'

Paula Jones, the former Arkansas state employee who accused then-governor Bill Clinton of making unwanted advances and exposing himself to her in a Little Rock hotel room in 1991, had nice things to say about Donald Trump just then.

“I think everyone else should vote for him, look at the fact that he is a good person, not what other people have said,” Jones said.

But Trump has not always had nice things to say about Jones. In a 1998 CNBC interview reported now by CNN, Trump called Jones a “loser”:

“I don’t necessarily agree with his victims,” Trump said to Fox News’ Neil Cavuto in a clip uncovered earlier in the year by the “Daily Beast.” “His victims are terrible. He is, he is really a victim himself. But he put himself in that position.”

“These people are just, I don’t know, where he met them - where he found them,” Trump continued. “But the whole group — it’s truly an unattractive cast of characters. Linda Tripp, Lucianne Goldberg, I mean, this woman, I watch her on television. She is so bad. The whole group, Paula Jones, Lewinsky, it’s just a really unattractive group. I’m not just talking about physical.”

As long as we’re in the vault of Trump commentary on Bill Clinton’s sins.... in a 1999 Chris Matthews interview, Trump, talking about potentially running for president, said, “You think about Clinton and the women. How about me with the women? Can you imagine?”

Clinton accusers appear with Trump in St Louis

Donald Trump has just made brief appearance at the Four Seasons Hotel in St. Louis with three women who have accused Bill Clinton of rape or sexual assault and one woman whose accused rapist (ultimately convicted of lesser charges) was defended by Hillary Clinton when Clinton was a 27-year-old lawyer in Arkansas.

You can watch the news conference here.

Appearing with Trump were Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee who in 1999 settled a sexual harassment case against Bill Clinton for $850,000 with no admission of guilt; Juanita Broaddrick, a former Arkansas nursing home administrator who says Clinton raped her in 1978, although in the 1990s she said in a sworn deposition that accusations of sexual assault against Clinton were untrue; Kathleen Willey, a former White House aide who said Clinton groped her in 1993 but also once testified that had not happened; and Kathy Shelton, whose accused rapist (ultimately convicted of a lesser crime), in a crime that occurred when she was 12 years old, was defended in court by Hillary Clinton in a case that was assigned to her. Tapes later emerged of Hillary Clinton discussing the case with a reporter; several times on the tapes Clinton can be heard to laugh or giggle, once at a polygraph joke and other times at insider courthouse humor.

In turn, the women say they are supporting Trump and explain briefly why.

At the end of the appearance, reporters ask Trump if his star power allows him to touch women without their consent.

“Why don’t y’all go ask Bill Clinton that?” Jones says. “Why don’t y’all go ask Bill Clinton that?”

Here’s a transcript:

Trump

Thank you very much for coming and these four very courageous woman have asked to be here and help them.

Jones:

I’m here to support Mr Trump because he’s here to make American great again, and I think everyone else should vote for him, look at the fact that he is a good person, not what other people have said.

Shelton:

I’m also here to support Trump. At 12 years old, Hillary Clinton put me through something you should never put a 12 year old through, and she says she is for women and children..

Broaddrick:

I’m Juanita Broaddrick and I’m here to support Donald Trump. I tweeted recently and Mr Trump RT’d that I was raped by Bill Clinton. Actions speak louder than words, Mr Trump may have said some bad words, but Bill Clinton raped me and Hillary Clinton threatened me, I don’t think there is any comparison.

Willey:

I’m Kathleen Willey, and I’m here to support Donald Trump, the reason that is, the first day that he announced his presidential run, he said I love this country and I want America to be great again, and I cried when he said that, because I think this is the greatest country in the world.

Updated

Washington University student Sarah Thomas of Little Rock, Arkansas wears a sign attached to her jacket before the town hall debate at Washington University.
Washington University student Sarah Thomas of Little Rock, Arkansas wears a sign attached to her jacket before the town hall debate at Washington University. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Washington University student Anna Eddelbuettel of Chicago.
Washington University student Anna Eddelbuettel of Chicago. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The vacuums are out.
The vacuums are out. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images
Student Breckan Erdman carries around a sign on the campus of Washington University in St, Louis, Missouri .
Student Breckan Erdman carries around a sign on the campus of Washington University in St, Louis, Missouri . Photograph: Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images

Obama on Trump 'pussy' remarks: 'It tells you that he's insecure'

Barack Obama addressed the controversy surrounding taped remarks by Donald Trump on Sunday, criticising what he said was “unbelievable” and “disturbing” rhetoric from the Republican nominee to succeed him.

