 "Republican U.S. presidential nominee Trump speaks as Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Clinton listens during their presidential town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis")
Come tomorrow, the world will know who will be the next American President. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump pulled out all the stops as the campaign meandered through controversies, scandals and the three presidential debates, the latter of which saw the two candidates butt heads on various instances.
The debates also saw the different demeanour of the two candidates on display as they tackled questions and their respective, if not equal, share of allegations levelled against them.
Business Standard brings you the highlights of the 3 presidential debates:
1) Trump opts for suspense: During the last debate on October 20, Trump refused to say that he would accept the outcome of the election, leaving open the possibility that he would challenge the ultimate outcome.
Trump said he would wait to decide whether the outcome was legitimate. "I will tell you at the time, I will keep you in suspense," Trump said.
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2) Clinton calls Trump a 'puppet': During the same debate, Clinton said that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted Trump to be elected because he wants a "puppet" as the US president.
"You're the puppet!" Trump snapped back.
Trump went on to say that Putin had "outsmarted" and "outplayed" Clinton at every turn.
3) Clinton called out Trump on his wall: Trump "choked" while meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto as he failed to press on his promise of making Mexico build a wall along the US' southern border, Clinton said during the final debate.
"When it comes to the wall that Donald talks about building, he went to Mexico, had a meeting with the Mexican president but did not even raise it, he choked and then got into a Twitter war because the Mexican president said we are not paying for that wall," Clinton said.
4) 'Nasty woman': Again during the final debate, Trump interjected as Clinton said she would raise taxes on the wealthy to help fund the US government's Social Security retirement program and that Trump would be paying higher taxes too unless he could get out of it.
"Such a nasty woman," he said.
5) Trump threatened to jail Clinton: During the second presidential debate earlier in October, Trump had vowed to launch a special investigation against Clinton over her use of a private email server as Secretary of State, if elected as the US President, and ensure that she would be jailed.
6) Trump tried, and failed, to defend his lewd remarks: The second presidential debate came after a 2005 tape involving Trump making lewd remarks against women and boasting about making unwarranted sexual advances surfaces. Trying his best to defend his lewd comments in response to the question asked by the moderator, Trump described his utterances as "locker room talk".
Trump also went on to accuse former President Bill Clinton of doing much worse than just talking about sexual assault and even targeted Hillary for allegedly harassing a rape victim.
7) The 'birther issue' made a comeback: In one of their more heated exchanges during the first presidential debate, Clinton accused Trump of promulgating a "racist lie" by suggesting Obama, the first US African-American president, was not born in the United States.
The president, who was born in Hawaii, released a long-form birth certificate in 2011 to put the issue to rest. Only this month did Trump say publicly that he believed Obama was US-born.
Trump, for his part, repeated his accusation that Clinton's failed 2008 presidential campaign against Obama had initiated the so-called "birther" issue.
8) Clinton brought up Trump's misogyny: During the first debate, Clinton piqued Trump's ire when she brought up Trump's past insults about women.
"He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them and he called this one 'Miss Piggy' and then he called her 'Miss Housekeeping'," she said. The beauty pageant contestant Clinton was referring to is 1996 Miss Universe Alicia Machado.
