Donald Trump says debate microphone was 'defective'

Controversial Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has claimed that he was given a defective microphone in the fiery debate with his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and questioned whether it happened on purpose.

"They gave me a defective mic. Did you notice that? My mic was defective within the room," Trump told reporters after the debate.

"I wonder, was that on purpose? Was that on purpose? But I had a mic that didn't work properly," he was quoted as saying by media reports.

The 70-year-old real estate tycoon has often joked on the campaign trail about faulty microphones, saying on occasion that he may refuse to pay for the audio rental. He repeated that joke last week during a campaign event in Kenansville, North Carolina.

"The mic just shot. That was a weird sound, wasn't it? So I wouldn't pay the mic guy and they'll say, isn't that terrible. He didn't pay his bills," Trump had said at the time. "When people don't do a good job for me I don't pay them. It's one of those things."

Overall, however, Trump said he felt he did well against his Democratic rival Clinton in the debate.

"I thought it was a very fair debate," Trump told reporters last night. "The polls are all saying we won."

However, the CNN/ORC poll declared Clinton as the clear winner in the first of a series of three debates, with a massive 62 per cent of voters giving an edge to the Democrat over Trump, who was deemed winner by only 27 per cent.

It was unclear what Trump was referring to. The only notable audio interference picked up on television was some sniffing by Trump, which was widely mocked on social media.

Trump's claim about the microphone is far from the first time he has suggested that outside forces have conspired against him.

In August, he told a rally in Ohio that he feared the general election "is going to be rigged", adding that he had been hearing "more and more" that the election may not be contested fairly.