Obama was speaking in Chicago, at a fundraiser for the Illinois US Senate candidate Tammy Duckworth. Without saying Trump’s name, he said there was a reason why the Republican presidential candidate had denigrated women, veterans, people with disabilities, Mexicans and others during the 2016 campaign.

Obama spoke at a Chicago event for senate candidate Tammy Duckworth.
Obama spoke at a Chicago event for senate candidate Tammy Duckworth. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

“It tells you that he’s insecure enough that he pumps himself up by putting other people down,” Obama said. “Not a character trait that I would advise for somebody in the Oval Office.”

“The unbelievable rhetoric” from Trump was “disturbing”, Obama said, adding, to laughter: “I don’t need to repeat it: there are children in the room.”

Trump shares story calling debate 'rigged'

On Facebook, Donald Trump has just shared a Breitbart story titled Clinton News Network Telegraphs Its Anti-Trump Strategy for Tonight’s Rigged Presidential Debate.

The Breitbart piece picks up on a CNN report that debate moderators Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper plan to make the first question about Trump’s hot mic comments.

A coin flip determined Clinton will get the first question. That means that Clinton will get first comment on the hot mic remarks. #rigged

Trump has often applied the word “rigged” to the Republican and Democratic parties’ methods for anointing presidential nominees and to elections at large. In 2012 he passionately blamed Mitt Romney’s loss on a rigged election.

And as Fox News host Megyn Kelly found out more than a year ago, nothing is more unfair, in Trump’s estimation, than asking about derogatory comments he has made about women.

Updated

On the theme of internecine Trump-Republican warfare (see last block), here are Trump surrogate talking points for attacking elected Republicans, as emailed earlier today to New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin:

Trump talking pts urge total war on Rs: “They are more concerned with their political future than they are about the future of the country”

WE DON’T NEED EM.

Trump talkers > “Trump won the Primary without the help of the insiders and he’ll win the General without them, too”

Trump himself has blasted the haters on Twitter:

Lewandowski calls head of GOP a 'failed leader'

Corey Lewandowski, the former Trump campaign manager who was still on the campaign payroll even after he took his current gig opinion-izing on CNN, has just slammed Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee.

“Not only is he weak, he’s a failed leader,” Lewandowski said.

It’s unclear whether Lewandowski’s comments represent current Trump campaign thinking on the national party leadership. While Priebus criticized Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” comments, he has not called for the nominee to step aside and in fact traveled today with the candidate from New York to St Louis, according to an airborne shot tweeted by current Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway:

(Priebus is the short guy (like me) on the left looking at Trump with eyes wide open.)

Priebus did pull out of a planned appearance on CBS’ Face the Nation today. He released a statement on the Trump hot mic video saying, “No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever.”

Here’s a bonus Priebus-Trump plane shot, from happier times, this summer:

Updated

Spin room organizers appear to have misspelled (well, somebody did) the name of AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka on his spin-room baton.

They spelled it “Trumpka”:

'Pussy grabs back'

Inspired by Trump’s informing a TV host that his stardom means he can “do anything” to women such as “grab them by the pussy,” Canadian-American recording artist Kim Boekbinder (who has a Kickstarter for an album in progress) has produced the track “Pussy grabs back.”

Have a listen:

We’ve been saying it for years

But you’ve been blocking up your ears

Until a man himself said it

And now you’re all shocked

That stupid look on your face

As you look on in disgrace

You know on November 8th

This vote is getting rocked

“Pussy grabs back” is the refrain.

There’s some more Trump fan art out there tonight...

After Trump's boast, women share sexual assault stories

Thousands of women have shared their experiences of sexual assault and rape culture on Twitter in the wake of Donald Trump’s comments about grabbing women “by the pussy”.

Amid the outrage over Trump’s remarks, Canadian writer Kelly Oxford called on women to tweet about their first assaults, describing the first time she was sexually assaulted, on a bus when she was 12. Oxford went on to describe a total of five sexual assaults.

The response to her tweet was overwhelming, with Oxford saying she was received replies at the rate of 50 per minute for 14 hours. “Anyone denying rape culture,” she wrote, “look at my timeline now.”

Read further:

And here’s some additional pre-debate recommended reading: “Donald and Billy on the Bus,” by Lindy West writing in the New York Times:

Every woman knows a version of Donald Trump. Most of us have known more of them than we can (or care to) recall. He’s the boss who thinks you owe him something; the date who thinks that silence means “yes” and “no” means “try harder”; the stranger who thinks your body’s mere existence constitutes an invitation to touch, take, own and destroy. He’s every deadbeat hookup, every narcissistic loser, every man who’s ever tried to leverage power, money, fame, credibility or physical strength to snap your boundaries like matchsticks. He is hot fear and cold dread and a pit in your stomach. He’s the man who held you back, who never took you seriously, who treated you like nothing until you started to believe it, who raped you and told you it was your fault and whose daddy was a cop so who would believe you anyway?

