For months, pundits have said the US presidential race is too close to call but after the first televised debate, one candidate has emerged a clear victor. Hillary Clinton has topped the first major opinion poll surveying Americans’ responses to the politicians’ first face-to-face clash.
A poll for CNN found 62 per cent of viewers thought Ms Clinton won the debate, compared to just 27 per cent who said the same of Donald Trump.
The hotly anticipated debate was the first time the politicians went head-to-head and will be a defining moment in the build-up to election day on 8 November. It saw animated clashes as Ms Clinton accused Mr Trump of having something to hide by his refusal to publish his tax returns. She said: “You’ve got to ask yourself, why won’t he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he’s not as rich as he says he is.
“Second, maybe he’s not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, we don’t know all of his business dealings but we have been told, through investigative reporting, that he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks.
“Or maybe he doesn’t want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he’s paid nothing in federal taxes because the only years that anybody has ever seen were a couple of years when had he to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license and they showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax…”
At which point, Mr Trump interjected: “That makes me smart”. He retorted: “I will release my tax returns, against my lawyer’s wishes, when she releases her 33,000 e-mails that have been deleted.” Independent
