…as Clinton calls it “horrifying”
A defiant Donald Trump, used the high-profile last Presidential debate on Wednesday to amplify one of the most explosive charges of his candidacy saying that if he loses the election, he might consider the outcome illegitimate because the process is rigged.
Held at the Thomas and Mack Center on the campus of the University of Las Vegas Nevada, Republican candidate, Donald Trump, said he would evaluate the result attacking the press of compromise as the November 8 United States Presidential election approaches.
Reacting, his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, described his silence response as “horrifying.”
This came under the heels of the third and final debate and ratcheted up claims he has made for weeks that the election was rigged against him. “What I’m saying is that I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense. Ok?” Trump said.
Opinion polls indicate that Trump was losing, including in key states that would decide the election.
However, Hilary Clinton, the Democratic Candidate in reacting said, “That is not the way our democracy works. We’ve been in existence for 240 years. We’ve had free and fair elections. We’ve accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them. And that is what must be expected of anyone standing on a debate stage during a general election.”
It was gathered that opinion polls conducted by CNN/ORC snap poll indicate that 52% thought Clinton, the former U.S. secretary of state, won the debate over 39% said to have garnered by Trump, who is making his first run at public office.
During the heated debate, Trump has vowed to build a wall on the border with Mexico to keep out illegal immigrants and has said he would make Mexico pay for it.
Trumps comment has continued to illicit comments among anti-establishment followers. Among mainstream Republicans were quick to denounce the comment. U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a former Republican Presidential candidate who has never warmed to Trump, said: “If he loses, it will not be because the system is ‘rigged’ but because he failed as a candidate.”
Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who also ran for the Republican presidential nomination and now supports Trump, defended Trump saying, “if there’s some kind of obvious fraud going on, he’s going to say something about it. He didn’t say he wouldn’t accept it, he said he would evaluate it at the time,” Carson was quoted to have said.
However, Trump’s running mate, Vice Presidential nominee Mike Pence, said Trump “will accept the outcome” because he is going to win.
The two candidates lashed out at each other during the debate. Characteristically, Donald Trump, 70, called Clinton “such a nasty woman,” went further to accuse her campaign of orchestrating a series of accusations by women who said the businessman made unwanted sexual advances and said that both she and President Barack Obama were behind disturbances at his rallies.
He said the Clinton Foundation was a criminal enterprise and as a result she should not have been allowed to seek the presidency.
On her part, Clinton, 68, said Trump himself had incited violence, belittled women and posed a danger to the United States. She said Trump, a former reality TV star, had in the past also complained that his show was unjustly denied a U.S. television Emmy award.
Clinton said the women came forward after Trump said in the last debate he had never made unwanted advances on women. In a 2005 video, Trump was recorded bragging about groping women against their will.
“Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger. He goes after their dignity, their self-worth and I don’t think there is a woman anywhere who doesn’t know what that feels like,” said Clinton, the first woman to win the nomination of a major U.S. political party.
Other issues that dominated the last debate were a spirited exchange on abortion, gun rights and immigration, taxes.