Come on, women. You know this man. I can name the ones in my past — name yours and imagine each as president, with every woman’s life in his care. Would you even trust him to watch your dog? (That’s a trick question because he would never do it. His defining characteristic is that he does not care about you.)

Read the full piece here.

Woman describes 1993 alleged assault by Trump

In apologizing for saying that it was his right as a star to “grab them by the pussy,” Donald Trump also said, “anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am.”

The Guardian’s Lucia Graves has spoken with a woman, Jill Harth, who says that two decades ago, Trump cornered her and groped her in his daughter’s bedroom. Here’s Lucia’s report:

A woman at the centre of sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump has spoken for the first time in detail about her personal experience with the billionaire tycoon who this week became the Republican nominee for president.

Jill Harth, a makeup artist, has stayed quiet for almost 20 years about the way Trump pursued her, and – according to a lawsuit she instigated – cornered her and groped her in his daughter’s bedroom.

After Trump mounted his campaign for the White House, details emerged of the 1997 complaint, in which Harth accused him of “attempted ‘rape’”.

Woman who sued Trump over alleged sexual assault speaks out

She said she was quickly inundated with interview requests from major US television networks, but resolved not to speak about the events – until Trump publicly said in May that her claims were “meritless” and his daughter Ivanka gave an interview in which she said her father was “not a groper”.

Harth, who feels she has been publicly branded a liar and believes her business has suffered because of her association with the allegations, decided to speak out about her experience with Trump because she wants an apology.

In an hour-long interview at the Guardian’s New York office on Tuesday, Harth said she stands by her charges against Trump, which run from low-grade sexual harassment to an episode her lawyers described in the lawsuit as “attempted ‘rape’”.

She first met Trump in December 1992 at his offices in Trump Tower, where she and her then romantic partner, George Houraney, were making a business presentation. The couple wanted to recruit Trump to back their American Dream festival, in which Harth oversaw a pin-up competition known as American Dream Calendar Girls. Harth described that meeting as “the highlight of our career”.

But in other ways, it was something of a lowlight: Trump took an interest in Harth immediately and began subjecting her to a steady string of unwanted sexual advances, detailed by Harth in her complaint.

Read the full piece here:

Where we are tonight

Here’s a quick look at how some of the team is arrayed. Washington bureau chief Dan Roberts (@robertsdan) is in St Louis, as are Guardian politics reporters Sabrina Siddiqui (@sabrinasiddiqui) and Ben Jacobs (@bencjacobs).

Guardian Washington correspondent David Smith will be providing analysis out of Washington, while reporter Adam Gabbatt (@adamgabbatt) will be at Parx Casino in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, to watch the show.

Also pitching in tonight will be Alan Yuhas, checking facts as fast as he can type; Guardian US data editor Mona Chalabi; and roving reporter Amber Jamieson.

Contributing comment in real time will be Guardian US columnist Lucia Graves (@lucia_graves).

Updated

Hello and welcome to our live-wire coverage of the second presidential debate of 2016.

Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump are scheduled to meet onstage at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, beginning at 9pm ET. The debate, a town-hall style event with audience members asking some of the questions, is to last 90 minutes without commercial interruption. ABC’s Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper will moderate. We’ll have multiple live video streams for you right here.

The 48 hours leading up to the debate have been packed with extraordinary developments. These include a mass mutiny by the Republican party against its presidential nominee and an eager counter-attack by the nominee on the party. “This is basically the insiders versus the outsiders,” Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani said on Saturday.

The bloodletting began on Friday afternoon, when video emerged of Trump saying in 2005 on a hot mic that as “a star” he could sexually exploit women – “grab them by the pussy, you can do anything”.

Donald Trump’s sex boasts: ‘When you are a star they let you do anything’

A lukewarm apology by Trump hours later did not prevent a stunning race for the exit by dozens of elected Republicans, including at least 10 senators who had previously supported Trump. Many called on him to withdraw from the race.

Trump may escalate his attack on his party tonight. But a second attack could be even more incendiary, one he previewed in his midnight apology video:

Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked shamed and intimidated his victims. We will discuss this more in the coming days. See you at the debate on Sunday.

Both Clinton and Trump have arrived in St Louis. The Clinton campaign said the candidate was conducting final preparations with aides – so, takeout? Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri told reporters she wasn’t sure that Clinton had even viewed the Trump hot mic video. Of course not.

Thanks for reading and please join us in the comments.

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