MELBOURNE, Fla. _ Donald Trump cast Hillary Clinton as a corrupt and incompetent politician from a bygone era as he sought to recover Tuesday from his poorly received performance in the first debate of the general election.
The Republican presidential nominee wrapped up a one-day Florida campaign swing with blasts of lacerating rhetoric at a rally near Cape Canaveral.
"We're going to take on the special interests, the lobbyists, and the corrupt corporate media right back there," Trump told thousands of supporters packed into a sweltering airplane hangar. As many of them turned to boo the news crews behind them, Trump added: "They are as corrupt as you can get."
Reading from a teleprompter, Trump reminded the audience that the former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of State failed the bar exam in 1973.
"Without the mainstream media, she wouldn't even be here, folks, that I can tell you," Trump told the crowd.
Trump cast his debate performance as a success, taking credit for highlighting Clinton's support of free-trade agreements. He summed up Clinton's career as "30 years of disappointments on foreign policy, on domestic policy, on helping women, on helping children."
"The only thing she succeeded at was helping her donors and covering up her crimes," Trump said, drawing one of many "Lock her up!" chants from the raucous crowd.
Trump also returned to his signature theme of illegal immigration, which he barely touched upon in the debate, lamenting what he called "a one-way highway right into Mexico with our jobs and our money."
When the crowd shouted, "Build that wall!" Trump did the call-and-response routine that excites his loyalists and offends his critics.
"Who is going to pay for the wall?" he asked. "Mexico!" the audience hollered back.
Earlier, Trump attended a fundraiser at his Doral golf resort in Miami, then met with Latino business supporters at a college nearby. The largely Republican crowd of Cuban Americans asked Trump friendly questions and gave him a white monogrammed guayabera shirt.
