Clinton and Trump trade insults on CNN with sights set on general election

The two leading candidates for the US presidency did not come face to face on Monday, but they still managed to trade insults on primetime television. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic favourite, launched her most direct attack yet on Donald Trump, accusing him of “bigotry and bluster and bullying” and inciting violence at his campaign rallies. The Republican frontrunner, meanwhile, renewed his claim that Clinton lacked the “stamina” and “strength” needed for the presidency, while also fending off charges of sexism ahead of the latest round of primary voting on Tuesday. Clinton and Trump’s attacks were lobbed during a CNN event featuring all five remaining presidential candidates from both parties. They did not directly debate each other, rather they were interviewed by CNN stalwarts Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer. Trump’s principal rival for the nomination, Texas senator Ted Cruz, used the platform to argue that although he understands why people are supporting Trump, “his entire campaign is built on a lie”. “The lie behind Donald’s campaign is that he will stand up to Washington. He is the system. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are flip sides of the same coin. Donald Trump has made billions buying influence in Washington. Hillary Clinton has made millions selling influence in Washington.” Cruz predicted that he – and not a surprise establishment candidate – would beat Trump in a head-to-head battle if the Republican convention were to be contested. Trump, Clinton and more candidates take the stage at Aipac - as it happened Protesters blocked a Trump rally in Arizona, where Tuesday there are Republican and Democratic caucuses, in addition to Utah caucuses and Idaho’s primary Clinton, who had earlier criticised Trump in a speech to Aipac, a pro-Israel lobby organisation, was even more specific in an interview with Cooper. “I think it’s important to listen to what he says,” she said. “You have to take him at his word so to speak. He has been engaging in bigotry and bluster and bullying. “And I think when it comes to understanding what he would do as president there are serious questions that have been raised in this campaign. Should he be the nominee we’ll have to address them.” Like Trump’s Republican rivals, Clinton is regarded as a conventional politician who in a general election would have to devise a winning strategy against the maverick who thrives on his anti-establishment candidacy. Asked by Cooper if she believes Trump really is a bully, Clinton replied: “Well, I think his behaviour certainly qualifies for that. I think his incitement of violence, his constant urging on of his supporters in large numbers to go after protesters, his saying I want to punch people in the face and telling somebody who did punch somebody I will pay your legal bills – I think that raises very serious questions.” She itemised some of Trump’s problematic statements from the past few months, ranging from “calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, saying John McCain was not a war hero, being reluctant to denounce the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke. And the list goes on.” Likewise Trump, who has prospered by attaching labels to his rivals, offered a clue to his potential line of attack against Clinton. He told Blitzer: “I think she doesn’t have the stamina. You watch her life. You watch how she’ll go away three or four days; she’ll come back.” He added: “Look, we’ve got to beat China in trade. We’ve got to beat Isis. We’ve got so many problems in this country; I say she does not have the stamina to be a good president ... doesn’t have the energy, she doesn’t have it. Doesn’t have the strength to be president, in my opinion.” During the interview with Blitzer, Trump was confronted with a recent TV advert from a Republican Super Pac in which women repeat some of his most outlandishly sexist comments including: “A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10”; “I’d look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers”; “Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?; “I like kids. I mean, I won’t do anything to take care of them. I’ll supply funds, and she’ll take care of the kids.” After playing the clip, Blitzer asked Trump: “Has your language come back to haunt you?” “No. I think people understand,” Trump said. “First of all, half of that was show business. The dropping to the knees, that was in The Apprentice. The Rosie O’Donnell stuff. But I think people understand. Look, these politicians, I know them. They say far worse when they’re in closed doors or where they’re with a group of people that they trust.” “But that’s not how you feel about women in those words?”, Blitzer pressed. Trump replied: “Of course not. Nobody respects women more than I do. Nobody takes care of the women – and they take care of me because they do such a great job.” Trump also defended his persistent attacks on Fox News presenter Megyn Kelly. “Every night, the show, it’s like an infomercial, always negative stuff, always negative stuff, always. Not fair. So I will fight back with Twitter. I will let people know she’s a third rate talent. I will say what I have to say, it’s very simple. But it’s not fair that she – you know, let her not talk about me. And by the way, seriously, if she didn’t talk about me, her ratings would go down like a rock.” On a day when Trump’s foreign policy credentials were under the spotlight at the Aipac conference in Washington, he said the US should rethink its involvement in Nato more than two decades after the end of the cold war. “It’s costing us too much money, and frankly, they have to put up more money,” he said in remarks likely to raise eyebrows in Europe. “They’re going to have to put some up also. “We’re paying disproportionately, it’s too much, and frankly, it’s a different world than it was when we originally conceived of the idea and everybody got together. We’re taking care of, as an example, the Ukraine. I mean, the countries over there don’t seem to be so interested. We’re the ones taking the brunt of it. So I think we have to reconsider – keep Nato but maybe we have to pay a lot less toward the Nato itself.” Republican primaries will be held in Arizona and Utah on Tuesday, and Trump, who is facing the possibility of the first contested convention in decades, insisted that it does not matter if he falls short of the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination on the first ballot. Referring to past comments that an attempt to deny him the prize could lead to riots, Blitzer asked: “Will you unequivocally say to your supporters, you don’t want any violence, you don’t want any riots at the convention?” Trump answered: “Of course I would, 100%. But I have no control over the people ... Wolf, these people have been disenfranchised. They lost their jobs. They make less money now than they made 12 years ago. . “They see their jobs going to Japan and to China and to Mexico. Mexico, forget it, it’s the new China. You know what, they’re very – they’re not by nature angry people, but I will tell you, right now they’re angry people.” Cruz said that he understood why people were supporting Trump, since they were fed up with Washington but insisted that his rival had long “been enmeshed in the corruption of Washington”. Cruz insisted that he could achieve the 1,237-delegate target but acknowledged that he and Trump might both fall short. “And if that happens, then the convention is going to decide,” he said. “Now they’re not going to do what people in the fevered swamps of Washington want, which is bring in a white horse who wasn’t on the ballot, who wasn’t running. That’s not going to happen. “The delegates are going to decide between Donald and me. And if we go in with a bunch of delegates each, I believe we win that and we win that by earning the support of the delegates elected through the democratic process.” Meanwhile, John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, who is trailing in third, gave no hint of dropping out. “I don’t think anybody’s going to have enough delegates to win the nomination before the convention,” he said. “Delegates are gonna think about two things: who can win? I’m the only one who can win in a general election. And number two: who can be president?” He ruled out becoming Trump or Cruz’s running mate. “There’s zero chance I would be vice-president for either of them: zero. Less than zero.” Despite the media reports in Washington suggesting that Democratic senators are gently leaning on Bernie Sanders to quit the race against Clinton, Sanders insisted: “I think we have a road – a narrow road – but a road to victory. We’re going to drive up the voter turnout in November no matter who the nominee is. “I am not a quitter – we are gonna fight this to the last vote,” Sanders said, appearing on CNN via a videolink. Sanders also took a swipe at Clinton as “the candidate of the establishment”, adding: “She has the support of public officials across America. What is also clear is that we are running an insurgent campaign across the country. “I think as people look at our records, how we raise money, what our views are on income and wealth inequality, that is Bernie Sanders, and that is why we are creating so much excitement at the grassroots level.” Thanks for reading.

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