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The morning after the debate: Trump goes on the attack

NEW YORK — Mr Donald Trump lashed out wildly in the aftermath of a disappointing first debate with Mrs Hillary Clinton, scolding the moderator, criticising a beauty pageant winner for her physique and raising the prospect of an all-out attack on Mr Bill Clinton’s marital infidelities in the final stretch of the campaign.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives at a rally, Sept 27, 2016, in Melbourne, Florida. Photo: AP

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives at a rally, Sept 27, 2016, in Melbourne, Florida. Photo: AP

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NEW YORK — Mr Donald Trump lashed out wildly in the aftermath of a disappointing first debate with Mrs Hillary Clinton, scolding the moderator, criticising a beauty pageant winner for her physique and raising the prospect of an all-out attack on Mr Bill Clinton’s marital infidelities in the final stretch of the campaign.

Having worked assiduously in recent weeks to cultivate a more disciplined demeanour on the campaign trail, Mr Trump decisively cast aside that approach on Tuesday (Sept 27) morning. As Mrs Clinton embarked on an ebullient campaign swing through North Carolina, aiming to press her newfound advantage, Mr Trump vented his grievances in full public view.

Sounding weary and impatient as he called into a Fox News program, Mr Trump criticised Mr Lester Holt, the NBC News anchor, for asking “unfair questions” during the debate on Monday evening, and speculated that someone might have tampered with his microphone. Mr Trump repeated his charge that Mrs Clinton lacked the “stamina” to be president, a claim critics have described as sexist, and suggested that in the future he might raise Mr Bill Clinton’s past indiscretions.

And defying conventions of civility and political common sense, Mr Trump levelled cutting personal criticism at beauty pageant winner Alicia Machado, whom Mrs Clinton held up in Monday night’s debate as an example of Mr Trump’s disrespect for women.

Mr Trump insisted on Fox that he had been right to disparage the former Miss Universe because of her weight.

“She was the winner, and she gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem,” said Mr Trump, who was the pageant’s executive producer at the time. “Not only that — her attitude. And we had a real problem with her.”

Mr Trump’s setback in the debate represents a critical test in the final six weeks of the presidential race. Having drawn closer to Mrs Clinton in the polls, Mr Trump now faces an intensified clash over his personal temperament and his attitudes toward women and minorities — areas of grave concern for many voters that were at the centre of the candidates’ confrontation on Monday.

Against Mr Trump’s brooding, Mrs Clinton cut a strikingly different profile on the campaign trail on Tuesday, emerging emboldened from her encounter with the Republican nominee. At a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, Mrs Clinton, brandishing her opponent’s debate stumbles, assailed Mr Trump’s comments suggesting he avoided paying taxes and welcomed the 2008 financial crisis as a buying opportunity.

“What kind of person would want to root for 9 million families losing their homes?” Mrs Clinton asked the lively crowd. “One who should never be president, is the answer to that question.”

Having shaken at least temporarily the malaise of the past month, Mrs Clinton must now seek to gain a durable upper hand over Mr Trump, who has drawn close to her in the polls with a more sharply focused message on trade, immigration and national security.

Mr Trump’s comportment on Tuesday threatened to forfeit his gains of the past month, and recalled his practice during the Republican primaries and much of the general election, of belittling political bystanders in language that alienated voters, like attacking the Muslim parents of an Army captain killed in Iraq and a Hispanic federal judge.

It remains to be seen if Mr Trump will approach the remainder of the race with the unfiltered abandon of his comments on Tuesday morning. The fear among Republicans is that Mr Trump will confront adversity by continuing to swing impulsively at politically inopportune targets, dragging the party again into needless and damaging feuds, as he did for most of the summer.

The notion of raising Mr Bill Clinton’s infidelity is particularly controversial among Mr Trump’s advisers, who have sent conflicting signals about that line of attack.

Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said in a CNN interview that he deserved credit for holding back from that particular subject, saying Mr Trump had been “polite and a gentleman”.

But former New York City mayor Rudolph W Giuliani, a close confidant of Mr Trump’s, called for a far harsher approach. Mr Trump, he told a reporter for the website Elite Daily, had been “too reserved” in his confrontation with Mrs Clinton.

Mr Giuliani, who like Mr Trump is on his third marriage, recommended attacking Mrs Clinton for having questioned Ms Monica Lewinsky’s credibility in claiming an affair with Mr Clinton, and he called Mrs Clinton “too stupid to be president”.

Should Mr Trump follow the path prescribed by Mr Giuliani, it could transform the final six weeks of his candidacy into an onslaught of unrestricted personal vituperation — a risky course that would probably please Mr Trump’s political base at the cost of his broader appeal.

For the moment, Mrs Clinton answered Mr Trump’s scattershot attacks with a dismissive shrug, telling reporters that Mr Trump was free to run whatever kind of campaign he preferred. On board her campaign plane, she plainly relished her moment of apparent triumph, and poked fun at Mr Trump’s morning lamentations.

“Anybody who complains about the microphone,” she said, “is not having a good night.” THE NEW YORK TIMES

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